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Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

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randomshinichi
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Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#1 Post by randomshinichi » Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:19 pm

It's hard to actually find a Thinkpad showroom in Germany. The more everything shifts to online stores, the more precious an actual store becomes, where you can actually touch and feel and experience what everybody on this forum is ranting about. So when I recently heard of a used PC shop called Nice Price IT in Berlin that sells Thinkpads, I immediately put some time aside to go check it out.

I was not disappointed. They had Tx20s all the way up to Tx60 and the X ultraportables too. I had only seen something like this in Taiwan, and even then only with the newest Thinkpads.

I had a few burning questions I wanted to resolve with this visit:
1. I like my X230 but the screen is just too small for serious programming work, so I got a T430. How would a W530/T530 compare?
2. How much better is the 7 row keyboard?
3. Am I missing out on anything from the later generation Thinkpads (Haswell and beyond)?
4. Was the clickpad really that terrible?
5. What about HP ZBooks? MXM upgradable graphics are sexy.

As it turns out, a T530 takes up more space than I'd like it to in my backpack. At this size, thickness REALLY matters, because I loved the Macbook Pro 15 (it was a company laptop though). So the T430 really is the right middle point.

I went crazy, alarming the storekeeper by typing some random gibberish on each laptop starting from the older generation Thinkpads to the newer.
The 7 row keyboard is pretty good, although quality seems to vary. Only one example felt crispier than my X230's chiclet keyboard, but the rest were on par. I think the main advantage of the 7 row keyboard is more keys and the spacing, which mimics a standard desktop keyboard.
From the X250 onwards the chiclet keyboards looked the same, but were a bit mushier and seemed to have less travel. Also, the X-series keyboards integrated the Insert key, so now you have an awkward trio of Home End/Insert Delete. That's just stupid design.

The x40 clickpads weren't THAT terrible, although definitely a downgrade from the separate Trackpoint buttons. I like how the whole surface would depress evenly even though I was just pressing on a corner.

I concluded I'm not missing out by sticking with the Ivy Bridge generation Thinkpads (I now have a X230 and a T430 that's waiting for the FHD kit from Aliexpress). The only thing I envy on the newer Thinkpads is the reduced idle power consumption and the LCD, but the latter can be fixed with mods. The T440p is intriguing but the M.2 2242 slot is a liability (need 2280) and I wouldn't be able to reuse the mSATA Samsung 850 EVO that I bought for my X230.

Before I sprung for the T430, I also considered the HP ZBook as an intriguing alternative to the W series because it has MXM upgradable graphics, but I was worried about the keyboard. Trying out the Elitebooks there, I found that the HP keyboards represent everything I've come to hate about modern cheap consumer laptops. Especially the function keys, which are small and impossible to distinguish from normal keys. Lenovo deserves credit for raising the function key row ever so slightly on the chiclet keyboard. The HP trackpoint is a worthy competitor to the Thinkpad's trackpoint.

I'm really thankful that I got a chance to try out all these machines I've been reading online about. I wish there were more such shops, but what can I do? I'm part of the problem - I bought my T430 on eBay for half the price of what they were selling, and the Mini Dock Series 3 Plus can be found online for 33% of what the store was selling them for.

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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#2 Post by madicetea » Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:30 pm

Wow, I'm glad I'm not the only one who would try before I buy.

I don't know who usually uses Thinkpads, but when I asked on a different forum for users in my region to come to show me their computers and be a good (*) salesman (with the incentive of paying their transport and the cost of a meal), I never did get a single person to respond.

(*) Good is more like honest here. I also wanted to know all the problems with their computer, and why they thought that someone should be careful if they get this computer.
Last edited by madicetea on Tue Jun 11, 2019 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#3 Post by dr_st » Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:49 am

Welcome to the forum, randomshinichi! :D

randomshinichi wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:19 pm
1. I like my X230 but the screen is just too small for serious programming work, so I got a T430. How would a W530/T530 compare?
A T430s may be a good compromise in terms of weight and screen size, if you don't need too much battery life. You can choose to use the Ultrabay for DVD/HDD and stay with mediocre battery life or for an Ultrabay battery (and get respectable battery life). The FHD IPS mod (if kits are currently available) really makes these machines shine.
randomshinichi wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:19 pm
I think the main advantage of the 7 row keyboard is more keys and the spacing, which mimics a standard desktop keyboard.
You nailed it.
randomshinichi wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:19 pm
From the X250 onwards the chiclet keyboards looked the same, but were a bit mushier and seemed to have less travel. Also, the X-series keyboards integrated the Insert key, so now you have an awkward trio of Home End/Insert Delete. That's just stupid design.
Yes, it is. It's even worse because I think that if you use Fn-lock to use Function keys as Function keys, it turns the primary function to Insert, so now End becomes Fn+Insert, which is horrible. The design was forced by the slimness of the X240 (and above) which made it impossible to have the keyboard cover the entire chassis (like in X200-X230). IMO, they would have been better off shrinking all the keys, and going back to a less-than-ideal, but still usable design of the X2x-X6x keyboards, but tell it to the idiots who think that all keys other than letters and numbers are "optional".
randomshinichi wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:19 pm
Trying out the Elitebooks there, I found that the HP keyboards represent everything I've come to hate about modern cheap consumer laptops. Especially the function keys, which are small and impossible to distinguish from normal keys. Lenovo deserves credit for raising the function key row ever so slightly on the chiclet keyboard.
You nailed it here as well. My previous employer had Lenovo and HP laptops for employees to choose from, so I have seen (and a couple of times used) these Elitebooks with their horrible, horrible keyboards. The 6-row Thinkpad keyboard is still a whole order of magnitude better than everything else that other manufacturers offer, and the relatively small group of users that really appreciate the 7-row layout is not enough to get Lenovo to switch, at least for now.
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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#4 Post by madicetea » Wed Oct 24, 2018 4:42 am

dr_st wrote:
Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:49 am
Yes, it is. It's even worse because I think that if you use Fn-lock to use Function keys as Function keys, it turns the primary function to Insert, so now End becomes Fn+Insert, which is horrible. The design was forced by the slimness of the X240 (and above)
X250 user here. The keyboard is acceptable, but there are times I miss the X61 keyboard (as small as it is on my hands).

I think you have a point there. My own keyboard (set without the Fn-lock, because sometimes you still need the standard F## action) has 'End' as the regular and ('Insert') in small text in the corner. If for whatever reason, you still find the Fn-lock worth it, then I suppose you would have to press the Fn and End key, but it is still the word 'End' that acts as primary for that key.
MadIceTea, Thinkpad Enthusiast

Daily: X250 FHD
Museum: PC110 20MB, X61 T9300 SXGA+ LED
Donated: x2001 AFFS i5-530 (to my alma matter)
Past: 701Cs German, 535/X, 760E/XL, i-series 12/14xx, piano s30, R60e, X60, X61, T60, T61, X200 P8700, X121e

That chicken sure looks funny.

randomshinichi
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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#5 Post by randomshinichi » Wed Oct 24, 2018 6:27 am

madicetea wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:30 pm
Another said I have the most extensive collection of used electronics in the world near me. I need to write about that pretty soon, but in the last year it's become all but impossible to find anything old Thinkpad there, and they never had the new stuff either - it's all in the range of X201 (even X200 is a rare find) to X240 (also rare enough), with a lot of X230 and T420s models flooding the stores.
My X230 is from Japan. My friend was in Akihabara, and he brought me a barebones little X230, for just 60EUR! It had no hard drive, BT module, webcam... but that was still dirt cheap. My friend says that this was an exception though - apparently used hardware prices in Tokyo are roughly the same as other places in the world.

Later on I opened up my Macbook Air again and felt how luxurious it was to have a slightly larger screen, so I bought a T430 online! So my trip to the store was more like 'try afterwards to justify my purchases' - and I lucked out on the x30 series.

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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#6 Post by RealBlackStuff » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:02 am

The only "computer-"shops in my area are Staples, BestBuy and Walmart. In other words: junk-shops.
All they show are the cheap throwaway models from various brands, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and M$.
It seems that the newer laptops get, the worse they are, especially the xx80 series (at least according to the number of xx80 complaints on Reddit).
So I'll admit to my sins here by saying that I am on my desktop for at least 95% of the time I spend on a computer, and that desktop gets switched off around 5pm.
Don't want/need 24/7.
I use a laptop only shortly before I go to bed, to check emails. or when I'm on the road, which rarely happens nowadays.

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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#7 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:36 am

I have Microcenter within 15 minutes of me and they have I think 3 Thinkpads.

When really shopping, I go to B&H Photo and Video. They have an entire laptop section with every Thinkpad model on display (yes ALL of them) and they have the other workstation machiens like the zBook and Dell Precision, etc.
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The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#8 Post by ajkula66 » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:19 pm

Thinkpad4by3 wrote:
Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:36 am

When really shopping, I go to B&H Photo and Video. They have an entire laptop section with every Thinkpad model on display (yes ALL of them) and they have the other workstation machiens like the zBook and Dell Precision, etc.
If you're talking about the one on West 34th St. in NYC that place is stunning. I used to go out there a lot when I worked on the West Side, but haven't stopped recently.
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Re: Thinkpad n00b's cross generation comparison in a real store

#9 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:02 pm

ajkula66 wrote:
Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:19 pm
If you're talking about the one on West 34th St. in NYC that place is stunning. I used to go out there a lot when I worked on the West Side, but haven't stopped recently.
Yep! Everytime I go into the city, I stop there and check out all the equipment they got there(and then look at the price tag and go :o ). Well, I don't need most of it anyway but it is always fun to take a look at the maze of box package transport all around the store. Absolutely great place and the staff is actually intelligent.

The Microcenter near me is also pretty good but the staff aren't that great and the selection of equipment is as good, but its so much easier than going into the city.
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

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