Lenovo has teamed up with AMD to launch its new range of notebooks. Both the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge and X100e will be available from $999 and feature AMD’s new VISION Pro technology.

The new range of notebooks, which were first glimpsed at CES in Las Vegas last week, were officially unveiled for the Australian market yesterday at a media event in Sydney.

“ThinkPad has been a trusted brand for thousands of large businesses for 17 years, over this time Thinkad has won over a thousand awards for its design and engineering and has consistently been at the forefront of technology and innovations,” said Lindsay Tobin, product business manager for Lenovo notebooks.

The first product unveiled at the launch was the ThinkPad Edge, which will come in 13, 14 and 15-inch models and has a completely redesigned keyboard for extra usability.

“The keyboard has always been one of the strong features of ThinkPad. With this keyboard we deliberately designed it differently, so instead of having rounded edges on the keys we have actually raised them up to create a larger area and make typing more comfortable and responsive,” he said.

“So without a doubt this is a keyboard that we feel proud of and deserving of the ThinkPad name.”

Other features of the ThinkPad Edge include an expanded touchpad with multitouch, battery life of up to eight hours and Wi-Fi. It also comes with Norton Internet Security, Microsoft Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat Reader and Flash Player pre-installed.

The other product on show was the ThinkPad X100e, which is the first time Lenovo has entered the ultraportable market.

“The X100e is Lenovo’s first value ultraportable and is part of the X series line. X series is our thinnest and lightest ThinkPad product,” he said.

“The feedback we have received from our customers is that they are looking for a product that offers extreme portability, value and usability. The ThinkPad X100e is able to deliver all these requirements.”

The X100e features many of the same design elements as the Edge series, but what stands this apart is its smaller form factor. The unit measures in at 282mm x 209mm x 15mm and weighs 1.5kg with a 6-cell battery. It also incorporates a 11.6” HD LED backlight.

Both of these new models will feature AMD’s new VISION Pro technology. Brian Slattery, business development manager at AMD, discussed the new release.

“With VISION Pro we have enabled a number of new features, this is an all around platform solution with AMD processors and chipsets,” he said.

“This all around solution allows our customers to have a much more rich visual experience and a better performing visual experience.

Both the Lenovo ThinPad Edge and X100e will start at an RRP of $999.