Following the Intel Centrino 2 launch "madness," Lenovo has decided to roll out a new notebook for professionals. Part of the company's ThinkPad series, the new W700 is essentially a portable workstation that offers designers an interesting pack of features, including a built-in digitizer and an integrated color calibration system.

Today, Lenovo, one of the leading manufacturers of portable computer systems, introduced the ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation that combines the new NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics with the Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core processor technology. The notebook packs a number of other features as well, including optional dual hard drives with RAID configurations, up to 8GB of high-speed DDR3 memory, and a range of wireless connectivity options for high portability.

The ThinkPad W700 is the latest member in the company's workstation lineup, which includes the ThinkPad W500, S10 and D10 workstations. One of its most significant features is the built-in digitizer, which will allow graphic artists and designers to easily draw and edit an image without the need of a separate digitizer. The color calibration feature will be of significant importance to digital photographers, with the calibrator automatically adjusting the display's color in approximately one minute.

The specification list for the notebook also includes support for Dual Link DVI, Display Port and VGA, as well as a 7-in-1 multicard reader, five USB ports, and an optional compact flash reader and Blu-ray DVD burner/player. We should also mention that the W700 is equipped with a full-sized keyboard with integrated numpad.

As regards pricing and availability, the notebook is expected to become available this September at various Lenovo Business Partners and on the company's website. System configurations will start at a price point of $2,978.

Taking in consideration all of the above-mentioned specifications, one can't but wonder about what the notebook's battery lifetime will be.