Features I would like IBM add to ThinkPads!

[beeblebrox]

Dear steve007,

I more or less entirely agree with your statements. TV is horrendous expensive for high volume and does not make the slightest sense, also due to different TV standards across the world. And there is no space for that anyway on the board.
(No CIO would ever agree to buy that nonsense for business.)

I use notebooks both in business (were we have at least 70.000 Compaq notebooks) and in private. We don't have any desktops. After a couple of years I have given up the fight with broken Compaqs and bought privately IBM ThinkPads that I use for business. I also completely agree that there must be parallel ports (the ubiquitious laser printers in all offices) that only , after years of legacy time, will disappear over time like the RS-232 ports. However, most new printers are connected thru the network now and do also have a USB port. So dropping the parallel port is a matter of maybe another 3 years (lifetime of leases).

However, I do give a lot of presentations, using the good VGA port and a beamer. But the loudspeakers of the T40 are really crap! On my T21 I turn them loud and the presentation starts, on the T40 I never know whether I turned them on or off. They are way to weak for even a mid-sized conference room. I have to use a separate loudspeaker, which is more than annoying.

Further, there is NO way to buy and use a docking station in the office. There is no space in "Virtual" offices, where you do not "own" a desk, but get one assigned. (you should know that from IBM consulting!). We do have large displays in conference rooms everywhere now, so no need to carry a beamer -> but those screens already have DVI inputs only. Just think about that in future.

The ThinkLight on the T40 sucks, it is not recessed like in the T2x series, where it was perfect. The glare on T40 is annoying.

My question is what can buyers expect from the new T43. I assume some official news around February 2005? Do you have any news on that, other than the leaked technical information on DigiTimes. Will there by major changes in interfaces?
Will there be creaky palmrests again or some improvements (Now that's the most annoying and embarrassing thing about the T4x series. It reminds my colleagues of cheap no-name laptops or of those from an outlet in Texas. I had a hard time trying to explain, that Thinkpads are really high-quality machines...) The Compaqs are here rock-solid .

[Conmee]

I think a Lenovo badge/branding will be standard issue in the future... This will probably open up the ThinkPad line to some consumer-oriented specs like wide-screen LCDs, etc. that folks around here have on their respective wish lists...

Daniel.

[beeblebrox]

No, according to Financial Times, there will remain the IBM logo on the Thinkpads and also the IBM service. At least for the next few years.

If there would be Lenovo logos on the Thinkpad starting in a few weeks, the customers would run for the hills and see HPs and Dells on the horizon.

[strekship]

don't know why everybody is bickering over this... I want ALL the features that everyone has mentioned above in my next T.... and it better be half the weight and cost of my current T42... anybody else NOT want that?

If you want all of those on the next T, i don't see how it could be considered a T because it would add some weight to it and also some size.

[Zirynx]

don't know why everybody is bickering over this... I want ALL the features that everyone has mentioned above in my next T.... and it better be half the weight and cost of my current T42... anybody else NOT want that?

If you want all of those on the next T, i don't see how it could be considered a T because it would add some weight to it and also some size.

Possible failure in the sense of humour department?

On a serious note, it seems that I am among only a small contingent bleating about the absence of a Firewire port (and a powered one at that!) on the T series. Anybody else?

Surely a powered Firewire port isn't considered such an 'un-business-like' interface that it is not worthy of a T-series as its host?!

What's the general opinion amongst you folk on the likelihood (or not) of there being one on the next generation T-series?

Steve007, any indicators from the inside?

[arion]

The TV Tuner was only a pipe dream really since even if people use it they don't use it enough to warrant the power drain, heat from the tuner and the extra wieght.

The Speakers must be fixed though. In a office (let alone outside or in a larger room) with people talking in the background it is really hard and even impossible to hear the speakers.

As for Parallel port. There are USB to Parallel adaptors and the removal of the parallel port would give space for more USB and less wegit and power usage as well. Yeah there are still legacy devices that use the parallel port around but they are being replaced.

Having DVI built in and using the DVI to Analog adaptor makes a lot of sense though as it allows people to use DVI and Analog and no need for the dock. Also not having DVI stops people from being able to use many new devices.

Firewire is really next to useless.

But Hardware encrytion of the Hard Drive would be a big seller for those of us in Network Security as dealing with people losing their laptops and PDAs is a hassle when they have sensitive data onboard.

[Zirynx]

Firewire is really next to useless.

At the risk of 'doing a Donald', firewire may be useless to those to whom it is useless, but it is useful to those to whom it is useful.

To me, it is very useful and so, is highly desirable.

[monty cantsin]

TV tuners and all those gimmicks do not belong to business notebooks.

History lesson!

People seem to have forgotten that an optional TV tuner was one of the most outstanding, original features of the early ThinkPads IBM sold about ten years ago, and we all know that these high priced machines (particularly the 750C with retail prices ranging from 4,699 to 5,249 USD, according to the twbook) were targeted at the business customers more than anything today. With the ThinkPad 755CV models, you could even remove the back of the TFT lid...

http://re2.mm-b.yimg.com/image/673751915

...and place the screen on an overhead projector...

http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/95/ ... npic01.jpg
http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/1995/9/56

...so that you could use it to project images and videos like with all those DIY-beamers which are so popular today.

The TV tuner was no on-board solution, though, but an expansion unit that had to be inserted into the disk drive bay. As nowadays there are PC-Cards and small USB boxes around, however, I certainly agree that there is no real need for IBM to offer such TV tuners anymore.

Pictures of a ThinkPad 750C from 1993 with TV tuner in action:

http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~ayase/tp/tp750c_3j8.htm[/img]

[lophiomys]

I vote for a
silent & cool Thinkpad for coding, reading and thinking
no noise emmision at all ,
max 25 °C outside-case temp, no hot-spots (like my WLAN mPCI card under the touchpad currently)
... with a "cool room"- mode to warm your fingers in winter )

with solid state disk
8h battery live (battery replaceable on the fly within 30secs)
built-in removeable 1 GB USB stick
top quality audio system to listen to music via headphones
easy to use data security/encryption/backup
linux support

keep brilliant display and keyboard/trackpoint layout