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ThinkNext Design

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Re: ThinkNext Design

#91

Post by ltbarcly3 »

fr3772 wrote: post #90

I had 3 different Thinkpads... The first went down after 1 year with a headcrash. 1. HDD headcrash in my life. The second one was delivered with bad RAM. Support denied help because of wrong FRU Number. The whole thing went back to the dealer. The third one died in a loud bang of the power supply and died with it. About design: Placing the Ctrl key not on the outside drove me crazy. The trackcap was horribly to use -…

This reminds me of the time I went to a church dinner with my father.

Everything was fine, but then each person was asked to stand and briefly mention something they were thankful for. About half way through one of the oldsters mentioned their health problems - "I'm thankful they aren't worse" - sigh. Every person after that had to list every health problem they had, and every health problem everyone in their family had. It took like an hour and we were waiting to eat.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#92

Post by leipie »

imiric wrote: post #79
bigpeopleareold wrote: post #44

I appreciate all the innovations that him and his team brought to the ThinkPad, since this is my main set of laptops. Lenovo, on the other hand, has been a hit or miss for awhile. I had a T570, which was horrible; one problem after the next. It's just a source of parts now. There are some design issues with the T480 (no center screw in the front/bottom). Also with the T480 is, what it seems to be, the slightly flaky…

IMO the ThinkPad brand died after IBM sold its PC division. Lenovo has kept it alive because it is a cash cow, but the machines have shoddy build quality and are ludicrously overpriced. My previous X1 Extreme Gen 1 (2018) had annoying coil whine and screen backlight bleed. One of the key caps broke off after a couple of years. Eventually I ended up doing a full keyboard and battery replacement. My current X1 Carbon G…

I have a framework desktop with a ThinkPad TrackPoint II keyboard ;)

Re: ThinkNext Design

#93

Post by faxmeyourcode »

I ran a T450s all through college. My late grandmother gifted me the money after high school graduation to buy my first laptop. I'd learned to code on the old gateway pentium 4 (Windows XP) machine with 512 MB of RAM from the factory. I'd resurrected it as a teenager and completely gutted it. I scoured the web endlessly looking for something that was _not_ touchscreen (hard to find at the time), linux-compatible, and rugged enough for the neglect of a college student's backpack.

It was a linux user's dream. I swapped out the spinny HDD with an SSD. It had hotswappable batteries, a spill resistant keyboard with a drain system, and I ran every linux distribution I could get my hands on, eventually settling on the xfce flavor of Ubuntu.

I still have that machine, and will keep it for my son when he's older. I plan to replace the battery and SSD with something more reliable. These days I use an m2 macbook air for portability... but that thinkpad is still something I will treasure for years.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#95

Post by leipie »

captain_coffee wrote: post #24

Has any of the newer ThinkPad models been upgraded to use a metal case or they are still made out of plastic? Asking as that is the main deal-breaker for me

I have had generations of ThinkPad, since the x30 series. And the older older all had a very stiff metal (magnesium) frame as a core and usually a metal lid. Nowadays they went to very stiff plastic and carbon to save weight and thickness I guess. But they are much more portable because of this. I think Apple patented the "unibody design" at the time btw. The current company macbook pro I use for work is very heavy compared to other devices, because of all the metal and glass. It is quite a lot to carry around.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#96

Post by kev009 »

commandersaki wrote: post #48

Is this satire? A thinkpad light is somehow peak innovation?

It's a portfolio, the guy did things that shipped in millions of units.

It was a good design, in critical environments small goose-neck lights are typically used, even if the buttons and indicators are backlit. I still prefer it to backlit keyboards which, with decreasing thickness, increasingly compromise the quality of the keyboard (I have tested this with later chicklet models running through all available keyboards for a few era ThinkPads). Having a small amount of ambient light is easier on the eyes, especially the yellow-shift on the X40, and you can run the screen at minimal brightness to increase battery life and whatever health benefits this all has.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#97

Post by agumonkey »

I used to be a thinkpad head, less so these days, but even good dell with trackpoint don't have the same feel. For people like me it does affect my use and joy. Also build quality is great, I don't think I threw out a single thinkpad in 20 years...

If the thinkpad team and lenovo guys read this, keep it as long as possible

Re: ThinkNext Design

#98

Post by neilv »

fr3772 wrote: post #90

I had 3 different Thinkpads... The first went down after 1 year with a headcrash. 1. HDD headcrash in my life. The second one was delivered with bad RAM. Support denied help because of wrong FRU Number. The whole thing went back to the dealer. The third one died in a loud bang of the power supply and died with it. About design: Placing the Ctrl key not on the outside drove me crazy. The trackcap was horribly to use -…

> The first went down after 1 year with a headcrash. 1. HDD headcrash in my life.

What HDD make? ThinkPads of 2.5" HDD era usually have cushioned drive caddies, and (IIRC) some head-parking when the laptop detected shock. https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1hp1cq6/active_pr...

> The second one was delivered with bad RAM. Support denied help because of wrong FRU Number. The whole thing went back to the dealer.

Did you get it sealed from the Lenovo factory, or could your dealer have replaced the factory RAM? (That could also explain "wrong FRU number".)

> The third one died in a loud bang of the power supply and died with it.

Bummer. Do you recall the model or design?

I once had a Lenovo AC adapter eventually go bad (out of buying and using dozens of them), and fortunately didn't take the laptop with it.

And I once ripped the laptop-side connector off an old one that I was abusing pretty hard, and then tripped over the cable (but laptop was fine).

Other than that, the rest of them have worked great, even some 20 year-old ones I still have and use.

> The trackcap was horribly to use - an example of bad design par excellence.

The TrackPoint? Could you say specific criticisms of the design?

I consider it mostly a personal preference thing. A lot of people love TrackPoint, and consider it a hard requirement for any laptop they'll personally use. A lot of other people prefer trackpads, and have more options for laptop brands.

(Disclosure: I know the inventor of TrackPoint, but that's not why I use it.)

Re: ThinkNext Design

#99

Post by MrGilbert »

wpm wrote: post #70
MrGilbert wrote: post #56

I have a x230 at hand, mainly to quickly diagnose my car. I bought it used some years ago, including the dock, and I still love it. Sure, resolution is limited, and so is the power. But it gets the job done, and also has this useful thinklight on top of the bezel, which helps reading printed stuff in the dark. I'll hold on to it as long as I can.

I bet you could upgrade the screen if you wanted to. I put a modern-ish 1440p IPS into my T420, looks fantastic.

Yes, there is a full-hd add-on available. Or, better, was, because it's out of stock. But the schematics are available, so I could design my own board.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#100

Post by binarygit »

I sold my camera to buy a used T750s for my first programming internship, I have it still and use it sometimes. I bought another one of those again used and use that as my homeserver.

I can really tell the difference when I type on the mac and on my thinkpad. I think the thinkpad's keyboard is wayy better keytravel

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