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ThinkNext Design

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Re: ThinkNext Design

#81

Post by estimator7292 »

nullhole wrote: post #42
ezst wrote: post #9

My ThinkPad (T480s) is turning 8 this year, and only got its first battery replacement last month. I've been carrying it with me everywhere, on every single trip (office or holidays alike), on all continents. In that same timespan, I used up 3 backpacks and 2 suitcases along the same routes. All I want for its replacement is not to cost an insane amount of money because of the made-up by AI components shortage, and m…

Where did you get the battery? Lenovo no longer sells T480 batteries afaict, and 3rd party vendors are a (dangerous) crapshoot.

I got an extended battery at Microcenter on clearance for $5 last year. Best Microcenter find ever.

My previous one came from ebay. As long as you don't buy one that's suspiciously cheap you should be good. Spend more than you think it's worth.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#82

Post by leipie »

ezst wrote: post #9

My ThinkPad (T480s) is turning 8 this year, and only got its first battery replacement last month. I've been carrying it with me everywhere, on every single trip (office or holidays alike), on all continents. In that same timespan, I used up 3 backpacks and 2 suitcases along the same routes. All I want for its replacement is not to cost an insane amount of money because of the made-up by AI components shortage, and m…

I have gone through quite a few over the years. The oldest I still have are a W530 and X230 Tablet. The former I just reinstalled with Gentoo for one of my kids. Still very usable. The keyboard and trackpoint is very enjoyable, better than later ones. My latest are an AMD X13 gen 4 and a ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II for the other devices with inferior keyboards ;)

Re: ThinkNext Design

#83

Post by applied_heat »

arianvanp wrote: post #36

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who…

I still have two 2013 era t430s, one with windows 7 and one with windows 10. When browsing the web they barely feel any slower than my corporate supplied t14 gen 2 or p1 gen 6 both with windows 11 now. I guess that’s the price of security.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#84

Post by schmichael »

worldsavior wrote: post #58

Kind of on topic, but how is Thinkpad with Linux compares to macOS? Battery life, driver support, performance, security, etc.

Absolutely nothing beats the integration of Apple software and hardware. As it should be because they don't give you another option! You can't run Apple software on anything else (without hacks), and you can't run anything else on Apple hardware (without significant effort and sacrifice in functionality). This is Apple's whole design philosophy and value prop, and they are essentially unbeatable at systems integration.

This deep software/hardware integration means Apple absolutely destroys everyone at battery life. No contest. If you want to optimize for battery life, Apple is the choice.

The deep integration also makes Apple's security quite good. Obnoxiously so as they make even common operations like downloading software off the web take extra steps.

That being said as soon as you stray outside of a pure Apple ecosystem, Linux wins in my experience. Plugging a Logitech mouse into my MacBook prompted me to install Logitech keyboard drivers... Not only was the device type wrong but drivers?! ...for a simple input device?! I haven't had to worry about printer, mouse, keyboard, webcam, usb mic, drawing pad, etc drivers in years. Simple devices almost universally Just Work in Linux without having to install or configure anything. It's mind boggling when I touch Windows or macOS and am greeted with proprietary drivers for something like a basic laser printer.

But there's plenty of counter-examples: Nvidia requires their proprietary driver to fully utilize their hardware, but the driver is much better than it used to be. My understanding is that no one on Windows really enjoys dealing with Nvidia drivers either, so it's probably a similar scenario.

At the end of the day I use both Linux and macOS regularly and prefer Linux overall. My Macbook Air's battery life and lack of fans does make it unbeatable for actual lap-top computing, and when I want to look and sound good on a Zoom call I can always count on its builtin camera and mic. So I basically use my Macbook as a laptop form factor iPhone or iPad, which I think is Apple's intent and fills a niche for sure.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#85

Post by [deleted] »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #28

I don't think there's a sexier laptop design than the Thinkpad'. I've tried other manufacturers, a M2 Mac, Dell, HP, yet something always pulls me back to ThinkPads, even if the recent versions aren't the powerhouse the 4xx versions were. The black and orange combination just has something so alluring. That and also the flexibility of the warranty/support if you buy used. I've probably owned over 7 ThinkPads so far,…

[deleted]

Re: ThinkNext Design

#86

Post by netule »

arianvanp wrote: post #36

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who…

I still use my old T420, though less than I used to. Coincidentally, the RAM died this week, but a $30 investment later, and it lives again. At this point, I think I've repaired or replaced every single swappable component aside from the display.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#87

Post by neilv »

arianvanp wrote: post #36

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who…

I'm using my ThinkPad T520 daily driver right now.

With its non-chiclet keyboard, I type 12+ hours every day, never any discomfort.

Last year, I bought a late-model ThinkPad, to experimentally try replacing the T520. So I could have some local GPU compute, and not have to stockpile dwindling rare high-spec replacement units, in my minimalism lifestyle. But I haven't yet felt motivated to try out the new one, and see whether I can move to a not-as-good keyboard layout and a suspicious key action.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#88

Post by esseph »

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…

Thinkpad T or X series had always been the best Linux laptops I've ever had. All of the hardware has always Just Worked, they have a nice selection of bios-level security features, and the build quality has always been just fine. Cases / keyboards / track point / touchpads never failed after 6-8y of owning each.

Very happy with them.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#89

Post by esseph »

captain_coffee wrote: post #35
jeswin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a ThinkPad user forever, and I wouldn't buy another one if they "upgraded" to metal like everyone else. If I were to guess, most serious ThinkPad users would want the current shell, the dated appearance, and the keyboard to not change much or at all.

Any particular reason for avoiding the metal cases? I was under the impression that a metal case - making the laptops more durable and resistant to potential damage - would be a desirable thing.

I've never had a shell/case break. Why would I want to spend more?

Re: ThinkNext Design

#90

Post by fr3772 »

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 - an example of bad design par excellence. The touchpad was bad in all 3 laptops.
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