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ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

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Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#101

Post by ilamont »

brk wrote: post #44

I think I may have been the first unofficial Thinkpad laptop repair person. When the Thinkpad 700 came out, I was working for IBM managing the PC side of a regional repair center in SE Michigan. About a month or so before their official release, several IBM exec's had production units, and a few of them were already being dropped or broken. It started with a unit in my region, which I was able to repair, and then wor…

In the mid-1990s, I bought a used IBM ThinkPad 701 in Hong Kong. Ten years before "netbooks," this wonderful little laptop had a very unique approach to compact size: A "butterfly" keyboard that unfolded when you opened the laptop. There are some photos and historical information about the 701 here:

http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/

Supposedly, the design was inspired by a black bento box. Although primitive by today's standards, it was a solid little laptop that served me well for the tasks I was engaged in at the time -- writing, Web surfing, learning HTML, and playing Doom.

In the late 1990s, I had a house fire. No one was injured, but the butterfly ThinkPad was burned, the exterior case charred and partially melted. There was data on it that I wanted, including a manuscript. I brought it to the local IBM repair center in Taipei. Two young techs were at the service desk, and hardly battered an eye when I took it out of a plastic bag. They got a small electric saw, cut open the case, removed the keyboard, and took out the HD which looked intact. They attempted to connect it to their diagnostic machine but it wouldn't read, unfortunately. But I really respected their attempt.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#102

Post by rejectfinite »

zac23or wrote: post #51

I used a ThinkPad between 2010 and 2012. For me it's a normal machine with nothing special. I don't understand the cult status.

Compared to HP and Dell they are the best. Still. Not to mention something like Acer, Asus, Razer or MSI.

For business mind you. They are not "gaming laptops"

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#103

Post by rejectfinite »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #11
bogantech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep there's a 30th edition X1 Carbon though the only difference is the sticker and the box https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...

Can't imagine who's buying that at $4000. Your average Thinkpad enthusiast probably paid less for their last ten ThinkPads combined than that.

Its 40% off tho.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#104

Post by j5155 »

stirfish wrote: post #96
squarefoot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops, at least it would restore the reputation for typing feel on ThinkPads. Because, after years of advertising made by designers and not by technical people, for most potential buyers more thin = more modern so to remain in the game they have to adapt to the most idiotic trend today: make devices thin as credit cards no matter ho…

I've had enough of these impossible beauty standards. I'd take a smart phone that's 3x as thick (thicc) if it had 3x the battery life, but I currently settle for a case that's also a battery. When my T420 finally dies (if that's even possible), I'm hoping the Framework laptop is chunky enough to take its place

It exists: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/26/18241117/e...

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#105

Post by sbuk »

leeoniya wrote: post #88
sbuk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same laptop. Keyboard squeaks, USB-C port doesn't hold the adapter in place - falls out all the time. Battery life is appalling for a 2022 model laptop. It runs hot all the time, like burn my legs hot - I cannot work with it on my lap. That's probably related to the OS (Windows 11 'Pro'). Feels cheap and plasticky for the amount it cost. Thank goodness it's supplied by work and I didn't buy it. Not my firs…

interesting. i'll agree on battery life, mine is mostly on AC power (used as workstation) and i never bothered with https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop_Mode_Tools but i hear it makes a huge difference, the 4k display on this doesn't help. my keyboard is okay (they're easy and cheap to swap, maybe try another one), but i do hear some subtle electrical noise from the mainboard when it's "doing stuff". i don't use t…

Mine came with the 1440p matte IPS, which I can concur is utter garbage! Previously, I had an x280. The USB-C, battery and touchpad all had issues, but it was a considerably better machine. "Business" laptops seem to be a crap-shoot to me.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#106

Post by RF_Savage »

notjulianjaynes wrote: post #95
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a "tech person" who did a lot of travelling in the late 90s / early 00s, the Thinkpad T series was the workhorse not only because of the repairability (corporate IT teams could easily maintain them) but as an end user, I loved the Thinkpad due to its durability. They were built very well- mine took a lot of abuse while being shoved under airline seats and being bounced around in luggage, having an occasional coffe…

> I loved the Thinkpad due to its durability. Typing this on a T480 which 2 years ago, I accidentally dropped, while open, screen-first onto concrete from height of about 6 feet. There's a little dent in the bezel, but that's it. Still going strong. I am peeved about the USB-c port not being a replaceable module though. I can still charge through the Thunderbolt/Dock port, but the other one no longer accepts a charge…

Sadly the high speeds required for many things that people now use USB for make simple connectors or wires infeasible inside a compact machine. Can't push gigabits over anything cheap and compact.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#107

Post by 369548684892826 »

pengaru wrote: post #89
jeffbee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X220 was for many long-time ThinkPad users the last good one. It had real keycaps and no trackpad. Too bad about the display, since the X220 was during the era that Lenovo was gaslighting buyers about how IPS panels simply could not be procured on the open market, right before Apple showed them to be liars. The X220 display is truly ghastly. Like some other X-series enthusiasts I consider the X61 Tablet with the…

The X230 is nearly identical physically, and you can swap the X220 keyboard onto it. Advantage being 3rd-gen/HD4000 igpu which is Vulkan capable, not available on the X220. This difference makes the X230 far more practical in terms of modern graphics development/environments.

Also after the X230, the next few generations of intel CPUs that thinkpads used really focused on low power over performance. So because of that it performs like much younger laptops.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#108

Post by faeriechangling »

scrlk wrote: post #24

Sadly they don't make them like they used to. Keyboards and repairability comes to mind. I don't mind the chiclet keycaps, but Lenovo really ruined the keyboard when they went from the 7 row layout [0] to the current 6 row layout [1]. Each new generation of ThinkPad reduces the travel distance of the keyboard - they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on pape…

When I actually do a typing test of speed and accuracy, the only keyboards I do badly on are small keyboards for Losing 2 discrete ram slots sucks, but honestly the lack of expandability is far more of a downside than the lack of reparability. I always save a few bucks by buying memory aftermarket where I can, so for me a computer with discrete ram slots is just a cheaper computer. The swap to USB-C was fantastic, it made chargers which previously cost more than a hundred dollars a commodity and lowered prices and improved reusability, I've saved LOTS of money off that standardisation.

I think the most infuriating modern trend to me is actually is soldering the SSD thus leaving a computers data hostage to a failure elsewhere in the computer. A computers data and the rest of the computer should be separable. Thankfully it doesn't seem Lenovo is soldering the SSD yet.

Re: ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective

#109

Post by tannhaeuser »

jtwaleson wrote: post #8

I’ve been a bit of a Thinkpad fanatic ever since my dad got a T42p somewhere in 2004. I have been on Thinkpads since 2006. I bought old ones on eBay and now have a collection of about 15 machines. The 700c, two butterfly keyboard 701cs, the 240 and a lot more. I’m currently on a T495s. From my experience I can say that the “old IBM machines were reliable and well constructed” is not true. They were bulky and over tim…

Idk, the Thinkpad design itself gets in the way of longevity IME: the extra touchpad buttons collect dust much faster than Apple-style bodies without unnecessary apertures and then start to hang, not to mention they're smaller and much worse than both XPS let alone Apple ones.
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