When will Thinkpad feature USB 3.0?

in the next year or two. If their competitors are implementing it in their laptops, the Lenovo would want to do it as well.

IBM used to incorporate new advances into their Think Pads very quickly if they made sense to use. Unfortunately Lenovo isn't IBM and they are also ran's not the Market leaders so they will introduce USB3 when it becomes commonly available on the M'Boards that they buy in or they don't have the option and the M'Boards come with USB3 Support standard.

So the Marketing Forces will drive Lenovo to introduce any new developments when there is a Demand for these things. If you remember the original USB these ports where included in PC's for years before there where commonly available devices that could use them. They where a Selling Feature of the M'Boards with no real items to use them with. Much like Firewire is today. Lots of new systems come with a Firewire Port but at the moment unless you are using some high end Audio or Video Equipment there are not many devices to plug into these Firewire ports. ;)

As for as your question goes [i] Does it make sense to wait for USB 3.0[/i]

My personal opinion is it depends on if you have any applications where USB3 may be an improvement. If you just think that it's faster so it's better then no it's not worth waiting as even when the USB3 M'Boards start appearing that doesn't mean that there will be any USB3 Devices to plug into them or that the business will be willing to pay the Premium Price of any devices that are available.

It's pointless to hold off buying new hardware and taking a performance hit now in the hope that eventually you will have better performance and lower costs latter at a unknown time. The same applies to things like Blueray not much use for it in a Business Environment and it's expensive so will business be willing to pay extra for something that they don't really need?

Col

Realistically there is no set point at which you can ever be 'sure' that you've managed to get the biggest bang for your buck.

This is because the only thing you can really be sure of, is that the Day or the Week after you buy your all-encompassing piece of hardware (enhanced up to the hilt), another supposedly ground-breaking element of the modern PC will be announced. Are you then going to put off your purchase until that becomes reality? ;)

Thank you for reminding me of that.
However, consider USB 3.0 as a crucial step and just wanted to know when you expect notebook manufacturers to include it in their business notebooks.