Lenovo spits out retro ThinkPads for iconic laptop's 25th birthday

Transnote

Friend of mine gave me his.

I wanted to love it I really did. A really good idea. But fundamentally a pig of a machine.

And a far-too-heavy one at that.

On the other hand I have a working T30 with XP loaded which I fire up occasionally to enjoy the keyboard. But only briefly - I have to blow hard into the air vent to clean out the cooling fans before they seize.

Finally they've brought back the proper keyboard and done away with that chiclet shite. I'm still using my T500 which I bought second hand to replace my R50e ThinkPad (which was my first). Still a capable development laptop with the proper keyboard.

It's just a shame that I don't have $1800 to spend on a new ThinkPad. Oh well, I'll just keep buying new batteries for my T500 until it dies of overuse. But what am I saying? It's a ThinkPad. They'll outlive me!

Lenovo T410

My old T410. With added ssd and 8 gb might be replaced by this. Don't get me wrong it still works and runs beautifully.

Just be nicer to have a model which might last me another 7 years of solid and reliable working no thrills laptop. Plus looks like it comes with a proper keyboard and not the clicklet one.

Would you like a side order of OS/2 to go with that?

Missed opportunity

The problem is that Lenovo were talking about this being a retro Thinkpad, yet what they've actually released is just a T470 with a classic keyboard and a few transfers stuck on it.

No buttons on the trackpad.

No status LEDs.

No ThinkLight.

Nasty 16:9 screen.

Basically the only thing in its favour is the keyboard.

I was eagerly looking forward to this when Lenovo first mooted it some time back as a possible replacement for my X201 (last one Lenovo made with a 16:10 screen), but the actual product is a real let down.

Bah. All I want is a laptop with a large screen (17" is currently adequate - bloody presbyopia) and dedicated mouse buttons. I don't need anything else. Ought to be possible to find one for a few hundred quid.

<old git rant>

Why is it laptops never seem to really come down in price? They get faster but somehow the lowest spec laptop always costs about £400. And large screens don't seem very popular. Odd that. Maybe as the rest of the population ages they'll become more popular. It wouldn't be so bad if web site designers didn't waste so much screen space these days. O! for the days when you could read most of what you needed to without having to scroll the screen.

</old git rant>

Happy Friday, everyone :)

a special logo and design to celebrate the 25th anniversary

If this line, taken, presumably, from lenovo glossy sheet is meant to be a selling point, it's pretty ironic, because thinktop laptops were loved by "techies" for a set of different features to "special logo and design".

x220... slow to boot

I don't know what you did to yours, but mine boots in about 10 - 15 sec. And I'm not a penguinista, old plain W7, with an ssd, true, but still...

T470

I've been running the T470 which this retro version is basically for about 6 months, I've nothing but good things to say about it, it replaced a Macbook Pro 2011. I did buy a XPS 15 and the new Macbook Pro before landing on this but both went back faulty.

The build quality on the T470 is excellent, best keyboard I've ever had on a laptop, beats the clacky thing on the new Macbooks, and above all it just works. I use it 8-10 hours a day, get 4-5 hours battery out of it running Visual Studio with Resharper, SQL Server and IIS on it.

I am converted, which given I was a hardened macbook fanboi prior was a bit of surprise.

A survivor.

Found a T410S in the trash; lid hanging by one hinge, screen hanging from lid, keyboard sticky from ciggy smoke.

After a little kitchen table engineering, W7 reinstall and shitload of drivers from Lenovo site, now my favourite laptop. Touchscreen, SSD, silly light over the nice keyboard. Wish they'd implemented the mobile broadband more sensibly !

Love the TP almost as much I loved my first laptop -- Dell Latitude CPi Pentium2 in blue, built from two flea market wrecks for under £20.

Keyboards

Don't forget the IBM standard desktop keyboards.

I've kept several for when they wear out, so far I'm still using the first one as I type this and every key works.

It's a Model number SK-8815, a few letters are fading but that's it.

Great engineering.

Desktop Keyboards @AC

"Don't forget the IBM standard desktop keyboards.

I've kept several for when they wear out, so far I'm still using the first one as I type this and every key works."

As far as I can see, they don't wear out -- typing this on a model built in 1991 (in Scotland, from girders).

Tempting

I'll wait on UK pricing, availability, and I presume it is the case that they're being lazy and not creating a UK keyboard with an inverted and mirrored L shaped return key.

I did have a Thinkpad 701CS, it was quite good, but the expanding keyboard was just not as durable as normal thinkpad ones, the hinge eventually started failing, and the screen resolution was rather low.

Currently still on an X61, but web browsing is a bit slow in OpenBSD (part of this will be BSD's fault). I was pondering an X230 with a 220 keyboard and a new screen transplanted into it (this is possible), but now the 25 is out it's a little tempting. A little disappointed by screen resolution and lack of a thinklight, but the discrete GPU and thunderbolt are decent additions.

I've used lots of Thinkpads in the past, the X40/X41 had a lovely form factor, but the dog slow custom hard drive was awkward.

Where are the LEDs then

Not even a HDD activity light? No thanks. My T430 was the last ever Lenovo product I will buy

The Thinkslab. My back doth protest

Put down the rose-tinted Friday afternoon beer goggles chaps - the Thinkslab was an absolute nightmare if you had to actually lug it around with you all day.

Got my first one upon joining Sema; it was basically an anvil with an HDD. Of course, backpacks weren't invented then, or if they were, no self respecting salesgit would ever use one - creases the suit and makes your back a sweaty mess. Shoulder bag it was, which would include paper stuff, charger, fags, bottle of water, etc.

Many, many, years later I'm having physio on a shoulder injury. Lying there, physio lady says "you carry weights on your right shoulder? Your spine is curved to the left where you're always compensating"

No wonder I went fully insane and bought a BlackBerry PlayBook... anything but carry that damn laptop around.

Bah!

Wot, no butterfly keyboard?

Thinkpads

Had quite a few ThinkPads over the years, and loved most of them.

The T43 was a bit of a donkey, that went in favour of one of my favourites, the T61. My T510 was dropped by it's previous user hard enough to break the plastic fan vent and bend the heatsink fins, and was still working when I was made redundant.

My personal laptop is a T410, I have an X240 from work, and my mum has a T410 I set up for her. I've played with getting a X230 or T420 for myself, but I don't really like 16:9 screens.

Serviceability

I've used a few Thinkpads and the biggest attraction of them was the fact that if something broke you could order a replacement part. And aside from that they were quite rugged with nice lids that closed shut properly. The red nipple thing was and still is vastly easier to use for precision than a touchpad.

I wonder if this is true for the Thinkpad 25 or if it's going to break if you look at it sideways and the whole lot has to be junked.

Wouldn't a drive-locking accelerometer be problematic in space?

If so then obviously they just turned it off, but can somebody smarter than I speak as to that?