Slashdot Mirror
The X300 Could Usher in a New Generation of ThinkPads
An anonymous reader writes "The ThinkPad has long been a favorite of IT departments everywhere and is the preferred notebook for legions of no-nonsense users. As times have progressed the ThinkPad has improved but the X300 marks the most significant change in its design since the butterfly keyboard. While we've already discussed a few leaked specs, official news of big changes like LED-backlighting (the first on a ThinkPad) and a widescreen display accompany a number of important but smaller design tweaks. Current thinking is that these changes indicate that the X300 is the first step in a series of larger changes to the ThinkPad. The notebook has already received a number of favorable reviews, but the other changes - the ones that will ultimately trickle down to the rest of the ThinkPad line - are perhaps more interesting than this specific $2500+ notebook."
I will wait.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Um, the x60s and x61s have had LED backlighting for at least a year.
They need to have something better then integrated video at $2500+ and even at the $1500+ price range.
Put in a ati hyper memory or nvidia Turbo Cache card in or use the 780G amd chip set Integrated graphics with Side-port memory as local frame buffer.
128mb - 256mb+ of system ram just for video in vista is a big hit and a joke at $1500+
"but the X300 marks the most significant change in its design" did you miss the x41? you know the tablet. yeah, I would think that the whole swivel-touchscreen would be the most significant change. look; after that they have released more tablets following the major change that occurred in the x41. it isn't all that strange for an ultralight either, there have been a lot of tiny thinkpads. yes this one does have a wide screen, but they have had other wide-screen thinkpads too. if you ask me, yes the some changes are there, but far from the most significant changes the thinkpad line has seen.
How do you propose they get the extra heat out? Also, from what I have read, the X300's battery time is not all that great. The extra hardware would be one more power drain.
Why would you need that much dedicated VRAM in an office laptop? Set the Vram to 32MB and be done with it. I don't get why everyone is complaining about notebooks aimed at office work not having a dedicated video card, when modern integrated graphics are more than adequate. What is especially bothering is that this is slashdot, Intel has open source linux drivers, and everyone seems to be pushing the proprietary Nvidia and ATI graphics soultions.
622677120
It looks to me like they are ruining a durability icon. There are several points in case (ha! pun!), but I'll only mention the LED-backlit keyboard. Those things break. They use power. And real touch typists don't look at the keys. I personally have spraypainted the keyboard of my Inspiron black, so that there are no markings on the letter keys (the numbers and everything else was masked off).
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Mate, it's just another laptop. What's so revolutionary about that?
Sounds like advertising to me.
I do like thinkpads myself, but the only thing revolutionary about the X300 to me is it's exorbitant price.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
LOL, Have you ever used Vista?
The X300 comes with XP.
I think you'd be surprised. It really doesn't take much video horsepower to run Aero smoothly. I've not seen any modern integrated video not be able to handle it (and handle it well, at that). A notebook with a ULV CPU, does [b]not[/b] need anything more. There is no such thing as a sub-15" gaming laptop.
Have you checked Lenovo's site? The X300 comes with XP by default.
The Cnet one linked to above has a guy trying SO HARD to do a 'TV presenter's voice'... And noooow, liiiive from Hollywood coooomes some dick doing a TERRIBLE video review.
Urgh, stick to text.
I'm trying to figure out why this is news. It sounds like some minor tweaks to the x300, plus the OP seems ill-informed on what technologies have been used in thinkpads before.
GNAA fails once more. Why don't you just stop trying?
This is a business class ultra light laptop. light weight and small size being the primary objectives. a dedicated video takes up more space, creates more heat, and increases battery usage compared to Intels integrated video.A dedicated video in this laptop is a rather stupid idea. integrated video is not a universal solution, the fastest, biggest, most powerfulest isn't always the bestest. and as far as vista, who cares. xp wont be going anywhere any time soon especially with many bigger organizations still refusing to switch.
In my opinion this was the pinnacle of IBM (Yes, mine says IBM Thinkpad on it) and their laptops. We've bought T61's since I got my T60 two years ago and I hate supporting them. My T60 just works. It plays Oblivion, my movies and music and I've seen it sit for two weeks in standby mode with the lid closed.
It is also the most durable laptop I've ever had and I beat the hell out of my laptops. Traveling, punching it (see Oblivion above), dropping it, knocking it around during my job.
And yes, I'm old. My first "portable" was this:
http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ibmportfy0.jpg
...because it reads like an advertisement.
I can only begin to guess who the "Anonymous Coward" that posted this story might work for....
Go Go Slashvertisements!
That's been my experience with aero as well. Although the compositing works well in vista, the slowness of the rest of the system is a huge drain on laptops. But for things like dragging, minimizing windows, it's usually always smooth and without tearing on all the hardware I've tried it on including laptops with integrated video. I can't say the same for compiz, which still doesn't work on a large number of mobile graphics chipsets and works only poorly on even more. This is mostly an ATI problem though, it wouldn't even be an issue if they'd opensource the drivers.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I rather enjoy my Pentium 3 laptop's heated keyboard.
;)
I dont know why they dont advertise it as a feature.
If forced to choose, I actually prefer the nut-warmer option.
I just hope the optical drive can be replaced with another harddrive in the good ol' ultrabay-fashion. 64gig just isn't enough.
Personally, "chestnuts roasting on a open fire" always gave me chills.
my UID occurs in pi starting at the 384,199 digit after the decimal point.
Not only is integrated graphics good enough now, it also saves a whole heck of a lot of power. My Thinkpad T60 with discrete graphics gets an hour less runtime on battery than an identical T60 with integrated graphics. In a portable design with a SSD drive, LED backlighting and a bunch of other power saving features, just why would you want a power hungry graphics chip?
It's too expensive for a general rollout. It will be the executive only Thinkpad model.
The world isn't divided between corporate users and gamers. Scientists and academics value a capable, durable, no-nonsense machine like the Thinkpad series, and often need a fair bit of graphical horsepower for visualizations.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Why on earth would ThinkPad users want or need this? Integrated Intel Extreme graphics are more than sufficient for portable use. Heck, they can even run popular modest games reasonably well. For the savings in size, power use, money, going with Intel integrated graphics is the CORRECT design decision.
I'm starting to wonder if I really want to associate with a Slashdot crowd that would mod parent insightful.
CAD.
Who modded you down?
The author of the article is indeed quite ill-informed. I got my first ThinkPad in 1999 (600E I seem to remember) and it had the rubbery surface - which I never understood why IBM ditched; it's far superior to the hard plastic they use now. Let's hope that it gets reintroduced in all the models.
I'm also fairly sure that my T60 (2007-FVG - the one with FlexView/IPS panel) has LED-backlight.
VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
so will this new version of the think pads get rid of the random freeze ups and hibernation bugs =D? Because as far as I can tell the last 4 versions have only made it worse..
The thing about the Thinkpad that makes them so appealing to corporate customers is there support life cycle. You knew that if you invested in accessories for a T40 those accessories would work with the T41, T42, T43, etc. until the number increments to T50 you were guaranteed your accessories would be forward compatible making the investment worthwhile for the 3/4 year life cycle your organization has planned for those devices. With the 60 series Lenovo has started to abandon this. Last year our company began implementing 60 series laptops. In less than a year the R60 was superseded by the R61. The R61 uses a new chipset and while pin compatible with their Advanced Dock I've yet to find a PCIe peripheral that will work with the R61. The R61 will not even boot with the Quad monitor video card we are using with the R60. Working with the Lenovo engineering group proved fruitless as ultimately they simply told me there was no way it would work and they had no plans on fixing it. The build materials aren't as hearty as they used to be either. I hope the x300 isn't just the next in a long line of abandoning the corporate customer that made the Thinkpad a household name.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
As you said, 128-256mb of system ram is a joke at $1500+.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
And even if that had been a first post it would still have been a massive failure. That was truly pathetic.
I'm typing this on a Dell XPS M1330. LED backlight? Check. Widescreen display? Got it. Lightweight form factor? Yep. 64Gb SSD available? Since December, although I took the 200Gb SATA. Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz and 4Gb of DDR2-5300? Yep, although I only chose to pay for 2.0Ghz and 3Gb. And I got the Geforce Go 8400M video card with 128Mb dedicated graphics memory - not stellar by hard-core gamer standards, but worlds beyond the integrated graphics on the X300. Plus, my M1330 was at least $500 cheaper than the X300 will be.
Can someone please explain to me what the big deal is?
-Graham
Designing a machine is all about picking the appropriate compromises. "Integrated graphics" has its issues, but is often pretty good these days, and certainly powerful enough for running compiz and other blingerific GUIs, opengl-based stuff (blender or whatever), etc. The memory hit can be annoying, but then you can just bump up your system RAM, which is generally more useful and cheaper than dedicated memory [I don't know how much the speed it is due to bus contention or whatever... anybody have a clue?]
Maybe not the first choice for the insane FPSes, but then very little that doesn't require liquid-nitrogen on tap for cooling is.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
it not just the power it's the ram hit. Why can intel have on board video with 32mb-64mb-128mb of it's own ram?
Ati / amd is working on that.
on 13.3 inches diagonal?
puh-leez.
In Bob we trust.
What if you connect an external monitor?
As a longtime thinkpad user (since the 770, now with a T60), there are several things Lenovo have got wrong:
- No line-in for audio. This is a big problem for doing audio recordings
- No enough ports (only 3 USB, no firewire)
- Widescreen. Ugh. Repeat after me, laptops are for documents, not for movies. "Widescreen" just means "missing the top and bottom of the display" - it should be renamed "shortscreen".
- Lid catches: IBM used to have two, carefully balanced; Lenovo reduced this to one as a deliberate measure, but it is now harder to open with a single hand.
- side-mounted ports for ethernet - so the cable gets in the way on the desk.
- Windows keys (used to be absent) - making the Ctrl and Alt keys too small.
Thinkpads are generally quite Linux friendly (see thinkwiki.org), but still, can't we have the nice Intel i810 cards on the high-end models, instead of crippling them with useless ATI cards?
The older models (eg 560, 770) were very well engineered, and seemed to have been designed with a little more "love". The T60 is not a bad machine, but it doesn't inspire affection and delight in the same way.
It's only a "feature" in the Winter.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
Very true. And just because they're corporate users or scientists, doesn't mean they're not gamers in their spare time. A lot of corporate users are in fact gamers. Not necessarily hard-core gamers who play Crysis at insane resolutions with AA enabled, but gamers nonetheless.
622677120
the X61s by far the best designed laptop I've seen. It isn't pretty, but it is high powered processor wise and light. I think it is a shame that more companies don't look after the practical usability of laptops, but instead tend to focus on making 6+ pound behemoths with huge screens that you will never be able to move off your desk.
Really, if you want that kind of hardware, get a desktop. As far as real laptops for mobile users go, thinkpad is the reigning king.
And that gives them the right to use their company issued laptop to play games? I'm sorry, I don't get that. I have a company issued laptop, and I leave it at work. There are two reasons in giving you a company laptop: You're on the road often or they hope to lure you to work in your spare time. I'm not in the first category, yet I got a laptop. My laptop stays at work, on my desk at all times.
A company laptop is for work. If you want to game, buy a machine yourself. Even in the rare cases I got sent away for a few weeks, I took my company laptop and my personal laptop. Company laptop for work, personal laptop for play. It's not that I cannot install anything on my company laptop, I'm admin on it, works just fine.
Company machines are for work only. Final point.
...and unlike the Dell laptops, Thinkpads will still be rolling along long after the Dells break down. To go for a post-offshore Dell is much like gambling on support - you're hoping they'll understand you and 2) have enough intelligence to know what the problem is. With a Thinkpad, you're more likely to get a Denver/Atlanta call center on the line without having a business account. To have to go directly to the top on Dell is a mistake by doing so, for IBM/Lenovo it is a line of last resort that solves the problem.
Thinkpads are there for people who want quality, not price. Even after the takeover, people still get quality.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
As someone who's had similar issues with a t42p, the later revisions of the board seem to have dealt with this issue. The only problem seems to come from those who still have their original board that has said flaw in it and are nearing the end of their warranty.
On a good note, the T60p has taken care of this and has the often-wanted Flexview screen. Combine that with another thread talking about putting a 14" T61p's board in, you have a laptop that will have a very long lifetime.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Seriously, does anyone make heated (external) keyboards? My office is often very cold, and it's hard to type when your fingers are numb.
So associate with the other Slashdot crowd. There are thousands of active users, you will find support for both sides of most discussions.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I agree it's a pain trying to get "Jack" from Mumbai to solve your problem with a Dimension or Inspiron. But all XPS support is US-based.
As to build quality or design, it's meaningless to generalize to "all Dell" or "all Lenovo." Both companies have their share of dogs, but build quality on the M1330 is excellent. Design is in the eye of the beholder, but I routinely have people walk up and ask me about the M1330 (usually having walked past rows of throbbing-Apple-logo Macs to do so).
-Graham
So, why do you have discrete graphics?
Hear, hear! I'm going to start calling the "shortscreen" laptops, to! I'd go for a "widescreen" if you could pivot it into portrait mode, though. That would me a much nicer feature than a folding keyboard.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
I wish more users thought like you. But for reasons unknown, it seems to be standard today for users to expect work "stuff", for lack of a better term, to be for personal use as well. Note the internet use getting people fired etc.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
First, I agree that Thinkpads are the best out there. They are more robust and more usable than anything else, with the exception of the first run of T60s when Lenovo first broke away from IBM. Unfortunately, the key placement has moved me to purchase Dells for my company instead.
For reference, here are some pictures for keyboard comparison:
Thinkpad X300
Dell D420 keyboard
Macbook Pro Air keyboard
Escape and the Function key are in the wrong places ... Esc must be in the NW corner, left of F1 and above back-tick (`), and the SW corner should read Ctrl, Fn, Win, Alt, Space. (Recall the fact that corners are the most easily located/accessed spots by sight and touch, to speak nothing of habit). Browser navigation buttons by the arrows are made useless by rocker gestures and ALT+Arrows. Most of my users don't even know what they do. I prefer nothing (or PgUp/PgDn if you must). Apple's defaults of Fn+arrow for home/end and pgup/pgdn are very useful (Dell uses those key combos for brightness, but how often do you change that?).
Apple's go the lack of a second mouse button (alleviated by multi-touch?) and Fn out of place, Lenovo has Esc and Fn out of place (plus funky web buttons blocking your fingers from arrow keys). I go with Dell.
Yes, I use ctrl:nocaps. Not so easy to set up (or convince of its usefulness) for my Thinkpad-based Windows users, but they'll get Dells when they're upgraded in a few months.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Yes, I agree with your points. Company-issued computers should be for company use only. I was also thinking along the lines of those freelance developers and/or small companies who use their PCs/notebooks for both work and play, where the rules may not be as cut and dried or where the developers are the owners as well. I guess you know what I'm trying to say. I should have made the distinction clearer though. My bad.
Again, I agree that one should only use their company-issued computers for their intended use.
It's a very simple compromise: I don't use their machine in my spare time, but I don' *work* for them in my spare time either. I'm not there and you send me an email? Though shit: don't expect a reply.
You see, many employers hope/expect that you work in your spare time (like process emails after hours). That's the same kind of double standard that employees use justify the usage of their work computer for play.
You're excused ;-) I get it, but that's really a minority of laptops out there....