Lenovo launches the retro-inspired 25th Anniversary Edition ThinkPad

We saw the first leaked images of Lenovo’s 25^th Anniversary ThinkPad a couple of weeks ago, thanks to German blog WinFuture.de. Now, during an event at the Yamato Labs in Yokohama, Japan, the company officially unveiled the ThinkPad 25.

The limited edition retro laptop is based on the current T470 model, but its design is inspired by the ThinkPad 700C, which was released on October 5, 1992. The hardware is the same as the current ThinkPad, thankfully, while nostalgia fans will no doubt appreciate its rubberized coating, red TrackPoint, classic seven-row ThinkPad keyboard with ThinkVantage blue enter button, dedicated volume button, colorful logo, and numerous status LEDs.

That’s where the retro elements end. The laptop features a 14-inch Full HD touchscreen, an Intel Core i7-7500U, GeForce 940MX GPU, 16GB of DDR4, a 512GB NVMe SSD, multiple ports (including Thunderbolt 3 Type-C), a 720p webcam, a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello, and a claimed 18-hour battery life.

The machine’s internals are a long way from the old 700C, which featured an Intel 486 CPU running at 25MHz, 4MB to 8MB of RAM, around 120MB of HDD space, and a 640 x 480 10.4-inch LCD screen. It also came with a 3.5-inch disk drive.

Long-time ThinkPad fans will have to dig deep and move fast if they want one of these Anniversary machines. They’re only available in limited quantities in select countries, and prices start at $1,899. That may be expensive, but it's still better than the $2,375 it cost to buy a 700C in 1992.