Has there ever been a bad ThinkPad? I have a friend who had an I series (type 1400), and she said it was a piece of junk with a terrible keyboard (cheap keys that fell off) and mediocre build quality. The motherboards seemed to fail a lot and the power plug sockets became easily dislodged (necessitating board replacement).

She was hesitant to purchase a T series, but upon my recommendation she took the chance and has been satisfied with it ever since.

Most of the ThinkPads I have purchased have been pretty good. The 1400 "i" series were consumer grade. I purchased two 2611-410's for my daughters for university. I converted them successfully to Windows 2000 and they ran well (if slow). The power connector was a definite problem, but it could be fixed by a competent repair person in about an hour. Generally did not need a motherboard. ... jdhurst

From a corporate use standpoint, the A30 had lots of failures for us. Lots of bad mobos and bad LCDs.

there have been many failures..
MWAVE was a memorable one..
the 760C series keyboard, coming just after the fantastic 750 series keyboard, was another notable piece of junk..
the iSeries was not made by IBM, it was made by Acer..
generally, nothing is perfect..
thinkpads included..
but i have seen continual improvement model to model with fewer problems and easier access to repair..
how many makers post the hardware manual for the entire line of hardware..?