101–110 of 143 posts
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Meh I have a T470s that has most things here, compared to the Apple equivalent it's got plenty of connectivity and physical ports built in without the need for dongles. I wouldn't mind having a hot swappable battery though...
Wouldnt that be a T470? :)
Last year, I decided to build an X62 (Thinkpad X61 or X60 with custom hardware) after reading about it here [1]. Shipment of the modification kit (some plastic parts + a new mainboard) took 2 months from China to Germany. It took me a while to find a brand-new screen as a replacement for the original 1024x786 screen (which has to be modified, including some minor metal-working). After roughly a year of heavy daily us…
Owner of a "Thinkpad" X62 here. The most surprising part of the X series from Thinkpad is how serviceable it is. The repair manuals are all online and does not require any special hardware. The OEM replacement parts are extremely abundant online at a reasonable cost. I think when my current laptop becomes obsolete, my next laptop will probably still be a Thinkpad.
I actually had a hard time finding a legit OEM cooler for my X60 after it failed. Found one offered with the right SKU finally and it was electrically and dimensionally correct but it’s actually the part for some other machine and incredibly the BIOS reads out some data from the fan and complains at boot that it’s got the wrong part. Still works though.
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> Six-key home/end/insert/delete/pgup/pgdwn cluster that mirrors that on a desktop keyboard? Check. I miss this so much. Laptop keyboard layouts are usually a disaster. Lenovo was the shining exception[1], then they went and fucked it up for no apparent reason. [1] If you excuse the wrong placement of Ctrl and Fn, but from the x10 generation onward this is swapable in BIOS
This is why i love Macs, IMHO the keyboard layout is superior than everything else. home/end/insert/delete/pgup/pgdwn can all be done without specialized keys (and faster because you don't have to move your arm). I am using the small Apple keyboard that matches the one from the Macbooks on my desktop since over 10 years and never ever want such a big clunky board back on my desk like most PC users still use.
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The one problem I have, rational or not, is just how worn out those laptops look over time. The plastic gets all shiny and worn down and the thing just starts looking greasy. That's probably the only thing I miss from my older macbook.
My X1 Carbon is only three years old and already looks really crappy. I take it everywhere with me and it's been through a lot - I'm not exactly gentle. To be honest I kind of like how dinged up it is, shows the nice history of planes and coffee shops we've had together and yet it keeps chugging along.
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Did IBM make the x220? I thought Lenovo produced that model (I have a Lenovo x201).
I believe the last IBM Thinkpads were in the X60/X61 era. I have an X60 with a mix of IBM and Lenovo branding. Everything after that was Lenovo.
I'm amazed that there is no mention of the sheer repairability of these devices. I don't think I will ever encounter a laptop line that is generally so user-accessible. A couple of regular screws and you pop the case. A few more and you can replace the entire keyboard. The hard drive was held in by a single screw in most models and you could easily swap it in without even popping the entire case. The RAM had it's own…
It's not just about being thinner, it's about not flexing and feeling so bouncy. New laptops may be less upgradable, but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware? On the other hand, the benefits of a smaller, sturdier machine are experienced every day.
Last year, I decided to build an X62 (Thinkpad X61 or X60 with custom hardware) after reading about it here [1]. Shipment of the modification kit (some plastic parts + a new mainboard) took 2 months from China to Germany. It took me a while to find a brand-new screen as a replacement for the original 1024x786 screen (which has to be modified, including some minor metal-working). After roughly a year of heavy daily us…
The one problem I have, rational or not, is just how worn out those laptops look over time. The plastic gets all shiny and worn down and the thing just starts looking greasy. That's probably the only thing I miss from my older macbook.
> The truth is that consumer products are ‘new’ for a very brief moment when they are first removed from the packaging, but spend the great majority of their useful lives as ‘used’ products in the process of decay. Many welcome the breaking-in of products like a leather wallet or a pair of jeans as this wear can be aesthetically-pleasing. The Japanese have a term for this, “Wabi-sabi”.[2] Wabi-sabi can be used to describe the aesthetically pleasing wear of an object as it decays over time.
I still use my X62 as my primary development machine. I like it so much that I've ordered an X210 from the same manufacturer.
1. https://designmind.frogdesign.com/2011/09/aged-perfection/
A bunch of old X220 machines are still my only laptops to this day because I simply haven't found anything better since. Every modern laptop I've seen is vastly inferior in some aspect I care about - terrible keyboards, fragile cases, zero maintainability, no Linux support, etc., the list goes on and on. Apart from better CPUs and displays, most laptops have objectively regressed in the metrics I actually care about.…
I really don't know how you deal with the awful screens. Even the nicer IPS screen is low resolution and has bad viewing angles. That alone would be enough to make me upgrade, even if it meant sacrificing everything else on your list.
I have an x230, and I'm planning to upgrade to a 13.3 inch 1080p IPS panel.