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Comment by Uchikoma | Hacker News Reader

My 2 year old X200 has 1.3 hours battery time, decreasing rapidly. The display plastic is broken, the camera is broken and the mouse tracking nob is broken. It's the worst piece of laptop hardware I've ever had (compared to older IBM Thinkpads, DELLs and iBooks, Macbooks and MacbooksPro).

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Strange. I never had any problems with my Thinkpads, but my Macbook has had several. The plastic casing is brittle and just breaks off after a certain amount of time, the battery died and needed replacing, the hard drive died and needed replacing and the power supply died and needed replacing too.

Seriously considering getting one of these new Thinkpads and sticking Ubuntu on it. Maybe the T420 or T520.

Your last sentence... I'm in the same camp.

I was waiting for the MBP announcement to see if the 13" would be so compelling that it would become the perfect laptop for me, but the keyboard still isn't for me, and I really wanted USB3 and was hoping to lose the CD bay in exchange for more battery.

The T420 is slightly larger than I wanted, but Ubuntu on my T61p is such a sweet thing for development and lifestyle use that the smaller T420 looks really good. If Lenovo had a 13" in the T series spec'd like that, they'd have me instantly... as it is they probably have me anyway as the MBP hasn't moved enough to be compelling to me and I can deal with the slice battery on the T420 for a long weekend of use when travelling. The Lenovo keyboards remain without compare, which I guess means I'm now talking myself into it pretty convincingly. T420 + Ubuntu seals the deal.

Edit:

Just checked out the T420 dimensions, and they're: 13.4in x 9.05in x 1.18in.

It's not bad... a little larger than the new 13" MBP (12.78in x 8.94in x 0.95in), but not by enough to dissuade me. The higher resolution on the T420 is a good trade-off for the extra bit of size.

Your Macbook sounds as though it came from the same batch as my wife's Macbook. The Apple store replaced her battery free of charge well out of warranty and also offered a replacement casing. This could be a UK thing as it's pretty clear that there was a period where Macbooks were being manufactured below acceptable standards, the "Sale of goods act" would apply.

I bought a Macbook about a year after my wife and mine has been absolutely fine, no cracking and still with a good original battery.

"The plastic casing is brittle and just breaks off after a certain amount of time"

This is apparently a known issue with certain models of the Macbook. I had mine replaced free of charge as well, even though I'm out of warranty. Apple is aware of the issue and I'm happy that they at least replaced my case without a fuss.

Am I the only one who absolutely loves the eraserhead on the Thinkpad? It's so nice to be able to use the mouse without taking your hands off the keyboard. (Why netbooks have a tiny, useless touchpad rather than an eraserhead is beyond me.)

My 2009 macbook has been a disaster for me ergonomically. The keys are spaced too far apart and I keep trying to "click" the trackpad, which is killing my fingers. And the limited trackpad space when trying to drag or highlight something long drives me crazy.

Agreed. Try going 4 years older. My IBM branded X41 is the finest laptop I've owned and ubuntu works flawless on it. I bought a replacement battery for it and get a good 5 hours and a few days standby. I like it so much, I even consider not telling people so I can buy up more used ones and set aside for future parts. But hey, what's life if you don't share. Considering the cost of these on ebay (as much as some new netbooks) I think the secret is already out.

I always like to say that you could beat somebody with a x41 over the head and then continue working. Sometime ago a friend of mine actually had to use his X41 to defend himself. He did just that and it worked just fine for some more months until it died from an unrelated problem.

arhh yes, the X41 - the last laptop I had before I went Mac.

I called it my Darth Vadar laptop - strong, sleek black frame, powerful, ugly yet strangely beautiful at the same time.

The problem is the X41 always suffered from poor resolution, and certainly that is true by today's standards. I wield a MBP with hi-res matte screen and 1680 x 1050 in a 15" package used at 2 feet from my eyes is basically like a Retina display.

I upgraded the resolution on my X61t to 1400x1050 on a 12" display.

"Retina display"? Hah.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html

How did you do that?

It used to be an optional upgrade.

The x41 had a basic performance problem - they switched to the smaller, iPod-like hard drives, as compared to the regular laptop hard drives that the X31 had. This was unfortunate - when I had the X31, I immediately replaced the stock drive with a 7200RPM drive, and the X31 screamed for years. Then, I got the X41, found out that the same surgery is unavailable, and promptly got rid of it.

I had a T41p at a previous job - amazing laptop. I actually traded in a Powerbook G4 for it. No issues with it, ever (except that the battery life declined to nothing after a couple of years, and the battery had to be replaced).

A few years later, I was given a T60p at an internship. Total junk. Not even in the same league.

My 2 year old X200 still gets a good 3-4 hours of battery time with a cycle count of 670, so YMMV :)

I will say, though, there have been some quality issues with my x200 as well. The fan has a tendency to get stuck, the case feels like it's starting to come apart, and the screen surface has some smudges that are impossible to remove (and increasingly annoying). Still, not bad for a laptop that has traveled the world, been treated very roughly, and used almost every day for several hours a day. I'd buy another Thinkpad in a heartbeat.

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