IBM announced today that it has sold its 20 millionth ThinkPad notebook PC, making ThinkPad the best-selling notebook brand ever.

Since its introduction in 1992, an era that began with the famous “clamshell” notebook design, ThinkPad has delivered many “firsts”, including the first notebook with each of the following: colour LCD panel, 14” LCD, full-sized keyboard, and removable hard drive. While IBM’s competitors have adapted many of these technologies to make them standard features for mobile computing users everywhere, ThinkPad innovation continues to deliver more industry “firsts”, the company believes.

ThinkPad’s latest introduction is IBM’s Active Protection System, a new ThinkVantage Technology introduced just last month that helps protect a system’s hard drive, and responds much the same way an air bag protects a vehicle’s passengers. 

The 20 millionth IBM ThinkPad notebook, is an Intel Centrino mobile technology-based system featuring 512MB of memory, a 1.70GHz processor, a 60GB HDD and an extended battery life of up to eight and a half hours by combining the system battery with an optional second battery. The ThinkPad T41 is one of the industry’s thinnest and lightest 14” notebooks, at a little less than one-inch thick and with a travel weight at four and a half pounds.

With over 1000 industry awards worldwide since its inception, IBM ThinkPad notebooks have been used in numerous Space Shuttle missions, under the oceans, and carried in chilling cold during several climbs to K2 and Mt. Everest. An IBM ThinkPad notebook is also included in the permanent design collection of the Modern Museum of Art in New York, the company said.