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ThinkPad Anniversary Edition 25: Limited Edition ThinkPad Goes Retro
- warrenm 9y agoAnd here I was hoping for a 3" thick laptop with a 1024x768 11" screen
- tosstossy 9y agoThis should have been an x70; an oem x62 w/led backlit sxga+. Not some preexisting workstation replacement beast with a classic keyboard slapped on it. Lenovo has been such a disappointment.
- basch 9y agoi wish it had the one of the T410/T420/T430 blue middle click buttons. It used to sit much higher at an angle, now it is flatter. All 3 of the trackpad buttons above the pad are inferior.
- zwieback 9y agoBrings back memories - I was working in a SW startup in 1992 and we were subcontracting for IBM, developing OS/2 network SW. They gave us a bunch of PS/2 PCs but also tossed in an early ThinkPad.
- derekp7 9y agoI've been following this for a couple years, lots of discussion on reddit /r/thinkpad. They basically produced a T470 with a classic style keyboard, and anniversary badging. As far as what people hoped for, they couldn't do a 4:3 or 3:2 display, as that requires a larger bulk purchase than what they planned for this model (only 5000 units produced). The thinklight wasn't possible because the screen bezel is thinner. Hopefully they will use the classic keyboard on additional models in the future, but there is no indication of that at this time.
- DerfNet 9y agoYeah, the best we can hope for is that keyboard being an option on the T series moving forward. I really don't want to switch to chiclets when my T420 finally stops being perfect.
- woodrowbarlow 9y agowhat are the benefits of the thinklight over a backlit keyboard? my old thinkpad had the thinklight and i hated it. i found that while using my laptop in an unlit room with the thinklight, the blue function icons were impossible to distinguish and the top-left and top-right corners of the keyboard required straining my eyes. i was 18-20 years old with 20/20 vision at the time. i would actually be very tempted by this release if i hadn't just bought a dell XPS because i love the trackpoint (and lenovo's was always leagues ahead of dell's) and i love having dedicated volume controls and a hardware mute button (i can let my function keys be function keys without missing out on single-key volume control).
- Zak 9y agoThe benefit is that it can be used to illuminate objects other than the keys, such as a paper you're copying information from. A thinklight with higher color quality, and maybe adjustable brightness would solve the problems you had with it; white LEDs have come a long way in the past decade.
- tosstossy 9y agoI use the thinklight for illuminating RSA keyfobs in the dark. Granted, I can tilt the screen and crank up its brightness to achieve the same thing, but it's cumbersome and maybe some people would prefer to read something illuminated while typing and seeing the screen simultaneously. At least my RSA codes are short enough to type from memory.
- midgetjones 9y agoThis is extremely interesting to me. So much about those machines make them perfect for dev.
- tosstossy 9y agoIf it's the keyboard you're attracted to, x230s can be picked up for ~200$, and the x220 classic keyboard+palmrest bolt right on. My x230 has an i7 w/16GiG and msata ssd for a whole lot less money than this retro thinkpad.
- vesrah 9y agoCan you put a decently bright 1920x1080 display in that, or buy one as configured?
- tosstossy 9y agoYes, though I haven't done it myself. Search Google for nitrocaster fhd. I think you lose docking port functionality, as the mod steals the external display lines.
- ct0 9y agoYes you can. https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=122640 https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=122640
- midgetjones 9y agoThe keyboard and the aspect ratio, although I now realise this new version doesn't feature the latter. I do have plenty of old thinkpads, but I've never tried getting any modern components into one.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoThe keyboard is important, but so is the rest of the laptop. The i7 in the x230 is much, much less power efficient than this one. The 16 GB of RAM is 1600 MHz DDR3, not DDR4. The msata SSD is decent, but it's designed to be just a cache drive by default and isn't a proper NVMe PCIe drive. It (remarkably) has USB 3 and Displayport, but no USB C or Thunderbolt. The battery in a used $200 laptop will likely be in need of replacement. And the display is the worst part: a disgusting 1366x768 with terrible colors and a weak CFL backlight, instead of a decent FHD or WQHD IPS LED. The price is great, the keyboard is awesome, the display and various internals can be upgraded to be modern enough for now, but there are a lot of drawbacks to be aware of...says the guy with a T430 :)
- eugeneionesco 9y agoExpensive and hard to get in Europe :(
- antihero 9y agoDo you think it'll ship with BonzaiBuddy preinstalled?
- blackaspen 9y agoI like that it comes with NVidia graphics -- that doesn't look like something you can get on a T470. The price point, while expensive, is still much better than I thought it'd be (I was thinking well over $2000).
- khedoros1 9y agoLooks like it's an option in the T470P.
- solatic 9y agoIf you need the horsepower, you can get a T4XXp. 940MX is already somewhat outdated and will age quickly, for people who do need the horsepower. nVidia graphics mean poorer libre graphics driver support on Linux, compared to Intel graphics drivers, not to mention the battery hit. If you're a developer looking to buy a programming workhorse, Intel graphics are a better choice.
- joecool1029 9y agoI’m sorry, they had years to prepare this and couldn’t even align the ‘B’ properly. 51nb.com (chinese thinkpad forum) has been doing better work with less resources by putting updated motherboards into classic thinkpad chassis. (see X62 for example)
- tosstossy 9y agoThe x62 is super attractive, except even the sxga+ mod is still a dim CCFL, or if you mod for led slightly brighter but colors all wrong with all sorts of artifacts from the light strip, and aftermarket-only awful batteries. -An sxga+ (w/led mod) x61s owner.
- radialbrain 9y agoTyping this on an LED SXGA X61, you want: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-kit.shtml https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-kit.shtml No banding on the bottom, accurate colors, and great brightness.
- tosstossy 9y agoMy mod was less successful, and the colors are definitely off. Having done the mod myself and seen how cumbersome it is to get the LED strip perfectly oriented in the CCFL gutter, I'm not likely to try again.
- agumonkey 9y agoHow to grab attention for nothing. Could have reduced the trackpoint outer rim ..
- Stratoscope 9y ago> couldn’t even align the ‘B’ properly. That's because of the low profile TrackPoint. The upper notch on the B key is larger than it was on older ThinkPads with the high profile TrackPoint. This is nothing new; every recent ThinkPad with the low profile TrackPoint has the B label offset like this. It's not something you notice when actually using the machine: I've been using a ThinkPad Yoga 460 for most of this year, and never realized the B label was offset until I saw people talking about it when the T25 keyboard photos were leaked. Unlike the high profile TrackPoints on all my previous ThinkPads, the low profile one never leaves a smudge on the screen. I'll take that over a perfectly aligned key label any day.
- yoodenvranx 9y agoSomeone please bring back 14" Laptops with 4:3 screens!
- walterbell 9y agoApple sells 4:3 screens in the iPad Pro.
- khedoros1 9y agoAnd the iPad Pro isn't a laptop. It's a tablet running a locked-down, irreplaceable mobile device OS.
- dxhdr 9y agoA similarly equipped T470p is $600 cheaper on their website. I can't seem to add a 940MX on the regular T470. I'm a big ThinkPad fan but I actually like their chiclet keyboards (blasphemy), so I guess this is a pass for me. I think it's cool they're even doing the anniversary edition though.
- drenvuk 9y agoThat's incorrect. A similarly equipped T470 is maybe ~$300 less but you miss out on the discrete gfx card and the keyboard. I think you're looking at the base price and forgetting the three year warranty that comes with this. I've already bought one since the value is worth it.
- zokier 9y agoUnless I'm bad at their webshop game, it seems bit curious that you can't get a T470(p) with both dGPU and low-power CPU. Dropping the GPU the equivalent model (with 3yr warranty) comes to basically $1500, compared to $1900 for the anniversary model. $400 (~25% increase) for the keyboard seems still bit steep, dGPU most likely being more of a burden than benefit for doing anything useful (ie running Linux).
- bubblethink 9y ago>but you miss out on the discrete gfx card Feature, not bug, at least on linux. For some kind or a commemorative device, it's very short sighted how they wrote its obsolescence in its design by forcing an nvidia card.
- noir_lord 9y agoI have the T470P with 7700HQ and 2560x1440, it is brilliant. I can't fault anything on it that.
- aspett 9y agoHow about a lack of thunderbolt 3? _The_ reason I can't buy one.
- NikolaNovak 9y agoHmm, the Lenovo configurator only offers one model: no indication whether RAM can be upgraded to 32GB afterwards (which is what my current T420 and T420s both have). The CPU can take it *1, but not certain what the memory config on the laptop is... 1: https://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz- https://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Pro...
- plg 9y agodoes it work with linux?
- Mikeb85 9y agoThinkPads almost always do... Typing this on a ThinkPad running Linux right now.
- reirob 9y agoThis is my first question too. Went to the shop, but it looks that it's only available with NVidia and maximum 16GB RAM. I need optimal Linux compatibility and more RAM (have 20GB now and reaching limits). I'm disappointed, because I have to replace my 450s and absolutely wanted the keyboard of Thinkpad 25. I hope there will be the option to buy it with an Intel graphics card and add RAM. Does anybody know more?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nickysielicki 9y agoI do not understand why they're still putting GPUs in laptops under 17". Sell me an external thunderbolt 3 GPU for the rare occasion where I need a GPU, use the space you save for something else. The difference between entry-level to mid-tier mobile GPUs and Intel's integrated graphics is too small to justify carrying it around with you 24/7. GPUs are the new DVD drive.
- soared 9y agoMy bet is Microsoft excel. Many users need slightly more power than an integrated gfx card offers.
- ac29 9y agoThis almost certainly would have been more competitive with a i7-7560U instead of a i7-7500U (the former has 2x the graphics execution units and 64MB eDRAM). Same TDP. The only reason I can think to put an NVIDIA dGPU is for people who need CUDA.
- frou_dh 9y agoThat makes a lot of sense actually. I haven't followed the evolution of Thunderbolt, but if such external GPUs are now fully supported and reliable then it's a bit of an inflection point for laptops.
- khedoros1 9y agoI don't want something as large as 17 inches, and having purchased a machine without discrete graphics, I'm kind of regretting it. > GPUs are the new DVD drive. Coincidentally, I'm also missing the ethernet jack and internal blu-ray drive that my last laptop had. Dongles and external hardware suck. They make the whole experience of using the machine more awkward and less streamlined.
- macawfish 9y agoI have an x230t and it's amazing. Core i5, SSD and 16 GB RAM. Plus it has a touch screen with a pressure sensitive pen. It was like $1200 less than all these computers people are talking about here.
- NikolaNovak 9y agoNice laptop, but unless I'm mistaken, based on google image search, it has exactly none of the features people are interested in T25 for - the keyboard is the modern design, with no separation between function keys, and no Insert/Home/Delete/End quadrant. I have a T450 which work gave me sitting in the closet - it's also perfect, but I can't get used to its keyboard, and am using my personal T420 and T420s instead. Personal preference :)
- DerfNet 9y agoyou can swap x230/t430 to the x220/t420 keyboard, for what it's worth. sticking point to me on the X220/230 is that 1366x768 screen, but I believe the X230 can be upgraded to 1080p.
- zokier 9y agoI have an x240, which is okayish otherwise, but I'm quite annoyed that it is the model they decided to try dropping mouse buttons. x230 and x250 both have them, but of course x240 had to be the one I got.
- hadlock 9y agoThe X250 trackpad is a drop-in replacement, if you own your ThinkPad it's a $20 part reasonably quick to swap
- revmoo 9y agoAnyone know if it's possible to swap a non-shitty screen into it?
- Zak 9y agoThe huge bezel under the screen looks ridiculous. It should be filled with more screen. I like the keyboard, but this doesn't bring back most of what I love about oldschool thinkpads.
- diggernet 9y agoAny guesses on Linux compatibility?
- tejohnso 9y agoMy guess would be very compatible, except perhaps for the fingerprint reader. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T470s https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T470s
- zokier 9y agoIt has nvidia graphics though, that does not bode well
- compuguy 9y agoYou could always just disable the discrete graphics card...
- reirob 9y agoDoes it mean that the Thinkpad 25 has two graphics cards?
- 4ad 9y agoThe Intel GPU is in the CPU, so yeah, it has two GPUs. Unfortunately, if it's like other ThinkPads I think the HDMI output requires the discrete GPU.
- reirob 9y agoThank you for the reply. So it would be possible to use it without the nvidia card, but then connecting to an external monitor will not work. that's sad, but I rarely work with external monitors. Looked up on different forums and people had quite some trouble with Linux and nvidia cards, so I'm really not convinced. I've read as well on reddit [1] that the key travel is actually less than on the classic and newer chicklet style keyboards. Will wait until people report how the typing experience is with this keyboard. I don't care about the looks, but the typing experience is really important, because I'm spending all the time on the keyboard and though I love my T450s, I have to say that it's far from the IBM Thinkpad keyboards (although it's seems one of the best for modern laptops). I'm still not decided. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/74drfl/thinkpad_25_discussion_thread_release_oct_5/dny69of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/74drfl/thinkpad_2...
- tomatsu 9y agoFn and Ctrl are the wrong way around. My laptop also got pgup and pgdn in those position, but they have a slightly different shape than the up key. I flipped them with Home and End with seems to be a somewhat popular thing to do. Works much better for me. The 1920x1080 resolution is a bit disappointing. Crispy text needs more DPI.
- tejohnso 9y agoI share your disappointment with the resolution. 1920x1080 is at the low end of acceptability. I'm at 2560x1440 on the Carbon X1 and I won't go back. I never understood your side of the Ctrl / Fn placement argument though. Why would you want the left side Ctrl key to be further from center than the right side Ctrl key? And why would you want a more rarely used key (Fn) to be closer to center?
- SippinLean 9y agoBecause I'm used to Ctrl being the outermost key on desktop keyboards
- zeveb 9y agoBut that's really an incorrect position for it. The most commonly used keys should be easiest to hit (hence the Command key on Macs being right next to the spacebar). Since Control is used more often then Alt, Control should be immediately next to the spacebar, then Alt, then Function.
- trimtab 9y agoRats! They didn't provide the old mouse pad with buttons above and below. The "click anywhere" mouse pads are a pain. And who wants to be stuck with only a iCore 7U processor?
- bhandziuk 9y agoIf they're going to drop one set, why the bottom set? My thumb operates those buttons and my thing does the cursor position...maybe some people are the opposite.
- soperj 9y agoBecause most people who use a thinkpad use the trackpoint. I disable my trackpad.
- Stratoscope 9y agoButtons at the bottom of the touchpad are not usable with the TrackPoint. Well, you could use them, but you'd have to move your hand down every time you wanted to click. One of the big attractions of the TrackPoint is that you can use it directly from the home row without moving your hands.
- chx 9y agoSo much negativity today! Now look: I have a T420s , yes, it's a Sandy Bridge CPU from 2011. It's older than my boots. It got a full HD screen hack last year. Now look what I am getting: * a decent upgrade in CPU speeds * three years warranty instead of hair raising hacks * Thunderbolt 3 * 32GB RAM support I truly do not need anything else. Compared to what I was afraid of and budgeted for... at the end of the day I have six years worth of unspent laptop money. I already bought a second half tera SSD, two PackedPixels, a large battery and if more reports confirm it's single module 16GB then I'll buy a second 16GB stick now (I originally thought it's going to be a pair of 8GB and so I only planned going 32GB later but if it's already single stick then even better). I am happy with what I will get when I return to Canada. The comparison to the T470p is total irrelevant -- why would I buy a machine without Thunderbolt 3 these days? The Microsoft keynote at IFA showcased a small Lenovo TB3 dock containing a GTX 1050, Sonnet and Mantiz both have talked about totally portable TB3 docks. It will happen. And then I have enough graphics power when I want and a perfect light ThinkPad when I don't want. If I were an avid FPS gamer then I could leave a powerful TB3 eGPU on my desk. Truly, eGPU is the bees knees and you dont want to miss out. And if you compare to the T470 you will realize the premium is not that much. There are a lot of "what if" scenarios but being mad over them not happening is stupid. We got something impossible: a laptop made for fans. No one else ever did anything even remotely similar. HP did a sticker for their calculator anniversary.
- eveningcoffee 9y agoWell, 14" FHD antiglare (1920 x 1080) IPS multitouch. Well, it is a reflective screen how ever they want to put it. Edit: I fortunately double checked this before ordering.
- TheCowboy 9y ago> I have six years worth of unspent laptop money. I bought a used W520 a couple years ago because I couldn't find a system with a keyboard like this. I think it's too early for people to be so negative. If a few months from now this edition flops because it didn't go all out, then okay, but we're not there yet. While it doesn't have everything, I'm staring at a picture of a laptop made in 2017 with a keyboard that matches this 2011 machine. Maybe if this sells out quickly we'll see more iterations in the direction that Thinkpad "retro" fans want.
- jasonkester 9y agoIt'd be awesome if they offered that classic keyboard for sale to retrofit onto existing 470 and future models. I just got a 470p, and I'd shell out for a real keyboard today.
- fzn 9y agoAnybody got a list of the countries where it's going to be available? (I'm tired of refreshing pages)
- MichaelGG 9y agoSo just some cutesy styling on a T470p, which seems underwhelming. Was hoping for 3:2 and something a bit more rugged which would also help with heat. The T470p and X270 have terrible reviews on heat.
- dingo_bat 9y agoWTF the logo is upside down! How could they have fucked that up?
- walkingolof 9y agoI was really hoping for a 4:3 aspect ratio, the golden ratio for developers.....this is just very disappointing ...
- mamon 9y agoThey can't "go retro", their laptops never stopped looking retro :)
- happycube 9y agoI don't think the 940MX is worth the TDP - if they moved that to the CPU there'd be enough to put in a 35W quad-core CPU, which even in 8th gen would be a nice boost. A lie7 with 940MX really isn't going to age well at all :( edit: And the T470P looks like a much nicer base for this. The base (real quad-core i5) config pumped up to $1250 is a better machine! sigh
- tedwasright 9y agoJust bought this to replace my aging mbp. Should I run windows 10 or go with Mint?
- Stratoscope 9y agoMy suggestion is to stick with Windows 10 and turn on the Windows Subsystem for Linux. That gives you an Ubuntu command line userland running inside Windows. Then if you have any more specific Linux needs, use virtual machines to install any Linux distribution you want.
- diggernet 9y agoFriend of mine does this. All well and good, if you like working primarily in Windows. I prefer Linux as my primary OS, so this approach is rather less than ideal for me.
- drdaeman 9y agoJust a reminder that Lenovo is - unfortunately - not a company one can trust. https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/lenovo-rootkit-malware.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/lenovo-rootkit-malware.htm... https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/lenovo-superfish-malware.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/lenovo-superfish-malware.h...
- orthecreedence 9y agoAgreed, I was a pretty die-hard lenovo fan until they started pulling this shit. When my t410 started showing its (very) old age last year, I went with a Razer Blade instead of a new thinkpad. I'm extremely happy with it. I know razer pumps out a good deal of lemons, but I won the lottery and have no problems at all. EDIT: I do really miss the nub (or whatever it's called). It made programming in crammed areas (bus/plane/wife sleeping on me) much easier.
- solatic 9y agoX201 owner here. Still use it, but not as a daily driver, and I'm in the market for one. Lenovo screwed the pooch on this one. 1) Limited production run (5,000 units) and limited target audience (the multi-color logo and anniversary badging? Really?) drastically increased the price beyond what was reasonable (base entry cost being double the non-anniversary base cost, forced spec decision due to a sole SKU aside). 2) No status LEDs 3) No ThinkLight 4) No 4:3 or 3:2 display 5) Given that the display is 16:9, only 1080p is offered 6) No physical kill switches e.g. for WiFi let alone more modern ones like for the webcam and microphone 7) 940MX is aging, with poorer driver support in Linux compared to Intel offerings, not to mention the battery hit from a dGPU 8) What is up with the letter alignment on the B key? On a machine where the keyboard is THE selling point? It's really sad to watch the unboxing video they "made for the community" where they claim that it's unfeasible to throw in a Thinklight into a modern Thinkpad because the bezel is too thin. Well - pray tell, why is the bezel that thin?? The entire Thinkpad brand was based on making, first and foremost, highly functional machines. Like I've said before in my comments, Thinkpads were the blue jeans and pickup trucks of laptops. I don't want my blue jeans to be thin, and I don't want my trucks to ride close to the ground. Maybe I don't want such thin bezels either, if they're going to force a compromise on functionality. A T470 with a retro keyboard is not a modern successor to classic Thinkpads. They used to be so much more. Maybe $1900 would be worth it if they developed a true successor, but not this.
- intrasight 9y agoAgree on all points. Let's hope they get the message and do better next time. And I do in fact hope there is a next time.
- Stratoscope 9y ago> What is up with the letter alignment on the B key? On a machine where the keyboard is THE selling point? The people who care the most about keyboards are touch typists who don't look at the key labels. Moving the B label is because of the low profile TrackPoint which requires a larger notch in the B key. Every recent ThinkPad has this; it's something you'd never notice in actual use, only in photos of keyboards. I had no idea my ThinkPad Yoga 460 and my friend's X1 Carbon had misaligned B labels until people started talking about it WRT the T25, and I certainly don't care about it now. Definitely agree about the screen resolution; it would be a huge downgrade from the Yoga 460.
- jonbaer 9y agoIf only it had the butterfly keyboard ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboar...
- CryoLogic 9y agoI bought the original S431 thinkpad with hybrid graphics for about $1500 when it came out. At the time I was a university student, and had saved for maybe 6 mos on my part time job to purchase it. The original s431 had heat issues that came from the graphics card inside of it's slim body. The graphics card would actually heat up hot enough to melt the laptop. When people figured this out Lenovo pulled it off of the market (it was only sold for 1 month). The bottom of my laptop melted when I was gaming one day, before I knew this was an issue. The keyboard also stopped working. I called about it to see if I could replace it but they said they where not servicing it unless I had a warranty. So even though it was a manufacturer defect, they would not service my laptop. They said they would sell me a new keyboard for $200 and I could install it myself. So I did. Turns out the keyboard cable that attaches to the motherboard was also melted. The new keyboard did nothing. Fuck lenovo. I will never purchase from a company with that terrible of customer support again. Edit: The laptop also shipped with a bunch of faulty drivers, and because the HDD was some custom lenovo hybrid drive instead of a standard drive you could not wipe the drive and reinstall windows.
- duncan_bayne 9y agoWell, I'm done. I've been a Lenovo fanboy for _years_, currently running a maxxed-out X220 w/ FreeBSD 11.1. But after _years_ of clamouring by the ThinkPad community, Lenovo has a released a decidedly half-assed machine. Yay for the keyboard, but no 4:3 / 3:2, ThinkLight? This is just a cynical exercise in branding. And _then_, they are only making 5,000 of them, so that the price is high, and (unlike other older models, like the X220) they won't be thick on the ground in a few years for parts.
- inertiatic 9y agoI don't know why it's this hard for companies to make a laptop to appeal to technical people. I get it that Apple, making a laptop model every couple of years, can't afford to because they need to target a broader market, but other laptop manufacturers make tens or hundreds of devices a year. Also, why would you buy this thing at this price when 4C/8T ultra low voltage Intel CPUs are hitting the market?
- chaoticmass 9y agoMost of my actual 'work' I need a laptop for (remote stuff over SSH, testing web apps in a browser) is still handled just fine by my x41.