Poor Man's Retro Thinkpad

[TPFanatic]

edit: postimg links broke, rehosted on Imgur. Links since the pictures are massive.
https://i.imgur.com/QchtosI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tgjIrv0.jpg







Voila. Finally did the X200 trackpoint buttons mod, replaced my palmrest, and used some sharpies under the badges. I need just a new front bezel and my T500 will be perfect!

[axur-delmeria]

Did you transplant the Trackpoint buttons and some keys from a T4x keyboard?

[TPFanatic]

Did you transplant the Trackpoint buttons and some keys from a T4x keyboard?

FN, browser, and Caps Lock keys are from a T4x Chicony. The trackpoint keys, power, and volume are from X200.

[RealBlackStuff]

Cute!
You could have made a fortune if you had sold that idea to Lenovo!
They could have saved TONS of money by just buying a few Sharpies and resurrecting the 16:10 T500 with a newer motherboard!

[thinkpadgeek91]

I would buy one!

[wujstefan]

Not to mention the extra paint on "PAD" is just great

I need to check if I still have some chicony T4x KB yet that looks awesome really!

[TPFanatic]

Not to mention the extra paint on "PAD" is just great

I need to check if I still have some chicony T4x KB yet that looks awesome really!

I used Chicony caps because my T500 keyboard is by Chicony so they are compatible, but if you have an NMB or ALPS you will need keycaps from one of corresponding manufacturer.

[MikalE]

The new German language keyboard I received from Germany has very 'clicky' keys. I did not note the part number unfortunately. It was from a seller in Germany on eBay.

Anything would have been better than the POS it shipped with.

[Thinkpad4by3]

The new German language keyboard I received from Germany has very 'clicky' keys. I did not note the part number unfortunately. It was from a seller in Germany on eBay.

Anything would have been better than the POS it shipped with.

As long as we can get the eBay link, the picture of the sticker with the P/N can be found.

[MustardOrMayo]

I happened to have came across this post by accident, but this is amazing!

I remember not being able to find the T25 on Lenovo's Singapore online store when it first came out (before someone on Instagram informed me that they ended up getting it in some time after it was available in the US), and having the idea of buying a brand new T480p and modifying that with TP 25 parts from sellers on eBay. Yes, I know the TP 25 is based on the regular T480. Anyways, I ended up not executing that idea in real life due to unrelated circumstances.

[dr_st]

I remember not being able to find the T25 on Lenovo's Singapore online store when it first came out (before someone on Instagram informed me that they ended up getting it in some time after it was available in the US)

It's currently available on the Singapore site. The Singaporeans get the best deal, because the price shown there includes tax, onsite warranty and the WWAN (which is not included in the US model). The US dollar crashed in the past couple of months; before that the Singaporean price when converted to US dollars was even more attractive.

Yes, I know the TP 25 is based on the regular T480.

T470.

[Saucey]

Great mod, looks very nice!

[MustardOrMayo]

It's currently available on the Singapore site. The Singaporeans get the best deal, because the price shown there includes tax, onsite warranty and the WWAN (which is not included in the US model). The US dollar crashed in the past couple of months; before that the Singaporean price when converted to US dollars was even more attractive.

Here in Singapore, it's pretty much a thing to just have the tax (here called GST, "Goods and Service Tax") included in the price, as it's a city-state, and we also have nice Internet connections (which also counts for public Wi-FI). I did try and save up for a TP25, but ended up blowing it on a new cellphone when my previous one stopped working. Even then, the WWAN would have been a nice addition, considering the only PC I have now is a Samsung Q1 Ultra (of which I added WWAN myself) and it's... slow, to say the least.

Yes, I know the TP 25 is based on the regular T480.

T470.

Sorry, I brainfarted while typing that.

[dr_st]

Here in Singapore, it's pretty much a thing to just have the tax (here called GST, "Goods and Service Tax") included in the price

It's a thing in every sane country. The US is the only one (or one of the only ones) that's crazy enough not to do it. This is what causes stupid crap like the penny still being in existence, and a few other effects that are not obvious until you spend a couple of weeks in that looney bin. [/rant]

[MustardOrMayo]

It's a thing in every sane country. The US is the only one (or one of the only ones) that's crazy enough not to do it. This is what causes stupid crap like the penny still being in existence, and a few other effects that are not obvious until you spend a couple of weeks in that looney bin. [/rant]

Ah. I thought the penny only existed in the US due to psychological pricing ($x.99).

Even though a lot of the entertainment media I view is set in the US, or a fictional world modelled after the US, I feel glad I did not grow up there, otherwise, my brain would be internally set to read out the date in month/day/year, and other measurements in Imperial units, and drive on the right side of the road (if I could drive). It's a bit of a pain when I see Imperial units being mentioned in TV shows without Metric conversions at least displayed on screen, but hey, the Samsung phone calculator app with its built-in unit conversion takes some of the pain out of that. I need to post this before I go too far off-topic.

Oh yeah, and another upside of not living in the US is having Samsung phones without the extra branding on the back.

[dr_st]

There are certain advantages to imperial units, surprising as it may sound. Even to temperatures in Fahrenheit, and even the ridiculous use of 12-hour clock in official time tables (because that's how people speak after all). The only thing that has absolutely not reason to exist is the month-day-year system. That's just sheer dumbness with no redeeming qualities.

Even when writing to Americans, I absolutely refuse to use that garbage. To avoid confusing their poor miswired brains, I would rather spell the month as DD-MMM-YYYY (today is 17-Feb-2018).

As far as driving on the right side on the road, you may be surprised that it's actually not just a US thing, but in fact is more prevalent than the opposite. According to the Wikipedia article - 163 countries use right-side traffic, versus 76 that use left-side traffic. By area or road length, right-side traffic is even more popular.

[shawross]

Most of the lefthand drive countries are British colonies except Thailand. If countries are strong in Cricket then they probably drive on the left.

Britain previously had a strong car industry especially after World War 2 when their engineers focused on cars rather than planes.