T42 Sleeve from IBM JAPAN

Message

zaku · #151 Post by **zaku** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:34 pm

benottomex wrote:Why not buy it from eBay:

IBM Thinkpad Laptop Sleeve Case 12.1" 14.1" 15.1" 15.4"

I'm considering buying one of those for my T41p

anyone bought from this seller? are those fake IBM ones? cuz it says grade A product?

i'd love to have one but ony this seller has the 15" case

marcos · #152 Post by **marcos** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:52 pm

This ebay seller:

"Notice: We are temporarily not shipping to Italy, nothing personal/offensive. Thanks!".

Ouch! I wanted one! He does not ship to my country. I feel personally offended

NathanA · #153 Post by **NathanA** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:58 pm

Well, my IdeaStyle sleeve came today!

It looks pretty sweet. All the markings on the bag match the pictures on IdeaStyle's site exactly...it's nice having the colorful IBM logo on the bag and not just a plain ThinkPad one. The construction on mine seems pretty solid, too. I haven't had a chance to try fitting my laptop in it yet, but I hope to have some pictures with and without laptop in a day or two for y'all.

Only semi-complaint I have about the sleeve is that the printing of the lettering could be better...it's not very "fine" and there are some jaggies on the edges of the lettering, but overall it's a small concern.

-- Nathan

agarza · #154 Post by **agarza** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:50 pm

I received today my sleeve too!

I don't look like a original product, I did fit my T41p inside of it and the fitting is good. Mine says IBM Thinkpad, like the engraving IBM laptops have.

ipark · #155 Post by **ipark** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 8:12 pm

NathanA wrote:Well, my IdeaStyle sleeve came today!

It looks pretty sweet. All the markings on the bag match the pictures on IdeaStyle's site exactly...it's nice having the colorful IBM logo on the bag and not just a plain ThinkPad one. The construction on mine seems pretty solid, too. I haven't had a chance to try fitting my laptop in it yet, but I hope to have some pictures with and without laptop in a day or two for y'all.

Only semi-complaint I have about the sleeve is that the printing of the lettering could be better...it's not very "fine" and there are some jaggies on the edges of the lettering, but overall it's a small concern.

-- Nathan

i received mine today as well and i agree with everything nathan wrote.

agarza · #156 Post by **agarza** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:05 pm

could anyone post your sleeve pic from ideastyle

zaku · #157 Post by **zaku** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 11:44 pm

who's ideastyle?? i'd like to get one too!

NathanA · #158 Post by **NathanA** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:08 am

Alright, here come the pictures, with a small disclaimer: I don't have a very good digital camera; in fact, in some ways, mine is downright crappy. I did the best I could, despite it; enjoy!:

Picture of sleeve with flap closed and secure #1
Picture of sleeve with flap closed and secure #2
Picture of sleeve with flap opened #1
Picture of sleeve with flap opened #2
(Blurry) close-up of IBM ThinkPad corner logo #1
(Blurry) close-up of IBM ThinkPad corner logo #2
(Blurry) close-up of IBM logo and ThinkVantage text
(Blurry) close-up of the edge of the flap-securing band and its stitching
My 15" T42p KXU with 9-cell on its way into the sleeve...
My 15" T42p KXU with 9-cell completely inserted into the sleeve
My sleeve with flap secured and laptop safe inside #1
My sleeve with flap secured and laptop safe inside #2
My sleeve with flap secured and laptop safe inside #3
Sleeve now without laptop, flap closed but unsecured
The "hidden" side of the band is red!

Some observations:

1. The polyurethane material is great. It feels like that Tempur-Pedic material when you squish it...it conforms to the shape of the pressure but then gradually fills itself back out again once the pressure is released.

2. Gotta love the TrackPoint-Red interior! (Yes, that's right, it's a "new" kind of Red. Not Ferrari-Red, or Fire-Engine-Red; it's TrackPoint-Red! A true ThinkPad legacy.)

3. It has been said before, but it seems to me that these IdeaStyle sleeves differ from other perhaps "clones" in a few different ways: a) the securing band/strap is lower-down on the front of the sleeve, b) there are markings underneath the flap advertising ThinkVantage, c) there are only two sizes (as far as I can figure it): a 12" one and a 14/15" one ("one size fits all" for the bigger of the two sizes), d) the flap on the 14/15" model does NOT extend all the way down to the bottom of the sleeve, even when it is empty! (there's a good 3-3.5" between the bottom of the flap and the bottom of the case)

4. My 15" is very, very snug in there. It actually took a little bit of effort to get it in there the first time.

5. The whole package IS pretty thick when the laptop is in there. Definitely much thicker than the laptop by itself. I wasn't actually expecting it to add that much thickness, and it was kind of a challenge to get it to fit in the spot in my carrying case that I wanted it to go in.

6. If you have a 9-cell battery, with the IdeaStyle cases, the whole laptop WITH the battery fits completely inside the case! The battery doesn't stick out.

7. The URL listed beneath the ThinkVantage logo, which I was unable to make out in any of the photographs on-line, is: www.ibm.com/jp/pc/think/. This appears to (now) re-direct to a Lenovo page about ThinkVantage in Japanese. I'm also guessing that the photos of this sleeve on IBM's site that just seemed to have a single line of text without the "IBM" or "ThinkVanage" logos above it was probably this same URL, just without those logos.

I have this feeling that I'm forgetting something else that I wanted to say about this sleeve... If I happen to remember it or think of something else, I will be sure to update y'all.

It would definitely be an interesting exercise to get the IdeaStyle sleeve together with some of its "cousins" and do a detailed comparison between this one and other sleeves that have been found by other forum members. However, I'm not buying another one to send to someone else, and I very much doubt anyone is going to be sending *me* any sleeves to compare against my own, so this kind of detail will probably have to wait until a Thinkpads.com meet or something.

Regards,

-- Nathan

NathanA · #159 Post by **NathanA** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:31 am

zaku wrote:who's ideastyle?? i'd like to get one too!

Please: if you are going to come in late to a discussion, do the homework on the stuff you missed out on yourself rather than asking everyone to repeat it for the nth time.

All of the answers lie in this thread. I posted a lengthy note about IdeaStyle and how I found them to this thread, which appears on the page before this one. You may read those posts (or, better yet, read the entire thread) for answers.

-- Nathan

zaku · #160 Post by **zaku** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:26 pm

NathanA wrote:
zaku wrote:who's ideastyle?? i'd like to get one too!
Please: if you are going to come in late to a discussion, do the homework on the stuff you missed out on yourself rather than asking everyone to repeat it for the nth time.

All of the answers lie in this thread. I posted a lengthy note about IdeaStyle and how I found them to this thread, which appears on the page before this one. You may read those posts (or, better yet, read the entire thread) for answers.

-- Nathan

wow the nerves... relax
instead of typing that whole paragraph you could have typed "ideastyle is xxxxx from xxxxx" as simple as that.
coming late to the discussion is my fault? we're not in school here. i have a life and can't stay on this site 24/7 monitoring all the discussions going on and participate once they come out right away.
just move on if u don't want to help. someone else will eventually do. geez

cmarti · #161 Post by **cmarti** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:48 pm

Hey!

Boys relax.

agarza · #162 Post by **agarza** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:06 pm

I might post my own pictures of my sleeve, and maybe we could do some comparisons.

By looking at your pictures Nathan, I can tell you my sleeve is a fake one, firstly the M on IBM logo is a darker blue. The sleeve by itself smeels like the rubber of a new tyre. I can´t confirm the sleeve is made from the same material as the original sleeves.
My 14.1" laptop fits in well, but when I close the flap passing it thru the strap, the flap do not seem to be evenly closed. I would post some pictures later.

Also, is the internal red padding (Red Trackpoint??) material feels very soft or just plain soft?

#163 Post by **gator** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:41 pm

I also got my sleeve from IdeaStyle. Its really snug for my 15" T60, and I think this is the real deal. I simply like the way the sleeve confroms to pressure (and comes back to shape), like Nathan mentioned. I'll post some pics later - they'll just be like Nathan's

NathanA · #164 Post by **NathanA** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:49 pm

Zaku,

If you took offense at my post, then I do sincerely apologize. My post was not intended to give offense, and on a second reading I can see how it could have been interpreted as hostile.

I will try to elaborate on what the point was that I was trying to make, and then shut up about it. This will be my last post on this topic.

zaku wrote:just move on if u don't want to help. someone else will eventually do.

If I didn't want to help anyone here, then I wouldn't have spent the time that I did conducting my research about this sleeve, composing my initial and rather lengthy and detailed post about how I learned about IdeaStyle and what the differences are between their product and other sleeves that try to imitate theirs, and so on. Nor would I have taken the time to take all of those pictures, scale them down and make them presentable to the web, and then write a detailed post regarding my observations about my new sleeve.

zaku wrote:coming late to the discussion is my fault?

Of course it is not your fault. No one said that it was your fault.

The only message I was trying to get across is that it is rarely productive to rehash what has already been hashed out. Unlike a real live conversation (where if you are late to the discussion, it is necessary for someone to catch you up before you can really join in properly), a discussion like this one on the internet is archived and preserved so that any late-comer can catch himself up without someone having to repeat what has already been said.

I was simply pointing out to you that if you had started reading on page 1 of this thread (link) and read the entire discussion before jumping in, you would have been caught up and would have known about the existence of the IBM Japan sleeve, seen the IBM website describing it, understood the difficulty people have had acquiring one, seen the posts by people who found some and started reselling them here, and you would have even eventually come across my contribution to this discussion which was the first one to talk about IdeaStyle (link) in this thread.

You don't have to be monitoring this web site 24/7 to remain caught up on the many discussion threads that you are interested in. The old posts don't go away, and they are kept around in order so that you can be a part of the discussion and in order to give the later posts in the thread some context.

-- Nathan

NathanA · #165 Post by **NathanA** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:56 pm

benottomex wrote:Also, is the internal red padding (Red Trackpoint??) material feels very soft or just plain soft?

I would say that it is certainly nothing extra-special-soft.

It might be just slightly softer than the outside black material (which is pretty soft as-is), but not by a whole lot. It might be the same material, and my perception of any extra softness in the red material might simply be placebo.

It is certainly soft enough that I don't expect my ThinkPad to gain any extra wear-and-tear by being inserted and removed from the sleeve repeatedly and on a regular basis.

Also, my sleeve (to comment on something else you said about yours) is pretty much odorless. There is a very slight hint of something, but I'm not sure what and can't quite put my finger on it. But it is definitely not overpowering, and you have to put your nostrils right up against it to detect any odor.

It didn't even cross my mind to "smell" my sleeve until you made your comment, even!

-- Nathan

dmar · #166 Post by **dmar** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 10:13 pm

Interesting to see your pics Nathan. Thanks for posting them.

If anyone is interested in seeing the alleged (even by myself) "fake" sleeves, you can see my flickr stream from several months back. http://www.flickr.com/photos/54185477@N00/

Overall, it looks like it's the same material, and the band sewn on mine is definitely up higher to the laptop entry. Other than that, the printing is the only noticeable difference (Mines says Thinkpad, and no thinkvantage on the inside).

Just curious, did your sleeve come in a plastic bag, with any documentation attached (see my flickr shots for reference).

Anyways, I've been using my sleeve for the better part of 5 months now, and it's been great. No material snags, or pilling (balling up) like I was expecting. I've got one on the highly travelled x31, and just pulled the 2nd sleeve out for the newly acquired x41 Tablet. Hope everyone else gets the same mileage (and envious stares) with your sleeves!

NathanA · #167 Post by **NathanA** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 11:10 pm

dmar wrote:Just curious, did your sleeve come in a plastic bag, with any documentation attached (see my flickr shots for reference).

My sleeve did not come in nearly as fancy a plastic bag as yours did. I have to say, the packaging of your sleeve is pretty cool. Mine came inside of a very thin transparent plastic bag (think grocery-store-plastic-bag thin), and the plastic was closed with a couple pieces of transparent tape. Nothing fancy.

My sleeve did come with a small (approx. 4" x 6") piece of cardboard with something printed on it (one-sided). It's all in a foreign language (Asian text of some kind), so I can't read it, but here is a picture of it for someone who wants to take a crack at it.

-- Nathan

Jason986 · #168 Post by **Jason986** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:58 am

Did IdeaStyle pull the listing for the 15" version of this sleeve? I can find the 12" version on its eBay store but not the 15" version I need.

If anyone's got a direct link I'd appreciate it.

NathanA · #169 Post by **NathanA** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 3:44 am

Jason986 wrote:Did IdeaStyle pull the listing for the 15" version of this sleeve?

My observation is that IdeaStyle tends to list these as Buy-It-Nows only with a total quantity of 3 up for sale. Once all three cases from that listing are sold, it seems to take them a couple days or so before they get around to posting 3 more.

So, give it some time, keep watching eBay, and I'm sure you'll eventually find what you're looking for.

Happy hunting,

-- Nathan

bigbear2007 · #170 Post by **bigbear2007** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:21 pm

NathanA wrote:
dmar wrote:Just curious, did your sleeve come in a plastic bag, with any documentation attached (see my flickr shots for reference).
My sleeve did not come in nearly as fancy a plastic bag as yours did. I have to say, the packaging of your sleeve is pretty cool. Mine came inside of a very thin transparent plastic bag (think grocery-store-plastic-bag thin), and the plastic was closed with a couple pieces of transparent tape. Nothing fancy.

My sleeve did come with a small (approx. 4" x 6") piece of cardboard with something printed on it (one-sided). It's all in a foreign language (Asian text of some kind), so I can't read it, but here is a picture of it for someone who wants to take a crack at it.

-- Nathan

That's Japanese.

#171 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:52 pm

nice looking cases and fairly reasonable for what you seem to get..

i think i need one for X60 and T60 15 inch..

agarza · #172 Post by **agarza** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:15 pm

OK, here are my sleeve pictures:

My T41p
T41p or T42p?
T41p from above
The Sleeve as it came shipped
Sleeve
Inside the Sleeve
Sleeve with T41p (bottom)
Sleeve with T41p
T41p inside the sleeve
Closeup
T41p with flap closed
T41p inside (lateral view)
Again...
Another view
IBM Logo Closeup

I noticed that when the laptop is inside the sleeve, the flap when is snug in the flap, the flap is uneven, how explain it, take a look at the pictures.

I don't like the location of the flap I rather have it like the sleeve Nathan has. I might buy it and buy an IdeaStyle sleeve

wmdunn · #173 Post by **wmdunn** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:48 am

I have an extra new 15" IdeaStyle case, that I will sell for what I paid. So $20 and a couple of bucks for shipping, to the first person to hold their hand up. Send me your zipcode and we can handle it quickly. Thanks.

Bill Dunn

wmdunnslo@yahoo.com

blackcomb64 · #174 Post by **blackcomb64** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:22 pm

just fyi...dmar, seems not "fake" sleeves:)

http://www.haomai2.com/news/news.php?newsid=934

http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... en&ie=UTF8

bigbear2007 · #175 Post by **bigbear2007** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:43 am

I received the ideastyle 15" sleeve case today.
I don't know it is the "real" thing or not but I don't understand what the fuss is about.

PS. I got the Japanese zeroshock iii for usd10 less.

agarza · #176 Post by **agarza** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:34 pm

bigbear2007 wrote: PS. I got the Japanese zeroshock iii for usd10 less.

Where did you get that? I'd like to sell the fake Sleeve I bought for my T42p and get a ZeroShock sleeve. 29 USD + Shipping found on eBay:
ZEROSHOCK III 14.1" notebook case Lenovo ThinkPad T60

bigbear2007 · #177 Post by **bigbear2007** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 9:21 pm

I bought in a group purchase in Hong Kong so you will not be able to get it.

Sorry.

iatacs19 · #178 Post by **iatacs19** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:50 am

I bought one from ebay seller Portable.Drive, I am hoping it works out and it's not too cheaply made.

Honza130 · #179 Post by **Honza130** » Sun May 06, 2007 3:50 pm

I´m looking for sleeve for my T60 14,1" 9cell....

I´ve read your posts, but I´m not sure if this sleeve is original IBM or "fake" ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... osi_widget

Some sleeve cases have notice "IBM ThinPad", some have only "ThinkPad" ?? Which one is the original

?

thanks...

T42 Sleeve from IBM JAPAN

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