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The ThinkPad Takes On The MacBook Air
An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg has an early look at the ThinkPad X300, Lenovo's answer to the MacBook Air. He says the ThinkPad is almost as skinny and light as the Air, but has many of the ports and features lacking on Apple's machine. The biggest downside: it costs much more and will be limited to a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage. 'Unlike the Apple, which can be ordered with a higher-capacity, lower-priced hard disk, the new ThinkPad will only be available with the expensive, limited capacity solid-state drive. So it will start at between $2,500 and $2,800-up to $1,000 more than the Apple's base price.'"
The problem with the Thinkpad is that it doesn't taper at the edges (not that this helps anything except for aesthetics). Apple really created an illusion of thin when they adopted this design (the Air is only like an eighth of an inch thinner that the MacBook but it looks *much* thinner because of the taper).
Apple really pulled off a magic trick with the Air. Marketing genius.
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There really isn't much point in "comparing" these two machines, they're so different. Seriously, the comparison that the Thinkpad is nearly $1k more than the Apple is ridiculous when you consider the extra functionality of just the DVD alone. I don't think most people use more than one USB port, but having a wired E-net and removable battery make the cost difference worth it, if you're in the market for a light machine.
I have Macs at home, but you have to recognize that the Air may be pretty, but it's sorely lacking in features that many people consider necessary these days.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Apple's notebooks are also lacking a trackpoint-like mouse. I personally can't stand touchpads, even the ones on Apple's notebooks. The trackpoint is a much better input device when done right, and the ones on the Thinkpads work quite well.
My current notebook is an old Thinkpad T23 that only has a trackpoint and no touchpad. Although I really like OS X (own both a Mac Pro and Mac Mini) and really want a mobility for some of the apps I use on it, this seemingly small issue is enough to make me unsure about whether my next notebook will be a MacBook or a Thinkpad. It's a big issue to me, an analogy would be the touch screen keyboard on the iPhone being a reason people don't want it over a phone with a real QWERTY keyboard.
A used Thinkpad X-series is likely to be next laptop purchase (I bought the T23 used). And I would be running Linux on it of course, which I enjoy more than OS X anyway, but the few video and audio apps I use on OS X make a Mac possibly more useful to me. So I haven't really made a decision.
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Most people disagree with you, and can't stand trackpoints, which is why they are in only very few laptops anymore. I am one of those who dislikes trackpoints, and it's why I have never, or will ever, consider buying a Thinkpad. I don't like having that little thing in the keyboard; maybe it's the way I type, but every time I have had to use a laptop which had one, my fingers were constantly 'tripping' on it. Very annoying.
Though you are probably correct that most people don't like trackpoints, most people don't like touchpads either (but like them more than trackpoints). Most people prefer real mice, but those are just not as practical when you are on the go. Everyone at my workplace uses a separate mouse with their MacBook Pros or other laptops. It doesn't help the MacBooks that they only have one mouse button (hence an external mouse is almost a requirement for many people).
I think a lot of people haven't given trackpoints an honest chance. My girlfriend didn't like it at all at first, but one time when we were traveling I forgot to pack a mouse and she was forced to use it and she grew to really like it. Also, not all trackpoint clones are created equal. I bought a desktop keyboard that had a trackpoint-like stick, but it completely sucked as and was unusable; I had the same problems you described. The one on my Thinkpad T23 rocks, but that doesn't mean other manufacturers make good ones.
There is an annoyance with trackpads too - the base of my thumb sometimes hits it accidentally and then the cursor suddenly jumps to some random place and I find that my last few words have been inserted in the middle of some other part of my document instead of at the end. That is annoying but only happens once every couple of days despite how much typing I do.
When I had a notebook with only a touchpad this was a constant annoyance.
I wish that IBM would offer a Thinkpad without the trackpoint; how hard can it be to have a replacement keyboard, for the majority of people who don't use trackpoints (yes the modern Thinkpads have *both* a trackpad and trackpoint, but I don't just want to be able to use a trackpad, I specifically want to *not* have a trackpoint in there, and I think many people would agree. Besides, having two pointing devices really seems like a hack doesn't it?).
I am of course the opposite, I'm glad they have Thinkpads with *only* a trackpoint. Although it might be possible to disable the touchpad and use only the trackpoint (I hope you can do this at least), I think the touchpad is a waste of space. It's nice that on their ultra-portable (X series) you can get one with a trackpoint only.
You can pull the rubber eraser off of the trackpoint. It'll still be there (in the form of the plastic that rubber goes on top of), but I think it'll be mostly out of your way and your fingers will be less likely to trip on it. I'm not sure if you can specifically disable the trackpoint so that only the touchpad is active (or vice versa), but it would me nice if you could.
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