I want SD Card slot standard on thinkpads just like wireless

[lvlolvlo]

well.. a lot of tech people using thinkpad.. if ibm businese oriented. i think a lot of tech people may move to Dell ?

ha funny joke. tech people move to dell. have you had a dell notebook before? yeah I have a 600m with "top of the line specs" and guess what it's slower, flimsier(if that's how you spell it), and just flat out blah compared to my thinkpad.

oh man...currently the Dell is sitting under my bed with the Radtech slip on cover. Oh man it sucks!

[aleung]

i used dell before.. i don't like dell myself.. but IBM skipped the serial port

[Plinkerton]

Haha... Even with all that stuff missing, I still bought the ThinkPad over the HP ZT3000 I was looking at. I got a smaller HD, no widescreen, no SD card reader, etc. etc.

I payed more in the end, didn't get as many features, and STILL took the ThinkPad. And I still think I made the right choice.

[aleung]

sure.. My T30 is my sixth thinkpad.. Thinkpad is the best laptop i been use

[lvlolvlo]

Honestly, if you still need to use a serial port perhaps you should consider getting the serial port - bluetooth adapter then link it to your notebook via bluetooth as bluetooth supports full serial port usage.

More importantly, I could only imagine a handful of things you need a SP for, being old handhelds, program authentication devices, networking gear, biometric security devices, and unlocking sutff(i.e. phones) and for stuff like that you could just keep a dedicated notebook since majority of those are for professional uses. The only two you could argue is handheld, and unlocking software, and for that you can get the bluetooth - SP connector.

That's just my opinion though.

[Elhabash]

Just a few devices that have serial I needed to connect this summer:

Conductivity meter
Oxygen meter
pH meter
Three different base stations for temperature loggers
GPS receiver
data shuttle

Only the GPS and the oxy meter worked somehow with the USB-Serial adapter, and I could only import the data as tab-delimited with the oxy meter. The software would also support other formats, but it just wouldn't work...
Some devices only have the option to use COM1, and I couldn't figure out how to remap the ports, since COM1 is already used...

In the end we used some paleozoic laptop in the field, weighing more than my colleague's Powerbook and my Thinkpad combined. Talk about humiliation..

[Plinkerton]

The only things I would use a serial port for are my GPS and a VERY old PDA, a Palm III. I have an adapter, but I haven't used it yet, as I don't use those 2 things very often. I can do without the serial port, but when the time comes to use it, and if the USB to serial doesn't work with them, maybe I'll think differently.

[lfeagan]

Elhabash, sounds like you really want to get serious with serial. You might want to consider investing in an ethernet --> serial server. They really are the way to go if you are tied to serial in a more than trivial way. Also, you can get 16 port versions for fairly cheap. They are actually very good implementations of the serial protocol and should work superbely for you needs other than the COM1 issue.

[Elhabash]

Thanks, I will look into those options when I need them next (I have a big holiday after finishing my thesis).

It's good to know that there are alternatives to lugging around a behemoth of an otherwise obsolete fossil when you have a Thinkpad lying around at the same time...

[RoadHazard]

I think serial ports are so outdated and their only use is in some technical areas where you need control an RS.232 device.

However, Thinkpads are business tools, and in almost every office I worked there was a laser printer that was attached with a parallel port. Only the very newest printers had also USB (very rarely!). So I am glad that parallel is still on board. However, Firewire is a MUST on the next generation. But, to be honest, looking around my T40p there is no space for at all.

So you are saying people in technical areas cannot use the Thinkpad? I still have a PDA that connects to a serial port. I guess it's a technical tool too.

Even a lot of printers with parallel port still exist, I really wonder how many people really attach their TP to a printer via parallel port in order to print. In any office that can afford TPs for their employees, I'm pretty sure the underlying IT support would have provided a better way to print from a notebook. Seriously if you really don't have (or don't know) another way to print, I'd just copy the file to one of the attached desktop PCs and print from there. Much easier than moving around the parallel cable IMO.

[CChoi83]

Okay look: I don't care what anybody says. DOWN with the parrallel port and replace it with a serial (can't retreive the NMEA data from a GPS receiver and no, I will not use a USB receiver) and I WANT MY COFFEE MAKER NOW!!! Espresso would be better (triple espresso please) but hey, you can't have everything now can we?