The IBM ThinkPad was for years the best laptop a man could buy.
When IBM sold the ThinkPad to Lenovo, I knew that things would never be the same, and that is becoming more and more apparent. With my ThinkPad T420s lacking proper Windows 10 driver support, I had been looking at the newer ThinkPads.
I found myself utterly disgusted. The keyboard had been reduced to the level at which Dell is. The “UltraNav” (trackpoint and trackpad buttons), which had previously been 5 separate buttons, had been reduced to one, obviously to copy Apple. Although this has been rectified to some degree in the latest ThinkPad, the trackpad is too wide, making it difficult to use the trackpoint.
I thought, if not a ThinkPad, then what else? Because of Lenovo’s screw ups, I am left with no other options. There is no other laptop that had the phenomenal keyboard layout that the ThinkPads had. Dell’s trackpoints are terrible. Where to now?
What do you guys think? Do you swear by the ThinkPad? I don’t know where I will go next.
It's probably better to run linux rather than windows on older devices anyways, but the X200 thinkpad are still pretty neat, if only I had a spare 200 bucks.
But lenovo was going to make that retro thinkpad or something sometime soonish weren't they?
contrary to popular belief even though depending on who you talk to, Lenovo may have tampered with what made the "Thinkpads" great. there are still going to sell regardless if Lenovo owns them now. the thinkpads are a staple for laptops. even if Lenovo is spying on people or whatever, it's going to do well. AS for should you get one. In my opinion when it comes to all around functionality I would prefer a surfacet. simply because it's going to support for Windows directly from Microsoft and the Surface has excellent support on Linux as well. though if you wish to run Linux, I prefer using dell. (As long as you switch out the Wi-Fi Card. other than that Dell Laptops work perfectly.
For the most part Lenovo addressed the criticism of the T440 and T450's thouchpad and squishy keyboard in the T550, which comes with a significantly smoother keyboard (albeit same new layout) and reverts to the three independent buttons for the trackpoint.
As for your driver problem with the T420s, I'm stumped. Windows 10 recognized and installed the OEM drivers for my R500 and T61p without any problems at all, and those are significantly older models.
you complain about windows 10 support, but these things run linux like a champ, these things kick ass with fedora on there, albeit I wish I had more usb and a better battery, still these things kick ass with linux
Do you need the power of a newer Thinkpad? I just run Linux Mint on my SL410, back before they started really messing with the Thinkpad formula. It's only a Core 2 though. Not very powerful.
Eventually, I will. David Hill said that the Retro ThinkPad might be ready for the 25th anniversary of the ThinkPad in 2017. It's not really the power, it's just things like the god awful screen that the T420s' came with and battery life, it was advertised at 5.5 hours and it's far less now.
EDIT: my thinkpad has the i5 2520m, Nvidia nvs 4200m, and 8gb RAM, so it's plenty for it's purpose. Does anyone know what the NVidia NVS 4200m is equivalent? It's a quadro, so what is the non-quadro equivalent?
GT 520M - it's based on Fermi with 48 unified shaders.
I don't know why on earth you'd use that terrible system. Thinkpad and Windows 10 are a terrible mix. Personally I've been quite happy with my Thinkpad X220 dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 8.1, althrough I'm considering install Windows 7.
My next laptop will probably be a thinkpad or a latitude. My problem with them is the crappy screens. I can live with a base model of 4GB of RAM, but 720p screens have got to go. This is one area where Apple shines. Yes, a Macbook Pro is expensive, but when you compare it to a Thinkpad or a Latitude, it is pretty competitive. I bought a Lenovo Ideapad Y500 3 years ago (early 2013) and a Macbook Pro 7 years ago (mid 2009). I still use the Macbook day-to-day where the Lenovo has been reduced to a machine I RDP into over the network because of the failing screen and weight. Linux support on the Thinkpads should be better too.
Are they dead? No. Are they not as good as they used to be? Yes. Are they still pretty good? Yes.
Someone needs to make laptop that's the same size and layout as the T400 series but updated. It could probably fit a lot more components considering how small laptop main boards are now.
