ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective
forbes.com
forbes.com
I don't mind the chiclet keycaps, but Lenovo really ruined the keyboard when they went from the 7 row layout [0] to the current 6 row layout [1].
Each new generation of ThinkPad reduces the travel distance of the keyboard - they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you switch between them. I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops, at least it would restore the reputation for typing feel on ThinkPads.
For repairability: soldered WLAN cards, 1 SO-DIMM slot or soldered RAM on T/X series machines (HP offers 2x SO-DIMM slots on most EliteBooks) are a step backwards.
USB-C charging sounds good at first, but the ports start to wear out after 2 years and become loose. They are soldered to the motherboard, so good luck repairing them if you aren't good at micro soldering.
[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/t420_...
[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/f/5/csm_...
Because, after years of advertising made by designers and not by technical people, for most potential buyers more thin = more modern so to remain in the game they have to adapt to the most idiotic trend today: make devices thin as credit cards no matter how this would impact their usability, battery life, robustness, repairability etc.
person sits down at new thinkpad laptop
"It's so... thicc"
Narrator: we added an extra millimeter...
starts clacking on the keys and makes an O-face
*...for your pleasure."
the market is absolutely out there, zoomers love their mechanical keyboards.
I'd take a smart phone that's 3x as thick (thicc) if it had 3x the battery life, but I currently settle for a case that's also a battery.
When my T420 finally dies (if that's even possible), I'm hoping the Framework laptop is chunky enough to take its place
So no, striving for thinness is not idiotic. It follows the same principles of miniaturization of all components in PCs. It also changes the skillset required to work on the devices, but that's not really all that problematic.
> the most idiotic trend today: make devices thin as credit cards no matter how this would impact their usability, battery life, robustness, repairability etc.
They're not, though. Laptops are by definition a compromise product. You compromise on various things to afford yourself more portability. If you want a laptop that's easier to repair, they have those. You want something with more power? They have those too, but it's going to be less portable and have less battery life.
Your real complaint is that they don't make a Thinkpad that matches your own set of acceptable compromises and tradeoffs in a portable device. That's totally valid but has nothing to do with your asinine complaints about thinness.
The moment that all the brands started focusing only on who is the thinnest instead of who has more features that's the point that they just ran out of innovative ideas.
Batteries are like car tires, they are expected to need replacing. Why can't I replace them myself and instead have to send the laptop to the lab? Why can't I decide which brand of batteries I want just like in my car? Maybe I want more powerful batteries or maybe I want lighter batteries.
Another issue is that the unrepairabilty of these laptops harms the environment a lot. Lenovo sells now laptops with 8GB and maybe it's acceptable for some uses. But in a year or two, these laptops will have to be thrown to trash cause you can't upgrade the memory in any way. As many mentioned here they have fully working laptops for 5 or even 10 years and that's laptops that saved from the need to buy new ones.
So what? The market can bear having more than one kind of laptop and so exists many different kinds of laptops that come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.
> The moment that all the brands started focusing only on who is the thinnest instead of who has more features that's the point that they just ran out of innovative ideas.
Except even if one brand focused only on that, there'd still be many others that did not.
> Batteries are like car tires, they are expected to need replacing. Why can't I replace them myself and instead have to send the laptop to the lab?
No laptop requires you sending it to a lab to replace your battery.
> Why can't I decide which brand of batteries I want just like in my car?
You mostly can. There's a whole lot of cheap replacement batteries you can buy for most laptop models.
> Maybe I want more powerful batteries or maybe I want lighter batteries.
In most cases this isn't really possible because of either 1) low market demand or 2) it's literally impossible to do so without modifying the chassis. A few thinkpads used to have this feature with a hot-swappable external battery that you could choose the capacity, though. You can still buy a T480 on ebay and go this route if you want.
> Another issue is that the unrepairabilty of these laptops harms the environment a lot.
I see this argument made a lot but I find it to be mostly made in bad faith. Most people use their laptop until it's not useful to them anymore and then get rid of it in some manner — selling it to someone else, handing it down to relatives, recycling it, and sometimes throwing it away.
> Lenovo sells now laptops with 8GB and maybe it's acceptable for some uses. But in a year or two, these laptops will have to be thrown to trash cause you can't upgrade the memory in any way.
People have been making that argument for at least 8 years now that 8gb wasn't going to be enough in a year or two, and yet it's still serviceable to plenty of people today. It's about as likely as the CPU that is soldered onto every laptop now (even the framework laptop) will stop being useful. Raspberry pis are at max sold with 8gb of RAM, are you really going to try and suggest that they won't be useful two year from now?
> As many mentioned here they have fully working laptops for 5 or even 10 years and that's laptops that saved from the need to buy new ones.
My 2013 Macbook Pro was working when I traded it into Apple to get a new laptop. I got a new laptop because I wanted something with more power, not because it strictly needed to be replaced. People that are able to will replace their laptop when they feel they need to and that threshold is different depending on the person. Throwing an ssd into an old laptop will only go so far.
I can't speak for the X series though, those are made to go as thin as possible, at a cost to battery life, reliability and CPU power.
Absolutely correct. For context, typical Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches have a total travel around 4mm. We’re very sensitive to switch height.
Why not laptops with mechanical keyboards again? It was basically 100% of laptops from the 1990s for a decade or two.
Is choice a bad thing? We can choose OS, we can choose editors and desktops and so on... but if you want a portable computer with 1cm of key travel and a click: well, it sucks to be you, so GTFO and STFU.
I detest chiclet keyboards. At some point soon all my decade-old Thinkpads will wear out and everything newer, including Thinkpads, is nasty thin-and-light plastic junk.
To quote my favourite Tumblr post ever:
https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-do...
« I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet
I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer.
[...]
I will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death. »
Even the optical drive is negotiable, TBH. But the drive bay would be handy. Give me both SATA and NVMe for a honking great spinning disk.
Look at this story:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_softwa...
Rewritten 10 days ago on an intercity coach on a 2009 Thinkpad X220. On its original battery which lasted for the whole trip.
Look at this story:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/rust_kernel_pull_requ...
Written entirely on a Gemini PDA waiting in a visa biometric testing office.
Neither of those are viable places to use an external keyboard.
This is not some kind of fantasy hardware. Kit like this was the norm in the 1990s -- full height full travel mechanical keyboards in BUDGET model laptops from good brands -- and it was still doable in Core i7 kit sold in the first decade of this century.
Keyboards matter. They are important.
Look at any "gamer's keyboard" from the mass market. Full size, full travel, mechanical switches, even backlit.
Gamers won't put up with the crappy slimline things that Apple sold and the rest of the PC industry copied, badly.
It's only weirdo editor fans who popularise these ridiculously tiny things that don't even have cursor keys. To h3ll with that absurdist obsessive rubbish.
Full size, full travel, or GTFO. It's not some weird made up thing; we had this stuff just 10-12 years ago, but the marketing lizards foisted ultraslim junk on us and we swallowed the kool-aid and now everyone thinks laptops were always like this.
Even maintainable ones like the Framework.
I love the chiclets. They did a good job. The keys are perfectly shaped to reduce accidental presses.
> I don't understand why Lenovo doesn't add an extra 1 mm to the thickness of their laptops
Because they are already market leaders on key travel. Why aim for perfection when you are already ahead of everyone else.
I agree that I don't like the direction they are heading towards USB0-C and non removeable batteries, but at least for the mid-model years I think they did a good job balancing which components were replaceable.
USB-C for power is a huge improvement over their proprietary connector. I can carry one USB-C charger and it works for all of my devices.
Losing 2 discrete ram slots sucks, but honestly the lack of expandability is far more of a downside than the lack of reparability. I always save a few bucks by buying memory aftermarket where I can, so for me a computer with discrete ram slots is just a cheaper computer. The swap to USB-C was fantastic, it made chargers which previously cost more than a hundred dollars a commodity and lowered prices and improved reusability, I've saved LOTS of money off that standardisation.
I think the most infuriating modern trend to me is actually is soldering the SSD thus leaving a computers data hostage to a failure elsewhere in the computer. A computers data and the rest of the computer should be separable. Thankfully it doesn't seem Lenovo is soldering the SSD yet.
At the time, the Thinkpad 700 was considered to be a crazy dense and delicate machine to most of the repair guys. Now, you compare it to a modern laptop and it looks absolutely trivial to take it apart.
http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/
Supposedly, the design was inspired by a black bento box. Although primitive by today's standards, it was a solid little laptop that served me well for the tasks I was engaged in at the time -- writing, Web surfing, learning HTML, and playing Doom.
In the late 1990s, I had a house fire. No one was injured, but the butterfly ThinkPad was burned, the exterior case charred and partially melted. There was data on it that I wanted, including a manuscript. I brought it to the local IBM repair center in Taipei. Two young techs were at the service desk, and hardly battered an eye when I took it out of a plastic bag. They got a small electric saw, cut open the case, removed the keyboard, and took out the HD which looked intact. They attempted to connect it to their diagnostic machine but it wouldn't read, unfortunately. But I really respected their attempt.
From my experience I can say that the “old IBM machines were reliable and well constructed” is not true. They were bulky and over time, everything breaks. Especially the heavy stuff as bulky things take so much more wear & tear. The newer machines are much thinner and lighter and still very good. At least the T and X lines. I exclusively buy Thinkpads for my team and have been very happy with them.
The only thing I really miss is the thinklight. Not super useful, but it was just so cool.
Edit: I always buy barely used machines of about 2 years old, this seems to be the most cost effective.
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/9igWZfgh07J
https://preview.redd.it/dnvcnv8f6mi81.jpg?width=4032&format=...
I saved for months and bought one using a friend's IBM employee discount.
I remember thinking that I wouldn't need to ever buy another laptop again.
I still have it and it works fine. I wrote this on it.
Edit: and there is another java update!!
I stick with it, both because I dislike modern ultra-thin/ultralight laptops (, and because I personally find chicklet keyboards completely unusable. (Aftermarket replacements for the keyboard aren't as good as originals, but they're still better than chicklets.)
Too right. I know the T40 series Thinkpads quite well (the 2004-5 era) and they're not very robust at all. Pick one up from the front edge and it'll just bend - the edges of the palm rest crack first, then the traces lift from the motherboard and the USB ports stop working. Back then it was common knowledge that you shouldn't pick up a laptop from the front edge. Nowadays that's no big deal.
The T60 series (2006-7) hugely improved chassis rigidity but lost out in keyboard quality and were noisier and a bit chunkier in profile. Both series were fantastic laptops and are still delightful to use, but they had obvious limitations and the changes made by Lenovo since then are not all unreasonable.
In reality, modern Macbooks have a horrible reputation for repairability and engage in dark patterns to stop you from getting your device repaired even when it is an option.
Macbooks
* 2% fail in first 12 months
* 20% need replacing in 3 years
Lenovo:
* 20% fail in first 12 months. (Surprisingly high number fail out of the box)
* 80% need replacing within 3 years
I don't want a laptop that's easy to repair as much as a laptop that doesn't need repairing.
It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker, but it was mostly just a really good laptop. The connoisseur's choice, reliable, repairable, and IBM would come to you and fix it on the desk if you paid them.
A lot of that demographic have switched to MacBooks or one of the many ultrabook-type laptops of a similar design language, and what's left is the crew who valued the ability to hack on the machine.
They were always there, but they're most of what's left.
It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker
The ascendancy of Macs in technical staff ranks commenced simultaneously with the ascendancy of Linux in the datacenter. The Windows tooling to integrate with Linux wasn’t as smooth as Macs. Back in the Dark Ages, about half of the battle IMHO came down to Cygwin and similar weren’t as nice as Terminal.app and Homebrew. And Terminal.app was a better ssh client than PuTTY. Back then if your backend heavy iron lived on Linux, then the overall development experience was simply lower friction on a MacBook Pro.
This has changed these days, of course. macOS’ low-friction edge is narrower now but a lot of what remains like mobile power and video management continues as especially challenging areas for Windows and Linux. VS Code is doing a lot to decouple developers from their hardware.
That is exactly my observation. When the good power Mac laptops came out a lot of my ThinkPad Linux laptop using co-workers jumped ship. Number one reason stated: battery life. Number two reason stated: suspend works reliably. Number three: it is POSIX/UNIX-ish enough that it is familiar and I can do my job.
Apple came close to capturing developer mindset at that time. Carting around a Unix workstation in a laptop, and if you spent the money to max out its memory, be able to simultaneously emulate a small Windows laptop at that time was a game changer for those who could leverage that kind of power.
Unfortunately Intel started slipping and Apple couldn’t really push laptop boundaries as much soon after.
Apple’s new architecture opens up that possibility again by decoupling from Intel, but I’m not sure Cook’s vision sees the advantages of a 128GB RAM MacBook Pro.
Other laptops of the time were absolutely flimsy: Dells, and HP laptops of the time were particularly cheap-feeling, had hinges that broke, had driver issues, and overall didn't have the high quality feel of the T series.
My company has recently transitioned away from the T series to a different brand, but I'm holding on to my T480 until it dies or I quit.
Typing this on a T480 which 2 years ago, I accidentally dropped, while open, screen-first onto concrete from height of about 6 feet. There's a little dent in the bezel, but that's it. Still going strong.
I am peeved about the USB-c port not being a replaceable module though. I can still charge through the Thunderbolt/Dock port, but the other one no longer accepts a charge from any cable/brick combo I've tried.
No one actually wants to repair their computer, although it's nice in the abstract for repair to be easy when it's necessary. I value reliability quite a bit, which is why I was unwilling to buy a second laptop with butterfly switches, lucky for me Apple didn't force me to make a hard decision. I also value being able to bring a broken machine to trained professionals, with the expectation that they'll repair it.
Fixing a broken laptop interests me about as much as fixing a broken toaster oven.
Extendability was valuable when RAM and hard drives got cheaper faster than CPUs. It's still frugal, at least, to get just a little of each, and pay market rate for the upgrade, rather than the Apple rate.
This is something I've also stopped caring about. It's just easier to get the machine I expect to need up front. When I want more machine, used MacBooks have a robust market, so I get a new one and sell the old one.
I enjoy soldering and wiring up little hacker machines, though I'm not good at it, but that's a hobby. It's emphatically not something I want to do in order to resume my professional work.
There's still a whole swathe of ThinkPad users who like the interface, use 'exotic' ports, are maintaining old motherboards which work fine for them, more power to them. It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.
As someone who runs local VMs on Windows, this is still true. I would like 32GB RAM and 1-2TB SSD storage locally.
>It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.
Tinkpads still do this? My first is my work machine, a T490s about 2 years old? I haven't done anything to the hardware itself. No repairs or opening up needed.
I'm content with explaining why they aren't as popular, since they so clearly remain a good choice for a smaller group of developers. I don't know anyone using a ThinkPad who isn't enthusiastic about it.
"Business" laptops have all gone down in a race to the bottom in my opinion. If you want to see innovations in the laptop space today, Gaming laptops is where it's at.
There are many gaming laptops that are more serviceable than business laptops. However, they also tend to be heavier.
It’s a trade off I guess
Sure, but 95% of business laptop use is sitting on a desk somewhere.
The other 5% being carried to/from a couple of conference rooms and/or a car.
Unfortunately Lenovo doesn't really keep the brand and in the gazillion models they have on stock, there isn't one that can replace my X220 in convenience of use and long term usability. There is a market for this laptops and as long as they ignore it they will just lose more and more market share.
Unfortunately it would be largely pointless since the X220 has an allowlist for PCIe cards, and I'm sure it does not include any modern wifi devices.
I understand some people instead use modified stock Lenovo BIOS to defeat the PCIe allowlist.
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-REQUEST-Lenovo-X220-8...
We'll see how long my x260 lasts.
https://community.frame.work/t/any-chance-of-trackpoint/1026
https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena
I also once saw a german butique laptop maker, that makes this thicc laptops where every part is customizable and has oldschool thinkpad style keyboard. I just can't remember the barand name.
Lenovo is trying to stand out selling what is basically a commodity device and that's hard to do. They are stuck buying the same parts and software as lots of other Windows OEMs.
Like some other X-series enthusiasts I consider the X61 Tablet with the AFFS panel to have been the pinnacle of the series.
Advantage being 3rd-gen/HD4000 igpu which is Vulkan capable, not available on the X220. This difference makes the X230 far more practical in terms of modern graphics development/environments.
https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Classic_Keyboard_on_x...
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/9cp8pq/x230x220_k...
The X200 has no trackpad.
The X220 has one as well as its trackpoint.
Both have been called "the best laptop ever made". I have both. Both are good, but the 220 is more flexible and for me 100% usable today.
I realized that the X1's great display, battery life and keyboard didn't make me as happy as the X220's amazing keyboard and operational Trackpoint. So I found a replacement battery which looked like it wouldn't catch on fire and I'm back to the X220. My new adventure is figuring out how to move Office 2019 from the old computer to the new one.
The modern day equivalent to the X220 is the T-series, not the X-series.
My Lenovo ThinkPad T14s AMD has multiple dead pixels, enter and backspace keys not working at all and completely fucked up USB bridge, resetting devices all the time which results in unsolicited clicks and drag'n'drop or screen selection being unavailable both using mouse and touchpad.
"Business laptop" my ass. It's a disgrace to the ThinkPad brand what Lenovo sells.
i think the T14 is equivalent, but either they didn't offer the 4k display or AMD with that model when i was ordering. their model naming is sadistic.
Edit: The trackpad is quite literally the worst I've every used - at times it's completely unresponsive.
i'll agree on battery life, mine is mostly on AC power (used as workstation) and i never bothered with https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop_Mode_Tools but i hear it makes a huge difference, the 4k display on this doesn't help.
my keyboard is okay (they're easy and cheap to swap, maybe try another one), but i do hear some subtle electrical noise from the mainboard when it's "doing stuff". i don't use the trackpad at all and generally hate all trackpads for any prolonged use -- a compact bluetooth mouse is the way to go (i use Logitech MX Anywhere).
i don't use the use USB ports much except a USB-C for an external NVME, no issues with it or the others when i've had to use them.
i opted for the integrated card reader. unfortunately only micro-sd is available and the latching spring is too stiff and too deep (so the card sits flush) and is basically impossible to insert or remove without a paperclip or credit card to push it into place.
but this 4k calibrated display is amazing compared to what thinkpads always came with, even their 1440p matte IPS options were garbage.
Sounds like valid reasons to RMA it. Why haven't you done that yet?
IIRC, Lenovo was manufacturing the T60 for IBM, but, by Lenovo T500 time, they seemed to be skimping on the keyboard backing, causing it to flex.
They resell for $150+ on ebay. I dread the day when my supply runs out.
I have been using ThinkPads for almost as long as MacBooks, and I find the modern Thinkpad keyboard much nicer than the T or X series, since the longer travel gave me RSI, and the newer keyboards are much, much quieter. I can switch between my MacBook, the X1 and the Yoga without any significant decrease in accuracy (other than modifier key placement) or impact, and although the feel is different, they all feel pretty great to me.
(I will not mention the hideous MacBook keyboards of the next-to-last series... Those were just bad.)
Quality-wise, I do notice the Yoga is a bit mushier (like the Logitech K380 I am typing this in now, but with less travel), but the X1 is every bit as good as the MacBook's.
Same goes for trackpads. X1 (using Windows 11 drivers) and MacBook are roughly equivalent, Yoga slightly less smooth but still OK.
(I don't use the TrackPoint because it too makes my RSI flare up - although I was an avid user for decades, if I use it for more than a day my index tendon starts stinging noticeably)
Lenovo does cut some corners, though, and with the Yoga and the X1 beside one another the differences in build quality and screen are evident (the X1 has a great HIDPI one, with good brightness and color accuracy, while the Yoga has a chalkboard).
But compared to most other PC laptops I've used (except maybe some Surface models), modern ThinkPads are still great.
How many lines does Lenovo have? ThinkPad, ThinkBook, Legion, Yoga, Ideapad, and one or two others and each brand has tons of different variations. They have innovative designs and more conservative ones. They sell low end utility machines and space-heater gaming machines. They are trying to be everything to everybody.
- replaced the battery - upgraded to 1TB SSD - upgraded from 8GB to 16GB of RAM
Never had a laptop from Dell or Asus that was this rugged. It's huge, but the screen, touchpad and keyboard are all rock solid.
Of course, it's old enough that it has no USB-C host ports. VGA available for your convenience though!
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-w5...
I doubt I can find a replacement
Looks like there are still some replacements kicking around.
I've never seen a computer fan be repaired, and it seems the bearings all tend to fail eventually.
A few tips to anyone doing the replacement:
* Find the PDF of the ThinkPad Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) for your model. This will give valuable step-by-step instructions for disassembling the parts that you need to, and not the parts you don't.
* Just buy the fan part, not the whole heatsink+fan assembly, even if the HMM tells you that the FRU is the assembly.
* Keep track of the screws as you take them out. I like to use a sheet of paper with loops of tape, and label as I remove (see photo on "https://www.neilvandyke.org/coreboot/").
* Have some thermal compound handy, as well as a way to clean the old compound. Since either you'll end up separating the heatsink from the CPU (and possibly other chipset packages), or you might as well replace compound while you have it open.
* You might need new tape to attach the fan part to the grill.
Stated playing with coreboot on them, and libreboot got me more into soldering and software.
I wish they would bring back a real keyboard. I travel with a mechanical keyboard, they are so much more enjoyable and productive.
Not mentioned, I really miss the taller 4:3 displays.
I am surprised they have remained so prominent in security-conscious organisations since.
Still the best keyboard in a laptop I have used.
Dial down the Windows power settings and the fan is totally off on idle/low load.
About 7-8h battery life doing heavy web browsing / Citrix VDI
Looking into it I would have liked a maxed T480 instead so I could max the RAM and SSD on it aftermarket actually...
When/if I need a personal laptop Ill get a Thinkpad for sure.
For business mind you. They are not "gaming laptops"
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...