Best ThinkPad Crippled by A Flaw....

[schen]

Here's a different one for you guys. What's the best, or at least the favorite ThinkPad that could have been the best, but for the one fatal flaw!

My vote: The X300/301 and it's display. If only Lenovo could have scrounged up a 13" IPS display...... I still miss that machine.

[600X]

I second the X300/X301. Good thing mine has an AFFS display.

[danikayser84]

I love my SXGA+ T30 but am a bit afraid to use it because of (a) the infamous RAM slot failure problems and (b) overheating/GPU failure issues; fortunately my T30 has had neither issue and is a survivor (it's a rare high-end model to boot with 2.00GHz, SXGA+ and Bluetooth)

380Z/560Z are nice machines for their time but their use of EDO memory rather than the new PC66 was an unfortunate limitation (only 160MB could be used on the 380Z/560Z while if they went with SDRAM PC66 they could have gone to 288MB instead, with 32MB on-board and a 256MB stick); I actually do have an IDE DVD/CD-RW drive (bummed from one of those USB 2.0 portable cheapo drives), a 366MHz MMC1 card and 160MB RAM in my 380Z (might eventually put a 366MHz minicartridge in my 560Z too)

[bobcardone]

I also agree my X301 is the best designed and built Thinkpad...
Except for that horrible screen!
Maybe an AFFS display in the future.

Too many ThinkPads, too many ideas, not enough time or money...

[brchan]

I'd vote the X300/X301, too. Best build quality of any Lenovo made Thinkpad, but the screen is subpar. There is an IPS mod for it, but it is limited to 1280x800.

[shawross]

I agree with all the above comments but personally I don't believe it cripples the X301.

Obviously the screen is not perfect but in my eyes it is ok. I like the 1400 x 900 resolution, brightness and matt display which aren't all available in the AFFS screen.

Running Calibrate Display and clear type made a world of difference for me. Before i did that I was going to sell my X301 after having it about 1 week.
I have just done a fresh install of Windows 7 and I am back on the road again soon and the X301 will be my weapon of choice still. I have Windows 10 also on another SSD and I will switch occasionally.

Currently at my home it is not my sole daily driver but using it on my lap with the keyboard is a joy. YMMV

[ajkula66]

Here's a different one for you guys. What's the best, or at least the favorite ThinkPad that could have been the best, but for the one fatal flaw!

My vote: The X300/301 and it's display. If only Lenovo could have scrounged up a 13" IPS display...... I still miss that machine.

Very valid point. I'd argue that the very aspect that you're referring to stopped them from being "Air killers" which was - IMO - Lenovo's intent. Put the two side-by-side and weep. While Air's LCD was far from perfect, it was leagues above what X30* had to offer.

My biggest grief? A3x series and its *horrendous* cooling design. Being someone who's always been more interested in desktop replacement systems than in travel-buddies, that's one flaw that I could never get over. Other than that, they were perfect machines for their era IMO.

[schen]

I agree with all the above comments but personally I don't believe it cripples the X301.

Obviously the screen is not perfect but in my eyes it is ok. I like the 1400 x 900 resolution, brightness and matt display which aren't all available in the AFFS screen.

Running Calibrate Display and clear type made a world of difference for me. Before i did that I was going to sell my X301 after having it about 1 week.
I have just done a fresh install of Windows 7 and I am back on the road again soon and the X301 will be my weapon of choice still. I have Windows 10 also on another SSD and I will switch occasionally.

Currently at my home it is not my sole daily driver but using it on my lap with the keyboard is a joy. YMMV

Oh, I absolutely agree with you in a number of areas! What I mean by "crippled" is more that it was the one thing that kept it from being the 600x or T42p of it's era. I think that George hit it right on the head. It was designed to be the "Air"- killer and fell just short. I still love the size, screen resolution, build-quality, and that keyboard! I even compared it to the one on the 600! I really feel like it was a design that Lenovo should have kept, fixed it's flaws and continued with, but apparently it was too expensive to produce for them and sadly they decided to go the X1 route.

I can only imagine one with a 13.3" IPS panel, ULV Ivy Bridge processor, mSATA SSD and 16Gb of RAM! What a machine That would have been!

Instead, I've got it's "big-boned" brother; the T430s.....

[TPFanatic]

Are the *61 and **00 generations considered crippled with their funky hinges? (asymmetrical, wobbly, warping due to placement above heatsink, prone to freezing, etc..) T500 is the last with the beautiful 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 screens, and is the last thin, with Ultrabay Slim, 15" T-Series until the T540p. T510 through T530 are tanks but are almost as thick as the R500, and that thing's a brick!!!

[ajkula66]

I can only imagine one with a 13.3" IPS panel, ULV Ivy Bridge processor, mSATA SSD and 16Gb of RAM! What a machine That would have been!

If any of us end up living long enough to see the fruition of David Hill's "Retro" project some of your wishes just might come true...

Are the *61 and **00 generations considered crippled with their funky hinges? (asymmetrical, wobbly, warping due to placement above heatsink, prone to freezing, etc..)

Most people think of the "nVidia bug" - not the lousy hinges - when the *61 lineup is mentioned, although I'd agree that the hinge issue was very real...

While we're discussing that generation, how about the self-destructing-by-bubbling screens found on SXGA+ version of X61T? What a debacle that one was...

T500 is the last with the beautiful 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 screens, and is the last thin, with Ultrabay Slim, 15" T-Series until the T540p. T510 through T530 are tanks but are almost as thick as the R500, and that thing's a brick!!!

IDK...that really comes down to a matter of preference. I was one of the beta testers for W500 back in the day, and it was a very fine system, but utterly unremarkable, unlike its X30* and W70* contemporaries both of which had tons of character, sadly absent from the 400/500 range IMO. Its screen (Samsung WUXGA) was an utter piece of junk, ruining something that in all other areas was an excellent machine, if a bit on the boring side...

[Medessec]

I'm trying to think of Thinkpads flawed in other ways than the screen, as it seems to be a common flaw that changes a Thinkpad's value as a tool.

Are the *61 and **00 generations considered crippled with their funky hinges? (asymmetrical, wobbly, warping due to placement above heatsink, prone to freezing, etc..) T500 is the last with the beautiful 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 screens, and is the last thin, with Ultrabay Slim, 15" T-Series until the T540p. T510 through T530 are tanks but are almost as thick as the R500, and that thing's a brick!!!

It's hard for me to share this view... mostly because to me, the Haswell Thinkpads aren't very comparable. The T500/W500 are a laptop I'm very familiar with... and although I've found them to be equally robust and as brilliant as the T60/T61, the definitive cripple for me is the ATI GPU. As I always tell my cheapskate friends who build an AMD/ATI hardware desktop or buy an AMD laptop, and insist the lost quality is made up in value for money... AMD/ATI hardware, always ages quicker. And this shows terribly in the T400/T500/W500. 15.4" T61p laptops generally do better with 2D graphics, game tech, operate more efficiently, and can run more 3D games (albeit... with less raw power) than the T500's ATI chip, simply because NVIDIA does a better job futureproofing their chips. The W700, made around the same time, uses NVIDIA hardware despite the scare surrounding the 2008 NVIDIA chip failures, I'm sure because they simply knew that real power users understand where longevity and quality performance can be found.

Other Thinkpads I can think of that are critically flawed, the X60/X61 Tablet comes to mind. It's quite possibly a personal experience... unique to the way I treat them, but despite how otherwise chunky, solid, and dependable they feel... they are a bit flimsy, the plastic is thin and warps in places, and the X61 SXGA's issue with the adhesive in the display is a gigantic flaw that really puts me off of them.

W700s I suppose I could include in the discussion. As absolutely majestic, spectacular, and as incredible of machines as they are... even for their time, the laptop is just way too big for it's own good. As far as 17" laptops go, it's cartoonishly gargantuan... bearing the profile reminiscent of the old king Alienwares, the M18xs... but with a woeful screen bezel to screen ratio. The laptop is very clearly more novel and eye-turning than it is strictly functional and sensible. Which is what I absolutely love about it... so I guess it's subjective as far as it being a flaw is concerned.

There's the T43, which has that ridiculous stop-gap kindergarten-grade solution SATA to IDE bridge to remedy the fiscal sense behind production at the time. It's a super interesting fact that I like to bring up with my friends in Computer Science, when I show them my T43p. It's always a really funky aspect of the design.

G-series Thinkpads are appalling laptops... but they're just stupid funny. You'd certainly be spoiled for choice picking a critical flaw with those... the build quality, feature set, the displays, the keyboard, the horribly overdone cooling, etc. But by a long shot, for me... the lack of a decent GPU by far kills the machine so badly, it doesn't even add to the characterful joke that is the G-series.

[exTPfan]

While my choice also would be the X300/301, the versions of the X1 carbon without real function keys or trackpoint buttons should get a vote.

[TPFanatic]

I'm trying to think of Thinkpads flawed in other ways than the screen, as it seems to be a common flaw that changes a Thinkpad's value as a tool.

Are the *61 and **00 generations considered crippled with their funky hinges? (asymmetrical, wobbly, warping due to placement above heatsink, prone to freezing, etc..) T500 is the last with the beautiful 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 screens, and is the last thin, with Ultrabay Slim, 15" T-Series until the T540p. T510 through T530 are tanks but are almost as thick as the R500, and that thing's a brick!!!

It's hard for me to share this view... mostly because to me, the Haswell Thinkpads aren't very comparable. The T500/W500 are a laptop I'm very familiar with... and although I've found them to be equally robust and as brilliant as the T60/T61, the definitive cripple for me is the ATI GPU. As I always tell my cheapskate friends who build an AMD/ATI hardware desktop or buy an AMD laptop, and insist the lost quality is made up in value for money... AMD/ATI hardware, always ages quicker. And this shows terribly in the T400/T500/W500. 15.4" T61p laptops generally do better with 2D graphics, game tech, operate more efficiently, and can run more 3D games (albeit... with less raw power) than the T500's ATI chip, simply because NVIDIA does a better job futureproofing their chips. The W700, made around the same time, uses NVIDIA hardware despite the scare surrounding the 2008 NVIDIA chip failures, I'm sure because they simply knew that real power users understand where longevity and quality performance can be found.

I actually do some 2D and 3D gaming and run a 3D modeling program with my T500. The 3650 is at least 128 bit, so it does offer a reasonable performance boost over the GMA 4500.

I agree on the futureproofing since AMD driver support is nonexistent!

[Medessec]

I actually do some 2D and 3D gaming and run a 3D modeling program with my T500. The 3650 is at least 128 bit, so it does offer a reasonable performance boost over the GMA 4500.

I agree on the futureproofing since AMD driver support is nonexistent!

AMD refusing to acknowledge the existence of the 3000-series Radeon and older is definitely a huge irritation with owning the ATI-chipped T400/T500/W500... although, they are still ferociously capable machines, depending on your needs, which is all the better since their value has dropped very close to the T60/T61s, seems they're starting to fall into the value bracket of other old, robust, but aged-tech Thinkpads. I use Maya 2017, Substance, ZBrush and I play games that use UE4, so I very much cannot use a T500/W500 as my main machine, and a W700ds would cook itself just trying to keep up with the software I use.

It is nice that the T500/W500 are the last Thinkpads that also happen to be compatible with the 2503, which means you can mate them with a much more modern GPU regardless. T9400/T9600s are also quite decent CPUs, although they can be run ragged pretty easily.

[Puppy]

T4x/R5x motherboard BGA chip crack issue

[TPFanatic]

^^Agreed. T40 series exemplified the rugged Thinkpad. Those things were made of metal. Too many fell too young....

[bit_twiddler]

T420: fatal flaws are no USB 3.0 and the 16:9 display ratio

Are you listening, Lenovo?

Otherwise, the keyboard layout is great and mine has been rock solid.

[Saucey]

Screen on the X300/1 isn't great but it's about the same as the MacBook Air it went against.
Had Lenovo upgraded the graphics on the later model, it would would dare well against the nVidia MBAs of 2009...

I think that the W series are crippled with having the GPU soldiered to the motherboard, unlike the Elitebooks and Precisions they fare against, you can upgrade the GPU for most of them to later series.
If this was the case, I'd say the W530 would of been crippled.

[jdrou]

T420: fatal flaws are no USB 3.0 and the 16:9 display ratio

I'd be tempted to say the X220 was mostly limited by it's low screen resolution; at least if you have the i7 version it does have USB 3.0 though. At the time it was released both the screen and the 7mm drive stopped me from buying. Today 7mm is no longer an issue; you can get 2 TB spinning drives and 1 TB+ SSDs in 7mm as well as 500 GB+ drives for the mSATA slot.

[ajkula66]

Screen on the X300/1 isn't great but it's about the same as the MacBook Air it went against.

I'd beg to differ on this one. A few years ago we went on a cruise with friends of ours and they brought their then-new Air while I had the X301 with me. The difference when compared side-by-side was very noticeable.

[kfzhu1229]

I would like to say 600 is a very sturdy machine that has nice keyboards, top-notch XGA display of its time, ans loud speakers but with their location on the palmrest and also battery controller problem, A3x series are also very sturdy quality machines but with the GPU prone to desolder. ThinkPad T43 improved on the GPU soldering process with better specs than T42 but the south bridge became a problem and also error 1803 and 2010.

[schen]

I'd beg to differ on this one. A few years ago we went on a cruise with friends of ours and they brought their then-new Air while I had the X301 with me. The difference when compared side-by-side was very noticeable.

.....and I felt that the screen on my X301 was marginally better than the one on the X300!

[RMSMajestic]

W701(ds) crippled by it's GPU, and the position of it's USB ports
W701ds, quality of the famous secondary screen
T61(p), GPU
X61, screen resolution
X301, screen
X61t, lack of capacitive screen
W500/T500, position of USBs

[TonyJZX]

While I understand people here who complain about screen quality on the x300/301 and the T410/420s I think they are fine for their intended purpose.

What I dont like is any CCFL screen, any CPU that isnt workable today on modern operating systems... this includes the SU9400 or whatever it is in the x301.

Of course I'm not ok with the 768p screens in the newer X220s and will accept 800p but barely.

[Medessec]

W701ds, quality of the famous secondary screen

This is something that totally skipped my mind.

I would absolutely LOVE to know if there's any possibility to modify a different panel in as the second screen... i'm pretty sure Lenovo just took whatever netbook screens were left at the bottom of the bin and put those in their W700ds/W701ds laptops as the second screens.

[schen]

This is something that totally skipped my mind.

I would absolutely LOVE to know if there's any possibility to modify a different panel in as the second screen... i'm pretty sure Lenovo just took whatever netbook screens were left at the bottom of the bin and put those in their W700ds/W701ds laptops as the second screens.

That's a great thought! You have one of those; what's the physical dimensions of it? They aren't very big. I wonder if one of the many IPS tablet screens could be adapted for that?

[schen]

So, I did a little digging and it looks like the second screen on the "DS" is listed as 10.6" with a resolution of 768 x 1280. The IPS screen on the ThinkPad Tablet (original Android version) is listed as 10.1" with a resolution of 800 x 1280..... interesting..... I happen to have one of those sitting in a drawer somewhere is there's someone out there looking to play.....

[Medessec]

The IPS screen on the ThinkPad Tablet (original Android version) is listed as 10.1" with a resolution of 800 x 1280..... interesting..... I happen to have one of those sitting in a drawer somewhere is there's someone out there looking to play.....

It'd be interesting to see if it would even accept it... I'd have to figure out what the pinout is for the W700DS's second display.

I actually have an entire screen assembly for a W700ds (with no main display, but the original second display), so if anyone else has a W700 motherboard with a second screen lead(some W700 motherboards don't have it), we could produce a unit that could definitely be for messing around with.

But I would love to explore those options. Sure, the DS second screen is just a novelty... but it is kinda useful sometimes, and it'd be incredible to make that second screen... not terrible.

[RMSMajestic]

So, I did a little digging and it looks like the second screen on the "DS" is listed as 10.6" with a resolution of 768 x 1280. The IPS screen on the ThinkPad Tablet (original Android version) is listed as 10.1" with a resolution of 800 x 1280..... interesting..... I happen to have one of those sitting in a drawer somewhere is there's someone out there looking to play.....

It's the same size as the screen of surface pro 2.... But the screen DPI can be a pain in the a** unless you use windows 10, but then the drivers will be a pain in the a**

[RMSMajestic]

This is something that totally skipped my mind.

I would absolutely LOVE to know if there's any possibility to modify a different panel in as the second screen... i'm pretty sure Lenovo just took whatever netbook screens were left at the bottom of the bin and put those in their W700ds/W701ds laptops as the second screens.

the screen on Surface book pro 2, LTL106HL01 is an exact 10.6".
Problem is that it is 8 bit 2 channel LVDS, and I believe the secondary screen on W700ds/w701ds is 6 bit LVDS, which means we will need something like Javi Jie's converter board in order to install it, and again due to the structure of W700ds/W701ds, it will be quite hard to find a place to fit.

Also I don't think lenovo pick the worst screens on purpose, there are several requirements, same height, similar brightness, non-glare, similar DPI (remember we don't have windows 10 back then, and even now windows 10 is a pain in the a**), the structure of the secondary screen push mechanisms would not allow a HV150UX2 in it (unless they make the structure much less durable).

And still it's a long way to go to change the GPU in W701(ds).,which is definitely more important than the secondary screen. An Iris pro will smack the crappy Quadro FX3800m that W701 carries.

And also, modify the position of USB ports will come before the secondary screen as well