ThinkPads with discrete graphics cooler than other brands?

[ThinkPad R]

I am very happy I was able to get a refurbished ThinkPad X230 tablet for about 800 USD.
But my little brother says I could get the same performance on a 400 USD laptop.
I thought ThinkPads remained cooler and quieter than other laptops due to better engineering, but my little brother says that's not true.
Also, the battery life, which I thought was ThinkPad's strong point and expected to be 8 hours, is not that great. I get about 4:30 from continuous use.
Then what are the pros of getting a ThinkPad? Just better build quality and durability? The trackpoint?
Are W and T series with discrete graphics cooler and quieter than laptops from other brands due to better engineering?

[dr_st]

But my little brother says I could get the same performance on a 400 USD laptop.

That's always been true. Performance is not the only thing to look for in computers.

I thought ThinkPads remained cooler and quieter than other laptops due to better engineering, but my little brother says that's not true.

That's partially true.

Also, the battery life, which I thought was ThinkPad's strong point and expected to be 8 hours, is not that great. I get about 4:30 from continuous use.

Battery life has almost everything to do with the hardware vendors and almost nothing to do with the laptop manufacturers. It has never been a Thinkpad's strong point or weak point.

Then what are the pros of getting a ThinkPad? Just better build quality and durability? The trackpoint?

They become more and more moot with each new generation.

Are W and T series with discrete graphics cooler and quieter than laptops from other brands due to better engineering?

On average - probably not.

[ThinkPad R]

then why do people buy thinkpads? design? aesthetics? keyboard? durability?

[ajkula66]

then why do people buy thinkpads? design? aesthetics? keyboard? durability?

Habit, heritage and good marketing on Lenovo's end all come to mind when it comes to ThinkPads of today.

The ones of the past exhibited at least two out of the four aspects that your question refers to...

[pianowizard]

then why do people buy thinkpads? design? aesthetics? keyboard? durability?

I would say the name "Thinkpad", and affordability. In the 1990s and the first couple years of the new millennium, Thinkpads were truly the best laptops and the brand name became a legend, but they were very expensive and few people could afford them. In the past few years, Thinkpads have become so cheap that many folks who always wanted them but couldn't afford one are buying them with a vengeance. On the average, quality has gone downhill, but the brand name still has a lot of halo effect and has caused many people to continue to imagine Thinkpads to be better than other brands.

I want all my computers to suit my needs perfectly. As soon as I realize that I am not at least 90% happy with a computer, I get rid of it ASAP. Between 2002 and 2010, I owned mostly Thinkpads and changed them nearly as fast as I changed my clothes. Since late 2010, I have been using only other brands and have been changing computers far less frequently, which shows that I am happier with these than I was with Thinkpads. But I did hold on to my first Thinkpad, a 600E, for over 3 years. That was an impressive laptop, when compared to its contemporaries.

[ThinkPad R]

what do you mean by saying quality has gone downhill? Is it the frequency of malfunctioning "lemons"? Or the quality of build/construction materials? I owned R40 from the IBM era, and I must say Lenovo makes more durable ThinkPads than IBM did because my new X230 tablet is way more sturdily built.

[pianowizard]

what do you mean by saying quality has gone downhill? Is it the frequency of malfunctioning "lemons"? Or the quality of build/construction materials? I owned R40 from the IBM era, and I must say Lenovo makes more durable ThinkPads than IBM did because my new X230 tablet is way more sturdily built.

I said "on the average". You'd have to compare lots of different models to know what the "average" is. It's not fair to compare the R40, which was IBM's lowest-quality Thinkpad of that era (it's not even made by IBM, but by Acer!), with the X230t, which is one of Lenovo's highest-quality current Thinkpads. The T, W, and X series have maintained their quality reasonably well, but the other pseudo Thinkpad models are bringing down the "average" quality.

[Puppy]

Then what are the pros of getting a ThinkPad?

Current Lenovo "ThinkPad" ? You will get the worst display on the market (except X230) for premium price, crappy keyboard layout and button-less trackpoint.

Are W and T series with discrete graphics cooler and quieter than laptops from other brands due to better engineering?

No longer. Most of current "ThinkPads" have issues with cooling. My X220 also runs fan much more often than X31 which was almost silent. One of reasons is that the CPU thermal grease gone bad (after one year) and have to be replaced -> QA issue.

[Cigarguy]

^^^ I hate to say it but I agree with the above posts.

Unfortunately, the newer Thinkpads have gotten away from the things that really attracted to them in the first place. Flexview/IPS screens, best keyboard on the market, quality build and very easy to service, upgrade and maintain. At least they are still built to be user service friendly.

I understand that maintaining the Thinkpad quality and features come at a price but Thinkpads were always known to be premium products that many business, personal user and government were willing to pay. Some things such as the classic keyboard need not cost more.

As with desktop systems, the key to cooling is case design (airflow) and heatsink fan (HSF) design. As laptops goes, Thinkpads were one of the best at this and when combined with the fact that it is easy to get at the HSF to reapply thermal paste really helped with the cooling.

[omnivertex]

I said "on the average". You'd have to compare lots of different models to know what the "average" is. It's not fair to compare the R40, which was IBM's lowest-quality Thinkpad of that era (it's not even made by IBM, but by Acer!), ...

made by acer? That's interesting. Where did you get the information?

Does it mean IBM outsourced the R40 manufacturing to acer?

Is there any besides acer?


PS: Was X40 made by acer too?

[wolfman]

Even if the R40 was the lowest quality Thinkpad of the era, it was still a well made machine. My R40 is still going strong, had a P4M Celeron at 2.0 gigahertz which ran perfectly fine back in the day and it took 3 years of absolute abuse from my niece (aged 12-14) and came away with just some more keyboard shine for the experience. So even the lowest quality machine has stood the test of time well and works perfectly fine to this day with nothing more than a battery replacement along the way.

[pianowizard]

made by acer? That's interesting. Where did you get the information? Does it mean IBM outsourced the R40 manufacturing to acer?

This well-known fact has been discussed to death on this forum.

Is there any besides acer?

Most Thinkpads are built by Wistron, Quanta and Compal, although they are designed by Lenovo, so in a way they are still made by Lenovo. In the case of the R3*, R4* and i Series, Acer was responsible for designing them as well. Basically, IBM wanted to start making cheaper Thinkpads, but it had only designed premium laptops and had no idea how to make cheap laptops, so they recruited a company with much more experience making cheap laptops. After learning from Acer, IBM designed the R5* Thinkpads on its own. (I vaguely recall that the G series was also designed and built by Acer but I am not certain.)

PS: Was X40 made by acer too?

No.

Even if the R40 was the lowest quality Thinkpad of the era, it was still a well made machine. My R40 is still going strong, had a P4M Celeron at 2.0 gigahertz which ran perfectly fine back in the day and it took 3 years of absolute abuse from my niece (aged 12-14) and came away with just some more keyboard shine for the experience. So even the lowest quality machine has stood the test of time well and works perfectly fine to this day with nothing more than a battery replacement along the way.

I had an R32 and thought its build quality was okay, though it was clearly designed to be a relatively affordable laptop. I would say it was slightly higher quality than Dell's best Latitudes of that era (Dell made horrible laptops then), so I agree, even IBM's lowest-quality Thinkpad was still fairly good. I am impressed that your R40's keyboard had so little shine after 3 years. Almost all the 45 Thinkpads I owned got shiny very darn fast. I clearly remember how shocked I was when I noticed that my brand-new X40 started to have shiny keys after just several *days*. People like to say Thinkpad keyboards are the best, but in terms of shining, they are actually the worst, including those of the IBM era.

[Ibthink]

Most Thinkpads are built by Wistron, Quanta and Compal, although they are designed by Lenovo, so in a way they are still made by Lenovo.

Even today they are doing something similar, the Edge Series is not designed by Lenovo´s own ThinkPad engineers, instead, it is designed by a Third-Party (which I don´t know, maybe one of the OMDs you mentioned).

Unfortunately, the newer Thinkpads have gotten away from the things that really attracted to them in the first place. Flexview/IPS screens, best keyboard on the market, quality build and very easy to service, upgrade and maintain. At least they are still built to be user service friendly.

These are some things that Lenovo will improve with the Haswell machines. It is very likely that Lenovo will offer an FHD upgrade for the next 14" ThinkPads (not sure if IPS or not). The built quality is going to improve slightly, as we can see with the T431s, which has a much better built compared to some older T4xxs or the normal T4xx.

The keyboards are still the best ones you can find in laptops when it comes to the typing experience. While 7-row isn´t coming back, they will improve the new layout a bit, for example, the F-key separation is coming back (be glad that it is still 6-row, because there is a new trend around laptops: 5-row keyboards (with the F-keys integrated into the 5th row)! The new Samsung Ativ Q is one of the first devices with a 5-row layout)

[Puppy]

The keyboards are still the best ones you can find in laptops when it comes to the typing experience. While 7-row isn´t coming back, they will improve the new layout a bit, for example, the F-key separation is coming back (be glad that it is still 6-row, because there is a new trend around laptops: 5-row keyboards (with the F-keys integrated into the 5th row)! The new Samsung Ativ Q is one of the first devices with a 5-row layout)

Typing experience on keyboard with misplaced keys is zero. That's why people who were forced (in companies) to upgrade use external keyboards all the time. This might be "fixed" by numberic block in 15.6" models that will offer navigation keys in right place. As for 5-row layout

[pianowizard]

Even today they are doing something similar, the Edge Series is not designed by Lenovo´s own ThinkPad engineers, instead, it is designed by a Third-Party

Interesting. This explains why the Edge series is so different from the regular Thinkpads.

The keyboards are still the best ones you can find in laptops when it comes to the typing experience.

Two caveats: (1) Yes, on the whole, Thinkpad keyboards give the best typing experience, but every now and then, Dell and HP come up with a business-class laptop whose keyboard is just as good. (2) Thinkpad keyboards are good only when they are still not worn out. For example, on my colleague's X201, both home keys' raised dots were completely worn off after just 3 months, and now it's the world's WORST laptop keyboard to type on.

While 7-row isn´t coming back, they will improve the new layout a bit, for example, the F-key separation is coming back (be glad that it is still 6-row, because there is a new trend around laptops: 5-row keyboards (with the F-keys integrated into the 5th row)! The new Samsung Ativ Q is one of the first devices with a 5-row layout)

This is the stupidest new trend indeed. At a Microsoft Store I tried the Acer Aspire S7, which had a terrible 5-row keyboard. The rest of the laptop was great, including the price, but the keyboard totally ruined it.

[Puppy]

At a Microsoft Store I tried the Acer Aspire S7, which had a terrible 5-row keyboard. The rest of the laptop was great, including the price, but the keyboard totally ruined it.

Back to the roots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZXSpectrum48k.jpg

[Ibthink]

Typing experience on keyboard with misplaced keys is zero.

Well, the typing keys are still in the standard layout, so the experience of typing is not impacted by the layout change at all. Only the navigation keys are now in a different layout, so navigation is maybe it bit more difficult if you are addicted to the old layout.

(2) Thinkpad keyboards are good only when they are still not worn out. For example, on my colleague's X201, both home keys' raised dots were completely worn off after just 3 months, and now it's the world's WORST laptop keyboard to type on.

Thats right, I hate to type on the worn-off keys of my mothers T420 keyboard, but there are two things: First, you can renew the matte surface. One of our German forum members found a way to do this (http://thinkwiki.de/Tastaturrenovierung). Second, the new Backlight keyboards (not the ones without backlight) have no matte "coating" like the old keys, instead, they are smooth and darker in color than the older matte keys. Maybe these keys won´t worn off at all (because there isn´t anything that could worn off).

[omnivertex]

I don't quite understand what does "shine" mean? Is it same as "slippy"? (not a native english speaker here)

[RealBlackStuff]

In old Batavia that would be 'bersinar'.

[ZaZ]

On the average, quality has gone downhill, but the brand name still has a lot of halo effect and has caused many people to continue to imagine Thinkpads to be better than other brands.

I know it's all the rage to say ThinkPads are going down hill, but having reviewed the X230, T430 and X1C in the last year I would have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. Show me the rock solid evidence to back that overly broad generalization and don't point to some internet thread where someone said they had a problem.

I consider my X220i to be as good as any ThinkPad I've used. The T430 was rock solid, at least as much as one can tell from having it a few months. The screen wasn't anything special, but show me a 14" ThinkPad of any era with a great screen. Most other brands I've reviewed of late - Sony, Dell, Toshiba, HP, etc. have in fact had overactive fans that were on constantly, whether being pushed or just sitting there, though Dell did release a BIOS update to fix the XPS that largely worked. That wasn't a problem for the ThinkPads I used, though like any notebooks, they can get noisy when pushed.

I do think you're correct that Lenovo is slapping the ThinkPad Badge on machines that don't conform to what most buyers associate with getting a ThinkPad. That will dilute the brand, but the classic ThinkPads - T, W and X series remain solid in my experience. The fact they're much less expensive than they used to be makes it all that much more impressive.

[omnivertex]

In old Batavia that would be 'bersinar'.

'berkilau' sounds better

But if that so, what's wrong with shiny keyboard besides the glaring that might annoy some picky people? At least it doesn't affect the typing functionality or performance, right?

[pianowizard]

I know it's all the rage to say ThinkPads are going down hill, but having reviewed the X230, T430 and X1C in the last year I would have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement...the classic ThinkPads - T, W and X series remain solid in my experience.

Did you see my subsequent post where I explained what "on the average" meant? This is what I wrote: "The T, W, and X series have maintained their quality reasonably well".

Show me the rock solid evidence to back that overly broad generalization and don't point to some internet thread where someone said they had a problem.

You remind me of the movie "Eyes Wide Shut". Just on this forum, hundreds if not thousands of posts have complained about declining customer support, questionable design decisions, the emergence of an increasing number of consumer-class "Thinkpads", etc. This whole forum is rock solid evidence of Lenovo going downhill, and yet you aren't aware of it? Like I said, the quality of the T, W and X series are still holding up, but hardware quality is not the only thing that experienced users care about. So many Thinkpad veterans are saying Thinkpads are going downhill because we aren't happy with the brand.

having reviewed the X230, T430 and X1C in the last year I would have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement....Most other brands I've reviewed of late - Sony, Dell, Toshiba, HP, etc....

The X, T and W series are Lenovo's premium, business-class laptops. Were these other laptops that you reviewed also Sony's, Dell's, Toshiba's and HP's premium business-class laptops? The XPS is marketed as Dell's best consumer line, but it's most certainly not premium business-class. If you compare the best examples of brand A with run-of-the-mill examples of brand B, of course brand A wins.

[dr_st]

To say that T, X and W have maintained their quality well does not mean much. Before Lenovo, T, X and W were almost all there was (W was called Txxp series). There was also R, that's true, but it's gone now.

I wouldn't say that the engineering quality has gone down. But the customer support - for sure. The durability of the finish - also. Possibly the quality control too. Questionable design decisions? Well, that's just their new corporate strategy.

[ZaZ]

Just on this forum, hundreds if not thousands of posts have complained about declining customer support, questionable design decisions, the emergence of an increasing number of consumer-class "Thinkpads", etc. This whole forum is rock solid evidence of Lenovo going downhill, and yet you aren't aware of it?

I don't understand what your beef is. You said it yourself, the traditional ThinkPads have mostly maintained their quality and one can mostly get the “ThinkPad Experience” by purchasing one. They're also far less expensive than they used to be, which is an impressive achievement. That's a good thing because many people here with a ThinkPad would not have one as they cost too much back in the day. Now, Lenovo is expanding the brand, but is it fair to compare it to yesteryear when those ThinkPads weren't offered? I seem recall a fair number less than stellar ThinkPads, at much higher prices, when IBM was running the show, but no on ran around saying the sky is falling.

Even if the complaints number in the 1,000s, which I don't doubt, it's still a very small percentage of the posts here and not really a basis to say the brand is in decline. People with a complaint are far more likely to post than those without one, which makes it seem like a large issue than it is in reality. That's what people do on forums, complain and try to get help with their issues. We're also a very small slice of the Lenovo sales pie. The people here tend to be much more fervent and are more willing to vocalize things they don't like. That's not a bad thing, but again, one has to keep things in perspective.

The X, T and W series are Lenovo's premium, business-class laptops. Were these other laptops that you reviewed also Sony's, Dell's, Toshiba's and HP's premium business-class laptops?

While it's true none of the other notebooks I reviewed were a direct competitor to ThinkPads like the e6430 or 8470w, but some were considerably more expensive than a typical ThinkPad. I would hope someone paying more shouldn't expect better because their notebooks is labeled a consumer class notebook.