Rumors- Widescreen T Series 11/28 Announcement

[PRGeno]

It is very strange that point of view of a bussiness man that has bought 100s of Thinkpads before and is considering HP as an alternative... well that's his opinion. However such statements should be taken with a certain reasonable doubt. By the way, Thinkpads didn't exist 17 years ago... the first 700T and C appeared 14 years ago, by the end of 1992... Beware of malicious posts...

rleo is absolutely right, and I must apologize for being mistaken with my math.

I have been in my current job for the last 17 years, and in the IT industry since 1979. It all seems a blur looking back over the years. I sincerely apologize if I didn't remember the exact date when I purchased my very first Thinkpad, which just so happened to be a 700. It was quickly followed by one of my all time favorites the 770, and several others along the way, all the way up to my favorite, my current A31p.

I have put many of the current generation X,& T series units in the hands of my users, and even a couple X41T units. If I were to estimate, I would say I have deployed Thinkpads to other brand notebooks at a 99.99 to .01 rate over the years. I don't know exactly how many that is, but believe it or not, it's quite a lot. I am a ThinkPad guy.

To accuse me of being malicious in some way, is uncalled for and simply wrong. I don't know how my post could be viewed as malicious, but I really have no reason to be so. I really have no idea why anyone would waste their time to come here and do so.
I have been visiting thinkpads.com for many, many years. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Bill and most people who visit here. I have learned much from so many others in the community, and try to constructively contribute whenever I can.

If you need some proof of my credibility, I must apologize again. I wouldn't even consider digging up past purchase orders just to prove anything you. I really don't care if you believe I've purchased even one Thinkpad or not. What does it really matter to either of us, or anyone else for that matter?

I am, and always have been, a Thinkpad user. I truly hope the next generation T61p (or whatever Lenovo decides to call their next top of the line system) is everything I need and more. If so, it would quickly become the next Thinkpad in my line of personal Thinkpads.

However, to not consider a fine piece of equipment like the HP nw9440 would be plain stupid for someone in my position. I've got one coming in for evaluation next week. If it's the dog you imply it must be, presumably just because it isn't a Thinkpad, then I won't buy any. But if it is what it appears to be, it must be considered for our use. Otherwise I simply wouldn't be doing my job properly.

Which is to the point of my previous post. In past years, my investigations found nothing close enough to the available Thinkpads of the time, that made me even consider anything but a Thinkpad. That is no longer the case, at least in this current state of the market.

Many of the Thinkpads in our current deployment, especially my own A31p are getting a long in the tooth. I'm evaluating the current state of the market and calling it as I see it, and yes it's purely my own opinion. The nw9440 has some very unique and intrguiging features. Again I'm not saying it "blows the doors off" every other Thinkpad ever made. I'm simply saying that there is something close enough for serious consideration in the current state of the market.

The current state of the market, while a bit slow to change during the past year, will always be changing. It will again, in a big way, and as soon as November 30th, when the Vista wave finally comes crashing ashore. We should all be expecting a flurry of new machines to evaluate, from all the vendors looking to take advantage of the Vista wave.

I again apologize. This time to everyone else who wasted their time reading this post. I just have a bit of a hard time with someone questioning my integrity. Hopefully rleo has more to contribute to the community than simply taking pot shots at me.

I now return this thread to it's regularly scheduled programming, which hopefully will yield something much more useful.

PRGeno

[marlinspike]

[quote="PRGeno
I have been in my current job for the last 17 years....[/quote]

I'm just curious, but between the X and T series, what specifically other than UXGA do you find lacking in Thinkpads? I'm trying to think of what I haven't thought of so far.
I know for me the two big things about getting a Thinkpad after owning 2 HPs and 2 Compaqs is US based customer support, flexview screen, and ruggedness.

[christopher_wolf]

Well...I am not getting back the 5 minutes of my life I spent reading overly-elongated posts, sadly.

The HP business line, while good enough, is still lacking in some areas that are rather quite important if one considers a truly professional, robust system. I would have to say that keyboard quality, robustness, ease-of-maintenance and issues with service are, and probably will still be, big issues; this, of course, excludes the consumer line of HP notebooks which has caused many people I know, including myself, grief. I was recently in the position of fixing a few of the HP business systems awhile back and, besides being put in a rather disagreeable mood by the still patchy support I got, I also had to deal with a system that wasn't really designed for ease-of-repair and a general unpleasant reminder of my old, annoying, HP ze5170. Trying them out, I still went with the latest of Thinkpads for research machines as, putting aside the keyboard, generally looked like a Thinkpad and behaved like one without some of the real features. If I was going to drop serious cash on one of these for systems that would last a long time under heavy, and sometimes unpredictable, loads then the Thinkpad was still be the clear winner. If I want to get a Thinkpad, I get a Thinkpad; I want a genuine imitation that is "good enough," then the HP would suffice for a minor difference in cost.

[PRGeno]

I'm just curious, but between the X and T series, what specifically other than UXGA do you find lacking in Thinkpads? I'm trying to think of what I haven't thought of so far.
I know for me the two big things about getting a Thinkpad after owning 2 HPs and 2 Compaqs is US based customer support, flexview screen, and ruggedness.

I love the X series. I have an X40 for when I travel. But it's simply not powerful enough to be my primary machine. The T series has been a favoritie of mine, but I coldn't justify replacing my A until recently, and I've kind of been waiting for Vista to unleash the next wave of innovating new machines, expecially in the area of graphics. Vista just has taken a little longer than.....

The primary thing I see possibly missing in the current Thinkpads are the disappearing high res screens, as noted in a number of other threads, and relatively under powered graphics adapters.

Among the things that are interesting to me in the nw9440 are the wuxga screen, very fast nvidia FX 1500M graphics, and a full keyboard including numeric keypad, while also still giving me a trackpoint like pointing device I love so much in my Thinkpads. All in a relatively sleek form factor for a 17" unit.

[PRGeno]

Well...I am not getting back the 5 minutes of my life I spent reading overly-elongated posts, sadly.

Christopher,

I again appologize for my previous long winded post, but that previous poster's comment just struck me the wrong way. I'll try to do better this time.

The nw9440 is the first HP/Compaq notebook that has gotten me to really pay much attention. I've had a TC1100 tablet, which was pretty cool, but I never saw much special otherwise. The nw9440 appears it might be, and I'll find out next week when my eval unit arrives.

I won't argue about Thinkpad keyboards and robust feel, because that is one of the primary reason I've bought so many. We'll see how this HP unit stacks up.

As far as HP support is concerned, I've had nothing but good experiences. The vast majority of my desktops, servers, printers, and wide format plotters have all been HP, and Compaq before that.

In the rare instance when I've needed service, HP has come through. I had 35 D530 ultra slim desktops, which had an internal heat problem which started causing problems more than a year after deployment. Within two days of my call, HP had sent new motherboards, and had a subcontracted local tech come out and replace them in every unit, including those that hadn't yet failed.

They repaired one of my out of warrantee DesignJet 5500 plotters, when it was acting goofy and it was determined the ribbon cable between the print head and main PCB had worn out due to our heavy use.

I have a XW4300 workstation at home where it's SATA Raid was acting funny during initial setup and an HP tech worked with me until about 11:00 one Thursday night. I had a new set of drives by the close of business the next day, and he called me back afterwards to make sure everything was OK.

I really don't know how much more I can expect from a service organization.

I've found IBM's Thinkpad service to be excellent over the years too. I haven't had the need for Lenovo service yet, but IBM certainly always took very good care of us.

Dell on the other hand...... Well I won't go there because that would be a very long winded, and much less positive post.

[marlinspike]

The primary thing I see possibly missing in the current Thinkpads are the disappearing high res screens, as noted in a number of other threads, and relatively under powered graphics adapters.

Among the things that are interesting to me in the nw9440 are the wuxga screen, very fast nvidia FX 1500M graphics, and a full keyboard including numeric keypad, while also still giving me a trackpoint like pointing device I love so much in my Thinkpads. All in a relatively sleek form factor for a 17" unit.

Ah, a very different system from a T. To me, anything bigger than 15" (bigger includes 15.4" widescreen) is too bulky to be as portable as I need, and I wouldn't want UXGA in a 15". As far as the graphics card, in comparison to some others I see what you're talking about, but a 128mb X1400 is still a pretty good card. I can play far cry with the settings on high at the native 1400x1050 resolution (though...I haven't tried very high so for all I know it can run that too).

[christopher_wolf]

Lucky you

They wouldn't replace several of the belts that had worn out in our DeskJets and DesignJets, including my own, although we didn't use them nearly as much as the LaserJets and they somehow concluded that it constituted over-use (the first time I have ever heard that term used in support). That tablet is a good one, but it is pretty much meant to be used only as a tablet and the hinge can degrade (plus it has one *annoying* difficult problem in Linux, well, two actually). I haven't tried the very latest one so I guess it could be better, but this is like large enterprise contracts. It is very difficult to get a customer to switch, no matter the abilities of the product versus what they are currently using, but because they have been using it for awhile and inertia took over.

[PRGeno]

Ah, a very different system from a T. To me, anything bigger than 15" (bigger includes 15.4" widescreen) is too bulky to be as portable as I need, and I wouldn't want UXGA in a 15". As far as the graphics card, in comparison to some others I see what you're talking about, but a 128mb X1400 is still a pretty good card. I can play far cry with the settings on high at the native 1400x1050 resolution (though...I haven't tried very high so for all I know it can run that too).

Actually the nw8440, which is in the same family as the nw9440, is the 15" version which is very close to what the wide screen T series might be. Not something I would consider over a T series, but it looks like a direct competitor.

I'm not a gamer, so I don't know about far cry. My main notebook is used as a desktop replacement, shuttling between work and home, with an occasional move within the building or on specific trips. So the bulk isn't as big an issue for me. In comparison, the nw9440 isn't really bulky when compared to my A31p. Even with it's 17" screen and full keyboard, it is the same weight and depth, and only 2 inches wider and an inch less thick. It's really a sleek machine for what it offers. For travel I use an X40 which nothing comes close for it's usefulness and mobility.

The key is a product line that meets a wide range of uses, for a wide range of users. The Thinkpad line currently doesn't have a product that competes the nw9440 (the Z61p really doesn't). It has enough to make me want to take a closer look. Regardless, I won't buy my next personal primary machine until I see what comes out after Vista is released at the end of the month.

[PRGeno]

Lucky you

They wouldn't replace several of the belts that had worn out in our DeskJets and DesignJets, including my own, although we didn't use them nearly as much as the LaserJets and they somehow concluded that it constituted over-use (the first time I have ever heard that term used in support). That tablet is a good one, but it is pretty much meant to be used only as a tablet and the hinge can degrade (plus it has one *annoying* difficult problem in Linux, well, two actually). I haven't tried the very latest one so I guess it could be better, but this is like large enterprise contracts. It is very difficult to get a customer to switch, no matter the abilities of the product versus what they are currently using, but because they have been using it for awhile and inertia took over.

We may have been lucky. We buy a lot of stuff though, and that may help compared to an individual user. But I still have found HP support folks to be very professional and responsive.

I agree with you that people get used to and comfortable with a vendor and product. The inertia is knowing what to expect from a vendor in sales, support, innovation, and fit and finish. In medium to large scale deployments, it's also standardizing on platforms to leverage the experiences of in house techs and users so that common problems and workarounds can build a manageable knowledge base. It's also about common spare parts and ease of deployment with a manageable number of standard software images etc.

Thats why it's so important for the vendor standardized upon, offers a complete portfolio of products that meets the needs of all kinds of different users within the organization.

[marlinspike]

I'm not a gamer, so I don't know about far cry.

Well, I'll put it this way. Being able to run far cry on the very high settings is a bragging right. With the sniper rifle, it's renders objects 2 miles away.

[own6volvos]

I am thinking Lenovo is going to be sharing internals between t/z series now, and then revamping the cases for the T models. Where the Z has plastic, the T has the magnesium. Where the Z model was kinda thicker in spots, the T model would slim it up. They will also probably even share the exact same LCD's. I don't see why they wouldn't share all these parts if they are successful in the other laptop line and without faults. Just look at all the other parts that are shared across models, to bring down costs where extra expenses wouldn't really bring any benefit.

Batteries
AC Adapters
Optical Drives (between the models with the same size bays)
Keyboards (T and Z series use the same board)

There are a heck of a lot other parts, but I am betting that even things like motherboards, heatsinks, fans are already being shared between models.

[lakersgo]

so what's going to be the differences between Z and T w/widescreen series? The Z61T is pretty slim by any mean, don't know what more the T series can offer.