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Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

engadget.com

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Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#41

Post by tomjen3 »

djmdjm wrote: post #11

I hope this doesn't mean further abandoning the Thinkpad design values (centered around excellence in functional design) to compete on the ones that Apple has been so successful on (excellence in visual design). If they do they won't win and will mess up an excellent and unique brand in the process. They've already started down this road IMO, dropping their near-perfect keyboard for a trendy chiclet one in the x230.…

Thanks for telling me that - I fucking loved the keyboard on my previous ThinkPads, so that I a deal killer for me.

Typeing on that keyboard was soo nice.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#42

Post by atondwal »

kybernetyk wrote: post #34
wyclif wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm puzzled by this comment. Arch values elegance, code correctness, and minimalism. Initially Arch installs a very minimal base system, and package management is done via rolling release. Perhaps you should explain exactly how Arch is a "maintenance nightmare."

Ok, I'm speaking purely from my experience and there's a big chance that I'm stupid but: I've tried running Arch as my main OS in the last year. I needed a weekend to configure the OS and even wrote a little daemon to handle the conservative fan spin ups on my overheating Macbook Pro. After that it was great as long as it lasted. But then the OS just died 3 times. What had I done? A simple > pacman -Syu was enough. W…

If all the initscripts and kernel updates break Arch, then you probably made a mistake or two in some conf file installing it. (eg not having /boot correctly in the fstab will break you on every kerenl update, for example)

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#43

Post by atondwal »

viraptor wrote: post #33
meaty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch is a maintenance nightmare if you want to be productive.

It does need some more time to setup, that's true - things like custom drivers, power management, etc. require some config changes. But once it's working, I don't see it as a maintenance nightmare. The only two points I could complain about is that: 1. There should be a better guide/support for dkms, or you have to recompile your driver by hand every kernel upgrade 2. You must look at the `pacman` output while upgrad…

Alternately all the important bits of pacman output are in /var/log/pacman.log and everything that _requires_ manual intervention is posted on the archlinux.org site. You should not update before checking the arch news.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#44

Post by [deleted] »

viraptor wrote: post #33
meaty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch is a maintenance nightmare if you want to be productive.

It does need some more time to setup, that's true - things like custom drivers, power management, etc. require some config changes. But once it's working, I don't see it as a maintenance nightmare. The only two points I could complain about is that: 1. There should be a better guide/support for dkms, or you have to recompile your driver by hand every kernel upgrade 2. You must look at the `pacman` output while upgrad…

[deleted]

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#45

Post by drbig »

meaty wrote: post #19
msutherl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. The ThinkPad is the only computer that could potentially tempt me away from my MacBook. So far I'm stuck to OS X though (dreaming of Arch minimalism).

Arch is a maintenance nightmare if you want to be productive.

It is not as long as you pay attention and know what you want.

There is always a tradeoff between 'works as _I_ want' and 'how much time _I_ have to spend on maintenance'. It is always your choice, and if you want an OS that you can craft exactly to your needs Arch is currently the best (in most cases, of course).

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#46

Post by rjh29 »

meaty wrote: post #19
msutherl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. The ThinkPad is the only computer that could potentially tempt me away from my MacBook. So far I'm stuck to OS X though (dreaming of Arch minimalism).

Arch is a maintenance nightmare if you want to be productive.

I've spent a couple of hours a few times a year having to maintain my OS so far. I vastly prefer this to Ubuntu, where pretty much everything broke every 6 months.

The tradeoff is that you get new and shiny software continually.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#47

Post by rjh29 »

djmdjm wrote: post #11

I hope this doesn't mean further abandoning the Thinkpad design values (centered around excellence in functional design) to compete on the ones that Apple has been so successful on (excellence in visual design). If they do they won't win and will mess up an excellent and unique brand in the process. They've already started down this road IMO, dropping their near-perfect keyboard for a trendy chiclet one in the x230.…

I love the x220 keyboard, but the chiclet is getting a lot of praise. The spring keyboards are somewhat fragile and get messy, so it might even be an upgrade.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#48

Post by rjh29 »

fest wrote: post #10

The best they could do is ditch Thinkpad brand for their consumer grade machines (SL , R ). T and X series are Thinkpads. The rest- not so much. SL and R series "Thinkpads" are rubbish, imo. Not to mention the cheap Ideapad's- the build quality is on par with pretty much every other cheap notebook manufacturers.

I agree. I was excited to hear we were getting Thinkpads at work, since I have an X220 at home. But alas, they were consumer-grade laptops designed for watching TV, not a patch on their higher-end devices. They shouldn't share a brand.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#49

Post by dscrd »

dshep wrote: post #29
wyclif wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm puzzled by this comment. Arch values elegance, code correctness, and minimalism. Initially Arch installs a very minimal base system, and package management is done via rolling release. Perhaps you should explain exactly how Arch is a "maintenance nightmare."

When I used Arch last year, they also regularly break things in ways that require manual fixes every month or so. So don't dare update without first reading the news, lest you end up with a broken system and no way to find out why it broke. Stick with Debian or Ubuntu if its your main laptop OS.

Last year admittedly was rather bad in that sense, because of a couple sweeping changes. Hopefully we don't have to repeat those too many times in the future.

The flipside is that Arch Linux has shown to be able to make sweeping and controversial changes rapidly for longer term benefit.

Re: Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group

#50

Post by meaty »

gabemart wrote: post #28
meaty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a 10 year old T-series (Think its a T21) in the cupboard. It did 7 years service for the original user for 4-5 hours a day. It was dropped and bashed around regularly. I only keep it because it has a real serial and parallel port but its still going strong!

I used a T60 as a second monitor for my main laptop and an X40 as my travel laptop. Together they cost well under $150 and I could probably sell them today for what I paid for them. Great machines (although the T60 has a fan speed problem that I fixed with some third party software--without the fix it would be so annoying as to be unusable for me.)

I had the same thing with my T61. It was due to the sense wire on the fan being crimped slightly between the keyboard and roll cage assembly. I managed to fix it with some wiggling of the wire without resorting to fan control software. I also took the entire thing to bits and replaced the heatsink goo with Arctic Silver.

I paid approx $150 for this T61.

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