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Comment by roywashere | Hacker News Reader

My new company of about 100 persons uses ThinkPads as their 'standard issue' laptops. Which I guess is great. I have a T480 privately. But modern ThinkPads are not as great as before, and I was just thinking about if the Framework might make a nice 'standard issue' laptop for the company. I guess it might be just fine!

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When would you define as “before”? I’ve had a thinkpad on and off and I’d describe the quality as consistent.

People talking about old Lenovos being good quality are often talking about in the pre-IBM days which is far more likely to be nostalgia at this point.

Not sure what GP means but I gather the x230 era (2012?) has a cult following. I picked one up a few years ago when a laptop died and I didn't have the cash for something new: it is still my daily driver and I'm not replacing it til it dies.

By contrast, I know someone who got a T480 second hand and it lasted six months. My guess is the 2012 era was when the change happened

It's been a gradual shift, with a few obvious changes along the way.

Among a few: The keyboard switch from the old 7-row (whose pinnacle was at the x220/T420 era with double-height esc and del) to the new 6-row (with later ever decreasing key travel) to the current x9 (which is basically just a yoga keyboard with no trackpoint, no key grouping, and the loss of pgup/pgdn). Things like the modular battery options vanished. The case got flimsier over time with e.g. the magnesium rollcage first vanishing from the display, then from the base. (And no - from enterprise experience - the carbon fiber composite isn't generally "as good or better", esp. for failure modes like punctual force on the display. Or...grabbing the laptop by the display and using it to fan your BBQ, which doesn't faze my old X41 :) ).

> The keyboard switch from the old 7-row (whose pinnacle was at the x220/T420 era with double-height esc and del)

I think xx30-series has such a good reputation because you could use a T420 keyboard (with a tiny modification to better fit the chassis and not short out the backlight pin).

My first ThinkPad had terrible battery life. It was a X1 Extreme or something like that, pretty high end but the battery was useless. Even brand new it wouldn't last an hour off leash. Also couldn't use usb-c charging from the monitors at the office, had to be plugged in.

Also the Fn key is where the Ctrl key should be, which is endlessly annoying as a user of different laptop brands.

I heard recently that there's an option somewhere to virtually swap the Ctrl and Fn keys.

It’s still annoying to use the smaller key, but you can swap them in the BIOS config

> Also the Fn key is where the Ctrl key should be, which is endlessly annoying as a user of different laptop brands.

There's always been a bios option to swap them. It's on my x230, and probably exists on older PCs as well.

IBM invented the Fn key so if anyone has their Fn key where the Ctrl key should be, it is the copycats.

> The Fn key first debuted on the monochrome display ThinkPad 300 in October of 1992. Yes there was a ThinkPad with a monochrome display. The Fn key circa 1992 was placed exactly as it is today. Interestingly enough, Apple uses the same positions for their Fn and Ctrl keys as ThinkPad. Every other notebook personal computer manufacturer that I know of has the Fn and Ctrl key positions swapped. Some would say backwards.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110130203223/https://www.lenov...

I have a T420. A few years ago I switched to a slightly used T480, keyboard was a huge downgrade and the whole series can get really stupid USBC issues. After half a year or so it didn't dock anymore and I got an X1, basically the same laptop glad I found it without touch and the 'bright screen' because the screen is barely good enough, keyboard is the same and USBc already started to get finicky.

Meanwhile my T420 still runs like on day one (which was already 5 years old when I got it, and travelled 1+ years with me in a backpack), the screen works in direct sunlight and it's not even the best of its series, hardware still perfect. Fat SSD + 32GB Ram and you can barely tell how old it is.

I also have a T420, though not using it regularly nowadays. It would be really nice to get proper USB-C there – using one cable to plug in monitor and Ethernet and charge is really nice.

I’ve wanted to get a T480 for a while now (mainly to do a T25 frankenpad [1] – seems like a nice project), but if it really has those issues with the USB-C ports, I think I’ll pass :-(

[1]: https://www.xyte.ch/mods/t25-frankenpad/

If you'd go that far for fancy laptop soldering a new usbc slot every few years might be non issue for you :)

Yup, my T480 got upgraded to a Framework 13 after the T480's Thunderbolt port broke (known firmware issue that basically fried the chip). I loaned my T480 to someone about a year ago, and haven't bothered asking for it back.

Meanwhile, my T410 works great as a workbench computer.

While not for the faint of heart, there is a fix for T480's broken Thunderbolt:

http://web.archive.org/web/20200318130144/https://posts.nadi...

I've solved the USB-C aging issue by using those magnetic cable adapters on all laptops and smartphones.

Be careful - those magnetic adapters can fry your port

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2307079/dont-buy-these-dange...

The only real difference is that magsafe ports are recessed really. I tend to check regularly that my magnetic ports aren't dusty.

I've used Thinkpads consistently for 25-30 years, and still do. I can't really draw a line between "before" and "after" but if I take a long enough period I can definitely see differences in the experience getting watered down or generally worse, from less flexibility to lower reliability.

I still have and regularly use a fully functional X200, somewhere in the box I have a fully functional T42 and an R31 whose only defect is a small screen blemish caused by me closing the lid with something on the keyboard.

But my multiple X1 Gen1 and Gen2 all have various failures (screen, battery, webcam, or keyboard), my T450 has big battery issues, my T470s have screen/GPU and battery issues. T490 is fine for now, X1 Gen11 has crappy battery and is overheating from the get go. These are different generations, different lots and still affected by the same constant issues.

We had an expensive IBM ThinkPad model (too long ago to remember what model it was) and the keyboard and several other parts were worn down in three years of mostly in-home use. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

At least a lot of modern ThinkPads are still modular. Recently got a 5th gen T14 AMD. Memory, NVMe SSD, WWAN modem, battery, and a bunch of other components are really easy to replace. I think I prefer the keyboard over my MBP, it feels less harsh.

I definitely know that people have complained that modern ThinkPads are not as good as before, and they have been doing that for ages, just as Socrates back in the day already was complaining about modern kids and their behaviours ;-)

In this case I was referring to post-T480 ThinkPads which have soldered memory, and no longer have hot-swappable batteries or on-board Ethernet.

I don't mind not having an external battery now that these laptops can charge off USB-C. So many ways to get some kind of USB-C power source to connect to and get a bit more charge, and then that spare energy source is usable with pretty much all the rest of my electronics. Whereas before it was a big, proprietary battery that only worked with one device and needed to be connected to the laptop to charge some time later.

They're still pretty easy to find replacements for when they go bad.

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