Indestructible
Lets hope they are as well built, long lasting, and as indestructible as the proper ones were.
And for real authenticity can we have them made in Greenock, not China, please?
The long-awaited "retro" Thinkpad will be based on the guts of a contemporary T470 laptop, Lenovo's business workhorse, according to a German certification site. Lenovo inherited IBM's notebook brand 12 years ago, and with it a design classic. However, in 2012 Lenovo saw fit to "modernise" the iconic keyboard, along with …
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Which would make 9:16, or preferably 210:297, a more useful format than 16:10.
9:16 is actually a bit annoying, because it's too tall for my predator-evolved binocular vision designed to track horizontal movement to really deal with. 3:4 on the other hand is a nice middle ground, and why I keep 2 monitors in portrait aspect.
Otherwise known as 1:sqrt(2)
One of my clients actually threw his [company-provided] IBM ThinkPad at the wall in frustration one day. Apart from the slight dent in the wall, no damage was incurred. (He had a habit of installing such utilities as registry-cleaners on it and I had the job of regularly uninstalling them.)
And this is why you will find me still recommending ThinkPads.
"The width gives you more room for the toolbars, persistent menus, widgets, assistants, and productivity thingies that multiply with each release."
Aka clutter...
The funny thing is that I probably used more of Word's built in functionality before the ribbon was introduced than I do now...
You can do that with a big wide screen monitor on a desktop. The problem is with the smaller laptops, a 16:9 screen isn't wide enough to be able to accommodate two browser windows side by side without triggering horizontal scrolling, so you have wasted space on the edges and more scrolling because the screen lacks height. 4:3 is the ideal size for a small screen, 16:9 starts to makes sense if the monitor is 18" or bigger.
Never had two documents open side-by-side? I'll admit I wouldn't want to go any lower than 1920x1080 for that sort of thing, but in the spirit of fairness it should probably be mentioned.
(Daily is a x61 1024x768 Thinkpad with a 2048x1152 23" monitor from 2008 before "Full HD" ruined everything)
It's horses for courses, but generally 16:10 or 3:2 is well suited to productivity applications and for reading documents and webpages. The reason? Title bars, menu bars and ribbons will soon eat into the height of the the screen, so what starts as a 16:9 letterbox becomes a slit. Reading an article then requires lots of scrolling. Urgh. Also, a taller screen means that the user's gaze is at a higher, more comfortable position for longer.
Of course, I've seen very wide spreadsheets spread across several monitors, and DTP workstations with monitors in Portrait, so there is no once aspect ratio fits all. However, it would be nice to have some choice in the market. At present, damned near every laptop has a 16:9 screen except for Apple (16:10) and Microsoft (3:2).
Actually, any Chromebook I have looked at lets you select from a wide variety of resolutions, even if not "optimal" for the screen hardware, and Windows will allow, to a lesser extent, similar such settings. Alas, most Linux DE's are not so accommodating with their implementation of the X-Window manager, and insist on only what the hardware "signals" to it as acceptable.
Re: "Bring back the Radius Pivot monitor."
"There's plenty of brand new monitors that can pivot on their stand"
Stands that permit display rotation have been around for decades, monitors that actually do it intelligently aren't so readily obtainable. For example the Dell monitor linked to:
"Switch orientation quickly and easily: With enhanced menu rotation software, you can rotate your screen from landscape to portrait orientation or vice versa, then follow the on-screen prompt to orient your on-screen content. It’s that simple."
Sorry, Dell (and Microsoft), but when I rotate the monitor I expect the OS and monitor to auto rotate the display contents - if Apple can do it on an iPad and the need has been known about since at least the 1980's then there really is no excuse.
The Dell XPS-18 (a portable all-in-one / large tablet) can do it, but the screen movement and redraw isn't fast or something you want to watch...
3 screens here:
I use 16:9 for work (database and report design) because it work well.
16:9 for Outlook as I can fit both the task list and folder list either side of the email.
4:3 for browsing - as someone else mentioned - there's no need to waste so much screen on empty bars on either side.
Mine went to the great recycling centre only last week.
It outlived a T410....
IMHO, the longest lasting kit I've ever used was IBM Thinkpads followed by Macbook Pro's. (2010 17in MBP still going strong)
HP produced some decent lappies (Elitebook 8770W) but were really hard to get here. They couldn't be half arsed to put a UK KB and ship them here.
My old company was still issuing HP Lappies with 1366x768 screens this time last year.
If I was still working I'd be angling for a new Thinkpad.
The only benefit I ever saw to 16:9 (or 16:10) was that it's good for watching Video. It's rubbish for anything text-based because the lines are too long, in most cases you end up with a lot of wasted space and more scrolling. Ask yourself why books are rarely published in landscape format! What gets me are the repeated protestations that "nobody makes 4:3" when the iPad is 4:3, including the iPad pro which has a 13" 4:3 screen.
The Thinkpad X1 Tablet has a 3:2 screen which isn't far off 4:3. I'd prefer the retro design of the laptop described here, but it has to be an X series ultraportable. I'm assuming since this is a T it will be at least a 14", that's too big and heavy for me. If they could shrink the retro case and use the screen from the X1 tablet, I'd be first in line. As it is, I'll probably get the X1 tablet when my X61 finally dies.
@ElReg!comments!Pierre
"Not many people want 4:3"
No true - everyone wants 4:3, its just that none are available to buy because the industry has standardised on 16:9 to fall in line with TV production. 16:9 has no use in computing or a work environment. It wouldn't be so bad if all the MS Ribbon crap could be relocated to the side - but it seems to only be positionable at the top making your content/working area almost unusable. 16:9 is a huge step backwards - the iPad and ChromeBook got it right at least.
I still miss my R52 and its 1400 x 1050... :'(
A laptop that was a convenient size, and still had great vertical resolution.
Sure, these days I have a 1920x1080, so even more vertical dots, but then I also have a load of excess horizontal dots with it, which make it much more cumbersome.
After 10 years I have finally moved off my 1400x1050 Tecra M5. Before that I had a 1400x1050 Tecra 8200 too. It was the perfect screen resolution for a laptop. However today it would need to be 2800x2100 to get me to give up my 3:2 3000x2000 Surface Book. If it it's not "retina" it's not worth making a fuss over.
I've got one of these at home I think. I was given it as a 'gift' from a old boss when I left (it was my work laptop and he left me keep it). I installed gentoo on it a few months ago, and it's still as nippy and useful as ever.
The one thing that works really well for me, is the fact there's a 'forward facing' bevel on the edge of the screen when it's raised, this means when it's closed, it actually protects from dust/dirt/paper from sliding in between the screen and keyboard causing mess. Odd reason to like it I know, but it just makes it feel more like someone actually thought about what they were designing with this,
"It may be harder to reintroduce the 16:10 aspect ratio display as the industry now produces 16:9 more appropriate to watching movies [...]"
16:10 allows you to see the 16:9 movie while playback controls are placed below it. I hate it when a subtitle or something else at the bottom of the screen is obscured by a time delayed auto-pop-up control panel.
Since 16:9 became ubiquitous on laptops, tablet adoption had risen. Perhaps now that many people use a tablet to watch movies away from home (which are usually more comfortable to view anyway, especially on trains or in hotel beds), laptops can revert to 16:10 or 4:3?
Also, Apple and Microsoft can source screens of the aspect ratio they want, so surely Lenovo can too?