ARGHHH! T60 and backwards compatibility

[jtheun]

Why did Lenovo change the power supply voltage (and docking station) for the T60 series to be incompatible with the earlier series? One major advantage of the Thinkpads was that your peripherals could be reused as you upgraded... in fact, my home docking station is compatible with X20/21/22/23/24/30/31, T20/21/22/23/30/40/41/42/43, R30/31/32/40/50/50p/51/52, and A20/21/21e/22/22e/30/31

but not the T60!

At the office, we have every desk equipped with a standard dock and there are power cords everywhere... but all of this will be unusable if I upgrade to the T60. This is a major issue for me.

Any thoughts as to why they made this pretty impactful change? It makes the no-brainer upgrade decision a lot harder...

[RonS]

All of us are frusterated right along with you, jtheun.

This post at Lenovo's design blog explains (a little) why they made the change:

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/design/desig ... ey-velcro/

[moore101]

jtheun,
We have 2200 thinkpads that will need new docks and power supplies. How about you?

Think of it as job security.

[orthm]

All of us are frusterated right along with you, jtheun.

This post at Lenovo's design blog explains (a little) why they made the change:

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/design/desig ... ey-velcro/

+1

Frustrated here as well. My supply of spare parts is now useless.

Most of the need was driven by Intel, more powerful GPUs, and higher resolution displays. The dual core processors need more power when running hard, which means more heat, so the fan runs more... Some of these processors need 31 watts at 100%. That would leave 41 watts from the old 72 watt PS to power the rest of the machine. Simply not enough to safely do over the long term with future power needs being considered. If it didn't change with the T60, it probably would have changed with the next Txx anyway.

This was bound to happen at some point. Hopefully it will be another 7-8 years before another change is needed.