IBM Thinkpads now in Titanium

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IBM Thinkpads now in Titanium

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:14AM from the good-enough-for-jets dept.

Darksoftnet writes "Lenovo (who now owns IBM's PC business), has introduced a new shade to the Thinkpad range with the launch of a Z-Series laptop that comes both in a "classic black" case or a "special-edition" brushed titanium cover."

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Re:Picture? by Bongoots · 2005-09-21 00:17 · Score: 0, Informative

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/newsimage.php?newsId= 1689&image=1
Way to look like a powerbook, thinkpad by luminea · 2005-09-21 00:20 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.ibmuser.idv.tw/viewtopic.php?t=19990 I'll always think the real deal is sexier. I [heart] my Thinkpad.
1. Re:Way to look like a powerbook, thinkpad by BWJones · 2005-09-21 00:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Yeah, so Lenovo has a titanium top cover on their laptop, while the Powerbook had a complete casing made of titanium. (The chassis was magnesium). Of course Titanium was expensive, and had problems with holding paint and could not be effectively anodized, leading to the new aluminum Powerbooks, but hey....They were sooo cool, and even though they have not been around for a couple of years, still look better than most of the current laptop offerings from other companies.
  
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Ti + WiFi by c4seyj0nes · 2005-09-21 00:29 · Score: 4, Informative

Didn't Apple move to aluminum because the titanium interfered with WiFi reception?

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1. Re:Ti + WiFi by Anonymous Coward · 2005-09-21 00:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  A fairly incoherent response from one of the image sites linked below that if correct answers your question (also, what does aluminum do that titanium doesn't? "costs less" is all I can think of):
  
  Posted Sep 13, 2005, 2:25 PM ET by Jonathan Moore
  
  "1) The Apple Titanium PowerBook had the weakest 802 reception because of the titanium case"
  
  Actuly that was not the issue. The antenna was on the side of the body wich was carbon fiber. There is more of a sotry that has to do with the indstrual designers where to make the reseption good thay had to put some conductive paint on the out side of the carbon fiber but you could see it, if just barley, and the ID peopel did not like that so they had it removed. The reception was still in spec with no paint but is sucked.
2. Re:Ti + WiFi by dr.badass · 2005-09-21 03:10 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Didn't Apple move to aluminum because the titanium interfered with WiFi reception?
  
  That might have been one of the minor reasons. Some others include: Titanium is more expensive, the titanium shell didn't really make it more durable, they had to paint it to make it look like people expected titanium to look, the paint often started bubbling and chipping off after a few months, the aluminum designs could be produced with fewer parts, and the new anodization process looked pretty fucking hot.
  
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3. Re:Ti + WiFi by RevRigel · 2005-09-21 03:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Additionally, they were using commercially pure (CP) titanium; that is to say, unalloyed. This made it possible to form it into the shapes required, but it's extraordinarily weak, normally only used for decoration or for applications that need a corrosion resistant material (racks for aluminum anodization are made of CP titanium). Alloyed aluminum of pretty much any type is going to be cheaper, easier to form/machine, and much stronger. And with a decent anodization, it will be far more scratch resistant.
Re:Special punishment by MythMoth · 2005-09-21 00:31 · Score: 4, Informative

Quite. Here's the best picture I could find:
http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/

That's probably a fairly ephemeral link; this might hang around longer, but it's only a thumbnail:
http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/images/rt_titani umback_78.jpg

From this page:
http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/zseries/index.ht ml

I'm sure someone can do better than that.

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Pictures! by Viceice · 2005-09-21 00:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Pictures in stories here and here. Enjoy!

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Re:Picture? by ploss · 2005-09-21 00:36 · Score: 3, Informative

There's some here. http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/

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Re:Special punishment by tpgp · 2005-09-21 00:41 · Score: 4, Informative

Here's a nice big pic
Taken from Notebook reviews

Looks quite nice

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Re:IBM or the Company that bought the computer par by bhtooefr · 2005-09-21 00:54 · Score: 2, Informative

IBM designed most of this.

Lenovo, that Chinese computer company, is selling this.

Here's how it works:

When you order an IBM PC (read: ThinkPad or ThinkCentre) or an accessory, you're dealing with Lenovo. All models except for the Z series were completely designed by IBM, and the Z series was mostly designed by IBM.

When you get support for an IBM PC, (as far as I understand), you're calling IBM, not Lenovo.

When you order a server from IBM, you're dealing with IBM, and Lenovo has nothing to do with it.
Re:ibook vs thinkpad by Anonymous Coward · 2005-09-21 01:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Seriously... check the antenna is plugged in correctly on her WiFi card. The iBooks have truly great wifi reception normally, so I'm guessing something is wrong with your wife's model.
Re:yay!!! wait... by mankey+wanker · 2005-09-21 01:41 · Score: 1, Informative

Another bleeding commercial...
Re:ibook vs thinkpad by funkyjunkman · 2005-09-21 01:47 · Score: 4, Informative

Check out this link on Apple's support site. I work with dozens of PowerBooks and iBooks and have never experienced the problem you describe unless there was a problem with the antenna.
Re:Why is this news? by DaveFromChicago · 2005-09-21 01:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Hmmm... can't say I've ever purchased a notebook based on its color. However, I rather liked IBM's idea of keeping them all basic black while concetrating on other, more important features.
Titanium is only part of the the story... by mschaef · 2005-09-21 02:01 · Score: 2, Informative

IMO, Titanium is only part of the story. The (IMO, much bigger deal) is the new Widescreen display (finally). The lack of a widescreen is a big part of the reason I did not buy a Thinkpad - Visual Studio runs better with the wider aspect ratio. I don't know if they offer resolutions past WXGA (1280x800), but we should all welcome IBM to at least 2002.
WiFi Range? by ChePibe · 2005-09-21 02:45 · Score: 2, Informative

My old 12" PowerBook was a great machine, and I appreciated its durability and looks, but the metal case seriously cut into it's WiFi range. My wife's 12" iBook was always much better than mine. To be honest, this is one of the things that's keeping me from buying a PowerBook again and just getting an iBook until the new Intel books come out to see if Apple fixes this.

At least the Ti cover is removable - so you can keep it for the looks/protection, then take it off when you need to get in touch with a distant hot spot.
Re:No by Halo- · 2005-09-21 04:28 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm not sure that it means, but the T42p is current the standard laptop issued to developers in my division of IBM. I just got mine about a week ago, and so far, so good.
One thing to note is that even though it's easier to run Linux on that other computers there are still some warts. For example the built-in 802.11a/b/g card needs the MadWifi drivers, and to really make the display perform well you need the proprietary ATI drivers. Both of these taint the kernel.
On the plus side, a lot of stuff "just worked" for me out of the box or with little hassle. Most notably was ACPI suspend to RAM (S3). I can't tell you how much I've missed being able to just shut the lid and throw my laptop in mt briefcase for a day or two. (I should note you do have to add a line to the kernel boot options, and the lid-shut needs a script, but echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep works)
I'm really psyched that there is an actual ibm-acpi module in the standard kernel now...
Re:This is serious news... by kisielk · 2005-09-21 06:18 · Score: 3, Informative

At the company I worked for, we were already getting a large (probably 10-15% iirc) failure rate with the T41's and X31's we were buying some time before the Lenovo take over.. mostly problems with the display going to garbage after several weeks..