To anyone with a T60 and T4x...

[lithium726]

Will the Keyboard from the T4x drop into the T60? The deminisions look very similar, just worried about mounting holes. Anyone know? I hate the way lenovo took off the color coding and cramped it up a little bit, i dont think ive ever once used a windows key.

the power and sound buttons were also much better on the 4x series IMO, not to mention the Fxx coloring...

[Likvid]

Will the Keyboard from the T4x drop into the T60? The deminisions look very similar, just worried about mounting holes. Anyone know? I hate the way lenovo took off the color coding and cramped it up a little bit, i dont think ive ever once used a windows key.

the power and sound buttons were also much better on the 4x series IMO, not to mention the Fxx coloring...

I agree with you, i was considering the T60P after my T41P which is on service with IBM right now.

I asked myself, what have they done?

It looks cheap and plastic and the most annoying thing is that the touchpad looks cheap and the color buttons are removed with plain black ones.

The design is not nice at all with Lenovo which reminds you of the same category as Dell or any other massproducing notebook manufacturer out there.

As i am running mostly Linux i will look at Apple for my next purschase or even Fujitsu i have heard good things about.

[chubes]

You know, I'm actually curious about this too. I looked at differences between the T4x and T60 HMM, I really don't think the T4x keyboard can fit into the T60 due to the T60 missing the slotted piece of plastic right directly below the spacebar. Otherwise, it looks like it could fit.

I tried taking a T4x keyboard and sticking it into a T30, didn't work due to the fact that the T30 has those LEDs in the keyboard, and not in the display like on my T42p.

Look at the T60 right below the spacebar. Then look at the T4x. See what I'm talking about?

Now look at the X60. It has the slotted piece of plastic below the spacebar. Thoughts?

[donking!]

Hmm. As long as people are posing this question. What about the palm rest and trackpad and buttons? Could that all be lifted off a T4x? Probably wishful thinking. But it would be nice to be able to reverse the design changes Lenovo made. I find it hard to tell from the maintenance manuals how similar or different parts really are.

[darrenf]

Palmrest - definitely not. I'm just going by the photos but the screen nests differently with the base. I don't know if they've change the shape of the edge on the 15", but it now has a 2-part keyboard surround like the 14" has always had, so it's different as well.

Mobileguru has a 15" T60. Perhaps he can answer the keyboard question (if he has a T4x 15" keyboard kicking around to use in a test).

-darren

[Smilodon]

The thing looks ugly and cheap; there's no other way to put it. The "geniuses" at Lenovo made it to look like a charcoal brick with repluslive aspirin pills strewn at the top. The people who proposed and approved those garish buttons must have serious issues.

They claim they took away the colors to comply with the EU UL GS-Mark standards. But how could you reconcile that with replacing the elegant T4x media and power buttons with those cheesy buttons that you could only find on a cheap plastic toy?

Compare the keycaps surface on the T60/p and those on the T4x/p. They must have added rubber to make them dull, lackluster, and sticky.

The Thinkpads used to symbolize elegance, beauty, and class. With the T60/p, if you sit next to a guy with an Apple, Sony, Toshiba, or HP, you'd look like a hillbilly.

[christopher_wolf]

The thing looks ugly and cheap; there's no other way to put it. The "geniuses" at Lenovo made it to look like a charcoal brick with repluslive aspirin pills strewn at the top. The people who proposed and approved those garish buttons must have serious issues.

They claim they took away the colors to comply with the EU UL GS-Mark standards. But how could you reconcile that with replacing the elegant T4x media and power buttons with those cheesy buttons that you could only find on a cheap plastic toy?

Compare the keycaps surface on the T60/p and those on the T4x/p. They must have added rubber to make them dull, lackluster, and sticky.

The Thinkpads used to symbolize elegance, beauty, and class. With the T60/p, if you sit next to a guy with an Apple, Sony, Toshiba, or HP, you'd look like a hillbilly.

This is off-topic; the discussion didn't warrant talking about the "Cheapness" of the keys; we have little to no reason to assume anything about the quality of them beforehand, unless you have used them. Remember the Thinkpad key on the T2X Series? It looks very similar to the new Thinkvantage button. The same thing goes for the volume buttons. I will believe the "Cheapness" hype when I feel it on the newer models, and if the Z60s are anything to go by, it is just that...Hype.

Compliance with standards? I find it hard to believe that Lenovo would want to do that, even IBM for that matter.

[Smilodon]

This is off-topic; the discussion didn't warrant talking about the "Cheapness" of the keys; we have little to no reason to assume anything about the quality of them beforehand, unless you have used them. Remember the Thinkpad key on the T2X Series? It looks very similar to the new Thinkvantage button. The same thing goes for the volume buttons. I will believe the "Cheapness" hype when I feel it on the newer models, and if the Z60s are anything to go by, it is just that...Hype.

Compliance with standards? I find it hard to believe that Lenovo would want to do that, even IBM for that matter.

This topic is about replacing the T60 keyboard and UltraNav with those of the T43 because they look cheap. It doesn't matter if you have it or not. A thing could look cheap even if it's made of gold.

I personally compared the Z60 keyboard, which is pretty much the same as the T60/p, with a T43 keyboard side by side at Office Depot.

I was touch-typing much faster on the T43 keyboard. The Z60 key caps felt sticky and they were obviously less smooth and dull compared to the T43. Their surface had a distinctive rubbery feel. The T43 keyboard gave a much better tactile feedback.

This document lists compliance with GS-Mark standards as a reason to remove the smooth finish to eliminate "glare points", which doesn't make sense given the new silver plastic Aspirin pills.

http://www-8.ibm.com/lenovoinfo/sg/edm/ ... losure.pdf

[christopher_wolf]

*About* replacing...Not *why* they are being replaced (The "Why?" portion has been covered in other threads), that remains up to the User...Technical question about dropping a T4X keyboard in a T60, and that is it.

I compared the Z60 to my T43 to a T43 in Office Depot, and the keys felt the same, typing at 120 WPM and couldn't feel much of a difference. I couldn't care less about a new standard that tries to eliminate glare points...This does indeed change the key material construction somewhat, but this doesn't mean they put "rubber" in the keys; there are many other ways that can be achieved. I have felt T43s that have "stickier" keyboards than any Z60s I have tried out. They only say they conformed to the standard, not that they polymerized the key surface with rubber.

It is also rather bizzare that there happens to be a standard, the GS-Mark in this case, that dictates the glare-points for computer keyboards. I can be pretty sure that other companies, the likes of Dell come to mind, will simply ignore it. After all, there seems to be no incentive to comply with it other than putting the GS mark on your systems. This means that a large majority of systems out there will not conform, thereby crippling the reason the standard was started in the first place. It also say elimination of "High Gloss"

There are glare points on the volume buttons and "Access IBM" buttons on the T4X Series as well; as far as I can see, this shouldn't have any effect on the use of the Thinkpad.

For the most part, I am willing to wait until I can actually *feel* the T60 keyboard and then see what I like/don't like about it. I do indeed like the buttons on the current T4X Series, but I don't mind the ones on the T60 either. From what I have seen, they do not look as bad as sometimes made out to be.

[hoya]

according to this pdf (WARNING: 2.8 MB), Lenovo aimed to use fewer screws for the T60, so I'm assuming that the keyboards would be incompatible:

http://www-8.ibm.com/lenovoinfo/sg/edm/ ... losure.pdf

[lithium726]

crap

i hope we can do something... maybe some of the screws will be the same...

i love my T40's keyboard. if they have gone backwards as far as the keyboard goes, im gonna be really, really [censored].

its also kinda disapointing that they took the signature thinkpad CDROM bezel off...

[chubes]

lithium726,

Keep me up to date with your findings if you try and switch the ugly keyboard for the good one. Whenever you get the laptop that is.