Last month we have told you about upcoming Lenovo Thinkpad Z61m, Z61t and R60 laptops with Intel Core Duo chips that were spotted on some University sites. Well, now it’s official - yesterday Lenovo has announced the availability of these Core Duo notebooks on their site. First we take a look at the R60 series notebook.

There are not a lot of customization options available for Lenovo ThinkPad R60 laptop right now. And configuration available from Lenovo site at the moment is significantly more powerful and expensive then the one offered to the students. But that is to be expected - there’s always some discounts and compromises for the products targeted at educational markets.

Thinkpad R60 costs $2049 and comes with:

2GHz T2500 Intel Core Duo chip
1GB of memory
100 GB 7200 RPM SATA HDD
15″ SXGA+ (1400×1050) display
ATI MObility Radeon X1400, 128 MB
8X DVD Recordable EIDE Ultrabay Enhanced drive
Wifi and GLAN
9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

There’s an option to upgrade Lenovo ThinkPad R60 notebook to 3GB (2 NonParity DDR2 SDRAM SoDIMM) memory. But that will cost you almost the same as the whole PC ($2000), so I don’t think this is a good deal.

Lenovo ThinkPad R60 also comes with motion sensor and HDD shock absorber for your data protection and built-in fingerprint reader with preloaded security software to keep your data safe if the laptop is lost. And with extended battery pack ThinkPad R60 can last through up to ten hours of active usage.

Update: Ready to buy? Click here. Now you can save hundreds of dollars (more then $400, in fact!) with these limited time Lenovo offers.