Thinkpads Forum

http://delimiter.com.au/2011/06/29/leno ... 20-review/

Personally, my only concern is regarding the build quality issues this review mentions.

The T420 and W520 both have very high built quality.
The T520 is the exact same chassis in theory, as the W520. Might have been a bad sample.

Very very unprofessional review.

Dismisses the trackpoint as "mouse toggle that nobody used for more than a decade"?

Complains about 5 buttons surrounding the trackpad, failing to understand that three of these belong to the trackpoint?

Complains about the "archaic" VGA port (even though there is a digital port onboard) and in the same breath recommends business solutions from HP and DELL (all of which feature this same VGA port)?

Mentions Apple's offerings in the category of business models?

Claims that the 15.6" model is "meant to be mobile and taken on the road", and complains about the weight?

Clearly shows a reviewer that's completely clueless and oblivious to the trends in the laptop world, more specifically business laptop world.

Then there is the usual nitpicking about why they included the useless modem, and why the display lock is not magnetic, but latch-based (incorrectly using the term "hinge" which means something else - I thought they speak English in Australia), complaints about the "beep" it makes when waking up (something that can easily be disabled).

In light of all this, the somewhat true but subjective complaints about creaking plastics and bloatware can be easily dismissed.

Honestly, worst review I've read in a while.

dr_st wrote:Very very unprofessional review.

I completely agree (I am E. Boder in the comments section.) but the build quality was my main concern.

In addition to points already made on NBR and the article itself, the main issue for me is why he (and no other Apple-ite) can actually explain why the Apple way is better i.e. 5 buttons vs 0 buttons.

Also:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43126515/ns ... -acolytes/

In which case here's my take on the build quality issue.

90% of the time whenever people complain about "build quality" they refer to creaking plastics and/or parts that don't sit tight.

And you know what - I've seen this on each and every model of Thinkpad that I've got to work with - pre-Lenovo and Lenovo era. Certain issues are more widespread on some models, others are a hit-n-miss and can be present in some percentage of units of a given model, but not in all of them.

Sometimes they are the results of sloppy assembly, and some models are more prone to sloppy assembly than others, but overall - I have not found a Thinkpad that is considerably more prone to creaking/loose plastics than others. I haven't played with a T520, but I have a hard time believing it should be different in this regard.

And if the plastics do creak a bit - so what?

I posted a rather lengthy response to the review over on NBF: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... ost7660147

I suppose the T520 is still relatively new so not many people have them - searching for videos of users showing their T520 machines doesn't bring up much ... at least for now ...