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The ThinkPad Goes Ultrabook — ThinkPad X1 Carbon Tested
MojoKid writes "The venerable Lenovo ThinkPad, with its little red TrackPoint nub, has gone the way of the Ultrabook. If there's one small dig ThinkPads have taken with regularity over the years, it's that though there's a ton of quality and substance built into these machines, style was not a hallmark of the brand. The all new ThinkPad X1 Carbon could very well change the utilitarian stereotype of Lenovo's business-backed line-up, however. As the name suggests, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is built from carbon fiber material throughout its chassis and internal rollcage. Its 14-inch display drives a native resolution of 1600x900, and its keyboard, arguably one of the nicest features of the ThinkPad line, is backlit and even more refined with contoured key caps. Battery life hits a max of about six hours on a full charge, and the machine weighs in at 3lbs and .31-inches at it thinnest dimension."
Many customers, self included, prefer it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Can they make it look more like a MacBook Air and then I'll buy one?
They could, but that would mean, yet another lawsuit, which we certainly already have enough of . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I just pulled the rubber off
Doing that, is what got Julian Assange into all that trouble . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Please, no. If I wanted a MacBook Air, I would get a MacBook Air; but I hate that style and love the more macho Thinkpad style.
I'm so glad it doesn't have a shiny screen too.
Max.
alledgedly
Max.
The day I bought my first thinkpad was the day I stopped replacing broken laptops.
"Lame" - Galaxar
I'd rather have page up/page down there than the back/forward buttons that were there before - I've hit the back key and lost everything that I was typing into a webpage far too many times with those damn things. Aside from that though, the layout isn't really that important, you'll get used to it. The big problem with the keyboard here, and the keyboards on these really thin laptops in general, is the stroke depth. They're just far too shallow. I'm sure that's why they moved to the chicklet style, it's better suited to a laptop with no vertical space, but it's still crap.
Tip for other laptop designers (or designers of any product): figure out what your product is best known for, the good stuff, and when you're doing your redesign don't screw with that. What are the selling points for Thinkpads?
1. Solid, durable construction
2. A no-nonsense utilitarian aesthetic
3. Excellent keyboards that are comfortable to type on
If it has to be a little thicker to accommodate a good Thinkpad (TM) keyboard, that's not a drawback - that's a selling point.
Comparing as close as possible specs, the 1.8GHz i5 with 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM costs $1,199 for the MacBook Air and $1,499 for the ThinkPad. For the 2GHz i7, the MBA is $1,499, the ThinkPad is $1,849. However, the ThinkPad has a 14" screen instead of 13" (not sure if this is a pro or con in a portability-at-all-costs Ultrabook), integrated 3G (need a USB dongle for the MBA). The ThinkPad lacks Thunderbolt, so USB is the fastest peripheral interface. The ThinkPad is marginally larger in one dimension, marginally smaller in two more, so about the same volume and the weight difference between the two is under 0.1%. The ThinkPad comes with a 3-year warranty, but this costs extra for the MBA (unless you buy from the education store), which brings the cost quite a bit closer. The cost of upgrading to 8GB of RAM for the ThinkPad is not listed - it's not even clear that it's an option, which is a shame because that's something I'd be pretty sure to want.
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Hell, I miss my 1400x1050 14" T60p! It's pretty sad that the only way to get 1000+ vertical pixels is in a 1080p display, which is too high a DPI to be comfortable on less than a 15" screen, but a 15.6" 16:9 panel makes for an absolute monster. Lenovo could have kept making the 4:3 machines ad infinitum--see Panasonic and the ToughBook line. But they decided the extra profit was worth lessening the product. Sad. Unfortunately, so did everybody else. Heck, Apple's the only mainstream company that even uses 16:10 panels anymore.