ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence • Hacker News Board

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#31

Post by JimmyL » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

In an office full of Retina MacBooks, I love my ThinkPad X220 (and this is my fourth ThinkPad in a row, spanning both Lenovo and IBM eras). It's not a flashy machine, but it's got a bunch of non-mainstream features that are devoted to getting things done, at which they excel:

- Nub pointer? I love it. Full mouse control without moving my hands significantly away from where they were on the keyboard anyways. My X220 has a trackpad, but I only use it by accident.

- An LED that lives above the monitor and has a shield that points it down to light up the keyboard. This is a lifesaver on long flights.

- Docking stations. I've got two USB drives, a pair of headphones, a few USB-powered accessories, two monitors, a mouse, and a keyboard plugged into my computer when it's at the office. My MBP-toting coworkers have to connect and disconnect all that when they pick up their computer; I press the big undock button and it all stays where I left it, and reconnects when I put it back on the desk.

- Accessory comparability. I've still got the power adapters from the first ThinkPad I had. They work fine on my current one, and mean that I have more of these bricks than I could ever need - so I can keep one at work, in my go bag, at my home office, in my living room, in my kitchen, and still have a few backups around.

- Repair manuals. Want to know how to do any type of repair on your ThinkPad? The repair manual is freely available, and tells you exactly how to do anything you'd like to. To swap out the network adapter, for example, involves taking off the keyboard and going from the top.

Was ordering it in the first place a pleasant experience? No. The website sucked, I had to call in to do half the customization I wanted, and it still took two months to get here.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#32

Post by dfc » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

Does anyone know what the paulultra font is? pdffonts lists the following fonts in use:

    HTFDidot-B11Bold
    HTFDidot-M16Medium
    PaulultraPlain

PDF: http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=6...

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#33

Post by geoka9 » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:16 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

It's probably not slick enough to blend into an office with a glamorous interior design.

http://www.eurotech.cz/image/file/361/x60_2.jpg

But when I see this, I get an urge to touch the keyboard, run the shell, fire up the editor... No other laptop makes me want to do this just with its looks.

And that's what I think good industrial design is about.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#34

Post by jlgreco » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #29

kabdib wrote: post #24

Thinkpads /were/ great. They took a serious quality dive several years ago, and I've had a number of bad problems with customer service (e.g., orders "stuck" for months, miscommunicaton of warranty issues), and now I won't recommend them. My guess is that when things go great, you'll be fine, but the moment you need something out of the ordinary then Lenovo will be just as bad as Dell.

How many thinkpads have you purchased recently? Multiple orders stuck for months? Granted I have only had 3 thinkpads in 8 years but I have never had any problems.

In my experience "Lenovo thinkpads are bad" is a meme that started as a prediction ("Lenovo thinkpads will be bad") and somehow kept on being trotted out on rare occasion for reasons unknown. The T and X series from Lenovo are both brilliant. The only complaint I can muster is the unfortunate trend in screen resolutions.

My T60p is a rock solid machine, and the T420 I have right now only improves on that. It is without a doubt the same machine, it has an unbelievable sense of identity, but it is better.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#35

Post by silentOpen » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #29

kabdib wrote: post #24

Thinkpads /were/ great. They took a serious quality dive several years ago, and I've had a number of bad problems with customer service (e.g., orders "stuck" for months, miscommunicaton of warranty issues), and now I won't recommend them. My guess is that when things go great, you'll be fine, but the moment you need something out of the ordinary then Lenovo will be just as bad as Dell.

How many thinkpads have you purchased recently? Multiple orders stuck for months? Granted I have only had 3 thinkpads in 8 years but I have never had any problems.

Just got my T430s 6 weeks after ordering. Lenovo charged and uncharged my debit card and revised their shipping estimate 5+ times. 5 days before receiving the machine, I received an email telling me that federal regulations did not permit them to continue to keep the order 'pending' and that if I did not respond and waive my rights under these regulations, they would cancel my order for me. I did not respond.

They have serious fulfillment issues.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#36

Post by sedachv » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:26 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

You're confusing design with visual appeal. Steve Jobs loved to rant about design and longetivity, but Apple laptops only seem to excel on visual appeal (and this is a recent phenomenon - just look at the first PowerBook G4s). Design has to be functional, and this is where Apple always makes sacrifices.

Bringing chiclet-style keyboards back into vogue (to the point where even Lenovo now puts them on Thinkpads) shows a complete disregard for the functionality of the laptop as a computer. Try comparing the new apple-style chiclet keys, to "skateboard-ramp" shaped keys (an "innovation" introduced by IBM to save costs), to the spherical shaped keys (http://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/?page_id=1458#shapes) of high-end keyboards from the 1980s and you will see how far computer keyboards have actually degenerated. This isn't just my opinion - Kathleen Potosnak's review of literature (appears as chapter 21 in Helander's Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction) shows that shaped keys are better for typing.

There's a lot to be said about 3-button mice as well. One thing I do like about Macs is the touchpad on the newest ones (it took Apple a long time to make them really useful, though). Again, this is a sacrifice in terms of functionality. You can do things like https://github.com/vsedach/mouse-copy with the Thinkpad touchpoint and even the trackpad, but it's not convenient with most other trackpads (especially ones like the Mac's that don't have separate keys).

In terms of longetivity and visual design, I'm typing this on a 2004 Thinkpad T43. Nothing on this machine is broken, and despite 8 years of almost continuous use, even the keyboard labels only have a few nicks. This laptop looks as new or as old as the early 90s 386 Thinkpad we have at the hackerspace or the X230 my friend bought a few months ago. It wasn't until the PowerBook that Apple hit on a design with any sort of longetivity. Besides Apple and IBM/Lenovo, there's no one making laptops with a lasting design across many product generations.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#37

Post by lysol » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:29 PM UTC

Thinkpads are the only other computers I'll willingly use besides a Mac. I think they're the only other computer that actually feels like it's purposefully designed instead of just being a forgettable, reactionary me-too from terrible OEMs that offer zero real innovation.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#38

Post by dfc » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #6

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

Aesthetics: the creation and appreciation of beauty

In my opinion there is nothing more beautiful on a laptop than the thinkpads hardened steel hinges.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#39

Post by rogerbinns » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

JimmyL wrote: post #31

In an office full of Retina MacBooks, I love my ThinkPad X220 (and this is my fourth ThinkPad in a row, spanning both Lenovo and IBM eras). It's not a flashy machine, but it's got a bunch of non-mainstream features that are devoted to getting things done, at which they excel: - Nub pointer? I love it. Full mouse control without moving my hands significantly away from where they were on the keyboard anyways. My X220 h…

The one place things have gone downhill is screens. Thankfully you can still get matte screens rather than ones that double as mirrors. But Lenovo has gone 16:9 losing lots of vertical pixels - note how workflow is vertical (coding, documents) so this is a serious productivity killer. They also use large bezels meaning the laptops are larger than they need to be. And they used to be IPS giving excellent visual quality - that is pretty much extinct too.

Re: ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

#40

Post by JimmyL » Sun, Oct 07, 2012, 7:33 PM UTC

rogerbinns wrote: post #39

JimmyL wrote: post #31

In an office full of Retina MacBooks, I love my ThinkPad X220 (and this is my fourth ThinkPad in a row, spanning both Lenovo and IBM eras). It's not a flashy machine, but it's got a bunch of non-mainstream features that are devoted to getting things done, at which they excel: - Nub pointer? I love it. Full mouse control without moving my hands significantly away from where they were on the keyboard anyways. My X220 h…

The one place things have gone downhill is screens. Thankfully you can still get matte screens rather than ones that double as mirrors. But Lenovo has gone 16:9 losing lots of vertical pixels - note how workflow is vertical (coding, documents) so this is a serious productivity killer. They also use large bezels meaning the laptops are larger than they need to be. And they used to be IPS giving excellent visual qualit…

You can still get IPS panels, you've just got to pay the extra $50 to get the "enhanced" screen (and they're not available on all models).

I'm with you about being less than thrilled with the transition to 16:9 displays, though.