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I gave up on new Thinkpads and went to a 13" Macbook Pro Retina. I had a hard requirement to go with something with a smallish form factor and 16GB of memory.

by tom_b 12y ago

I gave up on new Thinkpads and went to a 13" Macbook Pro Retina. I had a hard requirement to go with something with a smallish form factor and 16GB of memory. I almost decided to go with a Thinkpad X230 - I have used a X200 running Xubuntu for almost 6 years happily. The X200 just started to fall apart and I was bumping up against the 4GB memory in it frequently enough in the last year to make a change. The X230 would have been way cheaper and supported the 16GB of memory I was after. But work was paying, I try to maximize laptop ROI by not upgrading every year, and the screen on the retina is quite lovely. The trackpad, not as much. I miss the thinkpad red nub. But, debian Jessie installed very easily and so far, I really like the experience. I'm using XMonad, with very little customization, and in general it seems to be a solid machine. Check back with me in four years. If I'm still using this machine, the switch will have been worth it. I'm quite sad about how Thinkpads seem to be transitioning from serious, hacker-friendly tools to somewhat generic consumer-grade gear.

Someone1234 12y ago
Thinkpad has been slowly going downhill year upon year since the sale from IBM in 2005. Before then you could bludgeon someone to death with a Thinkpad's metal reinforced body, and it wouldn't even dent. I own a 2008 Thinkpad (T400) which still had the metal body, zero flex (in anything, e.g. screen or keyboard), and it is in perfect condition (although it has been replaced due to the hardware being outdated, even with an SSD and 8 GB of RAM added). My coworker purchased a 2012 Thinkpad T430 which, frankly, wasn't nearly as well built (flex and plastic all over the place). Within a year a piece of plastic side paneling (at the back corner on the right) came completely off. But even the 2012 Thinkpads weren't THAT bad. Just worse. Since then they've almost turned into consumer laptops in every way, and the recent touchpad silliness just goes to show what idiots they have managing that project. Thinkpad was a niche product for professionals, field techs, the military, and so on. Their re-aiming it for broad appeal is flawed and dumb.
mszyndel 12y ago
I know it's probably not a very popular thing to say in here (or is it?) but Macbook pro seems like a good choice. My old one lasted four years (I upgraded it to SSD and added ram though) with good battery life, etc, and I only exchanged it for a new one because my company gave me one :)

by tom_b 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago

Thinkpad has been slowly going downhill year upon year since the sale from IBM in 2005. Before then you could bludgeon someone to death with a Thinkpad's metal reinforced body, and it wouldn't even dent. I own a 2008 Thinkpad (T400) which still had the metal body, zero flex (in anything, e.g. screen or keyboard), and it is in perfect condition (although it has been replaced due to the hardware being outdated, even with an SSD and 8 GB of RAM added). My coworker purchased a 2012 Thinkpad T430 which, frankly, wasn't nearly as well built (flex and plastic all over the place). Within a year a piece of plastic side paneling (at the back corner on the right) came completely off. But even the 2012 Thinkpads weren't THAT bad. Just worse. Since then they've almost turned into consumer laptops in every way, and the recent touchpad silliness just goes to show what idiots they have managing that project. Thinkpad was a niche product for professionals, field techs, the military, and so on. Their re-aiming it for broad appeal is flawed and dumb.

mszyndel 12y ago

I know it's probably not a very popular thing to say in here (or is it?) but Macbook pro seems like a good choice. My old one lasted four years (I upgraded it to SSD and added ram though) with good battery life, etc, and I only exchanged it for a new one because my company gave me one :)