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IBM admits delivery delay on wireless "super-portable" ThinkPad

IBM's top-of-range ThinkPad, with every sort of wireless device, was launched as a "desktop replacement" machine with P4 chip and every accessory in the book; but it is not, after all, "shipping" as claimed. It won't ship till June, the company admitted today.

The A31 and A31Ps machines are not small machines; they are designed as the ultimate ThinkPad, with both WiFi and Bluetooth wireless, the most advanced CD or DVD drives, digital video output on the top of range machine, and the fastest P4 portable chip Intel can make.

They are, inevitably, power-guzzling, lumps; but for anybody who wants to demonstrate a major, leading edge PC application "on the road" there isn't anything else. And when IBM launched them the response was instant; either wildly enthusiastic, or utterly repulsed by its size and power appetite. And the price, nearly £3,000, made eyebrows climb.

But the machine has a huge disk, and both Bluetooth, and WiFi; and so Newswireless Net was desperate to have three for demonstration purposes.

IBM's response was that review samples would have to wait "while we satisfy paying customers." We responded by offering to pay.

There followed a sad interchange where IBM said they needed to know "exactly which model" we wanted, because "there were some availability problems" on "a few select models."

We said we'd take whatever machine they could ship quickest. All we wanted was both Bluetooth and WiFi in the machine; never mind which OS, never mind which video output, never mind whatever else. And at that point, IBM pretty much had to come clean.

They won't ship until June, the marketing department admitted.