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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.'"
Walt's seen the thing -- but not tested it. The biggest let down with the MacBook Air was its battery life (and then Remote Disk). Does this ThinkPad have decent battery life? And is it as sturdy as we expect Thinkpads to be?
In a few years, when we look back at the Apple designs which have become tacky and dated, the Thinkpad still looks elegant and clean.
Blar.
At least that's what the people over at ars say
The price for an Air with SSD is $3100. The thinkpad also has a nicer display (1440x900 vs 1280x800), removable battery, a faster processor (2.0ghz vs 1.8ghz), and weighs less (2.5lbs vs 3lbs), more ports (ethernet, usb), better speakers (LOL Airbook has mono), a microphone, and a built in DVD burner.
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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Maybe, Apple knows what its customers want and builds their machines for what most of their customers and not for the critics? And, well looky there, you can configure the machine to include those features. Why does everything have to be built in? And the Thnkpad is making compromises to have those things built in. God!
Not that I'm a fanboy or anything, it's just that these tech "journalists" piss me off sometimes.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
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I take it you wipe XP/Vista fairly quickly if you want a cleaner and less cluttered experience, then ;)
There's a certain price range for a laptop of certain build quality. I can't speak to the current Lenovos --- haven't used them. But, I remember some of the older ones being built like tanks. I'd put their build quality up there as high as the old HP calculators.
The Pro line of apple laptops has been about the same, too (that's what I use). I wouldn't dream of taking the sub-$1000 boxes around with me all day. On the PC line, it'd be a good thinkpad or a well-built toshiba.
Maybe I'm just old and prejudiced on this. The cheap laptops I've seen out of dell make me afraid to relax my hands on them: they'd literally creak.
But, that all does really depend on how you use the machine. If it's mostly a desktop, I'm sure that the ~$500 boxes are fine for daily use.
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The thing has a 13" screen and weighs more than 3 pounds. What niche is this trying to target? Other members of the X-series have 12.1" screens, and one of those has a beginning weight of 2.8lbs. I'd imagine the extra inch of screen would be more of an issue than the half-pound, but still.
Must purchase an OEM copy of either XP or Vista. R and T Series Thinkpads are being sold with the option of SuSE Enterprise Desktop 10, so why not the X Series?
Regarding the article:
... and will be limited to a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage. I'm sorry, but for the applications these laptops are going to be serving, 64GB of internal storage should be plenty. If not, well, there are plenty of external storage needs, whether NAS, thumb/pen drives, or full-fledged external hard drives (which one can choose a "portable" version or a not-so-portable version.)No mention of a possible entry in the Reserve Series (and with the base price for the "standard" X300, who wouldn't want to pay $5,000 for a laptop!?)
I think you mean "you can configure the box the machine ships in to include those features". Because all those devices are external to the machine.
Generally speaking, it's safe to assume that anyone wanting a super-mobile computer like an Air or this ThinkPad doesn't want to have wires and dongles they have to carry in their bag and/or hanging off the computer. I know with the Dell's we buy at work, the fact that the Latitude D400 series super-mobile only has an external optical drive is often a deal-breaker for the users. They'd rather a bigger/heavier unit that includes everything in one piece.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
There is no such thing as a well built Toshiba. There probably were some 10 or 15 years ago, but Toshiba is a company that, like Sony, trades on its name in place of any actual quality. Not that I'm bitter about the shitty laptops I have to support.
However, speaking to the quality of current Thinkpads... my cat managed to knock my T61 off my desk a couple weeks ago. It fell four feet or so on to a hardwood floor.
There's a ding on the floor. My Thinkpad is fine.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I have a Macbook Pro and the interface for MacOS is much cleaner than XP and Vista. I have a dual boot into XP Pro for happier integration into the domain at work, but at home I'm starting to use Mac OS more and more. I like having a proper UNIX derived terminal, and it's great for stuff like watching movies as I can get from being powered down, to the desktop far quicker in MacOS. When it comes to actually viewing media, frontrow is a much more pleasant experience than Windows Media Player - not saying much really, but it is a good interface, especially when combined with the little remote that you get with Macbooks. If you're wondering why I don't just use my DVD player it's because it's set to the UK region code, and the anime that I'm mostly watching at the moment is region-whateverthehecktheUScodeis
I agree that boxy is beautiful when it comes to stuff like car design (old Audis, old Toyota MR2, and the Mistubishi Lancer Evo VI come to mind), but not so much for gadgets.
which is totally what she said
Last summer I priced an HP laptop and Apple laptop. I needed a very light, yet powerful, machine, so I went with a 15" pro machine on both sides. Depending on what considered equivalent, the HP machine was 500-1000 more. It is anecdotal, but still a data point. The point is that Apple has gotten very efficient, and regular PC OEMs have a very hard time competing with them on the price/quality ratio. About the only thing apple does not have is the competitive $500 headless laptop. The Mac Mini is a joke, and the iMacs are over priced if one does not really need a fancy monitor.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Thin is in, but mostly only with those who do a lot of travelling. Reporters, sales reps and others who are often on the road feel that every ounce matters, and a laptop you can place in your briefcase with your papers and books counts for a lot among these people.
I feel Lenovo and Apple are aiming to two different sorts of professional users. Apple is geared more towards the writers and mobile creatives, and the workflow the MacBook Air is supposed to fit into is one where the user has a larger "mothership" computer that he can sync with, or already works in a MacBook-friendly environment. The Lenovo looks and feels more like a device that tries to be as light as possible but still be a "full-featured" notebook computer.
So what is the difference between the two? Apple's notebook looks and feels like it was designed around a task, a need, and Lenovo's laptop looks more like it was designed around the tech specs.
This is an interesting post, FWIW... I know it's on Lenovo's blogs, but...
http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=93
Wow! First time I head someone talking that well about toshibas on /.
I've only had toshibas, one felt from my hands while I was writing on the hard drive, bounce on the floor and kept working for 2 more years with no problem (of course 3 years for a computer that was totally abused, I think is great). My current laptop is a Toshiba, and I'll keep buying them.
The reason why I buy them? Different than Apple's they.. really.. just work. Recently, to take their prices down, they fill them with tons of bloatware, which is a bit annoying, but the price difference you find between those and Apple/Lenovos/Sony is huge, and Toshiba built their computers, mostly, with their own toshiba parts. I love it! And CNET still have the best ultra portable to be a Toshiba!
We'll see if they can keep it up with the Apple aggressive marketing strategy.
ThinkPads have always been 'business class' machines. Or, what they really are, 'VP Class Machines' which means...
You can throw them in a bag (from being turned on all night working on a presentation) and then check them into your baggage, have the baggage claim people beat the snot out of them, you drag your computer on the ground with some actually luggable luggage and bash them into the back of a cab, up 14 flights of stairs banging it on each step on the way, then throw it down on the expensive mahogany table and open it up and...
The damn thing still works.
IBM doesn't make the most cutting edge stuff. They make the most cost-effective, durable, laptops out there. I don't care about that so-called 'rugged' PC from Toshiba. No VP is going to take that ugly pile to a conference. But an IBM with it's matte black exterior and classic looks, not to mention it matches their suit, they will pick over and over again.
I have used the new T61 laptops as well--and besides being as heavy as a brick--they are quite the little powerhouses. Ubuntu runs on them just dandy, all the hardware detected upon install.
Your Air? Yeah. It looks pretty, but I guarantee that thing will break within a day of giving it to a VP. It would maybe last 15 seconds going through ATL on the way to ORD through CLE. The design of the Air--to me--just screams cheap and flimsy. Pretty, but flimsy.
Having been a thinkpad addict because of the trackpoint,
I have had the 600e, the x23, and now the x61s.
The xseries, is thin already, not a problem.
my experience with x61s.
What I am more concerned about is the following:
1. heat = its warmer than the previous models.
better cpu's, at the cost of heat.
you can feel it frying your hand.
and then you turn on the wifi.. oh boy.
2. noisy = the fans are louder than previous models
3. material = the previous chassis was graphite,
much more pleasent. now its plastic.
4. buttons = 2 ekstra 'paging' buttons are implemented
on both sides of the up arrow, and its easy to hit wrong.
annoying.
I think the design has degraded.
maybe they wanted to save on material.
and the designers took the wrong road.
I don't know, I would buy the mac book
immideately if it had the trackpoint.
but I would also buy another thinkpad,
if they took a little more care about
their loyal thinkpad customers.
hopefully someone listens.
I support about two dozen Tecras, various models, for one of my contracting customers. How shoddy are they? Well, I can flick keys off the keyboards with my fingers, and if I take one into a darkened room, I can see light leaking out the sides of the LCD. That's not what I'd call quality.
For what it's worth Lenovo 3000s are fairly impressive for consumer notebooks. I wouldn't buy one, but they're solid and well-constructed. I'd put them ahead of any current Dell Vostro/Inspiron model or non-pro Macbook.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Well, there you have it. If it "looks" flimsy on a web page image, then it must be so...
Seriously though, if you have ever actually handled one of these those fears disappear pretty quickly. I've configured two of them in the last week and they are surprisingly solid.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Business class for sure. I'm currently doing a work term for IBM. Being a student, I didn't get a fancy new T61 like everybody else. I got an old T40, which belonged to somebody else on my team. This thing is at least 4 years old, and is still going amazingly strong. We dock and undock our machines all day long for meetings, throw them in bags, open and close them 10-15 times per day. Mine gets thrown in a backpack for an hour and half commute to and from work by subway and bus. It's regularly outside in sub-zero temperatures while I wait for buses, and complains far less than I do. The hinges are still stiff, the screen is still bright, every button and key works like the day it was new. And I know for a fact that the person who had this laptop before me didn't use an external keyboard or mouse -- this laptop has a large, deep groove in the left mouse button from the years of her thumb wearing it down. Compare this to the HP I bought a couple of years ago. Within a year the screen was dim and it was locking up. My computer help desk experience showed me all the weak points of a laptop. Screen brightness, floppy/broken hinges, broken DVD drives. None of that here. Before my time is up in this position I'm going to take IBM up on its deep discount for employees. I don't think I'll ever buy another brand.
um
... much closer at 25mm)
The two are not even in the same class of laptop!!
the thinnest edge of the X300 is about as thick as the thickest edge of the AIR
X300 is about twice as thick (18.6mm-23.4mm) as a MacBook Air (4.0mm-19.4mm)
average thickness(11.7mm vs 21mm)
if you STACKED TWO Macbook Air Laptops (19.4+4.0=23.4)
you would arrive at roughly the thickness of one X300 at (21mm average)
At the end of the day, this X300 laptop is somewhere between the Macbook Air
and the Macbook Pro for thickness (closer to the Macbook Pro,
It's really unbelievable that these two laptops even get mentioned in the same breath.
No offense taken. ;)
;)
Why workflow? Well, because in a job like mine (web and print design), you work on sets of processes in a team. Pictures are developed by one, programming by another, writing and copy editing by a third, and so on. Lots of little processes that often mean having 4 or 5 apps open at the same time, and flipping back and forth, and having to keep the hand-offs in mind.
That's the real advantage of the Mac for many of us: it reduces the time spent in menus and dialog boxes. For a longer process, this savings of a few seconds may not seem important, but when you're doing it about once a minute, it all adds up. Even the Fitt's Law factor of whether the menu bar is on top of the screen or the window plays a role when you have to access formatting commands more often.
But ultimately, the term "workflow" is older than computers. It's all about the connection of processes, how the work moves from beginning to finished product. Assembly lines are static workflows, where the work flows in a channel. Jobs like mine are more fluid and open, with currents and eddies and so on.
But the biggest reason for "workflow"? It's a known term that's shorter than "interplay of individual tasks in the job".