13 ms·

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

171 points by jpelecanos 8y ago

lallysingh 8y ago
Something to be said about the 25th anniversary selling out in very little time. I was watching it and wondering if I should get one (I missed the keyboard from my w520 but not the weight), but had the decision made for me by it selling out very quickly.
thomasfedb 8y ago
Very pleased with how ThinkPad-y my P51 is, even though it also manages to be a thoroughly modern notebook.
706f6f70 8y ago
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 bay that you could access by removing a single crew. The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with. It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner". I wish I had a legitimate use for older hardware so I could justify picking up one of the IBM-era Thinkpads from eBay and just maintain it into perpetuity. Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine.
- 8draco8 8y ago
  Unfortunately they are going away from that. X280 the same as X1 series do not have easily swapable battery (you can still replace it but you have to get inside of the machine). X280 also don't have Ethernet port even tho there is a room for it. They are replacing SD card readers for useless microSD card readers. X280 have also soldered RAM with no expansion slot. Thinkpads was and to some extend still are great machines, but Lenovo is slowly going in to all glued together, non fixable direction
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    And presumably that unfortunate trend will continue. Unless enough of their big business customers protest loudly, and I don't know to what degree such customers still care about these things.
  - lorenzhs 8y ago
    It's a compromise. You can still get a T480, which does all the things you list afaik. But I'm glad that I can also get an X1 Carbon, which is much thinner and lighter. These things aren't achievable without making some compromises. And for how integrated they are, they're still incredibly repairable. Here's the hardware maintenance manual for mine (X1 Carbon 5, last year's model): https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x1_carbon_5th_hmm_en_sp40m11925_02.pdf https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x1_carbon_5th.... It includes instructions how to replace virtually every part in the machine. Broken screen? Fried mainboard? Broken TrackPoint? This is how you replace it. The more annoying change (imho) is how hard it's become to replace the keyboard. That used to be really easy, remove a handful of screws, slide out the keyboard, and unplug the connector. Now it requires disassembling the entire machine, at least for the X series.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      > It's a compromise. The X200 weighed 1.34 kg, the X280 weighs 1.27 kg. What a massive weight reduction indeed. Totally worth ditching all upgrading possibilities. Reminds me of Apple ditching the 3.5 mm jack with the pretence of making devices thinner and lighter, when neither happened.
    - 8draco8 8y ago
      X260 and X270 size wise was virtually the same and yet had 2 batteries, all the port, docking port and many more goodies. I am in the market for small yet versatile laptop that is easy to travel with and can be used even on a plane. 12 inch form factor of X series was always perfect for me. T series is simply to big.
  - yifanl 8y ago
    I still use my t440p, and my dad still uses a t61 (!) as our respective daily drivers. I've upgraded the drive to an SSD, and slotted in some extra RAM for mine, since it's so easy to upgrade by design. From a consumer point of view, they're great machines. But from the seller's point of view, I can see why they want them to be harder to repair. I probably won't be upgrading for another few years, why should I? The whole trend of planned obsolescence is becoming more and more obvious. I hate it, but it was the obvious outcome.
- BrentOzar 8y ago
  > The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with. At first I agreed with you, reminiscing that I really loved Ultrabay customizability - switching between a battery when I was on the road, a CD drive to load software when I was in the office, and a hard drive when I needed to archive stuff. Today though, in the age of fast bandwidth, all-day batteries, and USB, I'm struggling to think of what I would do with an Ultrabay. The closest I can get is that I could use a battery on the road, and a space-saver empty bay around town, but...that's what external batteries are for these days. The more I think about it, the more I think the fondness for Ultrabays only makes sense in the 1990s/2000s, but there's a good reason they're gone.
  - knaik94 8y ago
    I have an extra hard drive in mine. It means it's basically hot swappable too.
    - organsnyder 8y ago
      I extended the useful life of my T410 by doing the same thing. I had a spare SSD lying around, so I put it in the ultrabay to bring my total SSD storage up to 768 GB.
- cbm-vic-20 8y ago
  > It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner" I suspect they don't want to let customers add memory or storage space down the line, especially from a third party hardware vendor- they want that memory and storage money for themselves. And if your laptop breaks, they don't want you to attempt to repair it- they want you to just buy a new one.
- userbinator 8y ago
  The fans were also easily accessible for cleaning after removing the keyboard/trackpoint assembly, which can be done without removing any other part of the case. They also made the keyboard cable just long enough that you can still operate the laptop with its keyboard half-out (to observe the fans/etc.), and it still folds neatly into place. Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine. There's actually quite a lot of classic car enthusiasts, not necessarily on this site but still significant. It mostly depends on what people you associate with.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I've owned and fiddled with ThinkPads since the 486 days and my previous laptop was a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530. The screen resolution was 1366 x 768, but after some research I found that a W530 screen could be fitted which offered 1920 x 1080. It was literally a straight swap that must've taken less than half an hour.
- michielr 8y ago
  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!
- amiga-workbench 8y ago
  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.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  ~repairability, don't forget that IBM software support processes caused some things to be near impossible hard. Like swapping drives or wifi chips. Other than that they're quite neat.
- rchaud 8y ago
  Regarding repairability, the mid-2000s Dell Latitude line (D600, D620, D630 etc) had similar repairability as well. I worked at my college's IT helpdesk back then and the repairs were easy to make for even student employees whose only reference points were the Dell Service Manual and a couple of training sessions. I am curious to know if that is still the case.
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    Late 2000s Latitudes and Precisions were extremely repairable, too. I have an old Precision M4400 that’s had around a third of its parts swapped out at one point or another and it’s a real dream to work on. Having also worked on a T60p, a T61, and a T400, the Precision was by far the nicest of the four to repair.
- tjoff 8y ago
  Wasn't that pretty much standard in the old days? Many keyboards just had a latch and then you could remove the keyboard without using any tools. Thinkpads was just slower to get rid of that than the most of the brands. Miss it dearly though. Pretty much all my devices are forced to be obsolete because of non-replaceable batteries.
  - escherplex 8y ago
    the old days Still have a couple of T500s and a T510 which function as good as new and primarily are used for running specialized apps in parallel with other machines. SSD swapouts followed by Mint or Win7 installation were easy. Swapping out the optical drive for an HDD using a caddy adapter when needed couldn't be easier. Keyboard drain holes for spillage are a nice touch and should be universal. Replacing the CMOS battery (looks like a capacitor) is a bit surgical and could have been more ergonomic but readily doable (note BIOS settings before replacing). Wonder if the new high-end Lenovos are as well engineered.
  - ken 8y ago
    Apple used to be as good as anyone at this. You could take the keyboard off a PowerBook (to upgrade the RAM) just by sliding a couple tabs: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Titanium+DVI+Keyboard+Replacement/85 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Titanium+DVI+Keybo...
- criddell 8y ago
  It's not just about being thinner, it's about not flexing and feeling so bouncy. New laptops may be less upgradable, but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware? On the other hand, the benefits of a smaller, sturdier machine are experienced every day.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    > but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware Far fewer now, since laptops have become un-upgradeable. ~10 years ago it was fairly common for folks to take their laptops to, e.g., the Geek Squad to have memory upgraded, or to install a larger hard drive. I worked at one such place for ~3 years in the early 2000s, and the laptop upgrade business was booming.
  - hakfoo 8y ago
    The machine I'm typing this on is an X230 Tablet. I bought it used, dropped in a second 4Gb DIMM and a SSD. It took literally minutes longer than to do the same tasks on a desktop, mostly because you had to remove the old HDD from the caddy.
- wott 8y ago
  I don't know... I had only heard praises like yours on that subject, but I have a T410 and I am really not happy about the access: * plenty of screws, * same-looking screws with different length (I won't disassemble it one more time now, but I think that's the case), * bloody clips that WILL break sooner or later, * disassembly is neither super intuitive nor obvious, * I simply could not figure out how to reach some places (like the jack I wanted to fix or change). It is not better in that respect than the random Compaq I used before, rather worse in fact. The only positive is that the plastic ages better than the old Presario's, which got hard and brittle, so small bits regularly broke when I disassembled/reassembled it. I had great expectations that the T410 would be better because of the praises I had read, but in fact it was a little bit worse, so I was quite disappointed.
  - amiga-workbench 8y ago
    My T43 had a legend on the bottom that told you which length screw to use in which hole, it was pretty fantastic.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  I am typing this on a (keyboard attached to) Lenovo P51, which has a user swapable m2 disk (and space for one more, plus an SSD), user upgradable ram, user swappable battery and I can install a SIM card, should I want to. The only thing I can't do, which I could on my last thinkpad, is to add a 9-cell battery.
ilamont 8y ago
I had the 701c "butterfly" described in the article. My previous laptop had been a no-name 486 brick with a black and white screen that I bought at a Taiwanese electronics mall for ~$2000. It was barely portable. The 701c, by comparison, was small and durable, had a nice screen, a faster modem, and easily fit into my daypack. I bought it used for about $800 in 1996 and carried it with me throughout Southeast Asia and wrote my first book on it in a cheap hotel in Penang. The previous owner, bless his soul, had even installed Doom on it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  My Dad had the 701c when I was a kid. When it broke (completely dead, some kind of motherboard / PSU failure) he gave it to me to "fix" so I dismantled it to see how the keyboard worked and then just threw everything in the bin. It still keeps me awake occasionally. :(
  - dejawu 8y ago
    I bought one on eBay a couple years ago! Managed to get it to boot a couple times (still even had the previous owner's data on it), but then it stopped working. When I started taking it apart I found the plastic was so old and brittle it would fall apart if I just barely flexed it. I disassembled it into its components and put them all in a box which is in a closet somewhere. Someday, I'll find a way to adapt the keyboard to make it work with modern hardware and use it in some sort of cyberdeck-like custom build [0]. [0] https://imgur.com/a/h2kR0Gs https://imgur.com/a/h2kR0Gs
csmattryder 8y ago
> Hortensius, however, says that what keeps ThinkPads relevant is trusty productivity rather than any specific aspect of a given model. [...] “It’s because I can count on it that those things matter.” Funny to read this, as I await my Lenovo X1 Carbon to come back from repair, as it shut off one night and never came to boot again. I've also got an ~~IBM~~ (edit: it's a Lenovo!) Thinkpad X220, a motherboard-only shell that I plonked my own hardware choice into, taped a slew of Debian stickers onto and haven't had a fault with, ever. I'll defend the Thinkpad brand with a religious fervour, for the same reason Peter Hortensius says in the article. But under Lenovo's stewardship, I'm left with a lot to be desired. I hope I was just unlucky with this X1 Carbon, that fervour is willing to give Lenovo a second chance, here.
- stilley2 8y ago
  Once my current computer dies I'm done with lenovo for a while. Admittedly I got a mid range computer (yoga 2 pro) not a Thinkpad, but I don't think that excuses the fact that screws simply fall out of the bottom of the machine. Screws which require a nonstandard screwdriver of course. That being said, it is still kicking at almost 4 years, but it has been sent in for repair twice. I'm contemplating my next laptop as a relatively disposable Chromebook running arch.
- rpvnwnkl 8y ago
  Did IBM make the x220? I thought Lenovo produced that model (I have a Lenovo x201).
  - userbinator 8y ago
    I believe the last IBM Thinkpads were in the X60/X61 era. I have an X60 with a mix of IBM and Lenovo branding. Everything after that was Lenovo.
    - csmattryder 8y ago
      Huh, TIL. I'll assume I'm right to give them a second chance, maybe it's just the X1 that's going awry? I've read a lot of reports about the X1's 2013 models that describe the issue that occurred to mine. Like I say, I love Thinkpads, even with this blip - my next laptop will still likely be a Thinkpad, be it IBM or Lenovo.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
I use a lowly X220i (i3 variant of the X220) every single day. It's been upgraded to 8GB RAM, a 128GB SSD and dual-band wifi. The 9-cell battery get me 5-6 hours of web surfing, email and Youtube, and it still feels like a new laptop, despite being ~7 years old. My work-supplied T440 feels like a toy in comparison.
JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
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.
- ce4 8y ago
  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 https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 Edit: better wording
  - x220 8y ago
    This warms my heart. The x220 is one of the most oddly aesthetically pleasing laptops I've ever seen.
  - JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
    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.
  - syntaxing 8y ago
    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.
    - ce4 8y ago
      I own an X220. any hint how not to fail when attempting this? I.e. some english writeup that is usable with instructions et al. All the stuff seems to be in chinese only :-/
mxuribe 8y ago
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!
- ajford 8y ago
  I still miss that keyboard. I had an X201 until it was practically in pieces. The power jack (mobo side) died, and I replaced it once. Replaced the cooling fan. Ran it on a cooling pad to supplement the airflow. Finally, the spacebar and track pad started going out. After about 4 years, I finally broke down and got an X1 carbon. I sorely miss having a non-chiclet keyboard.
AJRF 8y ago
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.
syntaxing 8y ago
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.
- romed 8y ago
  I actually had a hard time finding a legit OEM cooler for my X60 after it failed. Found one offered with the right SKU finally and it was electrically and dimensionally correct but it’s actually the part for some other machine and incredibly the BIOS reads out some data from the fan and complains at boot that it’s got the wrong part. Still works though.
  - syntaxing 8y ago
    I bought a couple items from 51nb (the people who makes the X62 boards) before with good luck since they normally get their parts from scrapped computers. It seems like they shutdown their TaoBao site recently. They opened up a WeiDian site but I have no clue how that site works and how someone in the states buy from them.
modernerd 8y ago
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=hazDhYq8YOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO5LGICeOuk 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=ig3xI8dUdm0&t=1650s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdcutSxmn0 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.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  I've seen reports of people successfully Hackintoshing Thinkpads, so you wouldn't necessarily have to ditch macOS (though there are better options for Thinkpads anyway, IMO).
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Back in those days, ThinkWiki was an excellent resource. Not sure nowadays? I ran Mac OS X (as it was called back then) on my ThinkPad R61 back in the days (2008 or so?). Everything worked, but I did have to replace the Intel WiFi with an Atheros one and fiddle with all kind of options (it is likely easier these days). One or the other supported packet injection. Mac OS X (I think it was 10.6 or 10.7?) did boot a bit slower than 'Linux' though (probably ran Ubuntu with GNOME 2 back in those days; with a more lightweight WM/DE it'd have been even quicker). The TrackPoint is one of those amazing tools I miss on a Mac. However, the Magic Trackpad 2 works on Linux and Windows. See this HN discussion [1] for details. Together with a HHKB with BT I have an excellent keyboard and pointer device supporting BT and USB. I even have carry bags to protect both devices. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273559
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      The ThinkWiki still seems to be a good source of information, though pretty much everything 'just works' on ThinkPads under Linux. I'm not sure it has information on Hackintoshing, but I've seen detailed instructions elsewhere[1], though I've never tried it. I seem to be incapable of using Touchpads/Trackpads properly without getting frustrated. It was only after I 'discovered' ThinkPads that I was able to use a laptop as a device that sat on top my lap (rather than having to have somewhere I could use a mouse). Whenever I have to try to use a colleague's Mac laptop, I feel like a clumsy idiot trying to use the touchpad. [1] E.g. http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/ http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/
keldaris 8y ago
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.
- lorenzhs 8y ago
  I used my T420 until last year, and it's a wonderful machine. But the new keyboards aren't as bad as they were in the beginning any more. They're actually good keyboards now. I just wish they had seven rows. But if that doesn't convince you, maybe have a look at the so-called X210. It's an X201 mod with up-to-date hardware, the laptop equivalent of a sleeper car.
  - keldaris 8y ago
    They're good keyboards by modern standards, but they're still worse than the keyboards on classic Thinkpads (up to X220/T420/T520), both in terms of feedback (both tactile and sound) and the layout. The X210 looks marvelous, though, I'll see if I can get my hands on one. Thanks!
    - lorenzhs 8y ago
      Yeah I kinda have to agree. I got one of the old ThinkPad USB keyboards when someone was careless enough to list it for 25€ on eBay. It was like new! Best purchase I’ve made in a while.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  I really don't know how you deal with the awful screens. Even the nicer IPS screen is low resolution and has bad viewing angles. That alone would be enough to make me upgrade, even if it meant sacrificing everything else on your list.
jasonm89 8y ago
I've been using a t440p as my daily for a year now. Nothing but love for it, I've upgraded the screen, ram, and trackpad. My next upgrade is the CPU to a quad core and this thing will still have a few more years left in it.
knaik94 8y ago
I have a w520 and while the graphics card could use some help from time to time, I splurged for the i7 quad and it's still keeping up with most of what I come across today. My favorite part is how well it handles bad head management. I know I shouldn't but using it on bed sheets isn't really an issue, it does make hell of a sound though. Sounds like an airplane.
oseph 8y ago
Long time macbook user here who just received a used T450 in the mail last week. I bought it just to have access to a Windows machine and I plan to install linux onto it as well. Initial impressions: I really like it! Very solid little machine, and I really like the keyboard feel as well. After years with Apple, the Thinkpad screen and trackpad are pretty crappy in comparison, but overall I love using it. Currently looking into upgrading the display to a 1080 IPS...
solatic 8y ago
It's really sad that Lenovo has driven the design into the ground. I have a X201 running NixOS, that I still use from time to time, and I pulled it out recently to show it to friends. Physically speaking it's a revelation. Three USB ports? Check. Because even today, one port permanently has a YubiKey Nano, one port permanently has a Logitech Unifying nano receiver, and I'll probably be charging my phone out of the third at some point and I'd rather not lose either of the two nano dongles because I had to temporarily unplug them and misplaced them in the process. Mobile radio? Check. Because who likes to fiddle around with pairing their phone to their laptop when they're on the train? Drainage ports if you have a minor spill? Check. Drainage ports in the dock, which match up with the drainage ports on the laptop itself? Check Dock allows you to charge an extra battery while the laptop itself is charging? Check. ThinkLight in the screen to illuminate the keyboard without requiring you to bump up the brightness on the screen and take a bigger hit to battery life? Check. Mechanical latch on the right side, where your hand is naturally located, allowing you to push the screen up with your right hand on the right side of the machine, and push down on the bottom half with your left hand on the left hand side of the machine? Check. Six-key home/end/insert/delete/pgup/pgdwn cluster that mirrors that on a desktop keyboard? Check. Dedicated page back and page forward buttons, baked into the arrow key nav cluster, so that you don't need a two-key combo to go back and forward? Check. TrackPoint lets you mouse without removing hands from the home row? Check. LED status indicators for disk and network usage? Check. Physical WiFi switch? Check. 10/10 repairability? Check. All Lenovo needed to do was to refresh the processor etc. every year, maybe introduce new ports as they came out, and not screw around with a formula that didn't need to be changed. Sigh.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  Meh I have a T470s that has most things here, compared to the Apple equivalent it's got plenty of connectivity and physical ports built in without the need for dongles. I wouldn't mind having a hot swappable battery though...
  - wolster 8y ago
    Wouldnt that be a T470? :)
rconti 8y ago
> In fact, when Hill was named to oversee ThinkPad design in 1995, the line’s general manager informed him that it was time to mix things up. “He felt like three years was enough, and we needed a new design,” Hill remembers. “I honestly couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Well, of all the problems we have, this isn’t one of them.’ Too few people get this.
rainhacker 8y ago
Any recommendations of Thinkpad model to buy in 2018 ? I can wait if anything promising is coming in 2019.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  X280, T480, T480s, 25, and X1 Carbon are all good. I’m not familiar with their workstation laptops.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  The T range or the P range remain good recommendations. The T is a little lighter but you lose some power/upgrade options, the P is kind of what the T used to be (both in terms of price and performance). The current gen' T is a slight lightweight but not a bad buy. They have a bunch of ultra-lights/ultra-books/2-1s, but they aren't "Thinkpads" in the classical sense.
- organsnyder 8y ago
  For me, the "vanilla" T-series is the best compromise for weight, build quality, and repairability. My personal laptop is a T480, and it's an excellent machine. Very portable, screamingly fast, very good screen (I have the high-res IPS variant). If you want a bit more premium feel and lighter weight, the Txxxs (e.g. T480s) is a bit thinner than the regular T-series, and feels a bit sturdier (so I've heard, anyways; my T480 is no slouch here, either). It also has less user-replaceable parts, and is more expensive for the same specs. The X-series also fits here. If you're going more for a luggable desktop replacement rather than small size, the P-series is what you want. I have a P51 for work, and it's an insane machine: 64 GB RAM, Quadro graphics, touchscreen, Xeon processor... It also barely fits in my laptop bag and comes with a massive 170-watt power brick. But since I work from home and drive into the office once a month or so, it's a great machine that gives desktop-level performance (including very good cooling) while still being at least somewhat portable. If you want the Macbook Pro experience of premium feel, thinness, less ability to be repaired, and higher cost, go for an X1 Carbon. I'd still prefer the X1 Carbon over a Macbook Pro, but I'd prefer a T- or P-series over either of them. There are some home/SMB-targetted models, such as the E-series; avoid those unless you absolutely can't afford something better. All of the ones mentioned above were designed for customers that maintain fleets of machines, which has benefits even for non-enterprise users. The current models are very good, and are a big upgrade from the previous generation. Of course, there is always something nicer coming, if you want to wait.
lqet 8y ago
Last year, I decided to build an X62 (Thinkpad X61 or X60 with custom hardware) after reading about it here [1]. Shipment of the modification kit (some plastic parts + a new mainboard) took 2 months from China to Germany. It took me a while to find a brand-new screen as a replacement for the original 1024x786 screen (which has to be modified, including some minor metal-working). After roughly a year of heavy daily use, I must say that this is the best laptop I have owned in my life (including previous Thinkpads R60, T510 and and T460s). The size is just perfect. With the new hardware, it is incredibly light-weight. The 4:3 screen is something I have been missing for a long time on my laptops, and the classic Thinkpad keyboard is just a million times better than the new model. The quality of the original X61 chassis is also very good, and it looks just great. Overall, the laptop cost me roughly 1000 EUR and around 20 hours of work. This includes 32 GB of RAM, a brand new 100 GB SSD and a brand new replacement screen I bought at Alibaba. I started with a broken X61 I bought for around 40 EUR on eBay, on which I replaced the new Lenovo "ThinkPad" logo with the original IBM ThinkPad logo that was still used on the X60. [1] https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/
- marpstar 8y ago
  I bought an X60 for college in 2006. The only complaint I ever had was the 1024x768 display. No CD-ROM, < 3 lbs. The best keyboard I've ever had in a laptop. I miss that thing. I'm too lazy to build an X62 but I love that it is a thing.
  - Yetanfou 8y ago
    I'm still using a number of T42p's with 1600x1200 4:3 screens for these reasons. The combination of the good screen, keyboard and the sturdy hardware weigh up to the disadvantage of the rather anaemic CPU (1.8GHz Pentium M) and the limited memory (2GB). An inline PATA-SATA adapter and a SSD make the things faster than they ever were in their heyday and they still run for hours on the extended battery. It'd be worth a try to stuff a more modern board into its magnesium frame but only if that board could drive the screen.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
SilasX 8y ago
ctrl-f revealed no mention of its product placement on Judge Ito's desk in the OJ Simpson trial. Edit: Really? You don't think all that advertising in such an iconic situation had any relation to its becoming a design icon?
Joeri 8y ago
My lenovo experiences thus far have been mixed. Had a work-provided s540 which was rubbish. Fragile case with blemishes straight out of the factory, so-so performance and battery life, and the main board cracked (literally) just outside of warranty. Replacing that I got a t460p which I’ve had for 2 years now, and that is an amazing machine. Very good build quality, light and compact, while having excellent performance (i7 6700 hq, 32 gb, dedicated graphics), quiet under load and excellent battery life. And it looks like those old-school thinkpads, which is cute. I had heard the T series is good and the S is not, but it’s amusing to experience that myself.
- gwicks56 8y ago
  I have the exact same laptop. I really like it. I purchased because my x220 lasted forever. In fact it's still running fine as my back-up and travel computer. And in case of emergency, I can always beat an intruder to death with it, whilst running a 10 min gradle build. Thinkpads have annoyances, but they are cheap if you don't mind upgrading everything yourself, and they are indestructible in my experience. Plus for coding day, having a thinkpoint greatly adds to my productivity. Shame the screens are usually rubbish.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
One time I was using my T60 on the floor and managed to tip an entire full glass of water right into it, absolute worst case scenario. I turned it off, pulled the battery, drained it, let it sit for about a day to dry then checked if it still worked. It was totally fine. Another time I had a T43 sitting on the high arm rest of a couch, open, and knocked it onto the floor where it fell directly on the corner of the display. It was also fine.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  How much of the floor did you have to replace though?
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    I would guess that the downstairs neighbors were upset to come home to a hole in the ceiling and a laptop stuck halfway through their coffee table.
    - noir_lord 8y ago
      Halfway? I didn't know they made a lightweight version of that model.
kh_hk 8y ago
The 25th anniversary edition should just be an X62.
jlg23 8y ago
> a ThinkPad remains a ThinkPad. Uhm, no. My a20p, bought in 2001 still works. I only swapped the HD once and the keyboard every 6 months or so. I bought my last thinkpad 4 years ago and (given limited time and budget) had only a single model to choose because I wanted metal hinges instead of plastic ones.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
vikingcaffiene 8y ago
Does anyone know of any good upgrade kits for a T410? I've got one thats still going strong but the screen is awful and I'd love to upgrade that and whatever else I can get away with. When I look online I don't usually see stuff for this particular model.
simonblack 8y ago
I have an 8-year-old ThinkPad i5 T410S, since 2010. I tried to replace it in 2012 with an Asus Zenbook but that was not pleasing to me with its flimsiness in keyboard and build-construction. I would like to perhaps buy a later ThinkPad model, but I really don't see any advantage whatsoever in doing so. My T410S was ordered with the extra-large battery which is still going strong, and I swapped out the 500gig hard drive for a 2000gig hard drive about 5 years back.
tzhenghao 8y ago
I've owned a pretty maxed out T420s. When I bought it back in early 2013, it had the standard HDD drive and 8GB of RAM. I swapped it out with a SSD and bumped it up to 16GB RAM, and I can say it still runs pretty well. Aside from not being able to do 4K or having to live with that ugly 1080p screen, it's been just as solid as my late 2016 15inch MBP. Oh, no dongle anxiety too. The ROI on it is pretty amazing. Back when repairability was still a thing.

171 points by jpelecanos 8y ago

Something to be said about the 25th anniversary selling out in very little time. I was watching it and wondering if I should get one (I missed the keyboard from my w520 but not the weight), but had the decision made for me by it selling out very quickly.

thomasfedb 8y ago

Very pleased with how ThinkPad-y my P51 is, even though it also manages to be a thoroughly modern notebook.

706f6f70 8y ago

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 bay that you could access by removing a single crew. The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with. It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner". I wish I had a legitimate use for older hardware so I could justify picking up one of the IBM-era Thinkpads from eBay and just maintain it into perpetuity. Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine.

8draco8 8y ago
Unfortunately they are going away from that. X280 the same as X1 series do not have easily swapable battery (you can still replace it but you have to get inside of the machine). X280 also don't have Ethernet port even tho there is a room for it. They are replacing SD card readers for useless microSD card readers. X280 have also soldered RAM with no expansion slot. Thinkpads was and to some extend still are great machines, but Lenovo is slowly going in to all glued together, non fixable direction
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  And presumably that unfortunate trend will continue. Unless enough of their big business customers protest loudly, and I don't know to what degree such customers still care about these things.
- lorenzhs 8y ago
  It's a compromise. You can still get a T480, which does all the things you list afaik. But I'm glad that I can also get an X1 Carbon, which is much thinner and lighter. These things aren't achievable without making some compromises. And for how integrated they are, they're still incredibly repairable. Here's the hardware maintenance manual for mine (X1 Carbon 5, last year's model): https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x1_carbon_5th_hmm_en_sp40m11925_02.pdf https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x1_carbon_5th.... It includes instructions how to replace virtually every part in the machine. Broken screen? Fried mainboard? Broken TrackPoint? This is how you replace it. The more annoying change (imho) is how hard it's become to replace the keyboard. That used to be really easy, remove a handful of screws, slide out the keyboard, and unplug the connector. Now it requires disassembling the entire machine, at least for the X series.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    > It's a compromise. The X200 weighed 1.34 kg, the X280 weighs 1.27 kg. What a massive weight reduction indeed. Totally worth ditching all upgrading possibilities. Reminds me of Apple ditching the 3.5 mm jack with the pretence of making devices thinner and lighter, when neither happened.
  - 8draco8 8y ago
    X260 and X270 size wise was virtually the same and yet had 2 batteries, all the port, docking port and many more goodies. I am in the market for small yet versatile laptop that is easy to travel with and can be used even on a plane. 12 inch form factor of X series was always perfect for me. T series is simply to big.
- yifanl 8y ago
  I still use my t440p, and my dad still uses a t61 (!) as our respective daily drivers. I've upgraded the drive to an SSD, and slotted in some extra RAM for mine, since it's so easy to upgrade by design. From a consumer point of view, they're great machines. But from the seller's point of view, I can see why they want them to be harder to repair. I probably won't be upgrading for another few years, why should I? The whole trend of planned obsolescence is becoming more and more obvious. I hate it, but it was the obvious outcome.
BrentOzar 8y ago
> The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with. At first I agreed with you, reminiscing that I really loved Ultrabay customizability - switching between a battery when I was on the road, a CD drive to load software when I was in the office, and a hard drive when I needed to archive stuff. Today though, in the age of fast bandwidth, all-day batteries, and USB, I'm struggling to think of what I would do with an Ultrabay. The closest I can get is that I could use a battery on the road, and a space-saver empty bay around town, but...that's what external batteries are for these days. The more I think about it, the more I think the fondness for Ultrabays only makes sense in the 1990s/2000s, but there's a good reason they're gone.
- knaik94 8y ago
  I have an extra hard drive in mine. It means it's basically hot swappable too.
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    I extended the useful life of my T410 by doing the same thing. I had a spare SSD lying around, so I put it in the ultrabay to bring my total SSD storage up to 768 GB.
cbm-vic-20 8y ago
> It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner" I suspect they don't want to let customers add memory or storage space down the line, especially from a third party hardware vendor- they want that memory and storage money for themselves. And if your laptop breaks, they don't want you to attempt to repair it- they want you to just buy a new one.
userbinator 8y ago
The fans were also easily accessible for cleaning after removing the keyboard/trackpoint assembly, which can be done without removing any other part of the case. They also made the keyboard cable just long enough that you can still operate the laptop with its keyboard half-out (to observe the fans/etc.), and it still folds neatly into place. Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine. There's actually quite a lot of classic car enthusiasts, not necessarily on this site but still significant. It mostly depends on what people you associate with.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I've owned and fiddled with ThinkPads since the 486 days and my previous laptop was a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530. The screen resolution was 1366 x 768, but after some research I found that a W530 screen could be fitted which offered 1920 x 1080. It was literally a straight swap that must've taken less than half an hour.
michielr 8y ago
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!
amiga-workbench 8y ago
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.
agumonkey 8y ago
~repairability, don't forget that IBM software support processes caused some things to be near impossible hard. Like swapping drives or wifi chips. Other than that they're quite neat.
rchaud 8y ago
Regarding repairability, the mid-2000s Dell Latitude line (D600, D620, D630 etc) had similar repairability as well. I worked at my college's IT helpdesk back then and the repairs were easy to make for even student employees whose only reference points were the Dell Service Manual and a couple of training sessions. I am curious to know if that is still the case.
- kitsunesoba 8y ago
  Late 2000s Latitudes and Precisions were extremely repairable, too. I have an old Precision M4400 that’s had around a third of its parts swapped out at one point or another and it’s a real dream to work on. Having also worked on a T60p, a T61, and a T400, the Precision was by far the nicest of the four to repair.
tjoff 8y ago
Wasn't that pretty much standard in the old days? Many keyboards just had a latch and then you could remove the keyboard without using any tools. Thinkpads was just slower to get rid of that than the most of the brands. Miss it dearly though. Pretty much all my devices are forced to be obsolete because of non-replaceable batteries.
- escherplex 8y ago
  the old days Still have a couple of T500s and a T510 which function as good as new and primarily are used for running specialized apps in parallel with other machines. SSD swapouts followed by Mint or Win7 installation were easy. Swapping out the optical drive for an HDD using a caddy adapter when needed couldn't be easier. Keyboard drain holes for spillage are a nice touch and should be universal. Replacing the CMOS battery (looks like a capacitor) is a bit surgical and could have been more ergonomic but readily doable (note BIOS settings before replacing). Wonder if the new high-end Lenovos are as well engineered.
- ken 8y ago
  Apple used to be as good as anyone at this. You could take the keyboard off a PowerBook (to upgrade the RAM) just by sliding a couple tabs: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Titanium+DVI+Keyboard+Replacement/85 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Titanium+DVI+Keybo...
criddell 8y ago
It's not just about being thinner, it's about not flexing and feeling so bouncy. New laptops may be less upgradable, but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware? On the other hand, the benefits of a smaller, sturdier machine are experienced every day.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware Far fewer now, since laptops have become un-upgradeable. ~10 years ago it was fairly common for folks to take their laptops to, e.g., the Geek Squad to have memory upgraded, or to install a larger hard drive. I worked at one such place for ~3 years in the early 2000s, and the laptop upgrade business was booming.
- hakfoo 8y ago
  The machine I'm typing this on is an X230 Tablet. I bought it used, dropped in a second 4Gb DIMM and a SSD. It took literally minutes longer than to do the same tasks on a desktop, mostly because you had to remove the old HDD from the caddy.
wott 8y ago
I don't know... I had only heard praises like yours on that subject, but I have a T410 and I am really not happy about the access: * plenty of screws, * same-looking screws with different length (I won't disassemble it one more time now, but I think that's the case), * bloody clips that WILL break sooner or later, * disassembly is neither super intuitive nor obvious, * I simply could not figure out how to reach some places (like the jack I wanted to fix or change). It is not better in that respect than the random Compaq I used before, rather worse in fact. The only positive is that the plastic ages better than the old Presario's, which got hard and brittle, so small bits regularly broke when I disassembled/reassembled it. I had great expectations that the T410 would be better because of the praises I had read, but in fact it was a little bit worse, so I was quite disappointed.
- amiga-workbench 8y ago
  My T43 had a legend on the bottom that told you which length screw to use in which hole, it was pretty fantastic.
tomjen3 8y ago
I am typing this on a (keyboard attached to) Lenovo P51, which has a user swapable m2 disk (and space for one more, plus an SSD), user upgradable ram, user swappable battery and I can install a SIM card, should I want to. The only thing I can't do, which I could on my last thinkpad, is to add a 9-cell battery.

ilamont 8y ago

I had the 701c "butterfly" described in the article. My previous laptop had been a no-name 486 brick with a black and white screen that I bought at a Taiwanese electronics mall for ~$2000. It was barely portable. The 701c, by comparison, was small and durable, had a nice screen, a faster modem, and easily fit into my daypack. I bought it used for about $800 in 1996 and carried it with me throughout Southeast Asia and wrote my first book on it in a cheap hotel in Penang. The previous owner, bless his soul, had even installed Doom on it.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
My Dad had the 701c when I was a kid. When it broke (completely dead, some kind of motherboard / PSU failure) he gave it to me to "fix" so I dismantled it to see how the keyboard worked and then just threw everything in the bin. It still keeps me awake occasionally. :(
- dejawu 8y ago
  I bought one on eBay a couple years ago! Managed to get it to boot a couple times (still even had the previous owner's data on it), but then it stopped working. When I started taking it apart I found the plastic was so old and brittle it would fall apart if I just barely flexed it. I disassembled it into its components and put them all in a box which is in a closet somewhere. Someday, I'll find a way to adapt the keyboard to make it work with modern hardware and use it in some sort of cyberdeck-like custom build [0]. [0] https://imgur.com/a/h2kR0Gs https://imgur.com/a/h2kR0Gs

csmattryder 8y ago

> Hortensius, however, says that what keeps ThinkPads relevant is trusty productivity rather than any specific aspect of a given model. [...] “It’s because I can count on it that those things matter.” Funny to read this, as I await my Lenovo X1 Carbon to come back from repair, as it shut off one night and never came to boot again. I've also got an ~~IBM~~ (edit: it's a Lenovo!) Thinkpad X220, a motherboard-only shell that I plonked my own hardware choice into, taped a slew of Debian stickers onto and haven't had a fault with, ever. I'll defend the Thinkpad brand with a religious fervour, for the same reason Peter Hortensius says in the article. But under Lenovo's stewardship, I'm left with a lot to be desired. I hope I was just unlucky with this X1 Carbon, that fervour is willing to give Lenovo a second chance, here.

stilley2 8y ago
Once my current computer dies I'm done with lenovo for a while. Admittedly I got a mid range computer (yoga 2 pro) not a Thinkpad, but I don't think that excuses the fact that screws simply fall out of the bottom of the machine. Screws which require a nonstandard screwdriver of course. That being said, it is still kicking at almost 4 years, but it has been sent in for repair twice. I'm contemplating my next laptop as a relatively disposable Chromebook running arch.
rpvnwnkl 8y ago
Did IBM make the x220? I thought Lenovo produced that model (I have a Lenovo x201).
- userbinator 8y ago
  I believe the last IBM Thinkpads were in the X60/X61 era. I have an X60 with a mix of IBM and Lenovo branding. Everything after that was Lenovo.
  - csmattryder 8y ago
    Huh, TIL. I'll assume I'm right to give them a second chance, maybe it's just the X1 that's going awry? I've read a lot of reports about the X1's 2013 models that describe the issue that occurred to mine. Like I say, I love Thinkpads, even with this blip - my next laptop will still likely be a Thinkpad, be it IBM or Lenovo.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

I use a lowly X220i (i3 variant of the X220) every single day. It's been upgraded to 8GB RAM, a 128GB SSD and dual-band wifi. The 9-cell battery get me 5-6 hours of web surfing, email and Youtube, and it still feels like a new laptop, despite being ~7 years old. My work-supplied T440 feels like a toy in comparison.

JansjoFromIkea 8y ago

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.

ce4 8y ago
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 https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 Edit: better wording
- x220 8y ago
  This warms my heart. The x220 is one of the most oddly aesthetically pleasing laptops I've ever seen.
- JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
  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.
- syntaxing 8y ago
  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.
  - ce4 8y ago
    I own an X220. any hint how not to fail when attempting this? I.e. some english writeup that is usable with instructions et al. All the stuff seems to be in chinese only :-/

mxuribe 8y ago

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!

ajford 8y ago
I still miss that keyboard. I had an X201 until it was practically in pieces. The power jack (mobo side) died, and I replaced it once. Replaced the cooling fan. Ran it on a cooling pad to supplement the airflow. Finally, the spacebar and track pad started going out. After about 4 years, I finally broke down and got an X1 carbon. I sorely miss having a non-chiclet keyboard.

AJRF 8y ago

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.

syntaxing 8y ago

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.

romed 8y ago
I actually had a hard time finding a legit OEM cooler for my X60 after it failed. Found one offered with the right SKU finally and it was electrically and dimensionally correct but it’s actually the part for some other machine and incredibly the BIOS reads out some data from the fan and complains at boot that it’s got the wrong part. Still works though.
- syntaxing 8y ago
  I bought a couple items from 51nb (the people who makes the X62 boards) before with good luck since they normally get their parts from scrapped computers. It seems like they shutdown their TaoBao site recently. They opened up a WeiDian site but I have no clue how that site works and how someone in the states buy from them.

modernerd 8y ago

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=hazDhYq8YOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO5LGICeOuk 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=ig3xI8dUdm0&t=1650s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdcutSxmn0 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.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
I've seen reports of people successfully Hackintoshing Thinkpads, so you wouldn't necessarily have to ditch macOS (though there are better options for Thinkpads anyway, IMO).
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Back in those days, ThinkWiki was an excellent resource. Not sure nowadays? I ran Mac OS X (as it was called back then) on my ThinkPad R61 back in the days (2008 or so?). Everything worked, but I did have to replace the Intel WiFi with an Atheros one and fiddle with all kind of options (it is likely easier these days). One or the other supported packet injection. Mac OS X (I think it was 10.6 or 10.7?) did boot a bit slower than 'Linux' though (probably ran Ubuntu with GNOME 2 back in those days; with a more lightweight WM/DE it'd have been even quicker). The TrackPoint is one of those amazing tools I miss on a Mac. However, the Magic Trackpad 2 works on Linux and Windows. See this HN discussion [1] for details. Together with a HHKB with BT I have an excellent keyboard and pointer device supporting BT and USB. I even have carry bags to protect both devices. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273559
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    The ThinkWiki still seems to be a good source of information, though pretty much everything 'just works' on ThinkPads under Linux. I'm not sure it has information on Hackintoshing, but I've seen detailed instructions elsewhere[1], though I've never tried it. I seem to be incapable of using Touchpads/Trackpads properly without getting frustrated. It was only after I 'discovered' ThinkPads that I was able to use a laptop as a device that sat on top my lap (rather than having to have somewhere I could use a mouse). Whenever I have to try to use a colleague's Mac laptop, I feel like a clumsy idiot trying to use the touchpad. [1] E.g. http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/ http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/

keldaris 8y ago

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.

lorenzhs 8y ago
I used my T420 until last year, and it's a wonderful machine. But the new keyboards aren't as bad as they were in the beginning any more. They're actually good keyboards now. I just wish they had seven rows. But if that doesn't convince you, maybe have a look at the so-called X210. It's an X201 mod with up-to-date hardware, the laptop equivalent of a sleeper car.
- keldaris 8y ago
  They're good keyboards by modern standards, but they're still worse than the keyboards on classic Thinkpads (up to X220/T420/T520), both in terms of feedback (both tactile and sound) and the layout. The X210 looks marvelous, though, I'll see if I can get my hands on one. Thanks!
  - lorenzhs 8y ago
    Yeah I kinda have to agree. I got one of the old ThinkPad USB keyboards when someone was careless enough to list it for 25€ on eBay. It was like new! Best purchase I’ve made in a while.
wilsonnb3 8y ago
I really don't know how you deal with the awful screens. Even the nicer IPS screen is low resolution and has bad viewing angles. That alone would be enough to make me upgrade, even if it meant sacrificing everything else on your list.

jasonm89 8y ago

I've been using a t440p as my daily for a year now. Nothing but love for it, I've upgraded the screen, ram, and trackpad. My next upgrade is the CPU to a quad core and this thing will still have a few more years left in it.

knaik94 8y ago

I have a w520 and while the graphics card could use some help from time to time, I splurged for the i7 quad and it's still keeping up with most of what I come across today. My favorite part is how well it handles bad head management. I know I shouldn't but using it on bed sheets isn't really an issue, it does make hell of a sound though. Sounds like an airplane.

oseph 8y ago

Long time macbook user here who just received a used T450 in the mail last week. I bought it just to have access to a Windows machine and I plan to install linux onto it as well. Initial impressions: I really like it! Very solid little machine, and I really like the keyboard feel as well. After years with Apple, the Thinkpad screen and trackpad are pretty crappy in comparison, but overall I love using it. Currently looking into upgrading the display to a 1080 IPS...

solatic 8y ago

It's really sad that Lenovo has driven the design into the ground. I have a X201 running NixOS, that I still use from time to time, and I pulled it out recently to show it to friends. Physically speaking it's a revelation. Three USB ports? Check. Because even today, one port permanently has a YubiKey Nano, one port permanently has a Logitech Unifying nano receiver, and I'll probably be charging my phone out of the third at some point and I'd rather not lose either of the two nano dongles because I had to temporarily unplug them and misplaced them in the process. Mobile radio? Check. Because who likes to fiddle around with pairing their phone to their laptop when they're on the train? Drainage ports if you have a minor spill? Check. Drainage ports in the dock, which match up with the drainage ports on the laptop itself? Check Dock allows you to charge an extra battery while the laptop itself is charging? Check. ThinkLight in the screen to illuminate the keyboard without requiring you to bump up the brightness on the screen and take a bigger hit to battery life? Check. Mechanical latch on the right side, where your hand is naturally located, allowing you to push the screen up with your right hand on the right side of the machine, and push down on the bottom half with your left hand on the left hand side of the machine? Check. Six-key home/end/insert/delete/pgup/pgdwn cluster that mirrors that on a desktop keyboard? Check. Dedicated page back and page forward buttons, baked into the arrow key nav cluster, so that you don't need a two-key combo to go back and forward? Check. TrackPoint lets you mouse without removing hands from the home row? Check. LED status indicators for disk and network usage? Check. Physical WiFi switch? Check. 10/10 repairability? Check. All Lenovo needed to do was to refresh the processor etc. every year, maybe introduce new ports as they came out, and not screw around with a formula that didn't need to be changed. Sigh.

fyfy18 8y ago
Meh I have a T470s that has most things here, compared to the Apple equivalent it's got plenty of connectivity and physical ports built in without the need for dongles. I wouldn't mind having a hot swappable battery though...
- wolster 8y ago
  Wouldnt that be a T470? :)

rconti 8y ago

> In fact, when Hill was named to oversee ThinkPad design in 1995, the line’s general manager informed him that it was time to mix things up. “He felt like three years was enough, and we needed a new design,” Hill remembers. “I honestly couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Well, of all the problems we have, this isn’t one of them.’ Too few people get this.

rainhacker 8y ago

Any recommendations of Thinkpad model to buy in 2018 ? I can wait if anything promising is coming in 2019.

wilsonnb3 8y ago
X280, T480, T480s, 25, and X1 Carbon are all good. I’m not familiar with their workstation laptops.
Someone1234 8y ago
The T range or the P range remain good recommendations. The T is a little lighter but you lose some power/upgrade options, the P is kind of what the T used to be (both in terms of price and performance). The current gen' T is a slight lightweight but not a bad buy. They have a bunch of ultra-lights/ultra-books/2-1s, but they aren't "Thinkpads" in the classical sense.
organsnyder 8y ago
For me, the "vanilla" T-series is the best compromise for weight, build quality, and repairability. My personal laptop is a T480, and it's an excellent machine. Very portable, screamingly fast, very good screen (I have the high-res IPS variant). If you want a bit more premium feel and lighter weight, the Txxxs (e.g. T480s) is a bit thinner than the regular T-series, and feels a bit sturdier (so I've heard, anyways; my T480 is no slouch here, either). It also has less user-replaceable parts, and is more expensive for the same specs. The X-series also fits here. If you're going more for a luggable desktop replacement rather than small size, the P-series is what you want. I have a P51 for work, and it's an insane machine: 64 GB RAM, Quadro graphics, touchscreen, Xeon processor... It also barely fits in my laptop bag and comes with a massive 170-watt power brick. But since I work from home and drive into the office once a month or so, it's a great machine that gives desktop-level performance (including very good cooling) while still being at least somewhat portable. If you want the Macbook Pro experience of premium feel, thinness, less ability to be repaired, and higher cost, go for an X1 Carbon. I'd still prefer the X1 Carbon over a Macbook Pro, but I'd prefer a T- or P-series over either of them. There are some home/SMB-targetted models, such as the E-series; avoid those unless you absolutely can't afford something better. All of the ones mentioned above were designed for customers that maintain fleets of machines, which has benefits even for non-enterprise users. The current models are very good, and are a big upgrade from the previous generation. Of course, there is always something nicer coming, if you want to wait.

lqet 8y ago

Last year, I decided to build an X62 (Thinkpad X61 or X60 with custom hardware) after reading about it here [1]. Shipment of the modification kit (some plastic parts + a new mainboard) took 2 months from China to Germany. It took me a while to find a brand-new screen as a replacement for the original 1024x786 screen (which has to be modified, including some minor metal-working). After roughly a year of heavy daily use, I must say that this is the best laptop I have owned in my life (including previous Thinkpads R60, T510 and and T460s). The size is just perfect. With the new hardware, it is incredibly light-weight. The 4:3 screen is something I have been missing for a long time on my laptops, and the classic Thinkpad keyboard is just a million times better than the new model. The quality of the original X61 chassis is also very good, and it looks just great. Overall, the laptop cost me roughly 1000 EUR and around 20 hours of work. This includes 32 GB of RAM, a brand new 100 GB SSD and a brand new replacement screen I bought at Alibaba. I started with a broken X61 I bought for around 40 EUR on eBay, on which I replaced the new Lenovo "ThinkPad" logo with the original IBM ThinkPad logo that was still used on the X60. [1] https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/

marpstar 8y ago
I bought an X60 for college in 2006. The only complaint I ever had was the 1024x768 display. No CD-ROM, < 3 lbs. The best keyboard I've ever had in a laptop. I miss that thing. I'm too lazy to build an X62 but I love that it is a thing.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  I'm still using a number of T42p's with 1600x1200 4:3 screens for these reasons. The combination of the good screen, keyboard and the sturdy hardware weigh up to the disadvantage of the rather anaemic CPU (1.8GHz Pentium M) and the limited memory (2GB). An inline PATA-SATA adapter and a SSD make the things faster than they ever were in their heyday and they still run for hours on the extended battery. It'd be worth a try to stuff a more modern board into its magnesium frame but only if that board could drive the screen.
Waterluvian 8y ago

SilasX 8y ago

ctrl-f revealed no mention of its product placement on Judge Ito's desk in the OJ Simpson trial. Edit: Really? You don't think all that advertising in such an iconic situation had any relation to its becoming a design icon?

Joeri 8y ago

My lenovo experiences thus far have been mixed. Had a work-provided s540 which was rubbish. Fragile case with blemishes straight out of the factory, so-so performance and battery life, and the main board cracked (literally) just outside of warranty. Replacing that I got a t460p which I’ve had for 2 years now, and that is an amazing machine. Very good build quality, light and compact, while having excellent performance (i7 6700 hq, 32 gb, dedicated graphics), quiet under load and excellent battery life. And it looks like those old-school thinkpads, which is cute. I had heard the T series is good and the S is not, but it’s amusing to experience that myself.

gwicks56 8y ago
I have the exact same laptop. I really like it. I purchased because my x220 lasted forever. In fact it's still running fine as my back-up and travel computer. And in case of emergency, I can always beat an intruder to death with it, whilst running a 10 min gradle build. Thinkpads have annoyances, but they are cheap if you don't mind upgrading everything yourself, and they are indestructible in my experience. Plus for coding day, having a thinkpoint greatly adds to my productivity. Shame the screens are usually rubbish.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

One time I was using my T60 on the floor and managed to tip an entire full glass of water right into it, absolute worst case scenario. I turned it off, pulled the battery, drained it, let it sit for about a day to dry then checked if it still worked. It was totally fine. Another time I had a T43 sitting on the high arm rest of a couch, open, and knocked it onto the floor where it fell directly on the corner of the display. It was also fine.

noir_lord 8y ago
How much of the floor did you have to replace though?
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  I would guess that the downstairs neighbors were upset to come home to a hole in the ceiling and a laptop stuck halfway through their coffee table.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Halfway? I didn't know they made a lightweight version of that model.

kh_hk 8y ago

The 25th anniversary edition should just be an X62.

jlg23 8y ago

> a ThinkPad remains a ThinkPad. Uhm, no. My a20p, bought in 2001 still works. I only swapped the HD once and the keyboard every 6 months or so. I bought my last thinkpad 4 years ago and (given limited time and budget) had only a single model to choose because I wanted metal hinges instead of plastic ones.

deleted 8y ago
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vikingcaffiene 8y ago

Does anyone know of any good upgrade kits for a T410? I've got one thats still going strong but the screen is awful and I'd love to upgrade that and whatever else I can get away with. When I look online I don't usually see stuff for this particular model.

simonblack 8y ago

I have an 8-year-old ThinkPad i5 T410S, since 2010. I tried to replace it in 2012 with an Asus Zenbook but that was not pleasing to me with its flimsiness in keyboard and build-construction. I would like to perhaps buy a later ThinkPad model, but I really don't see any advantage whatsoever in doing so. My T410S was ordered with the extra-large battery which is still going strong, and I swapped out the 500gig hard drive for a 2000gig hard drive about 5 years back.

tzhenghao 8y ago

I've owned a pretty maxed out T420s. When I bought it back in early 2013, it had the standard HDD drive and 8GB of RAM. I swapped it out with a SSD and bumped it up to 16GB RAM, and I can say it still runs pretty well. Aside from not being able to do 4K or having to live with that ugly 1080p screen, it's been just as solid as my late 2016 15inch MBP. Oh, no dongle anxiety too. The ROI on it is pretty amazing. Back when repairability was still a thing.