Thinkpads Forum

well,

i must admit that IBM has the best Hinges design.
The hinges was tight when newly purchased it which needed to open with 2 bare hands (personally i do perfer a tight and solid hinges ).

After years of using my T43, countless time of opening it, it became slightly loosen which can be open with a hand ! However, the hinges never get shaky/moving forth and back like other laptop.
This is why i like IBM Thinkpad the most

The hinges on the eMachines were notorious for cracking. Then Gateway bought them. lol

I lift my thinkpads off the floor by the screen. After years of such abuse, the worst that ever happened was the hinge was a bit less snug than originally.

3 year old T42, and I can open it just fine with one hand. Doesn't seem to be loose or anything.

I have a T60p and my hinges are pretty stiff as well. We have an older T42 in the office here for lab use and it does not have this problem. I consider it a design flaw, not a feature as the T42 is holding the screen up just fine without moving.

It means you have a healthy ThinkPad!

There is one example that I know of where the ThinkPad hinge design is a bit over done. The Z60m ThinkPads with the ABS plastic LCD cover have an incredibly tight hinge. After looking up the necessary parts to convert the Z60m to the titanium cover I noticed a reference for two different hinge types, one for the ABS cover and one for the titanium cover due to the extra mass. When I placed the parts order for the conversion I was told I already had the heavy duty hinge as it became standard equipment for this series. While the heavy hinge is perfect for the titanium lid I did notice an uncomfortable amount of screen flex when opening an ABS covered Z60m. I guess there is a fine line between manufacturing economy and ergonomics/ease of use.

I *LOVE* the tight ThinkPad hinges. I have a T42p 15" and a T60p 15" 4:3 and they both require two hands to open. Just because they only have one latch release doesn't mean it doesn't require two-handed operation...if there were two latch releases, then you'd need three hands, or you would need to re-locate one after pushing up the screen a little to prevent the latch from re-latching.

With both the T42 and the T60, I can probably get the screen up 2/3rds of the way single-handedly, but then the base starts to come up with the screen.

I feel that this is a far lesser evil than loose hinges, or hinges that get looser over time to the point where the screen is "flopping" around. Compaqs (at least the pre-HP ones) are notorious for this, I've seen Dells do it, too, and we have some cheapo Toshibas at work whose hinges are also pretty bad.

I'd say it's "normal." If you feel like risking your warranty, though, I'm sure you could get in there and loosen them up yourself.

-- Nathan