For fans of Lenovo’s (and before that IBM’s) no-nonsense business systems, 2017 marks a momentous occasion as it’s the 25th anniversary of the ThinkPad line. And for quite a while, rumours were floating around that Lenovo was going to make a special throwback ThinkPad to celebrate the date, to the point that Lenovo later came out and confirmed it was happening. However, despite that admission, Lenovo’s secretive approach had many wondering what its commemorative laptop would actually look like.
Thankfully, it seems the enterprising folks over at the German website winfuture.de have uncovered leaks about Lenovo’s upcoming special edition ThinkPad. The 25th anniversary system appears to be based on Lenovo’s current ThinkPad T470 and features a 36cm full HD IPS screen, Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and even an NVIDIA 940MX GPU.
Lenovo also seems to have kept important little details like a blue ThinkVantage Enter button, a colourful ThinkPad badge, and a classic red Trackpoint nub.
It also looks like Lenovo has updated the ThinkPad 25’s ports to include USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, SD card reader, HDMI and ethernet. You’ll even get a fingerprint reader and a webcam with Windows Hello support, which are definitely things that weren’t available on the original ThinkPad tablet back in 1992.
We don’t normally get excited for commemorative one-offs, but there’s just something about the ThinkPad’s lineage that makes this anniversary machine feel a bit more special, even if the biggest differences between it and Lenovo’s regular ThinkPads are a few extra bits of brightly coloured plastic.
While there’s no official release date for Lenovo’s special edition ThinkPad, since October marks a full 25 years for the ThinkPad, we wouldn’t be surprised to see full details announced next month. At least the retro ThinkPad should be more affordable than the original, as Lenovo vice president David Hall wrote recently, “I can assure you it will not cost $US5000 ($6276)!”