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How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

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Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#21

Post by michielr »

706f6f70 wrote: post #4

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…

I'd love to chime in here and specify that this extends to almost every part of a ThinkPad. I had a screen hinge break on my T430, €7 later the replacement hinges were on their way. Replacing them took about 30 minutes and a Philips head screwdriver. Love these machines!

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#22

Post by mxuribe »

I own two ThinkPad T420s and my favorite thing about them - well, besides of course being able to install linux without any headaches due to the work of soooo many FOSS engineers - is the keyboard. Man, I never really thought I would appreciate something so seemingly basic...but the keyboard - as silly as this sounds - makes it so much more fun to type!

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#23

Post by AJRF »

I use a T420 at home with an i7 2nd Gen (Power hunry) @ 2.3Ghz + 16GB Ram and a 250gb SSD. Its old, but its at the inflection point where its more cost effective for me to do some cloud compute the few times a year I need it rather than spending £1500 on a new laptop. The laptop cost me around £130 all in.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#24

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

ce4 wrote: post #17
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #16

Bought an X220T a few months ago as a possible sturdy laptop for my mother. Was something like $80? A day after delivery, I had purchased an 8GB ram stick and an SSD for it to keep it for myself. If it had a 1080p screen it'd probably be my main laptop until High Sierra isn't supported by something I need.

Some people are a bit crazy and love the X220 enough to attempt a FullHD mod (with custom hardware and rerouting of the external eDP signal/lane internally). Not for the X220T though. A kit was for sale here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 Edit: better wording

I actually saw this before and was kind of relieved to discover the X220T couldn't do it, I just know I'd've tried to do it otherwise.

It's a remarkably stable Hackintosh though, really regret not buying one 4 years ago. The pen (on windows) is better than I expected too.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#25

Post by syntaxing »

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.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#26

Post by syntaxing »

ce4 wrote: post #17
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #16

Bought an X220T a few months ago as a possible sturdy laptop for my mother. Was something like $80? A day after delivery, I had purchased an 8GB ram stick and an SSD for it to keep it for myself. If it had a 1080p screen it'd probably be my main laptop until High Sierra isn't supported by something I need.

Some people are a bit crazy and love the X220 enough to attempt a FullHD mod (with custom hardware and rerouting of the external eDP signal/lane internally). Not for the X220T though. A kit was for sale here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 Edit: better wording

You can buy an upgrade kit using the same Sharp screen from the Dell XPS series for the X220/X230. The best bet is to go through a TaoBao agent and buy it from nb51 directly.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#27

Post by amiga-workbench »

706f6f70 wrote: post #4

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…

I'm still running an X201t with no intention to upgrade. One of the last machines in that sweet spot of having a sensibly designed keyboard, no trackpad and an IPS display.

I recently had to swap out a keyboard on a 2012 era Macbook and its very clearly highlighted just how good I have it with this thing.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#28

Post by modernerd »

It's pretty amazing what you can put them through too.

As a MacBook owner Lenovo's dust tests have me wincing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hazDhYq8YOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO5LGICeOuk

And the waterproofing is kind of incredible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig3xI8dUdm0&t=1650s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdcutSxmn0

Now that they make a solid, thin, repairable, upgradeable 15" laptop for creative types (ThinkPad X1 Extreme), it's becoming increasingly tempting to switch as a MacBook owner, even if I have to ditch macOS.

Re: How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)

#29

Post by keldaris »

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. Luckily, picking up refurbished X220s is cheap and with current hardware trends being what they are these machines should satisfy my needs for another half a decade at least.
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