Thinkpads Forum

Hi! I have been an x230 owner for 1 month now, and so far it has been a great laptop (the IPS screen is fantastic, battery life is great, and its built well)

However I have noticed a few things:

-The bottom edge of the wrist rest is getting small shiny marks from where the bumps on the top of the LCD bezel touch the lower case. Is this normal after 1 month?
-Heavy use keys are starting to get shiny, mainly the space bar. Normal so soon? I type with clean hands.
-The volume/mute buttons glitch. Sometimes I have to click the taskbar to get the software to respond - pretty sure this is a driver issue.

Other than these minor issues, the computer has been great.

The volume issue is caused by the driver, indeed. Volume keys are nothing special, just extra keys on the keyboard that the driver uses to tell what to do. They may lag or stop working altogether if the system is under load. I'd try with a different version. Vintage Thinkpads used to implement volume control in hardware and the keys controlled the CODEC directly and it worked properly no matter what, as it was independent of the OS. I suppose it's a cost saving feature, like most anything else this days.

Marks from wear are normal at any age, they depend on how you use the laptop. However, one thing I noticed in my T420 is that Thinkpads no longer have plastic on plastic fit, they have rubber pads now and wear is more noticeable.

About the keyboard, I bet it's oil from your fingers rather than wear. There is a degreaser adecuate for keyboards, just look for it.

mikemex wrote:However, one thing I noticed in my T420 is that Thinkpads no longer have plastic on plastic fit, they have rubber pads now and wear is more noticeable.

Huh? What do you mean by "plastic on plastic fit"?

ThinkRob wrote:Huh? What do you mean by "plastic on plastic fit"?

Yeah, it was a design feature. Older thinkpads had tiny integral tabs in the lid and recesses in the sides of the palmrest where this tabs sat.

mikemex wrote: Yeah, it was a design feature. Older thinkpads had tiny integral tabs in the lid and recesses in the sides of the palmrest where this tabs sat.

Oh, you mean that the side chamfer is gone. Gotcha.

Interestingly (to me at least) my X201s' palmrest is marked with the impression of the lid quite badly despite the plastic tabs described above being present.

Moving on to my X220, I've also noticed that small indentations are forming along the chamfer along the front of the palmrest where the tiny 'pips' on the edge of the screen bezel touch it when the lid is closed.

Finally, I've found the keyboards on all my ThinkPads (dating back to an A30) to become shiny fairly rapidly from use.