48 ms·

ThinkPad Design: Spirit and Essence

71 points by Adrock 14y ago

jtreminio 14y ago
The font on that page is making my head hurt. I can't even read it.
- protomyth 14y ago
  Given the content is not dynamic, they could have posted a webpage or a pdf and made it easier on everyone. There is some irony here.
- runemadsen 14y ago
  The design and font use is a direct clone of many pamphlets Paul Rand made for IBM.
TorbjornLunde 14y ago
Very interesting, but the Flash-based player of this is not very readable. Is it available as a PDF?
- tnhh 14y ago
  This URL was hiding in the source: http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=69081166&selectedPages=all http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=6...
stan_rogers 14y ago
Well, that was a horrible experience. Sure, my connection is unforgivably slow, but a long player download (in my case, about four minutes) followed by a long per-page content download (with no apparent prefetch) means that I didn't get very far before bailing. Oh, and none of the usual keyboard navigation (arrows) work. There are a lot of ways to present something like this that work; this doesn't, particularly.
- miahi 14y ago
  The presentation looked fine and loaded really fast on my Android phone using 3G network.
- epaik 14y ago
  On the other end of the spectrum, I thought the presentation was impressive. I have a typical broadband connection, and I thought it worked just fine. The loading time seemed instantaneous. I actually appreciate that modern websites are increasingly being designed for higher standards of internet bandwidth/connectivity. It's not that I think bandwidth isn't precious, but when websites can deliver beautiful content at the cost of an extra 10th of a second of loading time on a modern connection, I think it's worth it. A four minute download time on your part implies you have some kind of dial-up connection, is there a reason why you haven't upgraded to a faster service?
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    Actually, that's what was passing for 3G at the time (it's not always rock-solid, and one doesn't have private towers). It doesn't take a lot of stuttering to make a site like that fail. Beauty and responsiveness are not mutually exclusive, and none of the content I saw warranted a player -- garden-variety HTML and CSS would have done as well.
acabal 14y ago
I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.
- oftenwrong 14y ago
  Maybe I am broken, but I think they are the best looking laptops. Ironically, their "function-over-form" design yields a form I find beautiful.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  I use ThinkPads and their timeless design is one of my favorite things about them. For a lot of people, shiny aluminum is great, but some appreciate the ThinkPad color scheme.
  - acabal 14y ago
    I'm not knocking the color scheme, I think black with red highlights can look pretty slick myself. It's just the overall feeling I get... it just looks so sharp-edged and industrial. To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. On the other hand they're doubtlessly excellent machines and there's no accounting for taste, even mine :)
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      > To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. I see "aesthetic" as a subjective concept, so I don't really understand how it can have an opposite. It's a matter of opinion, and for a lot of people, the ThinkPad design has what they're looking for.
- zerostar07 14y ago
  I think it's intentional, well, not ugly but no effort to make it beautiful either. I see my computer as a tool; do people care if their electric drill looks ugly? Plus, if you ask me, sturdy case, functional keyboard, docking connector and myriad of ports is a very smart design that trumps macbooks.
linuxhansl 14y ago
I have privately been using ThinkPads exclusively for many years now. These are the best laptops I ever used (and I am being supplied with work laptops that ranged from MacBook to Dells). The part I relate the most with in the presentation is that ThinkPads are not trendy or flashy. No they are not, they are not gadgets or things you show off, they are functional tools that just work.
- paulgb 14y ago
  The one thing I don't like about ThinkPad is that like pretty much every PC maker they insist on bundling their own software (in their case, ThinkVantage). I wish PC makers would start shipping PCs with Windows, any necessary hardware drivers, and nothing else. This, more than anything, is what makes me dread buying another PC.
  - ygra 14y ago
    In the case of the ThinkPad bundled software stuff it's also that they seem to look unchanged since the Windows 95 era or so. Nothing terribly wrong with carrying on with a brand and look, but to me the Windows built-in controls for Wifi, etc. are far more usable than the strange bundled software (which may have had its place up until Windows XP got native Wifi support, I guess).
  - linuxhansl 14y ago
    I agree. I tried to multiple times to purchase ThinkPads without the bundled software (I use Linux). But it is not an option. This in fact is the only reason why I look at other offers at all. Every time I need a new laptop I re-check whether I get a ThinkPad without Windows, then I look around for other offerings that do not bundle useless software; so far the ThinkPads have just been better. First thing I do is wiping the Windows and "factory" partitions and install Linux.
bbgun 14y ago
I've been using a Macbook for years now and love it, but reading this makes me nostalgic for my ThinkPad from a few years back. It truly stood apart from all other PC laptops. I happen to think (just my opinion) that the black body was a stroke of genius. The cobalt blue 'enter' key contrasted beautifully with the black keyboard. I miss the magnesium alloy hinges. Look back to the IBM 370 mainframe console from the 1970s and you'll see the origins of the ThinkPad aesthetic: http://www.answers.com/topic/system-370 http://www.answers.com/topic/system-370. The look and feel of the keyboard was sublime, nothing else matched it. The trackpoint was wonderfully quick and accurate. I didn't fully appreciate it until I tried the same mechanism on a Dell and found it to be clumsy and badly calibrated. A ThinkPad running Gentoo Linux was a beautiful thing. In recent years Lenovo seems to be cutting costs and compromising the look and feel of this legendary machine. And Macbooks are slowly but steadily being turned into appliances for the masses and becoming closed machines. I wonder if ten years from now there will be a handheld or personal computing device capable of generating the same kind of cult following.
runemadsen 14y ago
Someone has looked at their Paul Rand history when designing this booklet.
lallysingh 14y ago
Funny how they talk about how classic the machine is after completely botching up the keyboard. They even mentioned the keyboard in the PDF!
- Inufu 14y ago
  I for one like the new keyboard and think it's great. (I used both old and new keyboard on two Thinkpads simultaneously for 2 months)
BinRoo 14y ago
I have two ThinkPads: X201 Tablet running Windows 8, and a T530 running Ubuntu. The craftsmanship of the keyboard and ThinkPoint nub is unmatched. As a hacker, I cannot find any sufficient replacement.
- wyclif 14y ago
  For many years, ThinkPads had the best quality keyboards on any laptop. At least that was true of the IBM models I've had. I can't speak to the quality of the Lenovo-era models.
  - pearle 14y ago
    The non chiclet ones are still great. Perhaps not as good as the IBM ThinkPads but I think they're still better than anything the competition offers.
kabdib 14y ago
Thinkpads /were/ great. They took a serious quality dive several years ago, and I've had a number of bad problems with customer service (e.g., orders "stuck" for months, miscommunicaton of warranty issues), and now I won't recommend them. My guess is that when things go great, you'll be fine, but the moment you need something out of the ordinary then Lenovo will be just as bad as Dell.
- peterwiese 14y ago
  Same experience here. Don't recommend them anymore. I've been recommending MBAs since 2 years.
- dfc 14y ago
  How many thinkpads have you purchased recently? Multiple orders stuck for months? Granted I have only had 3 thinkpads in 8 years but I have never had any problems.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    In my experience "Lenovo thinkpads are bad" is a meme that started as a prediction ("Lenovo thinkpads will be bad") and somehow kept on being trotted out on rare occasion for reasons unknown. The T and X series from Lenovo are both brilliant. The only complaint I can muster is the unfortunate trend in screen resolutions. My T60p is a rock solid machine, and the T420 I have right now only improves on that. It is without a doubt the same machine, it has an unbelievable sense of identity, but it is better.
  - silentOpen 14y ago
    Just got my T430s 6 weeks after ordering. Lenovo charged and uncharged my debit card and revised their shipping estimate 5+ times. 5 days before receiving the machine, I received an email telling me that federal regulations did not permit them to continue to keep the order 'pending' and that if I did not respond and waive my rights under these regulations, they would cancel my order for me. I did not respond. They have serious fulfillment issues.
    - 14y ago
jeffchuber 14y ago
I know David Hill. He is a great designer and knows his clients intimately. His clients are the heads of IT for large organizations that want reliable solid unbreakable working machines. And that is exactly what Lenovo builds. They aren't sexy. They aren't meant to be sexy. Functionality comes first. Form gets a say if it's lucky. This is also how large organizations function and what they are most comfortable with. For this reason it's no surprise that Lenovo will likely become the largest PC manufacturer by volume this year.
peterwiese 14y ago
I've been using think pads exclusively for the past 10 years... Never again. They're just cheaply produced overpriced crap nowadays that exploit a once proud brand. There isn't one single thinkpad with a decent screen. The fans are an insult. The only reason why it's hard to switch is the knob. Fuck.
JimmyL 14y ago
In an office full of Retina MacBooks, I love my ThinkPad X220 (and this is my fourth ThinkPad in a row, spanning both Lenovo and IBM eras). It's not a flashy machine, but it's got a bunch of non-mainstream features that are devoted to getting things done, at which they excel: - Nub pointer? I love it. Full mouse control without moving my hands significantly away from where they were on the keyboard anyways. My X220 has a trackpad, but I only use it by accident. - An LED that lives above the monitor and has a shield that points it down to light up the keyboard. This is a lifesaver on long flights. - Docking stations. I've got two USB drives, a pair of headphones, a few USB-powered accessories, two monitors, a mouse, and a keyboard plugged into my computer when it's at the office. My MBP-toting coworkers have to connect and disconnect all that when they pick up their computer; I press the big undock button and it all stays where I left it, and reconnects when I put it back on the desk. - Accessory comparability. I've still got the power adapters from the first ThinkPad I had. They work fine on my current one, and mean that I have more of these bricks than I could ever need - so I can keep one at work, in my go bag, at my home office, in my living room, in my kitchen, and still have a few backups around. - Repair manuals. Want to know how to do any type of repair on your ThinkPad? The repair manual is freely available, and tells you exactly how to do anything you'd like to. To swap out the network adapter, for example, involves taking off the keyboard and going from the top. Was ordering it in the first place a pleasant experience? No. The website sucked, I had to call in to do half the customization I wanted, and it still took two months to get here.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  The one place things have gone downhill is screens. Thankfully you can still get matte screens rather than ones that double as mirrors. But Lenovo has gone 16:9 losing lots of vertical pixels - note how workflow is vertical (coding, documents) so this is a serious productivity killer. They also use large bezels meaning the laptops are larger than they need to be. And they used to be IPS giving excellent visual quality - that is pretty much extinct too.
  - JimmyL 14y ago
    You can still get IPS panels, you've just got to pay the extra $50 to get the "enhanced" screen (and they're not available on all models). I'm with you about being less than thrilled with the transition to 16:9 displays, though.
dfc 14y ago
Does anyone know what the paulultra font is? pdffonts lists the following fonts in use: HTFDidot-B11Bold HTFDidot-M16Medium PaulultraPlain PDF: http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=69081166&selectedPages=all http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=6...
lysol 14y ago
Thinkpads are the only other computers I'll willingly use besides a Mac. I think they're the only other computer that actually feels like it's purposefully designed instead of just being a forgettable, reactionary me-too from terrible OEMs that offer zero real innovation.
leeoniya 14y ago
i had to add some ram to my t400, it wasnt difficult but i was surprised that it lives under the touchpad and requires more disassembly than say, just popping off a panel on the bottom side. it's been my workhorse with an x-25m ssd for over 4 years. only complaint is with extended 9-cell battery it's def a bulky thing. i've also had some issues using the reduced-size awkwardly-offset up/down/left/right keys - at least 3 times a day i will hit page-left or page-right by accident, causing tab switching. http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/e82f8ee408.jpg http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/e82f8ee408.jpg a huge win in all situations is having the cooling vents on the sides rather than bottom and keyboard drain/spill tray.
- miahi 14y ago
  What I find great is that, at least for the business models, they offer service manuals that describe everything you have to do to change any part (from RAM to CPU).
  - leeoniya 14y ago
    I used to do routers/networking for a shop that was an Apple certified service center. The amount of teeny screws the techs had standing up on the magnetic bases was simply dumbfounding. With just the cases off, there was already a forest of these things similar to this: http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/469/933/263/1282659625153_hz-cnmyalibaba-web2_3860.jpg http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/469/933/263/1282659625153_hz-c... A couple of times someone knocked over one of those things and it was a disaster of crawling around on the floor for 60 minutes. I can probably service my whole ThinkPad notebook with < 30 screws and 30% of the time.
mkhattab 14y ago
Last year I bought a Thinkpad E420s based on the praise I had read from multiple review sites and more importantly, the laptop is listed as Ubuntu certified. The first thing I did when I got it was install Ubuntu, of course. I'm not sure what "certified" means to Canonical but I assumed that every component would work flawlessly, such as the microphone, no sound output artifacts, smooth webcam, power & thermal management (although I understand Linux sucks in this regard), etc. A few months ago, I bought a Macbook Air and as expected, there was a world of difference in seamless integration between OS and hardware. If a vendor such as Lenovo built a Linux-based Thinkpad with something approaching the seamless integration and quality of OSX and Macbook hardware, I would gladly pay a premium over an Apple notebook.
- hackoder 14y ago
  The e420 is of the 'Edge' series. What you want to get is a T, X, or W series thinkpad. The E series is just thinkpad in name, so its no wonder that you had a bad experience. Ofcourse, you are not to blame since Lenovo still markets it as a ThinkPad..
Zak 14y ago
I'm typing this on a T400 because my usual T61/T60 hybrid has a cracked GPU BGA and I don't have a torch or a heat gun. Comparing and contrasting the two machines, it's shocking what a step backwards in design the T400 is. I think everyone knows about the terrible screen already, and I'd cut Lenovo some slack but for the fact that when IBM needed better screens, they founded IDTech as a joint venture with Chi Mei. Lenovo could at least push its suppliers around a bit; I think they have the volume for it. The audio ports of the T400 are on the front, rather than the side. This isn't much of a problem at a desk, but using it as a laptop, it means headphone plugs often interfere with the user's body or clothing. It's especially bad using the machine in a reclined position. I'd look for a pcmcia sound card or bluetooth headphones if I had to use this machine for long. The machine is bulky for the screen size. There's nearly an inch of bezel around the left, top and bottom of the screen. The bottom seems a bit reasonable; the inverter for the backlight has to go somewhere, and placing the screen too low puts the user's hands in front of the screen in some working positions. I see no excuse for the rest of it; the 14" 4:3 T61 had the same keyboard and much less wasted space. The USB ports are vertical. I currently have a USB 3G stick inserted, and I can't set the machine on a flat surface without risking damage because it protrudes below the base of the laptop. It's not an unusually large 3G stick; even some flash drives have this problem. I haven't spent any time with the newest Thinkpads, but models from a couple generations ago are shockingly worse than their immediate predecessors. Incidentally, it seems to have happened about the time they dropped the IBM branding, though Lenovo owned the Thinkpad division for several generations prior to that.

71 points by Adrock 14y ago

jtreminio 14y ago

The font on that page is making my head hurt. I can't even read it.

protomyth 14y ago
Given the content is not dynamic, they could have posted a webpage or a pdf and made it easier on everyone. There is some irony here.
runemadsen 14y ago
The design and font use is a direct clone of many pamphlets Paul Rand made for IBM.

TorbjornLunde 14y ago

Very interesting, but the Flash-based player of this is not very readable. Is it available as a PDF?

tnhh 14y ago
This URL was hiding in the source: http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=69081166&selectedPages=all http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=6...

stan_rogers 14y ago

Well, that was a horrible experience. Sure, my connection is unforgivably slow, but a long player download (in my case, about four minutes) followed by a long per-page content download (with no apparent prefetch) means that I didn't get very far before bailing. Oh, and none of the usual keyboard navigation (arrows) work. There are a lot of ways to present something like this that work; this doesn't, particularly.

miahi 14y ago
The presentation looked fine and loaded really fast on my Android phone using 3G network.
epaik 14y ago
On the other end of the spectrum, I thought the presentation was impressive. I have a typical broadband connection, and I thought it worked just fine. The loading time seemed instantaneous. I actually appreciate that modern websites are increasingly being designed for higher standards of internet bandwidth/connectivity. It's not that I think bandwidth isn't precious, but when websites can deliver beautiful content at the cost of an extra 10th of a second of loading time on a modern connection, I think it's worth it. A four minute download time on your part implies you have some kind of dial-up connection, is there a reason why you haven't upgraded to a faster service?
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  Actually, that's what was passing for 3G at the time (it's not always rock-solid, and one doesn't have private towers). It doesn't take a lot of stuttering to make a site like that fail. Beauty and responsiveness are not mutually exclusive, and none of the content I saw warranted a player -- garden-variety HTML and CSS would have done as well.

acabal 14y ago

I can't believe I'm reading an article touting the design smarts of the Thinkpad designers... honestly I've always thought that the standard black Thinkpads were unspeakably ugly. And I'm not even a design snob. Usable yes, but aesthetic? No way.

oftenwrong 14y ago
Maybe I am broken, but I think they are the best looking laptops. Ironically, their "function-over-form" design yields a form I find beautiful.
w1ntermute 14y ago
I use ThinkPads and their timeless design is one of my favorite things about them. For a lot of people, shiny aluminum is great, but some appreciate the ThinkPad color scheme.
- acabal 14y ago
  I'm not knocking the color scheme, I think black with red highlights can look pretty slick myself. It's just the overall feeling I get... it just looks so sharp-edged and industrial. To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. On the other hand they're doubtlessly excellent machines and there's no accounting for taste, even mine :)
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > To me that's the opposite of aesthetic. I see "aesthetic" as a subjective concept, so I don't really understand how it can have an opposite. It's a matter of opinion, and for a lot of people, the ThinkPad design has what they're looking for.
zerostar07 14y ago
I think it's intentional, well, not ugly but no effort to make it beautiful either. I see my computer as a tool; do people care if their electric drill looks ugly? Plus, if you ask me, sturdy case, functional keyboard, docking connector and myriad of ports is a very smart design that trumps macbooks.

linuxhansl 14y ago

I have privately been using ThinkPads exclusively for many years now. These are the best laptops I ever used (and I am being supplied with work laptops that ranged from MacBook to Dells). The part I relate the most with in the presentation is that ThinkPads are not trendy or flashy. No they are not, they are not gadgets or things you show off, they are functional tools that just work.

paulgb 14y ago
The one thing I don't like about ThinkPad is that like pretty much every PC maker they insist on bundling their own software (in their case, ThinkVantage). I wish PC makers would start shipping PCs with Windows, any necessary hardware drivers, and nothing else. This, more than anything, is what makes me dread buying another PC.
- ygra 14y ago
  In the case of the ThinkPad bundled software stuff it's also that they seem to look unchanged since the Windows 95 era or so. Nothing terribly wrong with carrying on with a brand and look, but to me the Windows built-in controls for Wifi, etc. are far more usable than the strange bundled software (which may have had its place up until Windows XP got native Wifi support, I guess).
- linuxhansl 14y ago
  I agree. I tried to multiple times to purchase ThinkPads without the bundled software (I use Linux). But it is not an option. This in fact is the only reason why I look at other offers at all. Every time I need a new laptop I re-check whether I get a ThinkPad without Windows, then I look around for other offerings that do not bundle useless software; so far the ThinkPads have just been better. First thing I do is wiping the Windows and "factory" partitions and install Linux.

bbgun 14y ago

I've been using a Macbook for years now and love it, but reading this makes me nostalgic for my ThinkPad from a few years back. It truly stood apart from all other PC laptops. I happen to think (just my opinion) that the black body was a stroke of genius. The cobalt blue 'enter' key contrasted beautifully with the black keyboard. I miss the magnesium alloy hinges. Look back to the IBM 370 mainframe console from the 1970s and you'll see the origins of the ThinkPad aesthetic: http://www.answers.com/topic/system-370 http://www.answers.com/topic/system-370. The look and feel of the keyboard was sublime, nothing else matched it. The trackpoint was wonderfully quick and accurate. I didn't fully appreciate it until I tried the same mechanism on a Dell and found it to be clumsy and badly calibrated. A ThinkPad running Gentoo Linux was a beautiful thing. In recent years Lenovo seems to be cutting costs and compromising the look and feel of this legendary machine. And Macbooks are slowly but steadily being turned into appliances for the masses and becoming closed machines. I wonder if ten years from now there will be a handheld or personal computing device capable of generating the same kind of cult following.

runemadsen 14y ago

Someone has looked at their Paul Rand history when designing this booklet.

lallysingh 14y ago

Funny how they talk about how classic the machine is after completely botching up the keyboard. They even mentioned the keyboard in the PDF!

Inufu 14y ago
I for one like the new keyboard and think it's great. (I used both old and new keyboard on two Thinkpads simultaneously for 2 months)

BinRoo 14y ago

I have two ThinkPads: X201 Tablet running Windows 8, and a T530 running Ubuntu. The craftsmanship of the keyboard and ThinkPoint nub is unmatched. As a hacker, I cannot find any sufficient replacement.

wyclif 14y ago
For many years, ThinkPads had the best quality keyboards on any laptop. At least that was true of the IBM models I've had. I can't speak to the quality of the Lenovo-era models.
- pearle 14y ago
  The non chiclet ones are still great. Perhaps not as good as the IBM ThinkPads but I think they're still better than anything the competition offers.

kabdib 14y ago

Thinkpads /were/ great. They took a serious quality dive several years ago, and I've had a number of bad problems with customer service (e.g., orders "stuck" for months, miscommunicaton of warranty issues), and now I won't recommend them. My guess is that when things go great, you'll be fine, but the moment you need something out of the ordinary then Lenovo will be just as bad as Dell.

peterwiese 14y ago
Same experience here. Don't recommend them anymore. I've been recommending MBAs since 2 years.
dfc 14y ago
How many thinkpads have you purchased recently? Multiple orders stuck for months? Granted I have only had 3 thinkpads in 8 years but I have never had any problems.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  In my experience "Lenovo thinkpads are bad" is a meme that started as a prediction ("Lenovo thinkpads will be bad") and somehow kept on being trotted out on rare occasion for reasons unknown. The T and X series from Lenovo are both brilliant. The only complaint I can muster is the unfortunate trend in screen resolutions. My T60p is a rock solid machine, and the T420 I have right now only improves on that. It is without a doubt the same machine, it has an unbelievable sense of identity, but it is better.
- silentOpen 14y ago
  Just got my T430s 6 weeks after ordering. Lenovo charged and uncharged my debit card and revised their shipping estimate 5+ times. 5 days before receiving the machine, I received an email telling me that federal regulations did not permit them to continue to keep the order 'pending' and that if I did not respond and waive my rights under these regulations, they would cancel my order for me. I did not respond. They have serious fulfillment issues.
  - 14y ago

jeffchuber 14y ago

I know David Hill. He is a great designer and knows his clients intimately. His clients are the heads of IT for large organizations that want reliable solid unbreakable working machines. And that is exactly what Lenovo builds. They aren't sexy. They aren't meant to be sexy. Functionality comes first. Form gets a say if it's lucky. This is also how large organizations function and what they are most comfortable with. For this reason it's no surprise that Lenovo will likely become the largest PC manufacturer by volume this year.

peterwiese 14y ago

I've been using think pads exclusively for the past 10 years... Never again. They're just cheaply produced overpriced crap nowadays that exploit a once proud brand. There isn't one single thinkpad with a decent screen. The fans are an insult. The only reason why it's hard to switch is the knob. Fuck.

JimmyL 14y ago

In an office full of Retina MacBooks, I love my ThinkPad X220 (and this is my fourth ThinkPad in a row, spanning both Lenovo and IBM eras). It's not a flashy machine, but it's got a bunch of non-mainstream features that are devoted to getting things done, at which they excel: - Nub pointer? I love it. Full mouse control without moving my hands significantly away from where they were on the keyboard anyways. My X220 has a trackpad, but I only use it by accident. - An LED that lives above the monitor and has a shield that points it down to light up the keyboard. This is a lifesaver on long flights. - Docking stations. I've got two USB drives, a pair of headphones, a few USB-powered accessories, two monitors, a mouse, and a keyboard plugged into my computer when it's at the office. My MBP-toting coworkers have to connect and disconnect all that when they pick up their computer; I press the big undock button and it all stays where I left it, and reconnects when I put it back on the desk. - Accessory comparability. I've still got the power adapters from the first ThinkPad I had. They work fine on my current one, and mean that I have more of these bricks than I could ever need - so I can keep one at work, in my go bag, at my home office, in my living room, in my kitchen, and still have a few backups around. - Repair manuals. Want to know how to do any type of repair on your ThinkPad? The repair manual is freely available, and tells you exactly how to do anything you'd like to. To swap out the network adapter, for example, involves taking off the keyboard and going from the top. Was ordering it in the first place a pleasant experience? No. The website sucked, I had to call in to do half the customization I wanted, and it still took two months to get here.

rogerbinns 14y ago
The one place things have gone downhill is screens. Thankfully you can still get matte screens rather than ones that double as mirrors. But Lenovo has gone 16:9 losing lots of vertical pixels - note how workflow is vertical (coding, documents) so this is a serious productivity killer. They also use large bezels meaning the laptops are larger than they need to be. And they used to be IPS giving excellent visual quality - that is pretty much extinct too.
- JimmyL 14y ago
  You can still get IPS panels, you've just got to pay the extra $50 to get the "enhanced" screen (and they're not available on all models). I'm with you about being less than thrilled with the transition to 16:9 displays, though.

dfc 14y ago

Does anyone know what the paulultra font is? pdffonts lists the following fonts in use: HTFDidot-B11Bold HTFDidot-M16Medium PaulultraPlain PDF: http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=69081166&selectedPages=all http://viewer.zmags.com/services/DownloadPDF?publicationID=6...

lysol 14y ago

Thinkpads are the only other computers I'll willingly use besides a Mac. I think they're the only other computer that actually feels like it's purposefully designed instead of just being a forgettable, reactionary me-too from terrible OEMs that offer zero real innovation.

leeoniya 14y ago

i had to add some ram to my t400, it wasnt difficult but i was surprised that it lives under the touchpad and requires more disassembly than say, just popping off a panel on the bottom side. it's been my workhorse with an x-25m ssd for over 4 years. only complaint is with extended 9-cell battery it's def a bulky thing. i've also had some issues using the reduced-size awkwardly-offset up/down/left/right keys - at least 3 times a day i will hit page-left or page-right by accident, causing tab switching. http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/e82f8ee408.jpg http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/pics/e82f8ee408.jpg a huge win in all situations is having the cooling vents on the sides rather than bottom and keyboard drain/spill tray.

miahi 14y ago
What I find great is that, at least for the business models, they offer service manuals that describe everything you have to do to change any part (from RAM to CPU).
- leeoniya 14y ago
  I used to do routers/networking for a shop that was an Apple certified service center. The amount of teeny screws the techs had standing up on the magnetic bases was simply dumbfounding. With just the cases off, there was already a forest of these things similar to this: http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/469/933/263/1282659625153_hz-cnmyalibaba-web2_3860.jpg http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/469/933/263/1282659625153_hz-c... A couple of times someone knocked over one of those things and it was a disaster of crawling around on the floor for 60 minutes. I can probably service my whole ThinkPad notebook with < 30 screws and 30% of the time.

mkhattab 14y ago

Last year I bought a Thinkpad E420s based on the praise I had read from multiple review sites and more importantly, the laptop is listed as Ubuntu certified. The first thing I did when I got it was install Ubuntu, of course. I'm not sure what "certified" means to Canonical but I assumed that every component would work flawlessly, such as the microphone, no sound output artifacts, smooth webcam, power & thermal management (although I understand Linux sucks in this regard), etc. A few months ago, I bought a Macbook Air and as expected, there was a world of difference in seamless integration between OS and hardware. If a vendor such as Lenovo built a Linux-based Thinkpad with something approaching the seamless integration and quality of OSX and Macbook hardware, I would gladly pay a premium over an Apple notebook.

hackoder 14y ago
The e420 is of the 'Edge' series. What you want to get is a T, X, or W series thinkpad. The E series is just thinkpad in name, so its no wonder that you had a bad experience. Ofcourse, you are not to blame since Lenovo still markets it as a ThinkPad..

Zak 14y ago

I'm typing this on a T400 because my usual T61/T60 hybrid has a cracked GPU BGA and I don't have a torch or a heat gun. Comparing and contrasting the two machines, it's shocking what a step backwards in design the T400 is. I think everyone knows about the terrible screen already, and I'd cut Lenovo some slack but for the fact that when IBM needed better screens, they founded IDTech as a joint venture with Chi Mei. Lenovo could at least push its suppliers around a bit; I think they have the volume for it. The audio ports of the T400 are on the front, rather than the side. This isn't much of a problem at a desk, but using it as a laptop, it means headphone plugs often interfere with the user's body or clothing. It's especially bad using the machine in a reclined position. I'd look for a pcmcia sound card or bluetooth headphones if I had to use this machine for long. The machine is bulky for the screen size. There's nearly an inch of bezel around the left, top and bottom of the screen. The bottom seems a bit reasonable; the inverter for the backlight has to go somewhere, and placing the screen too low puts the user's hands in front of the screen in some working positions. I see no excuse for the rest of it; the 14" 4:3 T61 had the same keyboard and much less wasted space. The USB ports are vertical. I currently have a USB 3G stick inserted, and I can't set the machine on a flat surface without risking damage because it protrudes below the base of the laptop. It's not an unusually large 3G stick; even some flash drives have this problem. I haven't spent any time with the newest Thinkpads, but models from a couple generations ago are shockingly worse than their immediate predecessors. Incidentally, it seems to have happened about the time they dropped the IBM branding, though Lenovo owned the Thinkpad division for several generations prior to that.