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Are Lenovo's ThinkPads Getting Worse?
writertype writes "Over the weekend, Lenovo launched the ThinkPad T431s, a ~$950 notebook with chiclet keys, no trackpad buttons, an integrated battery, and Windows 8 but no touchscreen. The T431s is also thinner and lighter than the bulletproof bento boxes we all know and love. The argument ReadWrite makes is that ThinkPads are becoming slowly, but significantly, worse. Do you agree?"
I'd say the lack of touchscreen is a positive feature =)
While we all know about Betteridge's Law, the answer here is yes.
It's based on the Ultrabook standard put forth by Intel, Lenovo doesn't get a lot of say on some of those missing features. If you dont like it, dont buy an Ultrabook. They do still make other notebooks, including the T430S which has track-pad buttons etc and should be very familiar to Thinkpad fans.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Well, if my company forces one of these on me, I'll worry about it...when they get to it 3 years from now.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They just don't hold up like they used to. We've got at work several 2009-2010 aged Thinkpads that are about done, while older ones (2007 era) are still showing no trouble aside from user error (dropped, etc). I've even got really old Thinkpad 600e (Pentium II, 96MB RAM) that won't die. I'd rather work off of the 600e then deal with the chicklet keyboards on the new ones (purchased a few T and W series laptops at the beginning of the year, they all suffer from it).
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
I bought a then-still-IBM Thinkpad in 2005. It was a T42, I think. Over the next five years it did over 700,000 miles of flying with me, was dropped (in and out of its case), stood on, had coffee spilled on it and was generally abused. By the time I replaced it in 2010 the CDROM had packed in and the letters on the keys were mostly worn out. That's it. I gave it to my mother as her first laptop and it's still going strong, three years later. So 8+ years uninterrupted service.
Obviously I was immensely impressed with that, and contrived to immediately buy a new Thinkpad. "They can't be all that different" I thought. I could not have been more wrong.
Its replacement (I forget the model right now) was DOA. The replacement lasted three weeks before suffering a terminal mainboard failure. Lenovo, declining to replace it, took almost three months to return it to me.
Over the next year it progressively disintegrated. The DVDROM died, the keyboard had to be replaced, the hinges needed constant tightening and the hard drive was replaced twice and it developed cracks in the lid, and the battery was almost useless after a few months. The power adaptor socket also broke. It looked cheap, it felt cheap, and it was anything but cheap. Lenovo could not give a fuck.
I will never buy another Lenovo product, Thinkpad or not.
They used to be known for the keyboards - precise and firm with Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDown keys in a 3x2 layout. They used to have good trackpad button that worked perfectly with the red nav stylist thingy. The need to be distinct. They need to be the best. They need higher resolution; 1440x900 is an absolute minimum in my book. They need a solid keyboard. They need the 3x2 layout. They need a differentiating, defensible position. They've lost it. Sad.
Having just purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon I am finding it to be fantastic. It still feels solid like my ol' T42 and it was considerably less expensive than most (but not all) ultrabooks on the market with comparable specifications.
It has an incredible keyboard (in my humble opinion) and does not look flashy which I consider to be a huge plus.
I'd say the ThinkPad series hasn't changed one bit.
Oh yeah, and they've still got a clit mouse!
chic-let keys back. After all, didn't we decide that was a bad design with the IBM PCjr?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr#.22One_of_the_biggest_flops_in_the_history_of_computing.22
Be seeing you...
I have a T410S. The spare battery (in place of the CD drive) often falls out, the tiny rivets holding the screen together has failed on both sides -- I've put screws in the lid to fix it. It still has a trackpoint, matt screen, and half decent keyboard though
That said, It's survived the last few years, the two original batteries are still giving me a couple of hours, despite being charged and discharged probably 1500 times, physically (despite the modifications to the screen, which must have been opened over 10,000 times), it's racked up enough miles being flung into overhead lockers in my rucksack (may times while still powered, chunterring away compiling something) on it's travels to get to the moon
Doesn't feel as solid as my 380ED was 15 years ago, but that didn't get half as much punishment.
My 15" macbook (about 18 months old) sits next to it in the rucksack and isn't doing too bad (despite having a coin stuck in the sd slot), but I don't use it half as much as the thinkpad (running ubuntu 10.04)
It's probably nearing time for a new thinkpad, so on my list is
* decent screen
* matt screen
* trackpoint
* keyboard light
* built in 3g card
* extra battery slot
* Large SSD (significantly more than my 128GB one)
* 8GB or more of memory
I'm not convinced by the look of the new keyboards, however there's not exactly a great deal of choice in decent laptops.
I have written about this on /. before but it's more relevant than ever to me now
A few years ago (late 2009), I bought a ThinkPad and a MacBook Pro around the same time. I used the two machines side by side for awhile, and I really, really wanted to like the ThinkPad. However, the MacBook Pro's screen was brighter, clearer, speakers were better, battery lasted longer, and, of course, the profile was a lot smaller. Power cord was nicer. Touchpad was miles beyond the ThinkPad. Also, power management didn't work perfectly on the ThinkPad (Ubuntu, Debian, FreeBSD, all of them wouldn't suspend to memory on closing the thing and resume properly when opening it. Sometimes it would, sometimes not). ThinkPad fan was noisy.
I'd once again like to buy a laptop, and run Linux/BSD on it. While OSX was giving me a decent dev environment and not pissing me off too much on a daily basis at the time, lately the lack of configurability, Finder being slow as fuck, development environment issues, generally using OSX being not as badass as running something made by the community, Apple's legal positions, etc... I'd really like to get off the Apple stuff.
However, it's obvious that there's no laptop made by anyone else that isn't an ugly piece of shit. ThinkPads used to have that nice weight to them, the look and feeling like you just stepped off the space station with one. Something reasonably classy about them. But if you look at them directly next to the latest Macbook Pro, it is obvious which one is better hardware (OS political issues aside).
Honestly I'm thinking about just not using laptops anymore. The ergonomics of the screen/keyboard placement is obviously terrible, and there just doesn't seem to be any option I'd want to use every day other than handing Apple a huge check for their hardware and running another OS on it.
If anyone has any suggestions about other brands, products, or experiences I'd be happy to hear them. Because I certainly can't seem to find a reasonable alternative
Long live the BSD license
My previous Thinkpad experience was an A31P. I finally just parted with it, reluctantly, a couple of weeks ago. Newer Thinkpads, up through the X61 were ones I very much wanted, but couldn't justify the price. At that point I do think they started going downhill for a while. This one actually looks to me like it has possibilities again.
I really like the idea of a MIL-SPEC. I do think it would have been better with a replaceable battery, but in trying to keep up with the thinness of the competitions products...
I was leery of chiclet type keyboards, but now that I have gotten used to the ones I got with a couple of Motorola products, I find I prefer them. Keep in mind that one thing I am NOT is a touch typist...
Once they come up with the touchscreen version, I may have to look at a Thinkpad again. Now, if it was only available with Linux...
I recently purchased an x230. It's light as hell, has an IPS display, quad core, 16GB RAM, 160GB SSD, and displayport. Best of all, ALL HW was detected perfectly by fedora 18.
So not all Lenovo laptops are getting worse..
Let's also not forget the bad old days when ThinkPads had twice as many screws and screw lengths as Dell laptops had, making servicing them a major pain. Putting in a too-long screw in the wrong place risked damage to the motherboard.
That being said, PC makers really do a poor job of marketing what their premium offerings are, and what's a value offering. Outside of Apple, which is almost exclusively premium, no one gets this. Dell didn't with Alienware, HP didn't with VoodooPC, and now Lenovo doesn't get it with ThinkPad. While the exact target of each brand is different in these 3 examples, all are upmarket items.
My company purchases several hundred ThinkPads every year that are given to users who use them ~12+ hours per day 7 days a week and who generally abuse them. X series tablets (starting with the X40t up to X230t), T series (T60-T430s), a smattering of W series and a couple X1's. The ThinkPad line is still as bulletproof as ever, with excellent warranty support (we purchase accidental protection on everything).
The new systems we are getting have (so far) been just as robust as the previous systems we've had. Of the various groups who purchase computers where I am at, mine is the only one that is exclusively Lenovo. My group is also the only one that doesn't consistently complain about their vendor of choice.
The new keyboard is a monstrosity compared to the old ThinkPad keyboard, but is still much better than anything else I've tried.
Also, anyone comparing Lenovo's IdeaPad line, to their ThinkPad line should think about them as two separate companies. ThinkPads are built like tanks, the IdeaPads are built like a Kia and the support model is completely different.
The limiting factor of the W line will be the power supply. It's been growing exponentially. The one for my W520 packs 170W, is brick sized and could be used to crack open coconuts in a pinch. If it continues at the current rate, the power supply will soon be bigger and heavier than the SchtinkPad . . . about around the time when the W590 is released. With a cool 1TB of RAM and a wattage of a wind tunnel!
But don't even think about trying to take my W520 away . . . I get all NRAish about it. I'll whack any would-be thieves over the head with the power supply.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Microsoft made the PC market, and MS is going to break it. While those that make PC kit can choose between Intel and AMD, or Nvidia and AMD, for either the CPU or GPU, by definition the PC has to use Windows from Microsoft. Those that makes PCs therefore have to trust MS's choices and commandments.
Think back to when IBM controlled the essential hardware spec of the PC. Clones were clones because they used the same types of components and interconnects as the original. Luckily, when IBM became even more senile (these were the losers behind the dreadful 'token ring' bus, for instance), an industry group of OEMs created new standards for the hardware- standards that ultimately gave Intel most of the control over new bus designs.
Microsoft can, in a sense, be chucked too if Windows is replaced with Linux, but a computer with Linux is NOT a compatible PC. The IBM solution makes no sense here, and that is the issue.
Microsoft is going senile. It no longer has a sense of viable purpose. By some miracle, it survived being last to the Internet (as nonsensical as this will sound, MS supported CDROM in place of the Internet, which is where things like Encarta came from- MS 'geniuses' stated that the Internet could NOT beat the bandwidth advantages of local optical storage, and so should be ignored). Today, MS faces almost too many challenges to be listed, and has an answer to none of them.
The 'ThinkPad' reflects MS saying 'this is how the future of notebooks looks'. Microsoft knows that 'fashion' is the answer, even though we know that MS has NEVER succeeded this way, but by offering (indirectly, of course) serious, value for money, work-horse products with insanely good third-party software support.
How many things has MS copied from Apple over the last couple of years, through blind replication? The top management of MS currently state "if it associated with Apple hardware or software, it is a magic ingredient for success, and therefore we must do the same in exactly the same way." So Microsoft gave us the world's most expensive tablets, with the world's most restrictive software store, and failed once again in the most humiliating way.
Rather than rethink their strategy, MS prefers paying an army of online shills telling us that everything MS does is 'genius', and if we fail to appreciate this we are the idiots. So, suggesting that an ARM based tablet from MS should 1) support full windows (with recompiled apps, of course), and 2) sell for the same price as tablets from Google and Amazon, will get hundreds of 'shill' responses explaining in detail why such a proposal is clearly nonsense.
Here's a question. Why did MS NOT insist all new laptops have touch-screens? The answer, of course, is not a happy one. MS is NOT about choice (a lappy with a touch screen gives the user choices between screen, touchpad or external mouse input). MS is about control. It thinks Apple wins by telling its customers what they may, or may not do. Apple sez a laptop is not a tablet, so MS agrees, at least until that moment Apple laptops commonly include touch-screens.
For years, MS whined on about how its OS and Office suite should be sold as a 'service' with recurring costs. But who was first to making such concepts popular and commercially effective. Why, it was Google with the Chromebook. Where is Microsoft's equivalent to the Chromebook?
As I said, MS has gone senile. No longer will it listen to its users. No longer will it care if its products receive approval from those forced to use them. No longer will it care if the competition is encroaching from a million different directions at once. All Microsoft cares about is that THEY control the PC, and whatever they say goes, no matter how self-destructive.
When Google steps up in the next year or so, and makes Android a true OS for the desktop and notebook, MS is toast. The fact that our CPU is going to change architecture for the first time since the PC spec was created by IBM is the most critical factor. When proper Windows finally go
Last night I looked at pictures of the new ThinkPad T431s. While looking at them, I thought to myself, "Hmmmm. How does this laptop look any different from any other high-end PC laptop?" I will be in the market this summer for a new laptop to replace my aging MacBook. I wanted to replace it with a ThinkPad due to the ThinkPad line's reputed reliability and its conservative design. The current ThinkPads, in my opinion, are well designed, and I don't mind the chiclet keys in current-generation ThinkPads such as the ThinkPad T430s and the X230 (although I sympathize with those who prefer traditional-style keys). However, the ThinkPad T431s, in my opinion, doesn't resemble a ThinkPad. Where are the mouse buttons? To me, the design looks like yet-another MacBook Pro clone.
Doesn't Lenovo understand that part of what makes the ThinkPad so desirable is its conservative design, including the keyboard layout? ThinkPads are like HP's calculator line in this regard, which have a similar fan following who likes the calculators' high quality and conservative designs. Older HP calculators from the 1980s and early 1990s such as the 15C, 32S, and 48GX are highly regarded due to their high quality (not to mention their support for RPN input). I have a HP 48S that I bought on eBay six years ago that I like a lot due to its feature set and its quality. However, HP's late-1990s offerings (during the Carly Fiorina era) deviated from the style and quality that were characteristic of HP's older calculators. These offerings were not well-received by HP's customers. HP's older calculators started to sell for very high prices on eBay. Thankfully HP listened to the input of its customers, and HP has recently been making calculators that nearly match the quality of their older models, such as the newer HP 35S and the HP 15c Collector's Edition models. Hopefully Lenovo realizes that they have a special brand with a loyal fan following, and that Lenovo doesn't make the same mistakes that HP made during the Fiorina era.
Like all ThinkPad's before it, it has a trackpoint, but how the L did the Lenovo designers think that trackpoint users are going to be able to click with no mouse buttons?
Apparently, you are supposed to click by pressing on the top of the trackpad...
However, there are quite a few users out there who are used to disabling the trackpad in the BIOS because it is too easy to nudge it by mistake. With such a large trackpad (twice as wide than before) and practically no space between the Space Bar and the trackpad this is bound to happen more often.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I have owned several ThinkPads over the years and can attest to the declining quality over time, particularly right after Lenovo acquired the Think brand.
My first ThinkPad was an IBM T40p. The build quality was rock solid. It got me through college and I carried that thing on my back nearly every day for four years. As a sys admin I have deployed many IBM and Lenovo ThinkPads. The T4x was well built machine, and ran for a long time but tended to need repairs just after the warranty period. Since we had a fleet of identical machines I had plenty of systems to cannibalize. The decline in quality was hardly noticeable at this point.
I used a T420 for work for a while. It seemed nice. I had no complaints, but I didn’t get to keep it long since I didn’t stick around.
Now I have a new T530 and the build quality SUCKS! The chicklet/island style keyboard wouldn’t be bad, but the flex is terrible especially at the top edge by the F keys. I don’t like the new keyboard layout with the different bottom left corner (fn, ctrl, win, alt). The monitor/lid flexes a lot when opening and closing and there is a lot of play left in the monitor after the hinge has latched. Also, there is a gap at the back edge when closed. Picking up a closed laptop from the back edge will again flex the monitor. The battery is loose and rattles when locked in place. That is about everything I can remember about it right now. Oh, the power brick for it is huge, like a brick. One thing that good about it that I can say is that it is smoking fast, but I think I have Intel to thank for that.
While ThinkPad’s quality has been declining, Inspiron and Vostro quality has been improving. The thing I don’t like about their 15” is the 10 key. It forces you to have an offset keyboard, but overall it has a good build quality. Not as good as the old ThinkPads, but better than the new ThinkPads. If it weren’t for the 10 key I might have gotten a Dell instead of my rickety T530.