It Has a REAL Keyboard!

[ArtShapiro]

I think we might have a new Thinkpad fan. (I'm not using "fan" in the ventilation sense here.)

A couple years ago I built a small but powerful desktop computer for a friend. She's recently been complaining that it had gotten slower and slower, failing to load web pages, suffering from various malware popups, etc., etc.

I went over and found that the issues were significant, with the processor constantly about 90% even with nothing running. I decided to take it home and loan her my favorite laptop, my R61. She grudgingly accepted it out of desperation, not liking laptops. I hooked up her keyboard and mouse; due to my not having a traditional VGA cable with me, she would have to make do with the R61's screen.

It turns out that on the desktop machine, Windows was generating hundreds of thousands of temporary js files due to some sort of update failure; I've been trying to tame the machine for two days and am gradually whipping it into shape.

I got a call last night. "You might not get this laptop back! I love it!" She went on raving about the keyboard, which was a "real" keyboard unlike every other laptop she had seen. She'd disconnected her regular keyboard already! (I sadly told her that this was no longer the case with recent Thinkpads.) She loved typing on it. And she was really thrilled with the quality of the screen, although I don't think it's quite as good as my T60p's Flexview guy. She was really happy with the clarity and resolution of the image.

I guess I like the R61 too. I had given away my T61 to a relative a few years ago, because I really dislike widescreens. But perhaps the arguably-stupid 16:9 machines made me realize that a 16:10 isn't so bad after all!

So that's a totally unexpected and unbiased opinion from a person forced by unfortunate circumstances to deal with a Thinkpad.

Art

[Summilux]

Nice! Now so that her keyboard experience is complete, introduce her to another Thinkpad landmark: the trackpoint.

[emeraldgirl08]

That is very cool to hear! I once loaned an X200 to a classmate so she could work on her paper and when she handed it back she praised the keyboard. Not sure how she managed the trackpoint lol. I did not ask however I do think she adapted quickly to basic cursor navigation. Other people who have attempted to use my Thinkpads (without touchpads) will swipe at the plastic area beneath the trackpoint buttons expecting the cursor to move!