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> Only problem are the Lenovo executives that are not willing to provide such product (see Thinkpad Retro). I had (and loved) a few Thinkpads, but I wouldn't p

> Only problem are the Lenovo executives that are not willing to provide such product (see Thinkpad Retro). I had (and loved) a few Thinkpads, but I wouldn't produce one if I was a Lenovo executive as well, unless I had extremely good indicators from the market. To me it seems one of those ideas that prospective clients think they'll buy, but they won't. Realistically speaking, a 13.3" old school Thinkpad nowadays would be twice as thick (~3 cm) and weight 40/50% more than renowned competitors like a Dell XPS or a MBP. There's not much to squeeze, as the philosophy of Thinkpads was (also) to allow the user to change parts, which takes space and weight. In such conditions, there is a serious risk that it would appeal only to a very limited audience (which is a serious business risk).

fragmede 9y ago
At the executive level at Lenovo, there's little room to recognize the unofficial Thinkpad X62 as anything more than a mere curiosity when comparing Thinkpad sales to Apple's Macbook sales, forgotten after morning coffee. Less extreme modifications to retrofit the classic 7-row Thinkpad keyboard to a more modern T430 chassis wouldn't even rate a mention. Keyboards are really really important but only a tiny subset, and even if the retro Thinkpad's target market all bought them, that would still dwarf corporate sales where Thinkpads are bought by the thousands, including parts and lucrative service contracts. As an individual user who will only personally ever own a handful of Thinkpads, I'm never going to be a lucrative service contract.