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Thinkpads have a large and helpful user community

https://forum.thinkpads.com/

and excellent Linux support. Their HMMs (Hardware Maintenance Manuals) are very well done. They are designed for ease of service. Gobs of off-lease 'Pads are available cheap. Parts new and used are plentiful via Ebay.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77733

"...see if your device supports keyboard and mouse through USB and then relearn the game. It took a while but it got to the point of not being fun anymore. "

So true with FPS's, on a console controller you are using the relatively few muscles that do the mechanics of thumb movement, versus the mouse you have the advantage of all the degrees of freedom that your carpal joints provide, not to mention the extra muscle control. Serious basement dwellers especially benefit from the full motion wrist control, many have it fine tuned to an art after many *sessions*.

Except folks who use those mice(?) with the trackballs. You guys are just weird. If your going to go for niche, play counter-strike with the red keyboard clitoris like on the IBM ThinkPads. Thats 3-Freaking-1337.

2 seconds on Google found others installed win7 just fine on Thinkpad T43's (same as TFA), they only had the old vista biometric coprocessors drivers crash, it works fine without them. the fact that most old vista drivers work fine in win7 (with no additional win7 features of course) is a plus point for most, but the fact that this one fails, so what, it's not designed for win7, and as security hardware designed to tightly integrate into the OS, I really wouldn't expect it too.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=73121

Upek do have win7 beta drivers that work just fine on the thinkpad x61 range, other biometric vendors will catch up eventually if they have not already.

There have been some discussions over the true value of the "discrete graphics" version of the T60/T61 Thinkpads lately. Personally I am not in the least inclined to opt for the "discrete graphics", since amongst other things it reduces your battery life by about 30%, and increases your travel weight. But of course you may have a need for it that I do not.

I'd recommend taking a look at the Thinkpad T6x forums. You may find what you're looking for there.

More FUD. Can you substantiate this?

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33952 Describes a T42 with the problem. It's common enough to be a sticky on the Thinkpad forum.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=thinkpad+gpu&search_type= Shows R40's and T41p's with the same problem, as well as a solution, so apparently it wasn't confined to the T40.

For the record, I have this issue with my T42p FireGL (which has been sent off for a reflow) and the T41 Radeon 7500 that I am typing on now.

I've been looking around for a new notebook recently after my 3 year and 3 month old T42 with a 3-year warranty started to have problems due to the BGA method of attaching the mobile Radeon 9600. See this thread at thinkpads.com for more info.

I really like the durability of my ThinkPad but this experience has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. My 9 year old Gateway Solo 2500 still runs fine except that I've had to replace the hard drive a couple times.

As a student and employee at a higher-education institution, however, the 34% discounts available to me on ThinkPads still makes them pretty attractive. Couple that with opting for SuSE Linux and I've got a pretty well-priced notebook.

I am not ruling out a MacBook, however. Now that they come with Intel processors, I can pretty much have my pick of OSes other than OS X installed.

Although I consider Lenovo to be a great company, their customer service leaves *alot* to be desired.

I recently purchased a Thinkpad directly from Lenovo and Lenovo lied to me, stole my money and told me to go away... More details (for those of you that are interested) can be found here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=334865&sid=6df4b030e6cd05ec0d9f77667843891b

and here:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/269/RipOff0269581.htm

and here:

http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.664197/browse_thread/thread/c4fe47e6830193a9

Up until this point I *LOVED* Lenovo as a company, and recommended Thinkpads to my friends & family, as well as recommended their stock to my friends who dabbled in the market.

I guess the lesson in all this is that no matter how well your machines are put together or how fantastic your innovations may be, if your customer service can't even be deemed mediocre, it's all in vain... Lenovo could take a cue from Apple in the customer service dept if you ask me.

Regards

Apple believes they sell superior hardware. Apple believes they sell superior software. If follows, if these things are true, and you ignore any mitigating factors, that Apple stands to make the most money by decoupling the sales of these things. Break down barriers to entry for your superior products. Let PC users buy the superior OSX without having to invest in Apple hardware at the same time. Let Windows users buy superior Mac hardware to run Windows. Let people who want the best of both buy Macs and run OSX on them.

Previously, the mitigating factor in running Windows on a Mac was that Macs ran on PPC processors, and other than Windows NT 3.51, Microsoft didn't make any OS that could run on them. Slashdot posters frequently said how Apple runs a closed system and would never let other OS's, especially Windows, compete on Mac. But as soon as Macs went x86, Apple didn't just allow Windows on Macs, the released Bootcamp.

Apple doesn't sell OSX for PC's, but it has nothing to do with being scared of the competition or being addicted to consumer lock-in. Apple doesn't want the hardware or technical support headache that would come with trying to support every one of thousands of x86 machines on the market. Yes, this is an issue of control- Apple's main selling point in OSX is user-friendliness, and they don't think they can maintain that if they had to deal with the sort of driver issues Windows and Linux have. But they don't try all that hard to lock OSX out of other platforms. They just don't support it. With no hacks or tricks, OSX will install on some Thinkpads just by inserting the disc and clicking "install." Maybe clicking the "install" button constitutes "serious hacking" to you, but to most of us, it's Apple's regular user-friendliness. The peripherals pretty much all work by default too, unless you get the Intel wireless card. Don't configure your laptop with that, and buy any one of a dozen third party wireless cards, plug it in, and you'd be all set with a fully functional non-Apple OSX machine running the latest release of Tiger. If Apple were serious about blocking OSX PC use, they'd be using the trusted computing module to lock down the OS to their hardware. At the very least, they'd keep up on news, know that OSX installs on Thinkpads, and they would have crippled that with any one of the last 7 OS updates since it became public information. But they don't; instead, they put a note that says Please don't steal.

There's no analog mitigating factors for music sales. Apple thinks they have the best music management program with the best store, and the best players. Again, they'd like the revenue of selling music to people with other players, and they'd like to sell players to people who use other stores- sales of popular products do best when you reduce barriers to entry, not when you increase them by locking products together. There's no fear of difficulty supporting MP3's on other players, and there's no difficulty playing other MP3's on the iPod. You say Apple wants to lock-in people who bought Fairplay music? The iPod's still gaining market- why wouldn't Apple want to be able to go after customers who were already locked-in to other stores more that they'd fear losing customers they already had? That's the way things go when you reduce barriers for the market leading product.

Any time Steve Jobs comes up on Slashdot, someone gets moded +5 for saying that he's lying, and he secretly has evil intentions opposite to what he stated, and that this is secretly in Apple's favor because they want bad things. Others get moded up for saying that, sure, Steve Jobs is on the right side of this issue, but that he has no morals and doesn't believe in what he's saying, he's just doing it because it's in Apple's, and thus his, financial interest. If so, why does he also take moral stands in public statements that are patently against Apple's interests?

Lenovo have already done this for Thinkpads - see ThinkPad Advanced Dock

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_Advanced_Do ck

discussion of how well it works at:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25584

Lenovo have already done this for Thinkpads - see ThinkPad Advanced Dock

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_Advanced_Do ck

discussion of how well it works at:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25584

Obiously you haven't heard of the Thinkpad power on issue http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=10207

The problem seems to be the two chips ADP3410 ADP3421. Search google for ADP3410 ADP3421 and thinkpad and you'll know how widespard the problem is. http://www.google.com/search?hs=qNK&hl=en&lr=&c2co ff=1&client=opera&rls=en&q=adp3421+thinkpad&btnG=S earch

They all fail after sometime, and I am smelling a class-action lawsuit comming.

For more design history of the thinkpad, check out the "Thinkpad Genesis Series" on:

http://www.thinkpads.com/Genesis3.htm
http://www.thinkpads.com/Genesis%204.htm

Richard Sapper is the German designer who designed the famous Artemide Tizio lamp (which also shares the Thinkpad's red controls and silver hinges).:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwcm/ho_1988. 236.10.htm

For more design history of the thinkpad, check out the "Thinkpad Genesis Series" on:

http://www.thinkpads.com/Genesis3.htm
http://www.thinkpads.com/Genesis%204.htm

Richard Sapper is the German designer who designed the famous Artemide Tizio lamp (which also shares the Thinkpad's red controls and silver hinges).:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwcm/ho_1988. 236.10.htm

Try updating your TrackPoint drivers. A lot of people have reported similar problems with Firefox, but on X31s, not T42s...

You might also ask at http://forum.thinkpads.com/, they're pretty good with that stuff.