Lenovo Launches ThinkPad X1 Yoga at CES with OLED Display
anandtech.com
anandtech.com
All I want is a real "ThinkPad". Give me a proper T460 with 32GB RAM, IPS display, a recent Intel i7 CPU, replaceable batteries and the notebook body of the T410 or better the T60 or IBM ThinkPad T41.
It looks promising, except for the keyboard layout. WTF http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9889/T460.jpg
Can we please go back to IBM designed keyboard layout. The T410 had a very good keyboard, I want to keep such an layout :(
I want my keys grouped together not such a mess. The F1-4, F5-F8, F7-F12 keys should be grouped. The Del, Home, Page Up/Down keys should be grouped. I want to be productive, not look at the keyboard the whole time...
Edit: The T410 keyboard looked like this: http://cdn6.bigcommerce.com/s-blhknq8/product_images/images/...
Someone really needs to figure out a sleek backlit fixed size keyboard area for everyone to have their own keyboard custom printed. I wouldn't even want an insert key.
Crap-sized enter is a deal breaker too.
Home and End... Have you seen this keyboard? They're in the top right corner.
Page Up/Down near the arrow keys is really nice.
The thinkpad keyboard layout has been consistent as of late. The T460(s) keyboard layout is the same as the T450(s) keyboard, which is the same as the T440(s) layout, which is almost the same as the T430(s) layout with minor differences in the function keys.
These thinkpads are not an example of a brand changing the layout every model.
Now to convince management that a 3yo lowish T520 with a ~half-dead~ battery and constant thermal problems isn't exactly the best gear for your developers.. But at least I got time until February, until the T460p ships :)
Very curious to see if anything will come of this.
In 2013 Lenovo annouced the T430, were they destroyed their ThinkPad brand with this aweful keyboard and touchpad, etc: http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/thinkpad-t431s-laptop-new-des...
And David Hill (the autor of the ThinkPad Time Machine? 2015 blob post) is mentioned in the 2013 article.
The ThinkPad's target audience was business users and geeks.
Both of whom favor MacBooks in this day and age.
So you probably live in California or something. The rest of the world keeps using Lenovo Thinkpads just fine. Just look at their sales figures, they are not losing ground by droves or something. Macs are no replacement for Thinkpads in any way.
I've tried finding a Windows laptop that comes close for personal use. I ended up getting a MBP and putting Windows on it like a lot of developers.
Thinkpad T550 Ultrabook $2,399.00
Intel Core i7-5600U Processor (4MB Cache, up to 3.20GHz) Windows 10 Home 64 15.5" 3K (2880x1620), IPS, with WWAN Intel HD Graphics 5500 16GB PC3-12800 DDR3L (2 DIMM) 512 GB Solid State Drive, Serial ATA3 Intel 7265 AC/B/G/N Dual Band Wireless + Bluetooth Version 4.0 Up to 14.8 hours of battery life with 3 cell + 3 cell batteries Starting at 4 lbs
Macbook Pro 15 $2,499.00
15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display 2.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage Intel Iris Pro Graphics + AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory Force Touch trackpad
But if you like to tinker, Thinkpad is really your only option. It has widely available and inexpensive user replaceable components(screen, chassis, RAM, SSD, keyboard, mousepad, etc). Lightly used thinkpads are available for a few hundred bucks on ebay. I picked up a year old T440s with I7, 12gb ram, and 256gb SSD for $400 last year.
Also hot swappable battery, wide linux compatibility, spill proof keyboard, awesome industrial design.
Well a lot of developers actually use Linux, and Lenovo hardware support for Linux is much better than the non-official Linux support for Macs, for one.
Plus, Thinkpads are way more robust than Apple's products. They can drop, be trampled over, and still work just fine. They are made for the road, not just to shine in Starbucks.
Thinkpads are highly replaceable as well. You can open them up and change about every part inside, because they are made to be modular and easy to service. No need to go to your Apple Store to have your battery replaced.
On top of that, used Thinkpads can be extremely cheap and still work fine for YEARS after that. You probably will replace them before the hardware actually fails.
Hey, maybe someone can Kickstart a 3D-printed retro ThinkPad case for modern laptop system boards.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6322397
"The original iPhone was a conversation starter, just like the iPad when it came out. You can pull out a Thinkpad from 10 years ago in a full Starbucks if you like, but most people wouldn't enjoy doing it - and even apologize for it, if they got curious stares."
- Non-chiclet keyboard with decent layout
- HDD and network activity indicator lights
- Hardware wireless-off switch
- Latching lid
They certainly don't need to make it any thinner -- I've had to carry some Macbooks around and the sharp edges are not very hand-friendly. I think 1" throughout is about right for a laptop thickness.
This. These cheap keyboards are very annoying.
I hope Lenovo produces the old IBM style business quality keyboards for their brand new models.
@Lenovo: have a look at your great T410 keyboard, build them again: http://cdn6.bigcommerce.com/s-blhknq8/product_images/images/... (only the cursor keys are a bit too small, otherwise great)
edit: "F keys" part readability
Why would they practices selling replacement parts that could cost you half of the laptop price just to replace a casing?
I never understood the point of removing these. I think it may just be cutting costs, trying to save a few cents on the custom shape LEDs.
modern SATA drives doesn't matter if they are still mechanical or SSD's don't work the same, your OS doesn't work the same when you save a file it doesn't mean that it's being written that moment, it can be in RAM, it can be in your HDD's cache or it can be written down.
HDD activity LED's haven't been doing anything real for over a decade now...
From what I can tell, this feature is called "Device Activity Signal", and it essentially says the drive can use the P11 pin of the SATA connector to indicate activity, and the board can use this to electrically drive the LED, there's no need for high-level protocol support.
Obviously this won't detect writes to the buffer, only when they are actually pushed to the disk, but when there's heavy IO, the two are usually correlated.
Here's a doc by Samsung about DAS from 2014: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisit...
As a user, I can tell you that while I obviously can't relate a single "blink" with a write to a file, the link between having a bunch of processes hung waiting for IO and a heavily active LED is quite noticeable - and can be useful if the UI is completely blocked.
Samsung for example only supports it on the DC (datacenter) series of their drives which is for enterprise storage the DAS in this case is only enabled in certain modes to note if the drive is active or spare/standby or to identify a specific drive there is no actual write/read iop activity feed back in SATA drives.
Also dear lord was that document auto-translated? I've expected this level of English from a 3rd tier Chinese OEM not Samsung...
>4. Samsung SSDs for data centers are
Basically, Samsung SSD 845DC PRO and 845DC EVO support the SATA 3.1 specifications. However, Samsung has adjusted only the DAS feature as “enabled” by default to make the LED blink regardless of the SATA specifications in the host systems.
I have to wonder, why? The OS can do that quite well in software.
> Latching lid
More moving parts means more potential breakage.
> They certainly don't need to make it any thinner -- I've had to carry some Macbooks around and the sharp edges are not very hand-friendly. I think 1" throughout is about right for a laptop thickness.
Different customers have different preferences, but the majority of people do like thin, almost as much as light.
All that aside, check out the proposed ThinkPad Retro. Looks quite promising to me.
If something can be turned on or off, I don't want to rely on the OS to do it. Give me a hard switch. This even goes for system power.
I click on the wireless icon and click "turn off". It's good that command-line syntax exists, but that doesn't make it the only way, or necessarily the simplest way.
For that matter, some laptop models offer a function key to do the same thing.
For that, the laptop must be on and booted. The main advantage of the hardware rfkill switch is that you can flick it to disabled before booting or waking up the laptop, so that it doesn't even try to connect before you can get to the wireless icon.
(I've done that before: on a plane, want to use the laptop, which is sleeping in the bag; just flick the rfkill switch and open the lid to resume from suspend.)
Fair point. However, planes don't require turning off wifi or bluetooth during normal flight anymore. (And even when they did, no actual harm was done either way.)
When I last flew (domestically, last year), the instruction was still that devices could only be used if they had an "airplane mode" function. Things might be different in your country. (And yes, I know normal 802.11 probe request packets won't do much interference, if any, to airplane systems. Still, it doesn't harm to flick the rfkill switch to disabled.)
Sometimes airlines fail to communicate that well. A friend of mine had a flight where they first warned against using any device with any kind of radio transmitter, shortly followed by "please enjoy our in-flight wifi".
Oh wait, they're doing that already. And the usability sucks.
I'm running i3, not GNOME. I want a damn hardware switch when I need to flick wireless off. I don't want to have to keyboard OR mouse around to do it. You want a plain black slab, go buy one. There's a market for what we want, and ThinkPads shouldn't be that plain black slab. Leave that to Apple.
If you have to drop to a console prompt and run rfkill in order to disable your wifi... then the flight attendant will have no idea whether your wifi is enabled or not.
He or she WON'T gawk with impressed amazement that you're a Linux user. For that matter, neither will anyone here.
That's just patently wrong with regards to latching ThinkPad lids, as the latch is actually saving the lid hinge from wearing out prematurely.
(which is one of the reasons for my recent model downgrade)
> I have to wonder, why? The OS can do that quite well in software.
You can't think of any nice reasons why it may be nice to have hardware blocking software from reactivating all the antennas on your machine at will?
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/34956/who-needs-an-ex...
Also, a battery and power supply LED that is not _on the back of the device_, so I can actually see them while using the device.
I don't really get this complaint. They're all scissor-switch keyboards. I've got an old X220 lying around, and use a T450s for work. The chiclet keyboard on the latter is significantly better. In terms of key stability, I think the new Macbook keyboard is actually the best.
This has been historically the first piece to break on my classic Thinkpads (I have quite the collection of IBM FRU parts as a result).
In my book, including a garbage-spec panel disqualifies a computer from being a quality product no matter what range it is otherwise part of. Sadly this is (was?) all too common.
I've given it a 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM. And while I like the resolution on a 12", I often try to adjust the angle of the display while working because the viewing angle is so bad and I think it may just be off, only to find out that it's just not that bright.
I am still looking forward to getting a fanless ThinkPad. A laptop with zero moving parts is my dream. I tried an Asus UX305FA last year but the Core-M is a little lacking still, I am hoping in a generation or two we will be there :)
Have you ever seen the inside of a modern Ultrabook?
Pretty much the entire inside of the case is packed with battery cells, with only a tiny sliver near the hinge used by the system board. People comfortable opening the case and moving around a pile of tiny components and connectors could replace it, but I don't see any obvious way to make such a battery modular.
Then don't buy the ThinkPad X1 series, which includes this newly announced model.
As long as it's not glued in or tugged away behind dozens of other components you can still easily change it with a screwdriver.
I'm not looking to buy, but I had to advise relatives lately, and it made me realise that I don't know what the ThinkPad's successor is.
I consider Thinkpad as Macbook Pros of PC world. Lenovo hasn't learnt any lesson, they are diluting the "THINK" brand. Having quality products in standard series like - T, W, & X will make better brand recognition. The prime example are this new Yoga and Thinkpad 13 models ?? The marketing team should take lessons. IHMO the Thinkpad line should have 3 series :
1. T Series (Regular) - T360 (13") / T460 (14") / T560 (15").
2. W Series (Workstation) - W560 (15") / W760 (17")
3. X Series (Ultrabook) - X260 (12") / X360 (13")
No Carbon, Yoga, TxxxP mumbo jumbo - just standard nomenclature.
Anybody for Thinkpad C series for cellphones ? - C41 (4") / C51 (5")
Now we can experience OLED burn-in on our notebook displays, too. And since the thing is freakin' glued together, good luck repairing it.
For the record, my Note 4 isn't showing any burn in after > 1yr of use, but who knows what it will be like 4 years down the line.
A small number of users report burn-in on the newer s6/6p so I hope QC on the new Yogas will be tighter at the very least
I had burn-in on my old galaxy s4. Don't know or care if it's the "new" technology. The primary burn-in was noticeable due to Android's fixed top notification bar, as it almost never changed position or color. The times I would fire up a horizontal view or full screen app, the bar would obviously remain visible. I'm glad they wised up to iOS's approach and started blending the bar in with the app when possible.
From the parent: > New gen OLEDs like the one in Samsung S6 do not have any significant burn-in.
My point is that phones are not a good measure of the ability for an oled screen to be used on a laptop since phones have lower expected longevity.