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IBM Thinkpads now in Titanium

Posted by CmdrTaco on 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."

12 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Way to look like a powerbook, thinkpad by BWJones · · 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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  2. Ti + WiFi by c4seyj0nes · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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.

  3. Re:Special punishment by MythMoth · · 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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  4. Pictures! by Viceice · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pictures in stories here and here. Enjoy!

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  5. Re:Picture? by ploss · · Score: 3, Informative

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

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  6. Re:Special punishment by tpgp · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a nice big pic
    Taken from Notebook reviews

    Looks quite nice

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  7. Re:ibook vs thinkpad by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  8. Re:ibook vs thinkpad by funkyjunkman · · 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.

  9. Re:This is serious news... by kisielk · · 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..