9 ms·

Sadly they don't make them like they used to. Keyboards and repairability comes to mind. I don't mind the chiclet keycaps, but Lenovo really ruined the keyboar

by scrlk 4y ago

Sadly they don't make them like they used to. Keyboards and repairability comes to mind. I don't mind the chiclet keycaps, but Lenovo really ruined the keyboard when they went from the 7 row layout [0] to the current 6 row layout [1]. Each new generation of ThinkPad reduces the travel distance of the keyboard - they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you switch between them. I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops, at least it would restore the reputation for typing feel on ThinkPads. For repairability: soldered WLAN cards, 1 SO-DIMM slot or soldered RAM on T/X series machines (HP offers 2x SO-DIMM slots on most EliteBooks) are a step backwards. USB-C charging sounds good at first, but the ports start to wear out after 2 years and become loose. They are soldered to the motherboard, so good luck repairing them if you aren't good at micro soldering. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/t420_tastatur1_02.jpg https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/t420_... [1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/f/5/csm_IMG_6065_208e57da37.jpg https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/f/5/csm_...

peteradio 4y ago
Have an gen1 x13 AMD running Pop OS! which is supported well in the latest kernels (early on there were issues with sound). Its a great machine to develop on with no hardware problems yet, although I'm only at the 2.5 year mark.
MeltedVoltage 4y ago
I have found that it is often dust in the port that makes them feel loose. Cleaning them with a little brush (like the ones that come with an electric shaver) made a lot of difference for me.
- heeen2 4y ago
  The port on my phone started to feel loose to the point where charging became an issue. The dust and lint was compressed so much that nothing short of a steel needle helped.
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    You can get a small magnetic adapter that plugs into the port, then a corresponding charging lead with a magnet on the end connects to that. This is easier to plug in while not looking (e.g. driving) and has the side effect that the port doesn't fill up with lint since it has the magnetic plug thing in it all the time.
squarefoot 4y ago
> I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops, at least it would restore the reputation for typing feel on ThinkPads. Because, after years of advertising made by designers and not by technical people, for most potential buyers more thin = more modern so to remain in the game they have to adapt to the most idiotic trend today: make devices thin as credit cards no matter how this would impact their usability, battery life, robustness, repairability etc.
- boppo1 4y ago
  all they gotta do is make an ad like this: person sits down at new thinkpad laptop "It's so... thicc" Narrator: we added an extra millimeter... starts clacking on the keys and makes an O-face *...for your pleasure." the market is absolutely out there, zoomers love their mechanical keyboards.
- JamesAdir 4y ago
  One marketing campaign can change it in no time. Maybe not for the entire industry but certainly for Lenovo.
- stirfish 4y ago
  I've had enough of these impossible beauty standards. I'd take a smart phone that's 3x as thick (thicc) if it had 3x the battery life, but I currently settle for a case that's also a battery. When my T420 finally dies (if that's even possible), I'm hoping the Framework laptop is chunky enough to take its place
  - j5155 4y ago
    It exists: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/26/18241117/energizer-power-max-p18k-pop-huge-battery-phone-mwc-2019 https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/26/18241117/e...
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  I don't think that's true anymore since apple is reversing that trend with their new iphones being their thickest ever. The latest stupid trend seems to be to treat a device as a camera with smart features attached.
jagger27 4y ago
> they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you switch between them Absolutely correct. For context, typical Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches have a total travel around 4mm. We’re very sensitive to switch height.
- rjh29 4y ago
  Mechanical keyboard types presumably can't use any laptop keyboard without feeling ill and needing to lie down for a while. The Thinkpad keyboard provides a great typing experience for 99% of people.
  - jagger27 4y ago
    Not sure what prompted that kind of snide response. I think most ThinkPad keyboards are lovely to use. All I pointed out is that millimetres and fractions of millimetres are very easy to detect and that the travel difference between the most fancy mechanical switch and even the maligned butterfly switch is only about 3mm. That is to say that travel distance is not the most important metric in what makes a keyboard nice or unpleasant to use.
    - rjh29 4y ago
      It was snide, I apologise. I just found it weird to compare laptop keyboards to mechanical switches since they're never going to be in the same ballpark.
      - lproven 4y ago
        Why not? Why not laptops with mechanical keyboards again? It was basically 100% of laptops from the 1990s for a decade or two. Is choice a bad thing? We can choose OS, we can choose editors and desktops and so on... but if you want a portable computer with 1cm of key travel and a click: well, it sucks to be you, so GTFO and STFU. I detest chiclet keyboards. At some point soon all my decade-old Thinkpads will wear out and everything newer, including Thinkpads, is nasty thin-and-light plastic junk. To quote my favourite Tumblr post ever: https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-dont-want-my-laptop-to-be-the-thinnest-model https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-do... « I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer. [...] I will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death. » Even the optical drive is negotiable, TBH. But the drive bay would be handy. Give me both SATA and NVMe for a honking great spinning disk.
jpalomaki 4y ago
As longtme Lenovo user I sometimes wonder if they are designing for users or for corporate buyers.
- bluedino 4y ago
  The TN 1366x768 screens they used for years say "corporate buyers"
- rvense 4y ago
  I heard they started actually talking to their users, and most of their users are office workers who'd rather have McBooks.
legitster 4y ago
I'm currently typing this from my T450s. My perspective: I love the chiclets. They did a good job. The keys are perfectly shaped to reduce accidental presses. > I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops Because they are already market leaders on key travel. Why aim for perfection when you are already ahead of everyone else. I agree that I don't like the direction they are heading towards USB0-C and non removeable batteries, but at least for the mid-model years I think they did a good job balancing which components were replaceable.
- rjh29 4y ago
  What's USB0-C? USB-C for power is a huge improvement over their proprietary connector. I can carry one USB-C charger and it works for all of my devices.
  - __float 4y ago
    It's probably a typo of USB-C? 0 and - are next to each other on many keyboard layouts.
faeriechangling 4y ago
When I actually do a typing test of speed and accuracy, the only keyboards I do badly on are small keyboards for <12" devices, and long travel keyboards (As in desktop mechanical keyboards). I've been hearing about how essential long travel is for so long, I've owned an old Thinkpad, I've owned a new Thinkpad, and I'm not sure what it is about travel that makes a better keyboard if it doesn't decrease errors or increase speed. In fact since it takes longer to bottom out and register an input, one could make an argument high travel was a downside, but I don't see this reflected in the measurements I've taken of myself. Losing 2 discrete ram slots sucks, but honestly the lack of expandability is far more of a downside than the lack of reparability. I always save a few bucks by buying memory aftermarket where I can, so for me a computer with discrete ram slots is just a cheaper computer. The swap to USB-C was fantastic, it made chargers which previously cost more than a hundred dollars a commodity and lowered prices and improved reusability, I've saved LOTS of money off that standardisation. I think the most infuriating modern trend to me is actually is soldering the SSD thus leaving a computers data hostage to a failure elsewhere in the computer. A computers data and the rest of the computer should be separable. Thankfully it doesn't seem Lenovo is soldering the SSD yet.

by scrlk 4y ago

peteradio 4y ago

Have an gen1 x13 AMD running Pop OS! which is supported well in the latest kernels (early on there were issues with sound). Its a great machine to develop on with no hardware problems yet, although I'm only at the 2.5 year mark.

MeltedVoltage 4y ago

I have found that it is often dust in the port that makes them feel loose. Cleaning them with a little brush (like the ones that come with an electric shaver) made a lot of difference for me.

heeen2 4y ago
The port on my phone started to feel loose to the point where charging became an issue. The dust and lint was compressed so much that nothing short of a steel needle helped.
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  You can get a small magnetic adapter that plugs into the port, then a corresponding charging lead with a magnet on the end connects to that. This is easier to plug in while not looking (e.g. driving) and has the side effect that the port doesn't fill up with lint since it has the magnetic plug thing in it all the time.

squarefoot 4y ago

> I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops, at least it would restore the reputation for typing feel on ThinkPads. Because, after years of advertising made by designers and not by technical people, for most potential buyers more thin = more modern so to remain in the game they have to adapt to the most idiotic trend today: make devices thin as credit cards no matter how this would impact their usability, battery life, robustness, repairability etc.

boppo1 4y ago
all they gotta do is make an ad like this: person sits down at new thinkpad laptop "It's so... thicc" Narrator: we added an extra millimeter... starts clacking on the keys and makes an O-face *...for your pleasure." the market is absolutely out there, zoomers love their mechanical keyboards.
JamesAdir 4y ago
One marketing campaign can change it in no time. Maybe not for the entire industry but certainly for Lenovo.
stirfish 4y ago
I've had enough of these impossible beauty standards. I'd take a smart phone that's 3x as thick (thicc) if it had 3x the battery life, but I currently settle for a case that's also a battery. When my T420 finally dies (if that's even possible), I'm hoping the Framework laptop is chunky enough to take its place
- j5155 4y ago
  It exists: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/26/18241117/energizer-power-max-p18k-pop-huge-battery-phone-mwc-2019 https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/26/18241117/e...
FridayoLeary 4y ago
I don't think that's true anymore since apple is reversing that trend with their new iphones being their thickest ever. The latest stupid trend seems to be to treat a device as a camera with smart features attached.

jagger27 4y ago

> they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you switch between them Absolutely correct. For context, typical Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches have a total travel around 4mm. We’re very sensitive to switch height.

rjh29 4y ago
Mechanical keyboard types presumably can't use any laptop keyboard without feeling ill and needing to lie down for a while. The Thinkpad keyboard provides a great typing experience for 99% of people.
- jagger27 4y ago
  Not sure what prompted that kind of snide response. I think most ThinkPad keyboards are lovely to use. All I pointed out is that millimetres and fractions of millimetres are very easy to detect and that the travel difference between the most fancy mechanical switch and even the maligned butterfly switch is only about 3mm. That is to say that travel distance is not the most important metric in what makes a keyboard nice or unpleasant to use.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    It was snide, I apologise. I just found it weird to compare laptop keyboards to mechanical switches since they're never going to be in the same ballpark.
    - lproven 4y ago
      Why not? Why not laptops with mechanical keyboards again? It was basically 100% of laptops from the 1990s for a decade or two. Is choice a bad thing? We can choose OS, we can choose editors and desktops and so on... but if you want a portable computer with 1cm of key travel and a click: well, it sucks to be you, so GTFO and STFU. I detest chiclet keyboards. At some point soon all my decade-old Thinkpads will wear out and everything newer, including Thinkpads, is nasty thin-and-light plastic junk. To quote my favourite Tumblr post ever: https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-dont-want-my-laptop-to-be-the-thinnest-model https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-do... « I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer. [...] I will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death. » Even the optical drive is negotiable, TBH. But the drive bay would be handy. Give me both SATA and NVMe for a honking great spinning disk.

jpalomaki 4y ago

As longtme Lenovo user I sometimes wonder if they are designing for users or for corporate buyers.

bluedino 4y ago
The TN 1366x768 screens they used for years say "corporate buyers"
rvense 4y ago
I heard they started actually talking to their users, and most of their users are office workers who'd rather have McBooks.

legitster 4y ago

I'm currently typing this from my T450s. My perspective: I love the chiclets. They did a good job. The keys are perfectly shaped to reduce accidental presses. > I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops Because they are already market leaders on key travel. Why aim for perfection when you are already ahead of everyone else. I agree that I don't like the direction they are heading towards USB0-C and non removeable batteries, but at least for the mid-model years I think they did a good job balancing which components were replaceable.

rjh29 4y ago
What's USB0-C? USB-C for power is a huge improvement over their proprietary connector. I can carry one USB-C charger and it works for all of my devices.
- __float 4y ago
  It's probably a typo of USB-C? 0 and - are next to each other on many keyboard layouts.

faeriechangling 4y ago

When I actually do a typing test of speed and accuracy, the only keyboards I do badly on are small keyboards for <12" devices, and long travel keyboards (As in desktop mechanical keyboards). I've been hearing about how essential long travel is for so long, I've owned an old Thinkpad, I've owned a new Thinkpad, and I'm not sure what it is about travel that makes a better keyboard if it doesn't decrease errors or increase speed. In fact since it takes longer to bottom out and register an input, one could make an argument high travel was a downside, but I don't see this reflected in the measurements I've taken of myself. Losing 2 discrete ram slots sucks, but honestly the lack of expandability is far more of a downside than the lack of reparability. I always save a few bucks by buying memory aftermarket where I can, so for me a computer with discrete ram slots is just a cheaper computer. The swap to USB-C was fantastic, it made chargers which previously cost more than a hundred dollars a commodity and lowered prices and improved reusability, I've saved LOTS of money off that standardisation. I think the most infuriating modern trend to me is actually is soldering the SSD thus leaving a computers data hostage to a failure elsewhere in the computer. A computers data and the rest of the computer should be separable. Thankfully it doesn't seem Lenovo is soldering the SSD yet.