The company’s ThinkPad mobile line is the only one certified for use on the ISS

Aug 8, 2012 10:11 GMT  ·  By

Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo, buyer of IBM’s old PC and notebook business, is now making final preparations for the launch of the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook. The ThinkPad line is a well-known mobile computing business solution and its brand is synonymous with quality and reliability.

The company is doing its best to keep and improve the ThinkPad brand image.

Initially, after acquiring IBM’s PC business, Lenovo moved most of the production to mainland China, where labor and material costs are obviously considerably smaller.

Earlier this year, the company announced that the ThinkPad production line would be moved back to Japan, just to make sure each device adheres perfectly to the quality and reliability requirements of the Japanese law.

This was also a move to save the image of the brand, but this ensures the buyers of the quality they’re getting when they buy a Made-in-Japan device.

ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the Ivy Bridge-based successor of the famous ThinkPad X1. It features a 14" screen and it's the thinnest 14" ultrabook on the market.

The new product will reportedly be launched on August 21.

Pricing is going to start at a minimum of $1400 and a standard configuration system will cost $1500, featuring a 1.7 GHz Core i5-3317U processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a fast 128 GB SSD and Intel’s modest HD Graphics integrated graphics processing unit.

A $1650 model will get you a 1.8 GHz Core i5 CPU and a large 256 GB SSD.

The new ThinkPad is lighter and thinner than the previous model and also sports a better display with a 1600 by 900 pixel resolution, which is quite a bit better than the mediocre 1366 by 768 featured by the older ThinkPad X1.