Happy 20th Birthday, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad
reghardware.com
reghardware.com
That machine also had a removable hard drive that I used to pop out when leaving my computer in hotel rooms so that I didn't mind if the machine was stolen.
On long flights I would carry up to six batteries with me which led to a funny exchange with Nicholas Negroponte who imagined (writing a Wired) a day when batteries had a power meter on them (imagine that!). I wrote to him to say that my solution for long flights was that I numbered my batteries and used them in order. He replied to the effect: "The simple solutions are often the best".
The Wired piece from 1996: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/negroponte.html
Now when I travel, almost everyone is pecking away at a
keyboard. The one-line monochrome message has evolved into
a full-color, 12-inch display. That is enormous progress,
but at a powerful price. I now carry eight to ten battery
packs during long trips. I won't even consider a laptop
design that includes unstackable batteries. The fact that
most batteries don't indicate their charge state is
pathetic. It's as if the designer assumed that the laptop
would always be used plugged in, and that people would
travel with one spare battery at most.It's an absolute joy to type on a Thinkpad keyboard. I haven't tried the new "chiclet" one that's been introduced, so I really hope that haven't ruined it.
The ThinkLight is also brilliant - much better than a backlit keyboard IMHO.
I can't even count the amount of things I lost by accidentally bumping the "back" key before I disabled them with third-party software, and people we sell the laptops to have the same experience.
But out of all my years with ThinkPads, this is my only complaint.
As I was told by a guy at IBM, and I haven't been able to confirm this elsewhere, is that at the time the Thinkpad was originally conceived, IBM design guidelines mandated that the only red elements on a piece of hardware should be the power switches. However, the team behind the Thinkpad design though (rightly) that a red trackpoint would look awesome on the black keys. Their solution? They put it down as 'magenta' on the specs to get it approved.
And while on the subject of Thinkpad lore, the name comes from notepads that were distributed to IBM employees with the word 'THINK' emblazoned on the cover (http://davetroy.com/posts/think-then-and-now)
Even in the restrooms: (http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/think_c...)
In a restroom at IBM’s Watson Center, a supervisor had placed a sign above the sink. It had a single word on it—‘THINK!’ The next day, when he went to the restroom, right below the sign, immediately above the soap dispenser, someone had carefully lettered another sign that read— ‘THOAP!’
They also made desktoppers with the slogan for executives, and the story goes that you could tell how high up in the legendary IBM bureaucracy an IBMer was by how big and ornate his THINK sign was -- junior execs got tiny signs made of plastic, senior ones got big ones made of fancy woods and metals.
http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/throwback-gadget-ib...
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.
Widescreen? More like shortscreen.
Business machines should not be optimized for consuming entertainment.
Simply the best machines.
I've always felt that Thinkpads look cooler with a beat up the case. I'll never own a sleeve or protector. They don't require one.
I have a hard time saying that about any of my other electronics.
As a side, I've just flown from LAX -> Sydney -> Perth on a single charge using the Slice battery and standard 6 cell. Took out season 5 of Mad Men in 720p in the process.
When IBM solid Thinkpad, it was a premium brand. It still maintains that connotation among IT professionals today (who know the lineups and history), but there are so many models out there that are absolute crap (or at least, look like garbage) that it's diluting the reputation.
This is pure speculation, but I haven't heard "that Thinkpad looks awesome" or "that machine looks well built" in quite some time (X1 carbon aside).
That's because a large sector of the tech industry (and a lot of non-techies as well) has been drinking the Apple Kool-Aid non-stop for the last ~5 years.
That said, I think the X1 Carbon is the flagship model we've been waiting for. It ticks all the right checkboxes, and if you can handle the new keyboard (which has been getting surprisingly good reviews), then I think it's the way to go.
If you do, how's the screen?
Problems that did not appear on the review units (which were likely pre-production runs)
Almost literally everything worked out of the box on Fedora 17 (the sole exception being the card reader, which is supported by a staging driver Fedora doesn't put in its default kernels; rpmfusion has a kmod-staging package, or just build your own kernel).
I love it. The days of tricky Linux support in laptops are, thankfully, mostly behind us.
The only complaint I have about it is the slow wake time. For whatever reason (even after following some optimization tips), when it wakes from closed cover or timeout it takes forever.
Only thing I'm not used to is the left Ctrl key position. Ultimately I'm pleased with the choice, having been a long time dell laptop user and never having a thinkpad, I'd definitely buy again (as long as startup gets a little faster)
They were amazing, well made pieces of hardware and to this day I have kept buying them through the years and currently have a Thinkpad X220 (i7 CPU, 16GB RAM). The sad fact is that it now gets so little use compared to my MacBook Air.
Why is that? Purely because I prefer OS X.
Happy Birthday Thinkpad - I'm sorry I have deserted you.
http://russell.ballestrini.net/the-pyramid-community-taught-...
I'm very happy with the laptop and choice.
I've been using the laptop practically every day for the past 4 years, carrying it to campus, etc, and it's been holding up quite well. The only downside is that they don't offer very good graphics cards for it, so it wouldn't make a good gaming computer. It does have a really nice keyboard thought, and makes a great development PC.
The market is flush with system off corporate lease, but they rarely include the above items.
They messed up the default colour profile of the 1600x900 screen - it is horrendous. I used a ColorHug to get the right profile which you can download https://plus.google.com/110166527124367568225/posts/bLg18FtS...
Not a fan of their customer service, but my little X121e is the best laptop I've ever used.
What do you compare it with? I have one too (but currently dead due to infamous reset loop bug) and I think it is the worst ThinkPad I have owned. The screen is horrible, lackluster build quality and fit'n'finish, so so Linux support and the underside of the keyboard needed to be stuffed with cardboard to type properly. Given the budget price point I don't think it should carry a ThinkPad label at all, it tarnishes the brand.
Edit: I have the AMD Fusion, not the Intel variant.
It's a workstation class laptop that isn't huge (like the equivalent Dell) and doesn't roast my legs (like the equivalent Dell).
There was a time after that when they just kept getting better and better: the A30p with a beautiful 1600x1200 IPS display, and then that same display in the slimmed-down and faster T60p.
I also bought a bunch of old beaters to use as test machines and what not: 750's, 755's, a 360, and I was so happy when I tracked down a 701c with the butterfly keyboard.
Then for a while you could get used working A30p's in good condition for $300 or so. Did I mention the 1600x1200 IPS display? :-)
I love the TrackPoint [1] and those great displays, and even better, all the machines had the same great keyboard! When other laptop manufacturers were fiddling with this layout and that, every ThinkPad had the same exact keyboard, and it was a good one too. I could move from one ThinkPad to another without thinking about it.
Then, they hired a keyboard designer.
You could see the trouble coming in this poll:
http://blog.lenovo.com/design/keyboard-layout-survey-details...
The poll itself is gone, but the comments on the blog post are still there. The poll had all sorts of layout tweaks - moving various keys around in an A-B-C-D test - just the kind of thing a keyboard designer would want to do.
Then the new keyboards started coming along. Commonly used keys were moved around, and the F1-F2 keys were jammed into a solid tight row with no gaps between the groups of four keys. These gaps (between F4-F5 and F8-F9) are what afforded easy touch typing on these keys that are so far away from the home row.
Trust me, if you're reaching for Fn+F5 (wireless settings), you don't want to hit Fn+F4 (standby) by mistake. With the old keyboards, that's never a problem. There's a nice gap between F4 and F5 and you don't have to look at the keys to hit the right one. With the new one, good luck. (Oddly enough, the ThinkPad X1 and X1 Carbon do have little gaps here even though they follow the new layout otherwise. But the other newer models, no such luck. And the X1 keyboards are not compatible with other models.)
Many die-hard ThinkPad fans hated the new keyboards, not because of the "island" design but because of these frivolous layout changes.
Lenovo's response:
http://blog.lenovo.com/products/why-you-should-give-in-to-th...
Entrepreneurs, read the comments on that post for a lesson in how to discourage your most avid supporters. :-(
Edit: this comment on that post was insightful:
> I bet the recent supposed user tests also didn't include a significant number of dedicated, old-timer ThinkPad programmers, otherwise you'd made more of an effort mentioning this in the article, and the outcome would most likely have been different. Rather, it must have consisted mainly of random people off the street who're used to cheap laptops with keyboard layouts changing with every model. So surely they can't be bothered with yet another weird layout and thus mark it as "fine".
Thank you, Wikipedia.