Rethinking the Thinkpad

Octiaviane writes to tell us that XYZComputing has a review of Lenovo's Thinkpad X60 with a look at not only the current specs but the evolution of the Thinkpad line. From the article: "One constant which has remained throughout the evolution of the notebook computer is the Thinkpad. Processors and operating systems have changed, designs have been updated, and ownership has changed hands, but the Thinkpad remains. This product has never stopped being a top choice for demanding consumers and corporate buyers, whether they are looking for size, power, or features."

Re:thinkpads?!

[frause]

Why don't you keep your rotten seafood, I keep my Thinkpad and everyone will be happy?

reduced market

[TexNex]

IBM made some great machines and it seems that Lenovo has continued to support quality over looks. Unfortuneatly, Lenovo will have less oportunity than other brands due to the US govenrment outlawing them (the purchase that is) in Federal facilities.

Re:IBM Ugly

[Threni]

> The only thing I can think of when I hear 'thinkpad' is the horrible nipple mouse they used to all
> have. Want to scroll from one side of the screen to the other? Best set aside 5 minutes!

Or simply push the nipple harder - works for me.

Re:IBM Ugly

[hey!]

Or simply push the nipple harder - works for me.

That's correct. The thing that people who don't like the TrackPoint often don't realize is that it's force sensitive. A few hours of usage and it's way more convenient than a mouse.

The Thinkpads also come with a trackpad, which I don't use. The best pointing device I ever used was a trackpad on the old Apple Mac 540c (Blackbird). The first time I got a PC laptop with a trackpad I was amazed how a different implementation of the same idea could work so much poorly. It's amazing to refelect on the fact that that old 540c had only 4MB of RAM and a 33MHz processor, but with the exception of compiling and running a modern web broswer, it did everything I needed to do almost as well as my current laptop, a Thinkpad T42 with half a gig of memory and a processor running 30x faster.

Re:The perfect laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the laptop you just described the One Laptop Per Child [wikipedia.org]? If so, then yes someone has thought about it, but it's for a completely different market.

Re:IBM Ugly

[TeknoHog]

I must be the only one here who prefers the "nipple" to a trackpad.

No, you're not the only one :)

I remember when some laptops came with trackballs, or with optional trackball add-ons. From today's perspective it's clear that you can't fit a trackball into a decently thin laptop. There were probably also cost and durability issues that led first to trackpoints (nipples) and then to trackpads. For example in my previous laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, I had to replace the rubber bit in the trackpoint every two years or so. The current IBM version with a larger, flatter nipple seems much better in this respect.

Unfortunately, the pointer is not the only deciding factor in buying laptops, so I've ended up with a trackpad in my current machine. I believe it's the most durable of the technologies with no moving parts, but it's far from practical IMHO. For example it's distracted by the palms of my hands while typing. Fortunately it's easy to disable and enable on demand (rmmod|modprobe psmouse :).

Re:The perfect laptop

[Zarhan]

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd be more then willing to sacrifice performance for durability. Am I the only one who thinks this way? Or are there laptop manufacturers out there who make decent, cheap machines that are built like tanks, but don't necessarily have a higher end hardware inside?

    Cheap, not. But you can try Panasonic Toughbook [panasonic.com] or even beyond, check out Itronix [itronix.com].

Re:IBM Ugly

[adam1101]

No kidding: ThinkPad anno 1992 [aichi.to].
ThinkPad anno 1997 [aichi.to].
ThinkPad anno 2002 [aichi.to].
ThinkPad anno 2006 [aichi.to].

The system software update feature

[QuietLagoon]

The thing I like about the Thinkpads (aside from their ruggedness) is the system software update ability. It's like a Windows Update that is tailored to the software you have on your ThinkPad, and (unlike Windows Update) it works! :)

I run Windows 2000 on my ThinkPad and the drivers and programs for that OS are still being kept up to date. When I did a reinstall of Windows 2000 a few months ago, I just installed vanilla Windows 2000, loaded the ThinkPad update program from my archive, ran it, and all the drivers necessary to support the ThinkPad hardware features were downloaded and installed.

Nice, very nice.

ThinkPads no more

[bfwebster]

I've also been a dedicated ThinkPad user since 2000 or so. I've owned three, all X-series to cut down on the weight of dragging my laptop around and to allow me to actually get work done in coach class. However, unlike some of the other posters here, I have had some mechanical problems with the ThinkPads; I've had to replace keyboards on two of them, the screen hinges on my current one (#3, have had it 2-3 years at least) are loosening, and the screen frame itself has popped a rivet. Beyond that, I have found in the last year or two that more and more when I travel on business that what I really need is a portable desktop system, i.e., lots of memory, lots of disk space, lots of processor power, and a large screen. This, of course, is mostly the antithesis of the ThinkPad X series. Beyond that, I've just been a little bit leery of how well quality has been maintained in the IBM -> Lenovo transition.

I did buy such a "portable desktop" laptop this week: a Fujitsu Lifebook N6410. Dual core T2400 @ 1.83 GHz, 2GB RAM (upgraded myself from 512KB), 80 GB hard drive + second hard drive bay (uses SATA laptop drives; be warned that it doesn't come with the bracing frame for the 2nd hard drive; I'm still working on that), full size keyboard + numeric pad, 17" display, stereo speakers + subwoofer, 256MB nVidia graphics (128MB dedicated/128MB shared), lots of ports, DVD-write drive, etc. Size of a boat anchor, weighs a ton, only lasts about 2 hours on battery, so it's definitely not my light, lithe ThinkPad X41, but it's right up there with all my desktop systems, and it's definitely easier than packing one of my Shuttles + a flat screen in a suitcase (which I've done before).

I'll see after a few trips whether and how much I miss my ThinkPad.

By the way, if you're looking at high-end laptops like this, avoid the Toshiba Satellite P105. I bought one earlier this week from Best Buy (the P105-S9312, w/2GB of RAM and a 200 GB hard drive), got it home, and promptly ran into problems: slow, flaky performance, occasional kernel faults, etc. I let it run all night and in the morning found it had powered itself down. When I powered it up, it went through three different kernel faults during bootup, rebooting each time, then finally got itself into WinXP--only to start reporting problems with previously working software. I tried four (4) times to do a system restore using the system restore disc--and had it fail each time. When I took it back to Best Buy to get my money back, I found that someone else had come in that same morning to exchange the same model. Not a good sign of high quality assurance. YMMV. ..bruce..

Re:IBM Ugly

[burner]

You may prefer to use QSynaptics to module tweaking: http://qsynaptics.sourceforge.net/ss.html [sourceforge.net]

And the nipple is way better. My T30 has both, and I just disable the touchpad.

This will probably get me labeled

[CaptainZapp]

an eco-terrorist, if not modded into the realms of hell and then back.

But Lenovos abyssimal behavior [greenpeace.org] regarding their ecological responsibilty renders them a company which just wound up on my eternal shitlist of companies from which I never ever buy anything.

Lenovo, say hi to the likes of Sony and Air France.

Slashdot covered this recently [slashdot.org].

Examine the facts behind the Greenpeace report

[DECS]

While the Greenpeace "Guide to Greener Electronics" was swallowed whole by the media, it is actually a sham report with little factual basis. In reality, it presents rankings upside down: Lenovo's higher quality business products are more likely to get recycled (and simply last longer), but because the company didn't have a lot of PR about it on their website, they were ranked last. The report also targeted Apple (3rd from the bottom), which is recognized by the Sierra Club in its top ten list of Green companies.

However, Greenpeace cheers for HP and Dell, who generate far more e-waste than any other PC makers. They churn out disposable, cheap PCs with short life spans, often using far more toxic CRT displays to hit the low price target. HP was rated good on "Chemical Management," despite missing their goals last year. Meanwhile, Apple was rated "partially bad" for not having as many published goals, when in reality they had already banned use of those toxics, including Hexavalent Chromium and others.

If you like facts, here are more examples of how the Greenpeace report was misleading and incompetent [roughlydrafted.com].

It's really too bad the Greenpeace report was thrown around without any criticism from the mainstream media or even from bloggers. Even Slashdot refused to cover it. Everyone is afraid to say anything about Greenpeace, but ignoring their misleading and irresponsible report on the grounds that it's politically incorrect to critique anything calling itself "Green," actually waters down the efforts of real environmentalists and those interested in forwarding the state of the art in clean and responsible business and manufacturing.

Incidentally, the Greenpeace report was written by a SVTC member. That's the group that targeted Apple last year in a campaign against the iPod, saying that people would throw their iPods away when the battery ran down. More about the Toxic Trash campaign on Apple [roughlydrafted.com]