Thinkpads Forum

Are the series T "real" Thinkpads that live up to the standard of this brand?

I am moving to a company that uses Thinkpads as the standard hardware, but I don't know if getting a series T by Lenovo is a good idea or if I should try to get a "real" (old) IBM Thinkpad.

My doubt is a result of a terrible personal experience with a Thinkpad SL 400. I had to send it 3 times to fix power-related problems during the 1st year, and then the left-hand side display hinge broke during the last week of warranty. When I called customer service to report it, the warranty had expired 2 or 3 days ago (seems like another case of companies applying DTF - Designed to Fail - concepts). The cost of repair was probably on the range of buying a new laptop, so the end result is I have to get a new laptop and I no longer know where to look for: I had had similar bad experiences with HP, Dell, Toshiba laptops and an Apple mini.

I do not understand how Lenovo puts in risk the Thinkpad brand with a sub-par laptop series as the SL. Going back to my question:

Would it be safe to get a series T for work? Any other suggestion?

idpzp

You have an interesting definition of "real" and "fake", my friend...

There have been and will be many debates regarding the quality of present versus past Thinkpads, but by no definition can you call any of them them "fake". No more than you can call a model 2010 Toyota Camry "fake", just because it is not manufactured in the exact same process like the original 1980 model.

When you say "try to get a real old IBM Thinkpad" - what do you mean, and where will you get it? I assume you mean to try to get a Thinkpad that was released still under the IBM brand name (never mind that Lenovo was manufacturing it back then anyway).

The last T series clearly under IBM is the T42 (arguably, T43). You seriously think that whatever issues may arise with newer machines, it is going to be a better idea to buy an old, slow, near-obsolete, heavily used, out of warranty machine with a known serious reliability issue (just search for GPU problems in the T4x forum)?

The SL series, being a more budget model than a T is sold much cheaper and clearly isn't design to be as durable. With that said, the issues you experienced may be a matter of luck of the draw, and can happen with high-end and low-end models equally.

HP and DELL, like Lenovo and most other manufacturers, have several different lineups of laptops - cheap starter lines, regular consumer lines, multimedia machines, business machines, workstations. Overall and quality-wise, HP Elitebook and DELL Latitude/Precision series should be comparable to the T/X Thinkpads. If you don't feel confident with the latest Lenovo models, you may want to look in that direction.

And no matter what you buy, IMO, going cheap and only getting 1-year warranty on a business machine is a bad idea.

What dr_st says is true. If you're using a business notebook as a business machine, it is a very good idea to get extended warranty service, especially since you never know what your machine might go through.

That said, I've used models from every T-series since the T2x. While some will argue(albeit with some merit) that fit and finish on ThinkPads have declined since Lenovo took over, the overall durability seems the same. The same people who designed the IBM-made ThinkPads design the Lenovo-made ones.

My T21 is still going strong, even though I don't really use it anymore. My T400 feels just as solid, and unless I start putting it through major abuse should make it several years just fine. It also runs very cool, which means less chance for heat-related failure; perhaps one of the most common enemies of laptops.

I received a T410 yesterday. My machine is flawless. The build quality is fine.

Compared with my T41 from six years ago, I really only have one design related complaint: the mouse buttons next to the track pad (NOT those that you use when using the track point) are clearly rather flimsy.

Yeah, the palm rest creaks a tad, but so does the palm rest on the T41.

All this said, it will take another six years before I can perform a comparison of long-term durability. But I don't see any catastrophic flaws at this time.

Thanks for your responses and suggestions. I guess I will go ahead asking for a T400/500 at work, hoping I have better luck with it. I don't have the option to consider a different brand anyway.

Nevertheless I stick to my point that Lenovo is misleading customers by calling the SL series a Thinkpad. They should have kept those laptops under the ideaPad or another name, so people would know they are not getting the "real" thing.

My comment is a result of hard-crashed expectations: Back in 2001 I got at work what was probably one of the initial series T Thinkpads (I don't recall if it was a T30 or T40) and boy, I have never seen another machine like that. It was hardly top of the line in specs when compared with other brands, but reliability and performance was just incredible (I had to process significant amounts of data for some engagements).

Later on my brother, who is (was?) a top fan of Thinkpads, told me about all the details behind the scenes (that amazingly IBM did not promote) such as the spill-proof keyboard, or the active hard drive protection, or the body construction details that made them very, very resilient laptops.

When I found the SL 400 Thinkpad by Lenovo, I thought I was seeing my dream come true, so I convinced my wife to get it as the right solution for home after a series of disappointments with Dell, HP and an Apple mini. But this pseudo-Thinkpad was a terrible experience from the beginning - (perhaps bad luck as you said):

- My first mistake was getting Windows Vista (not totally Lenovo's fault because XP was still an option), so it was a nightmare in terms of performance and bugs from the start (e.g. watching streaming video is almost impossible)

- Then we had all the problems with the power connections I mentioned before (we had to send it 3 times for repair)

- And when I thought that upgrading to Windows 7 will make it finally come up close to the Thinkpad standard, the cheap/plastic display hinge broke down.

As I mentioned the warranty had expired like 3 day before I called (I should have called before, but my wife wanted to backup some pictures, videos and files before I sent it for repair). They wanted me to pre-approve $ hundreds on repair costs, so I decided to just keep it as is until the display falls off completely (it is getting there by the day).

So I will go with the series T at work (crossing fingers for better luck this time) but I still have to find a solution for home. The search continues.

Thanks

I somewhat disagree with the claim that SL is not a real Thinkpad. To me it is as real as the R series, or the "economy" models of the R series. Those too often lacked features present on high-end T/X models, and were sometimes not constructed with the same materials / durability standards.

If you check, you will notice that some of the distinctive features of Thinkpads you mentioned (such as spill-proof keyboard and active HD protection) are present in the SL series. As is the trackpoint, which is perhaps the most distinctive Thinkpad feature.

They don't have some other things which were present on most, but not all recent Thinkpads - steel hinges (which nevertheless does not make them unbreakable), docking station support, Thinklight.

This takes us to a deeper discussion - as to what are the defining features of a Thinkpad, and I am sure that different people will have different feature sets in mind.

BTW, what's nice about all Thinkpads (and Lenovo laptops in general as far as I know), is the availability of very detailed and usable service manuals, and the availability of parts. So if you want to replace the hinges on your SL400 and don't want to pay the extortion fees of authorized repair centers, you can always buy the hinge(s) on eBay (or directly from Lenovo), and replace them yourself with the assistance of the said Hardware Maintenance Manual.

Just something to consider if you don't want to invest in a whole new machine.

idpzp you're wrong, I've owned 3 IBM thinkpads (R52,T40, T42), I've sold them all because they do not meet my criteria, they are just old, slow and noisy, hot and heavy. I did not want to spend money on new laptop finally I got mine T400 with 3 year warranty (brand new), I just do not want to give it away. Because this machine is totally different than the old once. Yeah the build quality is not so good. But performance and smoothness is fantastic and it is so quiet. Once again there is a huge progress in new Lenovos.
I saw SL series in Best Buy store... you're right they are not totally 'thinkpads' and the price is not as T series either... it is much cheaper.

idpzp wrote:Nevertheless I stick to my point that Lenovo is misleading customers by calling the SL series a Thinkpad. They should have kept those laptops under the ideaPad or another name, so people would know they are not getting the "real" thing.

My comment is a result of hard-crashed expectations: Back in 2001 I got at work what was probably one of the initial series T Thinkpads (I don't recall if it was a T30 or T40) and boy, I have never seen another machine like that. It was hardly top of the line in specs when compared with other brands, but reliability and performance was just incredible (I had to process significant amounts of data for some engagements).

This is far from the first time either IBM or Lenovo have done something like this; the price differentiation was there most of the time. As has been pointed out, if your first experience with Thinkpads had come with an R series (especially an early model), the G series, or the i series, your impressions and expectations would have been very different.

As an aside, the T30 was introduced in May 2002 and the T40 in March 2003; it is possible your original Thinkpad was a T22 or T23.

In the end, it is important to do your research. Few corporations on this planet will not take your money if you give it to them without knowing what you are doing.

Good luck with your T400/500/410/510.

Fake Thinkpads aren't as good as the original IBM"s but there still better than HP & DELL

Sindbad wrote:idpzp you're wrong, I've owned 3 IBM thinkpads (R52,T40, T42), I've sold them all because they do not meet my criteria, they are just old, slow and noisy, hot and heavy. I did not want to spend money on new laptop finally I got mine T400 with 3 year warranty (brand new), I just do not want to give it away. Because this machine is totally different than the old once. Yeah the build quality is not so good. But performance and smoothness is fantastic and it is so quiet. Once again there is a huge progress in new Lenovos.

You are not entirely accurate as well...

First of all, you cannot attribute the performance difference between newer and older machines to Lenovo. This is all due to the hardware (CPU, RAM, GPU, chipset) makers (Intel/ATI/nVidia/DRAM manufacturers...). The claim "T400 is better than T40 because it is faster" may be true, but it is empty, and says nothing about the quality of engineering, design and manufacturing of Lenovo.

What you may attribute to Lenovo is the cooling performance which translates into the noise and heat levels. But you have to also keep in mind that newer chips generally have better thermal management than older ones (again, thanks to the chipmakers), and also any fan's performance typically degrades with time, as the motor gets weaker and more noisy, the dust accumulates in the vents and the heat conductivity of the thermal compound diminishes.

So again, it is not completely fair to compare the heat/noise level of your new T400 to your old T42.

Which leaves us with the build quality factor, which is one of the key factors of laptops, and one that does not depend on the inherent technological progress. And here you admit that the new machine, even though you like it a lot, is not as good as the old one. And if even you think so (and never mind whether I agree or don't), it really does not say anything good about the quality of Lenovo's recent products. At least I definitely fail to see where the "huge progress" is...

When it comes down to it all that matters is the quality of what is available at the time you need to buy a new laptop.

For example the build quality of a new Lenovo desktop PC is nowhere near as good as an old IBM PS/2 tower, but you need a new machine with a modern CPU/RAM/HD/VIDEO/ETC so you have to pick the best that is sold now. Also the prices are much cheaper since machines are discared much earlier then then in the 1980's.

Every laptop sold today is built to make the maximum profit at each price/feature point. Everything is built cheaper today then what was around a decade ago. Engineering is getting so precise that you can build machines that barely hold together for the entire warrenty period while a decade ago you had to overdesign and overbuild to hope to get past the warrenty period. So today we have cheaper machines that fall apart faster then old models did.

Many people complain that the older ThinkPad (T4* for example) have been better built machines. But so far nobody to my knowledge has cared to present some empirical quantifiable data to base these claims. As a consequence I fail to be persuaded that this is indeed the truth. I have encountered some T41 and other T4* machine in my job and I was not impressed. The keyboard may be a bit better than the one I had on my T61, but I am not sure. The lid of T41 is definetly worse than that of T61 or T500 I have. The chassis at least on touch feels the same or similar. The palmrest is again not better than the palmrest of my T61 and there is no Roll-cage on T4*. May be I have missed something, I do not know, but until somebody will present some evidence about the better build quality of T4* (for example) I do not see any reason to take those complains seriously.

The common complaints on T6x/T4x0 (esp. T61/T400) build quality is that the plastic feels cheap and flexes. I can definitely say that the top left part of the keyboard bezel (above the volume buttons) does flex noticeably on my T60, and not at all on the T4x.

Does it mean that the T4x is actually more sturdy? Not necessarily. Because in later models the internal components are protected by the roll cage more than by the exterior plastic. But it does contribute to (or takes away from) perceived quality.

The keyboard is one thing that is noticeably better on a T4x. I haven't had experience with the new model keyboards, but up to T400, I can say that the ranking is definitely T4x > T60 > T61 > T400.

And also the hinges on the T61 are complete crap and become ridiculously wobbly in short times. Far more than on T4x/T60. With T400 I haven't yet seen such a problem, but time will tell.

dr_st wrote:The common complaints on T6x/T4x0 (esp. T61/T400) build quality is that the plastic feels cheap and flexes. I can definitely say that the top left part of the keyboard bezel (above the volume buttons) does flex noticeably on my T60, and not at all on the T4x.

No flex there on my T60 widescreen. The right side of the palm rest flexes, though.

Part of my point was that, of course, there are some differences between models, but this does not allow us to judge about overall build quality. One model has better keyboard, but worse palmrest or lid, etc.

dr_st wrote:I somewhat disagree with the claim that SL is not a real Thinkpad. To me it is as real as the R series, or the "economy" models of the R series. Those too often lacked features present on high-end T/X models, and were sometimes not constructed with the same materials / durability standards.

SL is not a real Thinkpad. It has a different BIOS structure, same as IdeaPad; whereas both R and T have very similar IBM-specific BIOS. And that counts. Totally different "genetics" from the ThinkPad line on the most basic system level.

Ok, I said it. It's fake. I feel better now

As previously pointed out, everyone who says that Lenovo has destroyed the Thinkpad branding really has to check out the i series. In an attempt to create a budget machine IBM licensed out the Thinkpad brand to Acer to manufactor the line.

Additionally, so many people laud the T4x series at the pinnacle of Thinkpad design but its plagued with design flaws. The GPU issue plagues the majority of machines that go through regular use. Although the hinges are metal, the left hinge is thin and prone to snapping. The palmrest was notorious for cracking in the center.

In contrast, my Z series, a completely Lenovo designed machine, which was shunned as "destroying" the brand hasn't had a single hardware issue and is probably the most solid machine I've laid hands on.

As far as I can tell, the T410 is an universal improvement over my T43 with a few exceptions that I do miss:
1. Flexview option
2. 4:3 (I got over it, 16:10 isn't as bad as 16:9.)
3. Audio loopback (Wave in. Would be nice to see a driver update to fix this) + Two 3.5 jacks (Not missing this too much, hoping a splitter will solve this.)

The build quality is better too, the palmrests are stronger and have virtually no flex compared to the T43 (You can cause the palmrests to deflect slightly with pressure)

Keyboard feels better
Chassis is even more rigid
The lid is of equal quality, rollcage schomcage, it's all about the engineering applied to the materials.
The build of this machine is even better, "gaps" or other silly complaints aren't here.
And to add to this, the tech guy who just replaced the LCD in my T410 (Manufacturing defect, air bubbles started to appear) said that the bezel was easier to work with than the T6x series and was less likely to break when being replaced (Removed or new one snapped on)
Oh and I finally can be free of the PCMCIA-Expresscard slot door with the spring breaking off, if Lenovo had an option of a premium (Ha ha ha.) Expresscard 34 filler, then I'd grab something like that. The little filler thing is pretty well designed for an el-cheapo sub dollar part, the only thing I could ask for is to make it structurally more rigid and have part of the inside painted day glow/neon orange/yellow so I can locate it when I toss it aside sometimes.

Did I mention the Thinklight is brighter?

The Lenovos Thinkpads has no quality at all, they are as cheap as all other notebooks today except HPs Elitebooks and Macbook Pros.

The last T400 i had to send into repair for replacement of motherboard after only 6 months! the service center said they changed planar on this model all day long, i asked what is wrong? they told me it's a hardware quality problem.

Just look at the keyboards on Lenovo Thinkpads, not like the old IBMs.

What i complain about is how Lenovo can charge a premium for their thinkpads when the quality is so low, i mean look at the chassi.

My friend has a T500 and the chassi cracked in the corner, would have never happened with the real IBMs.

Not too mention the horrible LCD screens Lenovo use, they are very contrast poor and dull, compared to a Macbook Pro, it's like day and night or do compare to a old Thinkpad from IBM.

One thing you can say Lenovo Thinkpads are far from the quality IBM TPs had.

sparta.rising wrote:so many people laud the T4x series at the pinnacle of Thinkpad design but its plagued with design flaws.

There's no way the T4* was the pinnacle of Thinkpads -- lots of people would say that honor goes to the 600/600E/600X. The T40-42 were probably the worst Thinkpads ever in terms of reliabilty. But I don't think IBM purposely used cheap material there. They did use premium material, but the design was flawed.

By contrast, there does seem to be some evidence that Lenovo has been using cheap material to cut costs for some of the recent Thinkpads, even though they are more solid than the T40-42.

dr_st wrote:There have been and will be many debates regarding the quality of present versus past Thinkpads

And it's almost impossible to make these comparisons accurately, because we are comparing brand-new machines with ones that have been around for at least several years. These comparisons will always be unfair to the older laptops.

sparta.rising wrote: Additionally, so many people laud the T4x series at the pinnacle of Thinkpad design but its plagued with design flaws. The GPU issue plagues the majority of machines that go through regular use. Although the hinges are metal, the left hinge is thin and prone to snapping. The palmrest was notorious for cracking in the center.

Sounds like my R40 with all the above issues. However, it is old and it had served me well.

Warning: Not a small image
http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/F ... oS2AO.huge
Yeah, sure the Macbooks have "superior" construction.
Check at how that will get stressed in a finite element analysis application, Apple has no real "engineering." All their decisions are made on "design" and the engineers get to "take care of" everything else, but with no say over "design." Imagine how a straight cylinder screw mount going into a flat plane will have more stress than a tapered one. I can say that the T410 is an improvement over my T43 because I physically have both machines with me right now. Perhaps you got a rare lemon, I had to wait several weeks to get my T43 back because of EZServ playing the "water damage on planar" game with me when the LCD apparently had pressure damage. I just had my T410's LCD replaced after the part was backordered, that was quick and fast. Did I mention that Lenovo probably doesn't build their own motherboards? Most companies contract things out, thats why there were different keyboards for the T4xs, Chicony and Alps were the two big ones I believe, those came from different contractors with different parts.

By the way, the T43 has a crack on the left palmrest near the hinge, does that mean its inferior to "real" Thinkpads? My father's T30 has cracks in the chassis near the hinges! Come on, seriously. Cracks happen from stress combined with everyday wear and tear. Macbooks and Elitebooks will suffer from similar damage, period. The only thing going for the Macbooks is the strong RDF that Steve Jobs makes that is pure-anti-engineering and HP trying to mooch off (With Dell) the success of Thinkpads by adding "new" features like a "spill resistant" keyboard and making their business laptops more like a Thinkpad. Go look at their gallery, they even pose them like the Thinkpad photos.

Try force the Thinkpad with 500 pounds and you will have scrap left.

Try that with a HP Elitebook and you will not see a mark.

You can't crack gunmetall that is specified to military standards as the HP Elitebooks are.

Why Thinkpads from Lenovo crack is because they use mostly plastic parts like any other cheap notebook like Packard Bell etc....only difference is that Lenovo is charging a premium for crap.

Likvid wrote:Try force the Thinkpad with 500 pounds and you will have scrap left.

Try that with a HP Elitebook and you will not see a mark.

And the proof of this is...?

You can't crack gunmetall that is specified to military standards as the HP Elitebooks are.

You are aware that the X200, X301, X200s, X200 tablet, T400, T500, and a few more all meet MIL810-F, same as the EliteBooks... right?

Please provide the alloy used in HP Elitebooks, the technical diagrams and the source of your information.

Thank you.

at work last summer we purchased 15 HP elitebook 2730p. 12 have had to have motherboards replaced already. It was a design flaw that HP was not willing to admit.

We also bought 20 Elitebook 6930p. They are nothing like a thinkpad. Especially the keyboard, imitation thinklight, and the way the hinges wobble. The entire screen can be flexed from side to side when open enough to change the colors in the screen. Nothing like a T/R/X series thinkpad for sturdiness.

Facts don't really matter. Who needs to back up extraordinary claims with proof?

What matters is to repeat one's opinion over and over in every thread, so that anyone reading it gets the feeling that Thinkpads are crap, and more over, that this opinion is shared by many people. Never mind that it actually is not the case, and it is just one person spreading his personal view.

I don't expect to see any proof of HP's material superiority either. First and foremost, because with HP (unlike with Lenovo), you will be hard pressed to find any good documentation of the materials used. Next, because most of it is plastic anyways, just one colored to look like metal. Finally, even the parts that are metal won't necessarily make it more rigid. Aluminium isn't exactly the toughest metal in the world, and hardly better than carbon-fiber reinforced plastic when it comes to durability. But again, never mind that. What's important is that you can make claims such as "military standard gun metal", and it sounds good.

Heck, someone might even take it one step further and believe that their Elitebook will actually withstand a gunshot, just because the color on the top lid is silver.

Finally, one point that keeps coming up with regards to "Lenovo charging premium for crap". Wake up people, what premium? Entry level T-series can be had for less than $800 these days at Lenovo's US site. That's half price or less than comparable entry-level models when T4x/T60 were released 4 years ago.

Likvid wrote:Try force the Thinkpad with 500 pounds and you will have scrap left.

Try a 26000-pound DOW truck (4 wheels, so 6500 pounds).

Actually carbon fiber is also not necessarily a better material either. For example, look at road bike frame failures, when carbon fiber fails, it doesn't just bend like steel or aluminum, it violently fragments. Fiberglass is going to have better failure characteristics than CF. CF also has specific properties about it that makes it very bad choice within specific applications as a structural support that suffers asymmetrical stress.

The other thing about “gun metal” is the vagueness of the claim. By “gun” and “metal”, do we mean the metals used for the barrel? Stamped steel? How about aluminum like the AR15/M16 series? Or how about exotic alloys used for aerospace “guns” (Cannons) that share background with aircraft turbine alloys?

Lenovo has been very competitive with pricing recently, I could of bought a T400 for roughly 2,000 with EPP a year and a half back. I bought my T410 for roughly 1.8k USD and added 2GB RAM myself for 30 dollars. Mind you, I have practically more processing power than the T400 right now. For the T43 (Also bought with EPP), I can’t even give a simple analogy for this. A single core on the i7-620m utterly obliterates the 1.86GHz P-M found in the T43. Now lets add in how I have two cores that can self overclock to roughly 3GHz and the virtualized cores from Hyperthreading. In a quick MP3 encoding rate test in dBPowerAmp, I found that get similar performance with my desktop which has an i7-920. (Quad core, virtual cores 8. dBPA did not use the remainder of those.)

Did I mention the improvements the T410 has over the T43? I don’t think the T410 has any “premium” attached to it… But more of value added bonuses.

Just for fun, go imagine a 4,000 USD T30 (Try 2004 US Dollars.) and the processing power there.

Oh and the T43? That is in pre-US-economic-meltdown dollars, too.
And the T410? Oh man, this thing is a bargin in *2010* US Dollars. I mean, I'm not paying 4500 USD for it, or 2000 USD (T43+Taxes.) for it. I'm paying about 1800 after taxes! So I can't see this magical premium you talk about right now.

There is no such thing as a "Fake ThinkPad (by Lenovo)
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