What is wrong with Lenovo!??

[pipspeak]

Agree with the OP's rant... Thinkpad T-series earned a reputation for being conservative, solidly built, reliable, having the best available technology, and generally being workhorses. They shunned fickle consumer trends. Now we have a T-series line that's clearly aiming at the consumer market. It sucks.

Businesses don't want widescreen. Consumers have led that market. Businesses are being forced into it IMO. In every every software application I use, from Word and Excel to Photoshop, Dreamweaver and internet browsers, vertical screen real estate is more important than horizontal. I personally can see absolutely no need for 16:10 ratio screens. I've yet to hear a convincing argument for them. The only place in my house where there's a 16:10 LCD is the TV in the living room and that's because all HDTV and DVD output is now in 16:10 (or wider) format.

I'm disappointed that Lenovo jumped on this bandwagon, and that's all it is -- a widescreen bandwagon. Who needs widescreen? Who asked for widescreen? A 14" WXGA+ screen has less real estate than a 4:3 14" SXGA+. We're getting fewer pixels and an awkwardly-shaped box (rediculously wide in the case of 15.4" machines) with sticking-out battery for what? I wouldn't care so much if Lenovo offered 4:3 versions too, but instead we're being d**ked around while lenovo works the widescreen market.

If the T62 rollout is handled so badly Lenovo might lose more money on its TP line than IBM ever did. At least IBM earned respect in the business market, even if it could not turn that into profit (so rumor has it). The rate Lenovo's going there'll be none of that respect left as HP, Dell, Fujitsu and others steal its business market share and instead it'll be left fluttering in the fickle winds of the consumer market.

But what do I know

And another thing... what's up with this pure CTO thing? You used to be able to buy certain pre-configured models online but now everything's CTO only, which is gonna be a pain until Lenovo can sort out its freakin' delivery date estimates. I thought Dell's delivery estimates were bad until I started reading recent stories about lenovo.

[pianowizard]

A 14" WXGA+ screen has less real estate than a 4:3 14" SXGA+.

As much as I like widescreens (actually, I like 4:3 almost as much), I agree that the migration of the 14.1" T series from SXGA+ to WXGA+ is disappointing, for the reason you mentioned. Hopefully there will be a 14.1" WSXGA+ option in the future. But when the 12.1" X series goes widescreen, it will be WXGA, which gives us 30.2% more real estate than the current XGA. Also, if you compare the WUXGA 15.4" T61p with the UXGA 15.0" UXGA, you get 20.0% more pixels on the widescreen.

[furrycute]

If the T62 rollout is handled so badly Lenovo might lose more money on its TP line than IBM ever did. At least IBM earned respect in the business market, even if it could not turn that into profit (so rumor has it).

1) IBM's personal computer division was bleeding IBM's profits dry.
2) You don't save a money losing business by pouring more money into that business.
3) As to the move to wide screen, well a lot of people on this forum wanted to club Lenovo to death accusing them of not jumping onto the wide screen bandwagon soon enough.
4) I still don't understand the obsession with ultra high resolution in a notebook sized LCD. I mean, are your eyes even human?

[pianowizard]

4) I still don't understand the obsession with ultra high resolution in a notebook sized LCD

I am viewing four Internet Explorer browsers tiled on my R50p right now, each showing as much detail as a maximized browser on an XGA screen. That's the reason.

[furrycute]

I am viewing four Internet Explorer browsers tiled on my R50p right now, each showing as much detail as a maximized browser on an XGA screen. That's the reason.

That's my point, everything on your screen is one quarter the size as on a normal screen. You try to stare at that for 8 hours a day, and you tell me you don't get any eyestrain from it.

And the R50p has a 15" screen. Try to squeeze the same amount of ultra high resolution into a 13" or 12" screen or God forbid an 11" screen, you are looking at what, 1/6 or 1/8 the normal size. That's just ludicrously small.

[pipspeak]

3) As to the move to wide screen, well a lot of people on this forum wanted to club Lenovo to death accusing them of not jumping onto the wide screen bandwagon soon enough.
4) I still don't understand the obsession with ultra high resolution in a notebook sized LCD. I mean, are your eyes even human?

I know some people like widescreen and Lenovo did release the Z early on but to suddenly drop 4:3 screens from a line of previously 4:3 machines was madness IMO. Suddenly, from the T60 to the T61 the 4:3 screens vanished (although now it sounds like they might reappear in lmimited quantities).

I agree on the resolution... SXGA is about a small as I can handle and is fine for the times I used the notebook screen for a few hours. Most of the time I use a 21" monitor, however.

[bill bolton]

Businesses don't want widescreen.

My business does as do many of my clients.

In every every software application I use...

Its not all about you!

I'm disappointed that Lenovo jumped on this bandwagon, and that's all it is -- a widescreen bandwagon. Who needs widescreen? Who asked for widescreen?

A wide cross section of users here have been asking for widescreen for some time.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[tomh009]

I'm disappointed that Lenovo jumped on this bandwagon, and that's all it is -- a widescreen bandwagon. Who needs widescreen? Who asked for widescreen?

A wide cross section of users here have been asking for widescreen for some time.

I think there are many people who prefer widescreen, just as there are many who prefer 4:3. The sad thing is that LCD panel availability is dictating a wholesale move from 4:3 to 8:5, and precluding customer choice of LCD panels.

[GomJabbar]

Personally, I am in agreement with pipspeak on virtually all of his points.

[mattbiernat]

Personally, I am in agreement with pipspeak on virtually all of his points.

same here. the only place for widescreen is movies and that's it. but who the heck would buy widescreen computer to only watch movies?!
just about everything else such as gaming, internet, adobe, viewing pictures is better under standard 4:3. In addition your entire computer is not as [censored] wide. but that's just my opinion.... however i am not going to buy widescreen notebook for as long as there are stil working 4:3 normal ratios older models.

[Kyocera]

Personally I am not in agreement with ALL of pipspeak's points. This is clearly the "I am against change" mentality, are all these changes so horrible as described? Is it your way or the higway? Life is not like that, neither is business. Would everyone be up in arms if they knew these changes have probably been in the IBM thinktank for years now? Or is it just the Lenovo stigma. I think the latter, seems like nowdays everyone wants a machine custom designed for THEIR purposes and anything else is a useless peice of crap. I see the trend here on the forum lately, mostly complaints .
Thinkpads are changing, and if and when people ever stop buying them there will be more changes.

I am viewing four Internet Explorer browsers tiled on my R50p right now, each showing as much detail as a maximized browser on an XGA screen. That's the reason.

Why? Can you read four at once? I'll say this again and again, the offices I go into, (usually three or four a day, add that up over a week/year exc) and see what the cube people are running on thier desks for different applications, the ones that want more screen space use DUAL monitors, these are the CAD preople, who really need this, very, very few people use dual monitors for office apps, or to browse the internet. I've never yet seen someone with two three or four browsers open.

[pianowizard]

Why? Can you read four at once?

In this particular example (tiling four IE browsers on a QXGA screen), it makes it so much easier to switch from one browser to another. When I rely on Alt+Tab or the minimized browsers on the Taskbar, it takes much longer to switch.

the ones that want more screen space use DUAL monitors these are the CAD preople, who really need this, very, very few people use dual monitors for office apps, or to browse the internet. I've never yet seen someone with two three or four browsers open.

I need to view multiple windows for my scientific work as well. For example, I publish my experimental results in peer-reviewed journals. These journal articles typical have 4 to 12 figures. When I am typing the text in a Word document to describe these figures (often comparing two or more figures), it's very helpful to see several of these figures tiled around the Word document. Sometimes I discuss previous studies, and in this I would have PDFs of these studies tiled around my Word document. When I need to view more than four windows simultaneously, I use my external 20" UXGA monitor (a Samsung SyncMaster 204B) in addition to my R50p's QXGA screen.

I am sure many people do equally complicated tasks, but they just have never tried this approach and so they don't realize how efficient it is. Or, perhaps they only have XGA displays, so they can't try it even if they wanted to.

[tomh009]

I am sure many people do equally complicated tasks, but they just have never tried this approach and so they don't realize how efficient it is. Or, perhaps they only have XGA displays, so they can't try it even if they wanted to.

Oooh, that hurt!

I enjoy my UXGA desktop display on my desk, and it's far better than XGA when it comes to running Microsoft Project or Photoshop, but running applications maximized on XGA is not horrible (for me) either -- you'd be surprised at how fast I can Alt+Tab!

With regard to browser windows, with tabbed browsing, I actually prefer a single window as otherwise it's too hard to keep track of which tab is in which window. So even with QXGA I'd probably still have only one browser (or maybe one Firefox and one IE7) -- unless I were to limit myself to non-tabbed browsing.

[furrycute]

Peer reviewed journal ---> ultra high res...

No wonder I can never understand what those journal articles are talking about.

[pianowizard]

but running applications maximized on XGA is not horrible (for me) either -- you'd be surprised at how fast I can Alt+Tab!

The speed of switching isn't my only concern. For example, when I am typing a Word document that describes a photo, if I have to use Alt+Tab to switch between the former and the latter, I would easily forget some of the details of the photo after switching to the document. This won't be a problem if I can look at that photo while typing. Another scenario that happens to me often is cutting and pasting a paragraph from one page of a Word document to another page of the same document. This is much easier to do if both pages and everything in between are in sight. That's why I sometimes view six continuous pages of a Word document (each at 80% magnification) simultaneously when I am editing it. Before getting the R50p, I had a Dell Inspiron 6000 with "only" 1920x1200 resolution. In that case, I would get the document to span both the Inspiron's own display, and the external UXGA Samsung LCD to view five pages at once (three on the Dell and two on the Samsung).

[pipspeak]

Hey, I'm glad my post spurred some discussion!

I'm not saying there are not people who want, need or prefer widescreen for whatever reason, real or imagined. Mine was a personal rant, that's all, so of course it's all about me

My biggest gripe, which I think is fairly legitimate, is how 4:3 screens just vanished with the T61. There I was, a month ago, ready to go online and buy a new Thinkpad, and I find that all of a sudden Lenovo has dropped the screen size I've come to know and love. It's enough to make anyone rant and almost buy a Fujitsu!

I'm not resistant to change by any means but only if someone can convince me that a change is going to be beneficial in some way. I am resistant to change for change's sake, especially with such a business-critical piece of equipment, and I am resistant to empty marketing rhetoric.

I've actually yet to see a 14" widescreen T61 in the flesh (all local stores only carry the 15.4") so I don't even know if I'd like it or not. I also already scroll up and down on too many applications so in my case I'd rather have vertical pixels, not horizontal. And finally I want a computer that's has as small a form factor as possible. The 4:3 machines have a smaller factor, unless you count the widescreens with the puny 4-cell battery.

I still have not, however, heard a decent explanation as to why widescreen on a business laptop is "better", which is why I still believe it is a fad started by manufacturers than by actual consumer demand. We've been sold the line that widescreen is the newest, best technology and the screeens *look* so much bigger so people lap it up, so to speak, and the bandwagon gets rolling. I was already getting amazed by how big "laptops" were getting and now it's just becoming silly -- 17" widescreen anyone?

[gator]

[quote=pipspeak]
I'm not resistant to change by any means but only if someone can convince me that a change is going to be beneficial in some way. I am resistant to change for change's sake, especially with such a business-critical piece of equipment, and I am resistant to empty marketing rhetoric.[/quote]

My exact thoughts ... I had a chance to look at the 14" T61 a while back, but I was not too happy with it ... I prefer the 4:3 over widescreen, especially for laptops. For external monitors, esp. 19" and bigger, widescreens are actually better imho - but for laptops, I'll probably stick to 4:3.

[tomh009]

For external monitors, esp. 19" and bigger, widescreens are actually better imho - but for laptops, I'll probably stick to 4:3.

I'm actually disappointed by the wide-screen external monitors in general: you typically need to go all the way up to 24" to get WUXGA resolution, and then the monitor is much more desk space than the 20" 4:3 UXGA panel. Like the 17-19" 4:3 monitors, the wide-screens are giving people larger displays but no more pixels.

(Along the same lines, flipping through a Dell flyer that came in the newspaper, they had maybe half a dozen laptops listed, and apart from the M1330, every single one had only WXGA resolution, all the way up to 17" models. Maybe better resolutions can be had as options, but 17" WXGA is just sad ...)

[mattbiernat]

the question for 100 points is whether lenovo is going to re-introduce 4:3 on their T and R series?

[pipspeak]

the question for 100 points is whether lenovo is going to re-introduce 4:3 on their T and R series?

Perhaps we should start a write-in campaign.

Edit: I just ordered a 4:3 T61. It was $200 more than a similarly configured widescreen, a premim I am happy to pay. We'll see if it actually gets shipped.

[BillMorrow]

the thing is, lenovo, like all other makers, are in cut-throat competition with each other..
in the past, IBM beat the competition with exclusivity and innovation..
more aimed at the big business (Large Enterprise) users..
who purchased 100's to 1000's of thinkpads at a go and IBM catered to this market..

with the sale to lenovo i think most of that is now past and since lenovo MUST make a profit they will cater to all customers..
i hope..

sadly, the 4:3 panels seem to be giving way to these wide aspect displays..

the macbook pro i have been playing with has such a display..
its not exactly what i would choose, but its not all that bad either..
the worst part is the small vertical resolution number.. 800 i think..

when i have the extra bucks for my desktop and prices of DELL displays come down even more i'll get two or three wide aspect high res displays..
more real estate..!

consider that i have 21 windows open right now on this desktop..!

change happens..
i don't like to admit this but it does and theres not much a few customers can do..
100's of customers complaining will get the attention of lenovo, for sure..
but if no panel supplier is making the 4:3 panels, now what.. !
lenovo won't order special panels.. not competitive..

all you people are buying flat panel TV's and thats where the manufacturing capacity is going..

and companies like owens corning [GLW] (aka glowworm) are making the glass for the panels AND for fibre cables..


change happens..

[furrycute]

When it comes to laptop displays, I still prefer standard aspect ratio displays, because displays of such small size are already vertically challenged, if you make them even shorter as in adopting the wide screen format, you have to scroll like there is no tomorrow.

For external monitors 22" and above, I prefer wide screen formats, because at this size the monitors are no longer vertically challenged, and now I welcome their increase in girth

[K. Eng]

I don't dislike widescreen displays, because the extra horizontal rez can be useful for IM lists and system monitoring widgets. However, I agree with the sentiment that lost vertical resolution can be annoying. I really prefer to scroll as little as possible in the text that I am reading or editing.

[pianowizard]

every single one had only WXGA resolution, all the way up to 17" models. Maybe better resolutions can be had as options, but 17" WXGA is just sad ...)

Dell offers WUXGA for 17" models, but of course they cost a lot more than the WXGA ones. In these flyers, they probably want to advertise only the cheapest models.

[lophiomys]

I doubt that Lenovo will increase profits by going mainstream with
Thinkpads (wide screens) and by reducing the differences to their
competitors.
In these markets the competitors are performing better.
I only see a chance if Lenovo keeps the quality of the whole
package, including service and support, above others and
offers some real innovations, e.g. significant improvements in
energy efficiency and screen quality, Linux support, pivot screen, ...

[mattbiernat]

I doubt that Lenovo will increase profits by going mainstream with
Thinkpads (wide screens) and by reducing the differences to their
competitors.

they already did - most thinkpads are widescreen!

[lophiomys]

ok, but did that increase their profits?

[bhtooefr]

I do believe the LCD manufacturers can get more panels out of a sheet of mother glass when they're making 8:5 and 16:9 panels instead of 4:3.

And, of course, there's the demand from HDTV and such.

Also, keep in mind, the Personal Systems division bled money, and the ThinkPad was the Mercedes-Benz (in the 1980's and before) of business computers. There's a reason IBM sold it, and it's not because they felt like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The goose was well into menopause.

[furrycute]

There's a reason IBM sold it, and it's not because they felt like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The goose was well into menopause.

I think the goose was only laying one golden egg for every eight golden eggs IBM fed to it. That's why IBM put the goose up for sale.

[jamesqf]

Just to add my two cents: I rather like the wide screen, as long as it has the same vertical resolution. (And why can't people use numbers instead of those cutsie codes that I can't keep straight? What's so hard about typing 1680x1050, huh?) I do programming, mostly, and I work in editor windows with 2 pages of code side by side. A 1400x1050 display, like my old Dell, has just enough resolution for one of these windows. The wider screen allows a bit extra for gadgets.

What I would really, really, really like is for the extra width of the system box to be used. There's an inch or more of space to either side of the keyboard on this T60p on my desk: it would be just enough to allow for a keyboard that has the cursor keys in the right position! Then I wouldn't have to plug in a standard keyboard in order to do real work.