The laptop with 2 screens: The ThinkPad W700ds
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- Опубликовано: 7 апр 2020
- The original W700 video for those who want to watch: • Using an 11-year-old M...
Hello everyone! Back again with another ThinkPad video! This time we're taking a look at the W700ds, a rather unique laptop that has two screens built in! These machines are extraordinarily rare, so I'm going to find out if the high asking price and t h i c c ness of these laptops make them worthwhile. As always I hope you all enjoy the video! 
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Come on Lenovo, we need a modern version of this, imagine it, all this brought into 2020, TB3 all over, HDMI, DP, 4k and full HD touchscreens and a full tablet screen on the wrist-rest, RTX Quadro, like a TB of ram, screw logic!
And 0 hours of battery life 🤪🤪🤪
We must remember that laptop development has come to a certain halt.
We're still stuck using electricity and electrical components. So more power=less battery life. If only we started embracing nuclear... We could have insane mobile workstations that last for 30 years or so 🥴
@@PsycosisIncarnated D. Emmett Brown liked this.
@@Tiagotaf He would love the idea
@@PsycosisIncarnated just switch to a different cpu architecture
Just get an external monitor… which is what Shelby Church uses with her 15” MBP workflow. You don’t sacrifice portability for a second screen and its still there if you need it.
"The touch bar on the macbook pro......by the way lenovo did it first" lol
Was it the 2nd gen X1C?
No... I love ThinkPads but I'm pretty sure it was HP who did it first...
@Prince Plotena I do remember HP having some laptops with capacitive buttons on them, but if I remember correctly they were just stationary buttons (appearance didn’t change other than the light being on or off), while the 2nd Gen X1 Carbon actually had a little screen that changed depending on what the user was doing. If you can find the HP model that had this feature let me know.
@@SebisRandomTech HP was the first one to have touch bar option. I had one of those and i think HP introduced it in the pavilion family series of laptops. It was the first time when HP designed decent looking laptops compared to others.
@@441meatloaf These are the same laptops I remember. As I said, they are indeed capacitive buttons that react to fingers touching them, but they are stationary and don't offer additional functions or features like the X1 Carbon's keyboard did.
The multimedia functions of the HP bar are more like the volume keys and Play/Stop/Track buttons older ThinkPads had, providing one function as opposed to the X1 and MacBook touchbars which change or "adapt" based off the application being used. The MacBook also clearly copied the design/layout of the ThinkPad's touchbar, all the way down to the placement of the power button and replacing the function row entirely, while the HP still has a function row with its bar separate from the rest of the keyboard.. Amusingly, the HP laptops have some of the multimedia controls built into the actual keyboard, making the capacitive buttons kind of pointless. :P
The way I look at it, HP did technically have touch-sensitive lights first, but that's all they did, one function. In the sense of being able to adapt to the program being used, and intending to replace the function row, Lenovo did the "touch bar" first.
Back in the late 00's I requested a new PC with at least a 17" screen from my employer. What turned up was a W700 running Vista that crashed every hour and was basically useless. I made requests to the IT dept. to sort it, but nothing really happened. So for about 6 months it just sat on my desk and didn't get much use. Then I decided to forget the IT department and sort it myself. So I launched the Lenovo System Update (several times after successive installs and reboots) and it downloaded a shed-load of updates which took the best part of a day. However once completed I had a completely different machine at my fingertips. I grew to bloody love that laptop. So much so that when I left the company I bought it from them. I fitted the full 8GB of RAM and installed Win7, it served me well. Unfortunately I lent it to someone who didn't appreciate it's awesomeness and I got it back in many pieces, hey ho. Anyway it was very similar to the dual screen you had there. Mine had a 1920x1200 display with colour calibrator, graphics tablet and the QX9300 processor. Anyway great video, thanks :-)
Someone managed to destroy your indestructible ThinkPad??? They must've been trying :(
Never lend your stuff, especially if it's valuable to you. Hope you learned the lesson ;)
I've been waiting for this day ever since I watched the orignal W700 (non ds) review. Finally!
I'm with you on that one!
I just imagine the wall street trader being so happy for that extra space back in 2008, since it looks perfect for an order book :)
Here I was thinking Nintendo has the only ds. Didn't expect a thinkpad would have one. 😂
kent leonhart 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
A DS with two screens ? Not the first one I have seen
So I have a W700ds, I wanted to mention that on Windows 7 the secondary screen will adjust it's brightness in unison with the Main display. In Windows 10 I haven't gotten this working yet. I beleive I installed one of the power management drivers from Windows 7 to get this function working.
That’s odd, it didn’t work for me on W7 even with all of that. Thanks for the info though!
That second screen looks to be the same aspect ratio as a standard piece of printer paper. So I think the design emphasis was to be able to display a document it for reference while you worked on the main display. This also could explain the lack of overall quality of that second screen. It strikes me as something that would be a very niche use case, maybe in the legal profession.
A great display for Discord or even a twitch stream chat, definitely a collectors piece at this point but I would still love to use one in person one day.
i feel like if this style of laptop were ever to make a comeback it would fit really well on those chunky gargantuan gaming laptops, it specifically could benefit streamers a lot who need a second monitor for their chat or whatever else they need.
Someone else mentioned it being useful to have a Discord chat open.
@@SebisRandomTech yeah, but only with an unofficial discord client that isn't so clunky.
It looks horrible when placed on a 1080p monitor that is rotated. I tried it out.
Think pads are my favorite breed of laptop computers. They have features I’ll never think of (either old or new ones).
I finally found the W701 from the recycler last week. Seriously in good condition except for a dead battery.
I collect vintage computers - and the W701ds is one of the systems in my collection. I just (today) got the predecessor all ThinkPads - the IBM PC Convertible. IBM's first battery-powered PC. Look it up, it's an odd beast. From the front, when open, it looks *sort* of like a modern laptop, only there is a lot more machine sticking out the back behind the display hinge.
The insane thing? It's still smaller than the W700-series! When placed on top, the longest dimension is about an inch shorter, and the narrow dimension is near-equal. (Maybe 1-2mm difference.) The PC Convertible is thicker, though - as incredible as that seems.
The Convertible does have a rather obviously/hilariously worse screen. 640x200 monochrome black and white, with no backlight, and a viewing angle worse than the 700ds' slide-out screen.
Also only 512 kb of memory. Kilobytes. Not megabytes. Not gigabytes. (My W701ds is maxed out with 32 GB.)
Two 720kb floppy drives. That's it. No hard drive at all. (My W701ds has two 1 TB SSDs, plus the DVD burner, plus an SD slot, plus a CardBus slot, plus an ExpressCard slot. With 1 TB SD cards in each of those slots with proper adapters, I can add 3 TB of removable storage. Sadly, Lenovo never made a Blu-ray drive for this model. Although apparently a slimmer one will fit with a gap above it.)
Whats up. Just wanted to say thanks to your comment, I ended up looking up videos of the PC Convertible and now I'm looking for an old-school IBM keyboard so I can live a little bit of that blast from the past 😎 hehe If u know about kbs, could u recommend one? Happy collecting!
I'm a huge fan of the W series because i love the fact that they are so rare. I love to own something that very few others people have. BUT... i have to admit that Sebi made some very very good points about the viability of these machines especially if they are running Windows 10. I'm glad he took the time to do a more complete review of the DS variant as it will always have a special place in history from Lenovo.
After coming across this video, I realized I own one but have not used for sometime. The secondary screen is awesome for programmers
They’re pretty hard to come by! If they were more common or had more modern hardware it would be really useful.
I installed x2 2.5 500GB SSD and upgraded to Windows 10, it works great with 8.0GB RAM. Just a bit too heavy to carry it around and this is why it has bot been used lately
Not seen a laptop with a built-in graphics tablet before so you really do learn something new every day! OMG I wasnt expecting the second screen to pop out like that, now that's really cool :)
If it has left right additional screen. It just any programmer dream
Just put a terminal on it. I want this now
Thinkpad laptop with built-in numeric pad is the most cursed non-cursed thing i've ever seen.
I like what is clearly the Model M buckling spring sound for the intro
I actually am the one who bought the first W700 EBay listing you showed lol
I honestly think, no pun intended, that this can be a solid desktop replacement.
i didn't even know this existed ... and that touch bar?!?!?!!!!!!!! i've been living a lie!
That extra display can be used for pinning a reference image, and then on the main display, you can open up an Art Application and draw with the bundled WACOM Tablet. That is the use case I can think of.
I sooo want a laptop with a second portrait screen like this. I like that the new duo is bringing dual screens into the public view
Gosh, you're the man ! your reviews beat any reviews out there.
I wish you could do some of the newer models (ie : thinkpad p73) as there aren't many reviews on RUclips..
Anyway, thanks for the upload and the serious work you've put on them videos.
Those machines are extremely expensive and I don't have the extra spending cash to buy them for a review. Maybe if Lenovo graciously sent a few my way I would gladly review them..... ;)
@@SebisRandomTech You've been quite nice in your reviews to Lenovo / Thinkpad, il would to their interest to sent you some products to review. Maybe you should get in touch with them as it might work :)
Wishing you a pleasant week.
I wish we had a modern version of this man, just imagine
Too impractical! I would rather have an external monitor I can connect via a dock. Excess weight and heft I can definitely do without.
@@NormanF62 with current technology i think that carrying a external monitor will add more bulk and weight than integrate it directly into the notebook
Nice video, I think this is a very unique machine. I hope to come across one sometime for a low price.
My t440p that I modded has a second screen that is the exact same size as the main one and only adds roughly 8mm of thickness.
@0,8 Анонима look for "t440pds" on the thinkpad subreddit, i tried saying this a long time ago but for some reason youtube deleted it
What if, in an alternate universe, 51nb made an upgrade kit for these beasts, like the X62, T70, X330, and X210(0)?
Maybe an upgrade to the display, motherboard, a more updated I/O, and a better Intel vPro CPU/Nvidia GPU would be nice. Too bad they won't be doing ThinkPad mods anymore after the X2100...
I’m a simple man. I see a PCC, I like.
This monitor is pefect for streamers to see Twitch chat hahah
Watching this on my w701ds
you lucky bastard
That ain't a ThiccPad, that's an Extra ThiccPad!
Companies will release this type of laptop in the future and call it revolutionary!
>Implying companies would release a laptop that doesn't kill itself in five years
God I hate planned obsolescence. But yeah laptops back then were way better.
@@user-uq1bi6mg2l Why is that exactly?
Awesome machine, I've always wanted to play with one of these!
I imagine that second screen being of awesome use nowadays, wouldn't laptop manufactures mimic Apple all the time by making their devices as slim as a piece of paper you you can' neither fit much in their or replace things.
Having the second screen for things such as source code or Discord while you run your program or browse the web on the main screen without to have to attach another screen still sounds great to me, albeit those docking stations exist for a reason after all.
That second screen would be good for mobile app development and testing as it's roughly the same aspect ratio as a phone screen.
That would be a pretty good use for it. Of course, back in 2008 smartphones and apps weren't nearly as prevalent as they are today, but I could see how it could be useful for that.
11:37 That's a nice PCC Streetcar in the background 😂
My favorite streetcar, ever. Sad that it’s a static display and not still in operation ;(
@@SebisRandomTech yeah and I can tell your from Pittsburgh cause of that streetcar and I also heard that their is many abandoned streetcar lines in Pittsburgh and I'm also from Philadelphia where we have abandoned streetcar lines and active ones which is the subway-surface lines, media/sharon hill lines, and the route 15 (which is currently being shuttled by bus)
@@MetroGaming75 I heard about that. The PCC's there need to be refurbished and they're doing track work on the line. Unfortunately most evidence of Pittsburgh's abandoned streetcar lines have been lost to the sands of time, other than the occasional bit of track popping up through the pavement.
There are 2 abandoned lines (in 1999 and 2011, respectively) that could be brought back into service (they are maintained by Port Authority and kept as test tracks or detours) but they haven't. I have a video of the second one on this channel from when it was being used as a detour. We also have a branch of the subway portion that runs to our Amtrak station that has been unused since 2007.
It bothers me enough that so much of our once extensive streetcar system has been completely ripped out, and it annoys me even more that we have a few miles of perfectly good track that aren't being used!
@@SebisRandomTech the PCC do need refurbishing but septa PCC II are out of service due to a failed inspection but only 4 out of 18 passed it but the abandoned route 23 and 56 are coming back soon though but they need to add new lines though
@@MetroGaming75 At least they plan to bring them back. Port Authority removed most of the necessary PCC infrastructure as soon as the last ones were retired.
2000: My T20 is the best ThinkPad now. Love IBM
2008: Wow, the most powerful ThinkPad is here! 2 screen!
2020: (laugh so hard with P73)
2040: I miss the W700ds.
Wow that second screen would be awesome for cheating on online exams
I can imagine that people were using the additional display for IRC Chat window XD
The Swiss Army knife of Thinkpads
I have this laptop without the tablet feature. I got it at a great price. It's gathering dust atm. I'm only keeping for it's unique dual screen display. Great review.
They're very collectable now, so holding on to it is probably a smart idea. Thanks for watching!
the second screen may be very useful for programming when you haven't a second screen for example in library or at university
A beast of a machine, thanks for the video. I am from Colombia and I also a Thinkpad fan. I have 760XL and soon a 770X that I bought from eBay. Also I have some 380XD and 600 parts and a t400 that needs a mainboard replace. When I worked on small computer shop back in 2006, i received a bunch of TransNotes from a company to do maintenance and some repairs, definitely the rarest Thinkpads that I have my hands on.
I would love to get my hands on a TransNote someday, that would certainly be interesting.
@@SebisRandomTech A really cool device to own as collector's item. I remember that the computers that I checked, some of them was having problems with the flex cable that connects the writing device with the computer, and was unable to repair then, because, well... weird device, spare parts were non-existent, I was surprised that a small company had many of those, they would cost a fortune, specially for a Colombian costumer.
I guess in the worst case scenario you could salvage parts from another one with different issues.
@@SebisRandomTech that was the way to have some fully working and leave some Thinkpads for parts, but I remember that more than 1 had the issue, and if my memory serves me right, the company wasn't very interested in the writing device, they only want the computers to work. In my 10+ years a PC and electronics technitian, that was one of the weirdest jobs that I made. So, if you come across with a TransNote, keep in mind that issue, apparently that cable is flimsy.
This thing is way better than any alienware.
and it's thinner
Well, at least we now know where the Einstein who designed the 701 butterfly keyboard went for his next project.
Exactly!
that duel screen is cool as hell.why don't we even have actual monitors with this function?
My guess would be too expensive to implement or not enough demand.
Wow! I have never seen W700 series! It is awesome and I want one... :D
11:14
Good movie choice.
I see you're a man of culture as well.
One of my favorite movies *and* musicals! 😊
I can’t believe how thick that thing is, 12 POUNDS?!
*thicc*
Sebi's Random Tech where can you find this laptop
the side screen would be really good for streaming because you can have the chat on the side or discord.
Too bad it’s hard to run newer games on it.
@@SebisRandomTech yeah true
so upgradable and now you can't even change ram anymore
Yep, it’s depressing. I imagine in a few years we’ll see people modding and upgrading T480’s to keep them going longer just like you see people doing that with older ThinkPads now.
The thiccpad
The Nokia 3310 of laptops
The PSREF for the W700ds shows there was an option for a 128gb SSD, however, the SSDs offered were uSATA installed in standard SATA caddy. Also, the SSD shown in the video has a Dell PN (G295T) so its been upgraded. support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd002997
I had no idea. Thank you
This should be named Lenovo ThiccPad
more of a ThinkBrick than Pad at this point... doubles as self-defense weapon.
2nd screen looks cool but hard to imagine how useful that could be.
More like Lenovo ThiccBricc wover9000
Never knew they made this
*Reading Rainbow* The more you know....
if only they made a P70 series machine with a smaller pop-out screen on the side like this one.....
Might as well just glue two screens and a keyboard+trackpad to a desktop computer. Lol.
I love that I can put a USB 3.0 ExpressCard in my W700, it means I can dock it with a recent ThinkPad USB 3.0 dock and have loads of USB 3.0 ports. The laptop still works so well and I've had mine since 2008! I've upgraded it with an SSD which makes it so much faster than with an old spinning HDD too. It's funny but I have no problem using the Huey Pro software for the calibrator on Win 10 64 bit, I just got the drivers for that from the Lenovo End of Life website.
Only last month updated to a P71 because the W700 struggles with editing 4K. But it's still fine for SD/HD video editing :-p
I'd honestly love to see a more modern laptop implement this sort of design, especially considering how much slimmer laptops have gotten.
You can have slim or you can have more power so its a tradeoff.
I´m in awe at the size of this lad.
*A B S O L U T E U N I T*
Possibly one of my favorite Think...uh I mean Thiccpad.
(Also I love you pointing out the X1 Carbon..."touchbar", or rather "adaptive display" or something.)
Edit: have you heard of Transnote? That weird Thinkpad disguised as some sort of leather-bound folder?
I’ve heard of that and would love to get my hands on one at some point. It appears to be even more obscure than the W700ds!
@@SebisRandomTech They don't make laptops like they used to... Though as dual-screen laptops are being made recently, I'm guessing Yoga Book would be the near equivalent of Transnote? Well I said "near" since Yoga Book can't print. Sacrificed the keyboard for a flat digitizer panel/touch keyboard though.
And yes the Transnote is way more obscure :/ don't think I've seen one being listed on eBay.
EDIT: There is one being listed, but it's missing quite a few components.
EDIT2: There's another one being listed in better condition, needs constant power supply due to bad battery: www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Think-TansNote-2675-10-4-touchscreen/254553047507
Well then, it appears an opportunity just landed on your lap.
That looks like a very interesting find and it’s in good condition, but $400?! Yikes.
@@SebisRandomTech Indeed it is...very rare. I was even surprised there were two Transnotes listed to begin with. Especially the latter being in surprisingly good condition. I bid you good luck!
Me: *the THICCPAD*
Ladies and gentlemen, that is the official name for this laptop.
Hmmm I wonder if theres a triple screen one
Best Second Screen alternative : sidecar on Catalina with ipad and mac
1 more screen on the other side would have been better, one for email, one for business software, another one for video calls.
Yeah and would at least make the damned thing symmetrical.
Hey Sebi, appreciating your videos. Nice work. I know you mentioned that the T430 is your favorite, however, if you'd have to pick just one Thinkpad with a full numeric keyboard, (older or newer) which would it be?..and why? Thanks in advance.
If you are referring to a ThinkPad with a separate numeric keypad, I love the classic design of the W700/701 but value the modern power and performance of the P50/70 series (now known as the P15/17). Generally I prefer a numeric keypad embedded into the main keyboard (like on the T420 and older ThinkPads) because I like the ergonomics of a centered keyboard.
@@SebisRandomTech Thank you Sebi for your concise response, information provided, and your time. Much appreciated.
I have a W700. It's the largest screen with the classic keyboard. Use it every morning for work.
I would love to pick one of theses up just for how quirky it is
that is a noice streetcar in the background
Razer actually showed off a prototype a few years back at CES, but the prototype allegedly got stolen, and they stopped working on it. Was really cool to see though, a 3 screen laptop
Rumor has it Linus Sebastian may have taken it... ;)
@@SebisRandomTech I mean... pbs.twimg.com/media/C2GXz5RVQAMU0T8?format=jpg&name=medium
great channel bro, keep going please.
That would be awesome for just media consumption. Portrait screens I've found have always been nicer for scrolling through text.
I agree, I usually end up splitting my screen in half whenever I want to read something.
I've been looking for a W700ds review since I saw that alleged banned commercial lol
I've been trying to find one of these dual screen Thinkpads for a while now, but can't justify the price!
I was expecting another screen to pop up in the left side. I thought they seems to be enough space for that.
I wouldn't exactly call windows 10 a bloated operating system. It basically restored life into many of my older computers back in 2015. It runs circles around windows 7/8.
i agree it can surprisingly run some pretty low spec machines
In some ways it’s better than 7/8 however it can bog down some hardware. It works fine for me, but no matter what I say some of the hardcore members of the Linux community get mad at me for using Windows 10 instead of a lightweight Linux distro. If I wanted to use those I would, but I don’t! I’m happy with Windows 10.
@@SebisRandomTech yeah i agree
I have a fully loaded regular W700, but i have so much trouble getting it to work, because i'd need to spend 182 cad to even get it running (display, charger, battery) and as a broke high school it's a bit much. Though i also don't want to leave it sitting because i feel like soon i wont be able to get any parts for this beast of a machine.
Just save what you can and get parts as money becomes available. I would say getting a display is the top priority (if yours is broken), and then a charger. The battery would be my last concern.
Drop this thing on a 2019 macbook pro , I think the aluminium unibody of a macbook is not enough this thing is a tank
I think if I dropped this on a MacBook the unibody would become the nadabody.
The built-in drawing tablet and color calibrator are almost more interesting than the second screen.
The GScreen SpaceBook had dual full screen monitors 17in in 2011 for pre-release but not sure that it ever sold.
By the time I could afford it, they discontinued this line. I so wanted one.
superb content m8, subscribed! :)
Thanks!
IF ONLY THEY MADE ONE WITH 3, WHY NOT 3 WHYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
.
I have liked this model since I was a junior high school student, but I chose a different model because of its high performance. It's a very unique model, so I want to buy a good one!
(The text may be terrible because it is a Google translation)
A very interesting review of a very interesting laptop. AND, it came from Bethel Park!
Oh boy, i know some 17" HP back in the day, those was some thiiiiiic ones.
The second screen looks a bit like a x220 screen flipped sideways. I really wonder if the horrible viewing angles are because of the screen being sideways. Like if you flip a normal TN x220, you'll kinda see the same effect as in the video.
would be cooler if it had a third screen on the left side for gaming
Bruh I am starting to think older laptops are better than the new ones. I just compared it with a MacBook and I swear if it is cheap enough I would buy ThinkPads...
Seriously man. Macs aren't even worth it unless you want macOS (which can be run via Hackintosh)
@@theinceptor3672 Definitely
@@theinceptor3672 macOS sadly does not properly support the drivers with my graphics card, The resolution can be extended but there is no acceleration and applications will perform poorly.
Very interesting video - by the way, hello from Pennsylvania (Mercer County)
Hello from Allegheny County!
I did not know this was a thing and I need one now. *looks at used price* I did not know this was a thing but I don't need one.
What used thinkpad do you recommend for running AutoCAD 2020 ?
The butterfly keyboard thinkpad is much cooler. How the screen controls how the keyboard unfolds is so geniusly good! I think that is actually worth buying!
If you can find one on eBay :P
I used to want one of these soooooo bad lol
I am actually wondering what kinda card people plug into ExpressCard slot back then. Maybe some application-specific card for engineer?
There’s tons of expansion cards you could get to add more obscure or proprietary ports very similar to desktop expansion cards. I’m sure in some cases there were application-specific expansion cards. Nowadays the biggest reason most people like having them on older laptops is because of the ability to use an external graphics card with them!