Lenovo Group is staking an early claim to potentially key turf in the Windows 7 gold-rush : the PC vendor boasting the fastest boot-up and shutdown times.

ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktop PCs for businesses will boot Windows 7 up to 56 percent faster than when loading XP or Vista, says Lenovo.

Meanwhile, IdeaPad and IdeaCentre consumer PCs certified for "Windows 7 Lenovo Enhanced Experience" will load 33 percent faster and shutdown 50 percent faster than non-certified-but-otherwise-identical hardware.

In some cases, said Howard Locker, director of new technology at the Chinese PC maker, told Computerworld, "we went from a 1-minute boot-up to 30 seconds, and took shutdown from 20 seconds down to 10."

Full story: InfoWorld