Lenovo Accidentally Leaks an Image of Its ‘Retro Thinkpad’ | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo Accidentally Leaks an Image of Its ‘Retro Thinkpad’

omgubuntu.co.uk

116 pointsnwrk78 comments

I (as a decade long MBP user) still think that Thinkpads nailed notebook design.

Since I moved more and more to Arch on a cheap Chinese notebook which seems to replace my MBP for 90% of my tasks I hope to get a Thinkpad with Arch as my next main notebook.

What model notebook did you move to?

Not the OP, but I'm moving from a 2017 MBP-touchbar to the GDP Pocket, which is .. almost .. the perfect Linux machine for my needs. I only hope GPD scale up and keep this up - its beyond time for Apple to have competition in the unibody-laptop department ..

It's the Xiaomi Mi 12.5". It's a great subnotebook, Arch working flawlessly since all parts are from Intel but sometimes I need a bigger screen thinking that 14" of a Thinkpad X1 might be the sweet spot.

I came here to say exactly the same thing. This machine is absolutely great. Do you own the fanless m3 one?

Where do you buy Xiaomi laptops?

First couple of sites that came up after a basic search were either selling Chinese versions or priced in HKD. Is there a preferred USA based distributor?

I would like to know as well.

I switched to Thinkpad/Arch this year and so far it's been great. Neatest laptop design I've had, paired with a great setup for development.

Best of all, they're not too pricey for the specs.

What wm do you use (I use plain i3)?

I've been on Gnome 3 for quite some time now, haven't checked out other WMs in a while. I've heard some very good things about i3 though.

And probably could work with hackintosh:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/os/hackintosh

I also just switched from a MBP to a Thinkpad with Arch this year. After some minor hesitation I pulled the trigger and am still very happy with the decision. I got nearly twice the specs of a MBP for a significantly smaller price.

Initially I loaded Cinnamon (I think?) but replaced it with Gnome after some unresolved -to me- issue with my volume buttons. Everything works wonderfully now. And I'm having zero issue with any developmental experimentation (Android, web, traffic analysis, etc.)

Highly recommend the switch.

holy hell, this is Exactly what I've been looking for. Ive been saving up for a replacement for my 2010 MBP, and it's been between a new miscellaneous thinkpad, and a $3,000-priced 2017 MBP, which I believe would've been justified if the god bedamned thing had a mechanical power button! I don't want to bet a ~$1200 premium on the TouchBar/ID power button providing the same "At least it turns on" reliability that I've grown from adolescence to love, and more recently I've come to depend on, for safe mode and single user mode booting. Hell! Take away a man's power button, and you take away his power...

I tried going from a MBP at home to a ThinkPad last month (bought the T470p). The problem is that at work I'm still on a MBP.

In Linux, I tried to get my T470p to emulate the MBP key mapping but was unable to get all apps, terminal to work properly. I really thought there would be a low level tool (kernel maybe) to switch Alt with Ctrl.

After 1 week of trying, I sent the T470p back...

Gigantic useless trackpad. Looks like no status leds. Where oh where is the x60 of today?

Is there some place where I can just pay them the profit margin for this laptop and have the count added to their sales figures? This laptop is an improvement, but it looks like it still has a long way to go. :(

Trackpad isn't useless, but it not having physical left and right buttons sure is. The worst design decision of laptops is having it one 'pad' that you have to guess where the left and right is.

There are physical buttons above the trackpad. Granted, they are meant for the trackpoint, but they are still there.

Yes, but your palm is resting on the touchpad now, moving it around.

You can disable the trackpad entirely, either via your OS or better yet in the BIOS.

Looks the same as what I have on my X250. I hit the corners of it with my palms all the time :\

Other than that and the crap display panel used in it, it has been a great little laptop so far.

You can disable trackpad in bios.

I've never gotten the hang of the ThinkPad nipple unfortunately, so disabling the trackpad would make me quite a bit slower. It's actually a nice trackpad, just perhaps a bit too large for the device.

There is a modern x60, specifically a x61 equipped with modern internals, called the x62:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/X62-Laptop-Review.211598.0.htm...

However, it is quite rare. There are some people in contact with the sellers (51nb) at r/thinkpad if you are interested.

Rare? I have three! Two i5s and an i7 model.

> Where oh where is the x60 of today?

It's an ordeal, but it's possible to have one. This[1] is my primary computer. It's an X61 chassis with a Core i7-5600U, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. The screen is a 12" 1400x1050 IPS LCD (matte, not glossy). It's my favorite laptop.

Putting it together took months. There's a group of enthusiasts in China called 51nb that make modern internals for old ThinkPad chassis[2]. I ordered a barebones chassis from them in March and received it in June. After that I replaced the LCD's ancient CCFL backlight with an LED conversion kit[3], improving battery life and brightness.

If you want to know more, I wrote a blog post detailing the whole experience[4].

1. https://geoff.greer.fm/photos/x62/DSC_2304.JPG

2. https://www.51nb.com/benzhanshiye/2017-06-08/83668.html

3. https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-backlight.sht...

4. https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/

That is gorgeous, but I don't think I have the dedication to go through all that.

Wow, this is excellent.

I have a thing for the x201 and there is apparently a mobo upgrade on the bench for that thing too.

Sadly no working docking port.

This is incredible, thanks for sharing this!

Wow this is awesome and tempting...

Do you have any write-ups on your bikepacking trip?

Off topic, but regards "VR with Eye Tracking [...] Imagine this technology being used in a VR Silent Hill or Resident Evil. You put the headset on and start playing. You see something move in your peripheral vision, but by the time your eyes have saccaded, it’s gone. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get a good look at it. With only hints and sounds to go on, your imagination fills in the rest. [] Such a game would be –without a doubt– the scariest game ever. I can’t wait to play it."[1]

My fuzzy recollection is there was a CAVE setup (at siggraph? some years back) which used a head-mounted backwards-facing tracking camera, and the hemisphere behind you was filled with tracking markers. So if you quickly turned your head, out of the corner of your eye... apparently it created "something is behind me!" creepiness.

There's also a VR game prototype that mutates the world behind you when you are facing away. "Wait, was that chair there before?" It's disturbing.

The Shadertoy Fovea detector[2] illustrates how narrow your high-res fovea is.

[1] https://geoff.greer.fm/2016/05/14/interesting-tech-that-is-j... [2] https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4dsXzM

I know exactly how you feel, I'm not upgrading past the X201 series, its the last model I can completely remove the trackpad on, and its the last model without a screen aspect ratio only optimised for watching video.

http://mos6581.com/pictures/thinkpad/x201t-bios.jpg

It's very difficult to find good laptops with 4:3 or even 16:10 screens these days. Heck, it's very difficult to find good monitors with aspect ratios other than 16:9!

I got my hopes up with the small splurge of 3:2 devices we got the other year, but that seems to have sputtered out.

How about a laptop with 9:16 instead!

I lusted over A4 displays in the 90s

I can understand your preference for the X201 (r/thinkpad is full of folks like you and my first Thinkpad was a X20 or so) but the screen resolution would kill me. It's 2017 and text, bash, vim or I mean just anything on a 120dpi or less screen is just a terrible idea.

At a normal viewing distance I cannot see individual pixels, its only a 12" panel and at 1280x800 is quite serviceable (I wouldn't mind a 1440x900 panel though)

It might just be my poor eyesight, but the resolution has never bothered me.

Really? Maybe I should get an old model as well, the build quality then was unmatched.

Its not like they are expensive, my X201 cost £90.

X201's are plentiful but most eBay auctions are missing the drive caddy, caddy cover, AC adapter or all of the above.

In that state you can get an i5 2.53ghz for ~$50 and the missing parts for maybe $25.

Newegg also has refurbs but I received one with a black textured sticker cut to fit the entire lid to hide damage. :/

It's a project but these things are beaters, at one point I wanted a "burner" chromebook and spent $100. :P

I usually don't mind getting a semi-beatup one as I can get the replacement plastics from China inexpensively, and its very easy to strip this model down and replace its parts.

The gpdpocket is pretty close if you are looking for a trackpad less design (though too small for daily use). If you can afford 100,000k for a mould they could be you best bet for doing something custom.

Not retro enough. I want an up to date T62p. The original had a 1600x1200 screen! Surely should be able to get a better screen than that now, but no the W540 that the company leases for me is worse in almost every way.

On the T62p I could view an A4 pdf in life size. I suppose I could do the same on a modern Thinkpad if I were to rotate it 90 degrees, :-(

I'm not sure what is so retro about the 16:9 display. Surely Lenovo can do better than that?

Yes, I am still using an old 4:3 Lenovo T61 and I wish there would be a modern replacement!

I keep using my T60, dreading the day some component gives out.

I am thinking about buying 1 or 2 more laptops as backup. They are dirt cheap on ebay/craigslist and it is very easy to rebuild them.

Oh god yes. 16:9 is an absolute deal breaker for me. After the task bar, tool bar, menu bar, ridiculously oversized fixed position website nav bar, "up next: more related garbage" fixed position pseudo-ad footer and whatever else decides it wants to eat my vertical space, a 16:10 screen offers me a good 200% increase in usable pixels for whatever piece of content I was actually interested in in the first place.

If only Firefox would hurry up and integrate tree styled tabs without requiring one of several now-obsolete extensions, the experience of using a computer might become marginally less terrible. But of course I'm not holding my breath waiting for anyone in this sorry saga to do something that actually helps until I'm forced to read every single website one 200-word line at a time.

I'm not sure no one even makes 4:3 panels with a diagonal more than a few inches long.

I would have hoped for the light, though... It is one of the reasons why I am clinging to my X230.

Apple makes a 12'' iPad with a 4:3 display.

Apple also makes a ton of 16:10 laptops while nobody else does.

If that's the real deal, I hope the Ctrl and Fn keys can be swapped in bios.

My muscle-memory just can't cope with control not being lower left.

Last Lenovo I had (±2y ago), it actually could. So there's a good chance this will be possible.

I will probably end up buying one of these because I am a complete sucker for the concept and that keyboard is to die for.

But I have a ThinkPad P50 right now and it is pretty much the ultimate laptop.. 4k screen w/color correction, trackpoint, 2x nvme storage, Xeon with 64G ECC RAM. It doesn't even cost that much if you do all the non-soldered stuff yourself off newegg.

ThinkPad P50 right now and it is pretty much the ultimate laptop

Impressive specs but not terribly mobile. It's 377.4 x 252.3 mm (14.86" x 9.93") and the weight starts at 2.5 kg (5.6 lbs).

I didn't actually /want/ a 15", previously I'd always used T4x and T4xx, but the specs are not possible on the existing 14". The specs outweigh the form factor for me by far.

It is usable on an airplane. Weight doesn't bother me at all, and it's not heavy or thick. But I'd buy a 14" if I could get the same specs.

"Accidentally"

"Leaked"

I found my 240 the other week when unpacking some boxes I'd not looked in for years after moving house. Genuinely great little machine.

A decent retro Thinkpad as a Hackintosh would probably make me a very happy camper...

The X220 can be hackintoshed rather easily.

I have messed with macOS on Thinkpads and the updates are an absolute pain. Not even to mention the iMessage and App Store issues. Yes there are workarounds.

Lets hope they did not just put retro keys on a chiclet keyboard. And if this thing is on par with a T470p, they can shut up and take my money!

While I see were you're coming from, even the x60 (which is still IBM-branded) had chiclet keys, and so does the x220 (my weapon of choice), but it's still a great keyboard (at least, it is for me and for many people I read on the various *chans when ThinkPad topics are discussed, so ymmv)

The chiclet keys are not consistent. I have a first-gen x1 carbon, and enjoy typing as much as on my mechanical keyboards. Last year I briefly had a T460S. The typing was shallower, and noticeably less fun. I never had an old style keyboard, and only then began to understand the upset in the forums about the chiclet keyboards. Lenovo should have put more effort into ensuring quality across the range when making such a big brand change as a keyboard change.

The x220 did not have chiclet keys (at least not the 700 or so of them that i purchased and administered).

Well, the key travel is different today. I want the experience back that I had with a X60 or the X201s and X220 (which I still have and use). The experience that I have with my X240 or my T260p is certainly different. Its not bad, but different. But maybe its just the keys. We will see.

As a T470P owner I'm glad I didn't wait, I don't like the design of the retro at all.

Nice. I've used ThinkPads for many decades now. Love the retro look and keyboard feel. Might have to replace my W520 soon...

They did a 7row keyboard - thats good. But why they had to mess with Insert key?

I want t60/t400 keyboard, not this t420ish

Does it come with newer spyware?

The Thinkpads never came with spyware (none that we know of). Only the consumer products did (IdeaPad & co.)

I’m pretty sure I saw a Windows 10 start menu, so yes.

This is the correct answer. Microsoft has made Windows 10 a joke - which I hate to say because I have generally liked the NT line.

Superfish was installed on the consumer version of their notebooks: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish

Real beauty. I rarely use laptops but I will get this one as soon as it is available.

Nice! Finally something with non-chiclet keyboard! I am in! My wrists will rejoice!

Finally a great-great-grandchild for my 380XD

looks like alan kay's dynabook

I think the GPD Pocket looks more like a dynabook these days ..

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