Lenovo trots out new ThinkPad T, L, and W series laptops

It feels like just yesterday that Lenovo unleashed a serious amount of Sandy Bridge laptops at CES, but left out of the bunch were the more traditional ThinkPad T, L and W models. Well, Lenovo's got those on its mind right now, and each is being refreshed with Intel's latest Core 2011 processors, NVIDIA Optimus or ATI discrete graphics, and improved VoIP features. One even promises 30 hours of battery life! Yep, there are a few key updates coming to each series, so hit the break for a short breakdown of each of those, and don't forget to peruse the glossy press shots below.

Lenovo T Series press shots

    

Lenovo ThinkPad L and W Series

    

• ThinkPad T Series - Lenovo's updating its 14-inch T420s / T420 and 15.6-inch T520 with a slew of new Core i5 and i7 processors, but also some serious battery and boot time improvements. It claims that the four-pound T420s will boot 30 percent faster than the previous model, and the slightly thicker and heavier T420 will last up to 30 hours on a charge with its nine-cell slice extended battery. Like the previous T410 series, the new models will be available with NVIDIA Optimus graphics, although this time the series is getting a fresher GeForce 4200M GPU with 1GB of VRAM. The T420s will start at $1,329, the T420 at $779, and the T520 at $909.

• ThinkPad L Series - These aren't as svelte as the T Series, but the 14-inch L420 and 15.6-inch L520 still pack a good amount of power. They will be configurable with Intel's Core 2011 i7 and i5 processors, ATI's Radeon HD 565 discrete graphics, and up to 8GB of RAM. There will also be a 80GB mSATA SSD option. On the 14-inch model you're stuck with a 1366 x 768-resolution display, but the 15.6 version is available with a 1600 x 900-resolution panel. So, how much? Both start at $719.

• ThinkPad W520 - Lenovo's got to update its workstation, right? The W520 can be configured with all sorts of Core i5 and i7 processors (including the quad-core i7 chips), NVIDIA's Fermi Quadro 100M or 2000M graphics, and up to 2GB of dedicated graphics memory. Yep, it's one powerful 15-incher. It also houses two USB 3.0 ports and can be configured with up to a 160GB SSD. However, spec this one out and you're bound to go way above the $1,329 starting price. We should also mention that all of the aforementioned laptops have updated voice calling features, including dual array microphones, a LED-lit microphone mute key, and keyboard noise reduction technology -- the latter should come in handy when you start writing emails while on that all-important conference call.

All six of these new models will be available at the end of March.