
Image quality on the built-in screen is also considered important, Lenovo says. The screen is not only a sharper 1920x1200 but has a much higher than normal 72 percent NTSC color gamut along with a built-in color calibrator to optimize the image as closely as possible to its true colors for print and other color-accurate work.

As Lenovo's largest notebook, the W700 also has performance features absent from earlier designs, including the option of a 3.06GHz Core 2 Extreme dual-core processor, an 8GB memory ceiling, and two hard drive bays with the option of either a RAID 0 stripe for speed or a RAID 1 mirror for backups. The onboard NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M or 3700M video both pushes faster 3D and also supplies video out over the new DisplayPort format as well as dual-link DVI, either of which can handle 30-inch displays.

A base W700 ships with a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, an inexpensive 1440x900 display, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a single 160GB hard drive, and 802.11n Wi-Fi at a $2,949 price. Options exist both for the better processor and display as well as up to 640GB of storage, solid-state drives and a Blu-ray burner.