Thinkpads the greatest ever?

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OldManClayton · #1 Post by **OldManClayton** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:08 pm

I was browsing Youtube today, checking out some vids of the new thinkpads, and I was surprised at some of the comments! People were arguing over their ugly design! They said things like, "Nobody buys Thinkpads for their design. They buy them for their durability." and "Thinkpads are sturdy, but really ugly."

Am I in the minority? I think thinkpads are the most booteeful machines on earth! They were coming up with models by other companies that supposedly looked better. O_o Models which make me go, "Pleh."

So I came here to be reassured that there were other sane people in the world who know thinkpads are the greatest little machines ever, in terms of both durability and looks.

I'm surprised I haven't learned by now not to read youtube comments...

mikey pizano · #2 Post by **mikey pizano** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:23 pm

You know what is really ugly? ANYTHING FROM APPLE!

Radioguy · #3 Post by **Radioguy** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:21 pm

It shouldn't be needed to be said AGAIN, but TP's are the stealth fighters of the laptop world.

If only they came with MacBook seeking missiles. That might make browsing the net at Starbucks more exciting.

OldManClayton · #4 Post by **OldManClayton** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:27 pm

Hah, nice analogy.

That would actually make for an interesting thinkpad slogan/campaign... "Stealthy computing" or something...

#5 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:19 pm

Anyone who says that a Thinkpad is ugly has zero knowledge of laptop design. Form plus function = beauty. There are no better designed laptops in the world. (period). I include Lenovo designed Thinkpads in that statement ...

mikey pizano · #6 Post by **mikey pizano** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:26 pm

Mac fanboys like Macs because they look better then they work. They think that more expensive is better.

dr_st · #7 Post by **dr_st** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:37 pm

I very much like the design of some Thinkpads, but the latest ones have been disappointing. I find the thick flat bezels on the T61/R61 and sequels, as well as on the X200 quite a turn off.

OldManClayton · #8 Post by **OldManClayton** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:52 pm

I agree. Lenovo's designs haven't quite been as good as IBM's-- but they're still miles ahead of the rest. I'm eventually going to buy an x61 tablet, mostly because it's cheaper, but partially because I just like it better than the x200.

ajkula66 · #9 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:22 pm

mikey pizano wrote:

Mac fanboys like Macs because they look better then they work. They think that more expensive is better.

I'm not a Mac fan for my own reasons, but these machines should be taken very seriously. And for people in certain industries/trades, Macs have been the preferred weapon of choice for a long time.

I don't like ThinkPads designed after T60/R60/X61...ugly IMO.

And I do like Panasonics...for durability, design and performance, although I'm far less keen on their keyboard...

Stargate199 · #10 Post by **Stargate199** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:06 pm

The new Mac laptops look nice, but the all glass screen is a MAJOR turn off for me. I have to have a matte screen. The white Macbooks were made very cheaply. The plastic would discolor very quickly and the chassis was not very sturdy. If I didn't know better, I think those things were made completely of plastic.

Thinkpads are truly the best out there. I have notice an increase of Thinkpads being used by students on my campus. They can handle the job of being a laptop, which is a computer you can take and use anywhere. A lot of Dell's and other brands do not stand up to constant transport.

OldManClayton · #11 Post by **OldManClayton** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:59 am

My bro just bought a macbook. I tried to convince him to buy a thinkpad instead, but I don't know why he wouldn't listen.

Macbooks have that certain visual appeal-- but I think that's just the inherent coolness of all laptops. Even if the laptop is from a company you don't like... it's still a laptop.

Meh. Apple's designs are just ok. I confess it was pretty cool to fiddle with it when he took it home, but I know a thinkpad would be much more fun.

mikey pizano · #12 Post by **mikey pizano** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:05 am

Oh come on OldManClayton, your giving in to the iSide!

OldManClayton · #13 Post by **OldManClayton** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:16 am

No! No I'm not!

I'm just saying that I have yet to find a shiny new gadget that doesn't at least look interesting. Macs may be ugly compared to thinkpads, but they're shiny in their own right.

Heck, even the crappy compaq laptop that serves as my internet computer is interesting.

dr_st · #14 Post by **dr_st** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:08 pm

Hey, I have a crappy old Compaq laptop too!

It's the Evo N610c, a.k.a. the Serial Hard Drive Killer (read reviews on it online)

Other than that and the fact that the RAM chips are right underneath the left palmrest, causing it to run hot like hell, it is a kickass machine. It's been with me for 6 years, and still going strong, with the exception of a dead (totally dead) battery. But that was probably my fault, because I haven't used it for like 6 months, and the battery was probably drained, so over that period it discharged beyond salvage.

Of course, I had to change the hard drive twice (once while it was still in warranty).

Business-grade machine means it is durable as hell (chassis feels stronger than a 14" T-series even), easy to disassemble and maintain, and it has a trackpoint, which is even compatible with the Thinkpad caps! I put a soft rim on. It even has USB 2.0 (unlike its direct Thinkpad competitor, the T30

) Keyboard is not nearly as solid, though and flexes quite a bit, but if you bend it the right way before reseating, it flexes less.

My parents now use it as their downstairs internet station, and it takes all their abuse (and boy, is there a lot - starting from greasy fingers and ending with cigarette ash in the keyboard.

So be careful badmouthing Compaq!

[/b]

ajkula66 · #15 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:37 pm

My daughter has HP/Compaq NC6220 which was pretty much their answer to T43 with integrated graphics, and apart from LCD which is TN garbage of the worst kind (SXGA+ though, something you won't see on a T43 with Intel GPU), it's a very fine machine, and Broadcom wireless card beats all the ThinkPads in my household with speed and range...so yes, I'll agree that trashing HP/Compaq (their business line at least) is not the best of ideas...

stalepie · #16 Post by **stalepie** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:53 pm

The appearance of Thinkpads is what drew me to them. I can't remember where, but just seeing web images somewhere. Then seeing them in person I thought htey looked bad, but usually official IBM photos make the red trackpoint a really strong solid red dot, the blue Enter key a really strong blue, etc and I liked that. Used to like some Vaios... what was that early one that was really thin? X505? Sometimes Fujitsus, and the new Q310 Samsungs. What I don't like mainly is the fancy-slick Apple/Nintendo look, or shininess. I prefer something to look serious and professional, even though it's just a computer which means it will probably have problems, no matter what, and die in a few years or have to be replaced somehow. That's just how computers are. For instance, I got this stinky Vaio PCG-k33 four years ago or so for my dad and it's really heavy and the fan is always running, but actually on tihs Thinkpad T42 I'm using now, the fan is often running too, and it'll probably screw up even more than the Vaio. One time I was at the store, at Microcenter, and I was complaining for like 30 minutes that they didn't have any beige-colored computer boxes on sale anymore. I needed a new computer box and they all looked like the aesthetics in the movie "2 Fast 2 Furious" or like kids' sneakers. Some of them were sort of plain black, but they still had this macho thing going on in the shape of the plastic. I just thought it was dumb. I don't really care how computers look, but yes I was attracked to Thinkpads based on their looks.

I usually judge everything by their looks and it always turns out to be true. I mean, when I buy a book and it has an interesting cover, it's almost always an interesting book, the writing. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm the same with movies, people, video games, whatever. For instance, you can tell that Internet Explorer 6 is better than 7 and 8 just because it looks better (the interface design, the UI). You can tell some things if you got a sharp eye just by the logo. What successful company doesn't have a perfect logo? They all do. It's the most important copyrighted part. But look at Lenovo's "logo." They might as well have just used some Microsoft Windows font, one of those Matthew Carter ones or something.

It reminds me of the movie Hackers. Everyone in that movie judges everything by how it looks. Yet if you look at the gear in the movie WarGames, wihch was often real (although of course unrealistic to find it all in a kid's bedroom like that) you find that it looks better. Or that computer program used in the movie Jurassic Park, towards the end, when the girl magically knows how to use Unix and she saves the day before the raptor pushes through the door ,that was a real unix program at the time.

stalepie · #17 Post by **stalepie** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:06 am

I thought the X31 looked stupid though when I first got it. The keys seemed squeezed against the sides, and some of them are cut off. With this T42 I got, my first look at it was that it had too much wasted space, such as the flat black bar space beyond the Access IBM / volume / print screen / Page Up row . And you'd think the trackpad would be bigger, or it wouldn't have a dual set of keys (which is convenient but silly). i like the trackpoint, so I wish i could turn off the trackpad. also it says "designed for Windows xp" as though there's any other OS you'd be using. I think it's dumb too that there's a Caps Lock key AND a shift key when you only need the shift (who needs caps lock? can't such a rarely-used setting be left for a setting in software -- like if you're using a word processor or text editor and want to type a section all in caps, just hylight what you've typed and change it to caps with the mouse, or press a button to switch to caps mode? you really need a key on the machine just for this rare use...?) A lot of keys are like that. Why is scroll-lock there? I once started to make a music mix CD for friends called Scroll Lock because I thought it sounded cool, like Scroll & Key or Skullbones (when I was a kid I had a pretend band called Skullbones.... [censored] I just hit the trackpad with my palm and nearly messed up this post.

Most of the function keys are useless and stupid. Numlock is useless and stupid, especially on a keyboard that doesn't have a special cash register-type extra set of number keys. Why are there so many buttons? Apple supposedly leads the way in design simplicity, but they just follow this sort of thing the same as everybody else, and so do asian and european companies. You also have the Esc key, which is great, I love to use it (like press Esc to escape from a program, to except a window, instead of having to press Ctrl+W or Alt+F4) but it's inconsistently applied and often never works.

Windows is neat though. Did you know you can close most windows in Windows by double-clicking the top-LEFT of the window? You can also minimize and maximize from there. I don't think you can do that in Apple software -- i mean, you can't use the opposite side to do the same thing (the right-side, in the case of apple).

So yeah, I like the way IBMs look, I like ThinkCentres too (like the mesh metal front of M50s, i think?) because it seems serious and robust and stuff . Strong is beautiful.

heh

Note from Admin: Removed offensive comment.

goofyGAguy · #18 Post by **goofyGAguy** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:44 am

Welcome to stalepie's stream-of-consciousness blog.

goofyGAguy · #19 Post by **goofyGAguy** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:47 am

Oh btw stalepie, you can disable the touchpad.

sparta.rising · #20 Post by **sparta.rising** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:18 am

Holy cow... are you on speed?

And logos are trademarks, not copyrights (of all the things from that post, that's what I'm commenting on)

stalepie · #21 Post by **stalepie** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 1:26 am

Thanks, you're right: they are trademarks!

mikey pizano · #22 Post by **mikey pizano** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 6:35 am

One brand that I like is Toshiba actually. The keyboard on my A205 is amazing, and I have a T20!

The A205 is rather chunky though.

mattbiernat · #23 Post by **mattbiernat** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 9:26 am

older thinkpads were beautiful the newer ones are truly ugly. thick basel, touchpad buttons, power/volume buttons are just inconsistent with the rest of the design.

OldManClayton · #24 Post by **OldManClayton** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:23 am

Yes indeed, the older thinkpads are beautiful. I suppose I would still take an x200 over any other brand, but the x61 is better (closer to IBM's designs.). Actually, if it weren't for the slower single-core processor, I'd leap for an x41 tablet, they're the best looking of the whole bunch!

Just goes to show that IBM knew what they were doing. They always have, from the very beginning. I wonder what happened that made them sell their PC lines to Lenovo.

I wish there were a way to get Lenovo to go back to the good styling...

On the subject of HP's and Compaq's... They may last, but they is oogly, in my opinion.

I always associate Compaq with cheap crappy computers for some reason. O_o Of course, that could just be because everyone bought one years ago, and now they're finally breaking down.

(I repair computers for people.)

OldManClayton · #25 Post by **OldManClayton** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:30 am

Oh, and yea... I hate the touchpad. >_> It ruins the look of any and all thinkpads that have it. I wonder who at Lenovo decided to put it on there. I'd like to ask for his reasoning on this subject.

Puppy · #26 Post by **Puppy** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:58 am

T60p UXGA was probably the best notebook ever. I'm just getting scared waiting for any new Lenovo ThinkPad model. I no longer take 15" models into the account because of new Super-Crappy (tm ?) display technology Lenovo has introduced together with new ThinkFlex (tm ?) keyboards. I would consider X200s if there wasn't the new ThinkThick (tm ?) bezel design and I could buy WXGA+ Boe-Hydis replacement of the Lenovo "display" (despite of losing warranty). BTW this mod http://lenovoblogs.com/connections/?p=59 (X61s 12" SXGA+ AFFS) is getting closer to my dream notebook configuration.

asiafish · #27 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 2:07 pm

mikey pizano wrote:You know what is really ugly? ANYTHING FROM APPLE!

Is that so? Hmmm, lets see, my MacBook Pro is absolutely gorgeous, as is my 5-year-old 12" PowerBook, the three MacBooks in the family, the office iMac and the monster Mac Pro workstation. Every single Apple I've used or seen had terrific industrial design, all sorts of thoughtful touches that make using it a delight, and excellent build quality.

In short, just like ThinkPads, Apples are definitely premium products. Where Apple fails (sometimes) is upgradability and hardware connectivity. Apple laptops haven't had docking ability for years, and that is a major disadvantage for me, and except for the 2000-era Pismo model, all consumer MacBooks and the MacBook Pro released last week, it can be very difficult to access the hard drive on an Apple laptop. RAM is very easy to reach on all of them, however.

In the end, the stability and total lack of malware for OS X outweigh the hardware disadvantages for me, which prompted me to move my entire business (2 desktops, 5 laptops) to Mac OS X.

asiafish · #28 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 2:14 pm

Stargate199 wrote:The new Mac laptops look nice, but the all glass screen is a MAJOR turn off for me. I have to have a matte screen. The white Macbooks were made very cheaply. The plastic would discolor very quickly and the chassis was not very sturdy. If I didn't know better, I think those things were made completely of plastic.

Thinkpads are truly the best out there. I have notice an increase of Thinkpads being used by students on my campus. They can handle the job of being a laptop, which is a computer you can take and use anywhere. A lot of Dell's and other brands do not stand up to constant transport.

MacBooks discoloring and cracking was definitely an issue back in 2006 when they were released, but Apple solved that problem quickly and completely. Only the first generation CoreDuo models were afflicted. Core2Duo MacBooks have been a terrific success, are durable, fast and well built.

My daughter has an early Core2Duo MacBook and is about as gentle with it as a typical teenager who tosses her computer about. It is absolutely filthy, covered in sticky goo from whatever she eats near the computer, has scratches and scuffs all over the place, but not a single crack and never a single stability issue, crash or other problem.

Oh, MacBooks aren't and never were plastic, they, like the older iBook models, are polycarbonate, which is much stronger.

The new ones are far nicer, though I dislike all glossy screens, and thus bought the outgoing model of MacBook Pro.

asiafish · #29 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 2:18 pm

OldManClayton wrote:My bro just bought a macbook. I tried to convince him to buy a thinkpad instead, but I don't know why he wouldn't listen.

Macbooks have that certain visual appeal-- but I think that's just the inherent coolness of all laptops. Even if the laptop is from a company you don't like... it's still a laptop. :lol:

Meh. Apple's designs are just ok. I confess it was pretty cool to fiddle with it when he took it home, but I know a thinkpad would be much more fun.

Most people don't buy a MacBook because of its looks. Likewise, most people who buy a Mac will not consider any other brand. The reason is that unlike with EVERY other brand of computer, MacBooks run OS X instead of Windows, and that is the reason to buy one.

I like ThinkPad hardware better than MacBook or MacBook Pro hardware, but since there is no way to buy a ThinkPad with OS X and a Hackintosh is far too geeky and time-wasting for me, I buy Macs. I have given up on Windows and Linux is just not an option. That leaves OS X as the only commercial OS that does everything I want, is not a malware magnet and has real, actual, native Microsoft Office, which is absolutely essential for me.

asiafish · #30 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 2:28 pm

stalepie wrote: Windows is neat though. Did you know you can close most windows in Windows by double-clicking the top-LEFT of the window? You can also minimize and maximize from there. I don't think you can do that in Apple software -- i mean, you can't use the opposite side to do the same thing (the right-side, in the case of apple).

heh

Note from Admin: Removed offensive comment.

Apple does much better than clicking the opposite corner to minimize, you can hit CMD-H to hide anything, shrinking it down to the dock.

Windows and OS X each have their own tricks and shortcuts to do a variety of things. It is absurd, however, for a Windows user with no experience using a Mac to complain about some missing feature. Apple and Microsoft (more Microsoft) has copied the other platform for ages, resulting in most cases of the only difference in accomplishing a task being the difference between pressing CTRL (Win) or CMD (Mac).

Unless you've used a Mac for any length of time, and not some ancient one that you played with at a school computer lab, you really are in no position to comment intelligently on the merits of the platform.

Thinkpads the greatest ever?

Thinkpads the greatest ever?

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