T43 Competition?

[rocketman]

This new HP wide screen nc8200 looks like it's trying to copy the T42 design but in a widescreen format. I wonder if IBM or Lenovo will release a wide screen T42.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1757556,00.asp

[LumberJack]

Yeah...

The resemblance is uncanny Somehow I doubt IBm will make a widescreen T series.. It's one of those gimmicy media features.. like a 17" notebook... really not much sence....

LJ

[rjm1135]

Re. widescreen TPs, check out this thread - towards the bottom by Cronus71

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=75

Make of it what you will.

Cheers,
Rob.

[mattfromomaha]

A friend and I were chatting about different notebooks last night, mainly because another idiot we know bought a junk Dell Inspiron.

So many of the computer companies nowadays spend no money on Research and Development, they simply copy what IBM is doing. (IMHO, Dell is the worst of all at being an imitator.)

If Lenovo doesn't keep up the pace IBM did with R&D, I think it will negatively affect the entire PC market.

[brewt]

IMHO that doesn't look anything like a T42. Only thing similar is the dark colour and even that isn't the same.

[darrenf]

Was this a joke post? I'm trying to see the resemblance. Other than the location of the CD-ROM, battery and exhaust port, I can't see anything that's the same.

-darren

[beeblebrox]

Guys, I don't think that other people are idiots because they buy Dell or HP or they prefer 17" laptops.

The only idiot is someone who produces something that no customer would buy. Dell has no R&D but they produce exactly what customers want. Within 2 decades they built a $60Bn business out of nothing and have been highly profitable always. Compare that to IBM and HP, who are money losers all the time.

Only the customer matters, nothing else. The customer is the one who feeds the company!

So if customers buy 17" laptops for the living room or prefer cheaper notebooks, then someone smart would sell them exactly what they want and make a profit.
Others may ridicule the customer and built over-engineered computers that come late and don't fit customer's expectations.

Now that HP and Dell have officially announced that they would go boldly after ex-IBM customers they present notebooks that imitate ThinkPads.

I am sure they did their homework and suddenly we see widescreen notebooks with lots of features that target exactly IBMs customer base. So The questions here is: why did they introduce the things we have been missing on IBM Thinkpads all the time?

Maybe that is the right question!

[arion]

Dell are just bad all round I will not use Dell hardware for safety reasons.

They should just change there name to inferno. You name it Dell has made it and it has caught fire.

[Marc_G]

Beeblebrox: good points. Food for thought.
Arion: ROFLMAO

I buy IBM because they work. And if they break, they fix them quickly. And if they make a mistake, they apologize and make it right. This has been my experience for the past seven years spanning four laptops that I've used, and a total of about 25 laptops used by people who report to me. We've never had an unsatisfactory situation.

In the next few days I get a T42P with the high-end onsite warranty including accident protection. Sure it costs more, but I sleep better at night.

[nicpottier]

I would definitely say that this is a nice looking alternative.

The huge bias against widescreen notebooks is pretty funny, very much the kind of blinded fanaticism that would lead you to not look at things objectively.

I'm a software engineer, never play games, never watch movies etc.. But my current laptop (Powerbook G4) is widescreen and that is the biggest thing holding me back from jumping on a T4?p right now. There is something very nice about the form factor of having a wide screen, from things being more practical on a plane, to just having more real estate.

This HP addresses all my wants (even a trackpoint!) but there is still the question of quality and reliability. I would expect that as it's aimed towards the business segment so better than their regular fare.

However, nobody can deny the specs on it are pretty nice and very much similar to the new T43P's.

-Nic

[kevinlwu]

As an Ex-Compaq business notebook user, i was extreamly pleased with the quality and support of my Armada E500(3 day turn around repairs and next day replacement parts), since then i have suggested other models to family and friends such as their Evo line. Since the HP take over I decided to come over to the IBM side as I wasn't a fan of HP's cheezy take over of the biz line with little differential from their compaq consumer line, the new models seem much better designed from the ones they replace and hopefully as good build quality as before.... I hope this brings more competition, innovation, and price adjustments in the market for us buyers.

[rssb]

I was a dell customer earlier, thier onsite warrenty was good, but thier designs and parts were not as good as IBM.

I had couple of different machines of inspiron 600m, Latitude D600, all of them suffered from poor heat transfer design. This made be look at IBm T40's, and once i switched, I could never go back to dell.

Infact in one of the dell posts, i have provided my detailed crtique about how things can be improved when comparing to IBM's design, and they have implemented couple of my ideas ( may be they didnot take from the post, or may be they did no one knows !). Here is the link to the post, my post name same as here "rssb". It might be a long one, but if someone is interested they could read through it.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums ... ing&page=3

The bottom line is you pay what you get for, some people might not be choosy as many of us are here and they would prefer to bear the heat on the palmrest for $750 saving or more when compared to a IBM. But thats them they have thier own right to choose so.

IBM service is the best, no doubts about that except for a occasional mistakes, which are human. The engineers at IBM know thier stuff better than other company engineers, and I am sure they get paid more too..

I just hope they maintain the R&D, to maintain quality even after this lenovo sale. Because in my opinion the only reason, people buy IBM's inspite of low prices from dell, is for the quality and service.

This is the new dell D610 service manual

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /index.htm

in which you can see the pictures, and see the changes they have made from a previous model D600 ( which is the same as inspiron 600m, )

the D600 manual is here, for those who havent seen one

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /index.htm

They have used similar ideas, for RAM, network card placement ( under the keyboard now), hard drive caddy desgin seems to be like IBM, also they removed any other components under the hard disk location, .

If these changes are effective, the Dell D610 market would be a serious competetor to IBM's T43, because you can configure a 1.8, 60 GB, 512 MB, machine with 3 year on-site for 1375, no taxes...

[Blake]

once a thinkpad allways a thinkpad!

I personally believe its all about brand loyality, and to me it is. I would never buy some crap hp from best buy, or a dell, BLAH. money is not an issue when it comes to quailty and something that i use everyday. I want something I will enjoy to the fullest and yet have minimal issues with.

ive used numerous laptops from 486's to the newest p4 widescreens and everything inbetween including mac. and have been stuck fixing stupid issues for friends.

ive had a fujitsu 166mhx, a p3 portege(started me on my small laptop preference), a t22, then a 12 inch g4 and now my x31 which im totally attached to.

cnet complains the thinkpad is so plain and drab, but i personally think its dead sexy and love how it looks. nice clean lines and no fancy crap, its a machine not a painting.

i allways read about new laptops that come out and often go and just play around in stores to kill time and see whats out there.

some of the new widescreen 4lb sonys and hp's are beautiful and have a better screen and preformance than my x31 but everytime i come home i realize i would never give this X up.

ive never had an issue with either of my thinkpads and my t22 took a 3 foot drop onto pavement and lost a chunk and never had a problem except for visual damage, and my x-girls father got me hooked on them, and he has never had a problem either and hes on his about 18 hours a day 6 days a week..

"oh i got a new laptop" and i cant help but say, oh thats a sweet machine, but inside i wouldnt take it over my x, no matter how much better it supposedly is . and then i just wait to get the phone call saying something broke and can i come fix it.