Kyokushi writes "Gizmodo reports that some specifications of a new ultralight Lenovo X300 have been leaked. 'It appears that Lenovo have themselves a new ultralight X300 series Thinkpad — and outside of the price and release date, we have all of the specs that you need to know. At a glance, some of the major features include: a 13.3-inch LED backlit 1440X900 screen, an ultralight 2.5 pound form factor, and Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ), a 64 GB SSD, up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 memory, and 4 hours of battery life.' If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air."Update: 01/20 22:55 GMT by S : Corrected Gizmondo->Gizmodo.
OS X Intel does not work all that well on Thinkpads if you actually want to use them as a laptop. It installs just fine and some people actually use theirs that way. However, sleep mode doesn't work due to an incompatibility between OS X and the Thinkpad's ACPI implementation regarding power states S1 vs. S3; the computer will fail to wake up and give a BIOS error message that the system configuration has been tampered with, after which you need to go into BIOS setup, go out again and
No - it doesn't run AmigaOS either. I'm not sure that running or not being able to run another platform's OS affects how much publicity it should get or how good it is. (And I find it ironic if being able to run Windows is now touted as an advantage for Macs...)
This sounds really interesting, but I'm waiting to hear more about video and wireless card. Thinkpads have been very good for me in running Linux, but Linux on laptops these days often comes down to the video card, modem, and the wireless card. Modems are usually winmodems, which are hard to support - but I haven't used a modem in years. Anyone have other details to point to?
TFA has all kinds of info. Check out this table of specs [gizmodo.com], as well as these tidbits here [gizmodo.com]. It appears to sport integrated graphics; Discrete graphics are listed as "not supported", along with PCexpress cards and other card readers. As a side note, new laptop having neither an express card slot or any other card reader is quite surprising to me -- especially a high-budget product like a Lenovo.
All extra peripherals are replaced with USB devices. There is no need to complicate the interface anymore. USB is ubiquitous. Maybe firewire would have been a better solution, but Apple butchered it by requiring manufacturers pay royalties while USB had a royalty-free implementation from the start. Clearly, free-market spoke and USB is king.
Card readers and express card slots went the way of the floppy and serial port.
USB is okay for a lot of things, but the CPU requirements and the bloated protocol make it unsuitable for high-bandwidth tasks. With an ExpressCard slot you can:
Add a(nother) GigE port.
Add a discrete GPU and a second monitor port.
Add an external disk interface with enough bandwidth to run a RAID array.
There are probably a few others I haven't thought of.
The key selling point of Windows over Mac in the laptop area as far as I am concerned is the tablet form-factor. Tablets are very good for collaborative whiteboarding during a brainstorming session.
Light is nice but Steve Jobs seems to have a bit of a Clive Sinclair complex. He just pushes the envelope one bit too far. Sinclair did it on cheap (microdrive not a floppy), Jobs does it on practicality (no exchangable batteries).
The Lenovo looks like it is slightly less cool but a lot more practical. I bet you can swap out the battery. In fact I bet that nobody even thought of not allowing the user to swap it out.
Looks to me like this is a deliberate, sanctioned leak in response to the Air. Looks like solid state drives are becomming mainstream. Getting rid of the mechanical components from the board is going to make it much easier to do thin.
I suspect that the actual battery life is 3 hours and 6 with the extended battery pack, my T43 still does that reliably with two year old battery packs.
Apple also has OSX, and Lenovo has Windows. The difference in operating systems is more than branding (I don't own a Mac, but let's face it, Microsoft is still playing catch-up.)
Yes, but we aren't talking about the relative financial success here: we're talking about the usability and sophistication of the product itself. And there Microsoft is way behind. Make no mistake... I don't like Apple, I don't like Jobs, and it's unlikely I'll ever own an Apple product again (the last one was an Apple ][.) So I'm not defending Apple Computer, per se, but as a Windows programmer I'm more than familiar with the shortcomings of that particular OS.
Apple doesn't have the panacea of the OS world. And I own a Mac. Seriously, Vista is not that bad and can be comparable to Apple. The annoying popups shouldn't actually be experienced in properly written software for end-users anyway.
Windows API/ABI at least is stable. Apple's new OS is less so. I wander how long it will take for 10.0 apps to be unusable. The only "problem" with 64-bit Vista is you can't run Windows 3.1 apps anymore.:)
I know you can argue that manifests are nasty and all that, but at least the overall situation with manifests is a little better than the old DLL-hell we used to experience. Apple has a better solution from user standpoint, though it has its shortcoming (ie. app bundles).
But if you are speaking from a programming world (as someone that writes software for all 3 OS - OS X, windows and Linux), Linux's userland is way ahead in the programmer friendliness. Stuff just works. Tools just work. Automation just works. In this light and my experience, both X and Windows are light-years behind.
Oh, come on. Five years back when Vista was just a gleam in Bill Gates' eye Microsoft was promising all sorts of fantastic things, things that the Mac eventually came out with (or already had at the time) while Vista has been an ongoing mess of promised features being removed. Like I said elsewhere, I don't own a Mac and don't much care for Apple or it's reality-bending leader, but Vista is a lame-duck product considering how long Microsoft had to work on it. I say that as a software engineer who has to lea
I still cannot understand the rabid obsession with thinness the most people have, the two most importent things for me are weight and battery life, the laptops thickness is its least problomatic dimension. i would rather have this over the Air, this should also be tougher than the Air, which cannot be too tough. This also has 4G Ram, which is a must for any media work. The Air is more of a fashion accessory than a serious laptop IMO
I agree that I don't understand the super obsession with size (size doesn't matter, right?) but clearly to some people it does. I guess that, as a luxury product, it's just cool and sexy to have something really sleek and thin.
To me, the Thinkpad looks like a better laptop than the Macbook Air, because it's got an optical drive, three USB ports instead of one, built-in ethernet, and a faster processor. But why even compare these two laptops, instead of comparing a Macbook or Macbook Pro to whatever model
I really have trouble working out what market segment the Air is aiming for. It's small, but the size shrink is not that significant. I have to carry my current laptop in a bag, and the Air would also need to be carried in a bag. Sure, it's slightly lighter, but that's it. Shrink it to the size where I can fit it in my pocket and then we'll talk - I currently use a Nokia 770 (stupid product name) and a ThinkOutside foldable Bluetooth keyboard for when I don't want to carry a laptop around with me. In an
I really have trouble working out what market segment the Air is aiming for.
It's easy.
The Air isn't a notebook; it's a wireless portable screen & keyboard for your network (& limited stand-alone use). You walk in, sit down, open it up, and work on files stored on the network. It's not aiming at a market segment; it's aiming at a paradigm.
It's a bold and interesting idea. And it's not quite there yet; at the very least Apple needs to put some work into VPN, automount, & sync support in OS X bef
Why do all thinkpads look like they are from 1995? I know they are targeting businesses, and are great laptop's, but seriously, that laptop looks the same as my 300mhz Pentium 2 thinkpad
Why do all thinkpads look like they are from 1995? I know they are targeting businesses, and are great laptop's, but seriously, that laptop looks the same as my 300mhz Pentium 2 thinkpad
Ugly?
Some of us think the black boxy design is incredibly sexy. The design behind the Thinkpad is based of the elegant design of the Japanese Bento Box [quickspice.com]. One of think Thinkpads is even on permanent display at New York Museum of Modern Art!
The day these machines stop being black and boxy is the day many of us stop buying them.
I agree, but one thing i don't like is the cluttered keyboard.
My Macbook Pro's keyboard does all that I need in both OS X and Windows, and doesn't have all of the extra keys and extra writing on them that the Thinpads do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad [wikipedia.org] It's a nicely detailed design. His most famous design would be the Tizio lamp, as seen in flash offices in movies from the 80's: http://land.liquid-light.org/tizio/tizio-treff.jpg [liquid-light.org] You can kinda see the same aesthetic carrying over: simple, straight lines, technical, precise.
Sapper is an interesting guy - no industrial design training, just picked it up and got world famous.
Since then, IBM/Lenovo seem to have diluted the original design intent until now all you've got is the fact that it's black and boxy. I don't think they really understood the design language they inherited, and most of the stuff in the ThinkPad line is just darn hideous. Lines and edges all over the place, arbitrarily mixed with curves (NO curves in the original). The fact they claim lineage in that he 'influences' their current design doesn't convince me he actually creates it.
The appeal of the Thinkpad (to me at least) is the complete lack of any gimmicky styling. It looks like a thinkpad. My thinkpad from 5 years ago looks like a thinkpad and the one I buy in 5 years will also just look like an f'in thinkpad.
Also I love the 'nipple' pointer. So much nicer to use than a trackpad (although mysteriously I find myself in a greater minority on this every day). If I want to move the cursor across the screen, it's easier/faster and doesn't leave me pawing away like a cat at a window.
Some of us think the black boxy design is incredibly sexy.
I don't think the ugliness I see comes from the black boxy design of the outside, which isn't too bad. It's kind of nice all closed up, except for that stupid multi-colored logo on top. But when you open it up the damn thing is full of various holes, marks and different colored buttons that make it look almost like they forgot to put the final case on it. Personally when I opened the linked article the first thought that came to mind was, "How do they manage to make these things so damn ugly?!" with the ne
Lenovo do have some nicer looking laptops with glossy coatings everywhere. One thing I've noticed though, is that the Lenovo / IBM look is a very durable look. The nearly black, matte mottled surface doesn't show fingerprints, scratches or grime and the plastic is the same colour underneath the surface.
My laptop is about a year old and only travels occasionally. It looks great except for all the scratches, discolouration, chips etc. Unless you always store your laptop in a padded laptop bag, in a separate compartment from the power adaptor and other accessories it will only stay pretty a few months.
You can just throw a Lenovo in the boot every day and a couple years later it will come out looking the same - see your comment above:)
There are of course people going for the specs, but they are just as much about branding. The target markets has very little overlap.
The guy on the Gizmondo blog that compared it with Volvo vs Porche got it right (a car analogy always helps:-), someone in the market for a new Volvo is unlikely to be swayed by a Porche, and vice versa.
The rest of the bloggers aso got it right, they focused on how ugly, boring, old fashioned, and conservative the Thinkpad looked (it looked like every other Thinkpad), which is exactly what the Thinkpad market wants. They don't want something looking flimsy and flashy as they would consider the MacBook Air to look.
If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air.
It can't be a competitor until Lenovo releases pricing, and I doubt Lenovo considers the very niche-market Macbook Air to be a competitor. Also, Apple's shipping units in a week or two, and Lenovo hasn't officially announced their product yet (and they missed doing so at CES, not a good sign.)
I know it's hard to resist the comparison, but just because they're both ultralight doesn't mean they're competitors. Success
As someone who's used IBM Thinkpads for a while, I have to ask: is it actually a Thinkpad, or is it based on Lenovo's own designs (like the ideapad)? If it comes with the titanium-alloy reinforced case, the HDAPS and support from IBM's standard thinkpad support line I'm sold. If not... *shrug*
A quick glance at the picture suggests it could be either way- it has the keyboard light that most thinkpad users come to love and adore yet the screen hinge looks plastic instead of the heavy duty metal hinges that give thinkpads that smooth and secure feel while adjusting the screen you just don't see with most other laptops.
Says you. The Windows key is indispensable in Windows and is very useful in Linux. I find myself wishing my old Thinkpad keyboards had them. If you're upset over the smaller Ctrl or Alt, just remap the Windows key to one of them.
and useless finger print readers
What's your problem with the fingerprint readers? They cost like 10 dollars extra and you don't have to use them.
don't... get rid of the 14.1 (non widescreen) XGA format.
It's not the aspect ratio but the display quality that matters to most people. I personally have no idea why anyone whose vision is not seriously impaired would use a
It's only competition for the Airbook (yes - I know it's a "MacBook Air") if the intent of the Airbook was to lure droves of Windows users. As to the idea that it was "leaked" - please - this was nothing more than a press release in the guise of a leak. It was stunningly reminiscent of the Windows "yeah - we've got that too - next week! - so don't go anywhere" tactic.
>If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air
Lenovo already has a computer in the ultralight space, the X61. The X61 has almost identical specs to the macboook air, at a much lower price and significantly higher clockspeed.
Looking at this new machine, I really like that they've lowered the weight more and slightly increased the screen size; however, I have to wonder what the point of a 1440X900 resolution is at 13' inches.
I also have to ask what the point of including a touch pad is, when you have one of those "keyboard nipple" trackpoints. The trackpoints are so ridiculously and unambiguously superior to a touch pad, that it just seems like a waste of space.
The third issue with the new spec, is that it is still VGA output instead of DVI output. Pretty much all modern monitors have DVI inputs, so I don't see the point of going with the old standard.
Finally, I'm not convinced of the benefits of a flash harddrive. If they are saving weight, that's nice (although I'm not sure they are lighter). However, it's a pretty small drive, and it is a myth that flash drives are faster. Flash drives have better random access, but slower sequential access, and most accesses are sequential. Things are going to seem *slower* moving to flash, not faster.
Dual-core CPUs are always (at least to my knowledge) the same speed in both cores. The "2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz" would be indicating that the processor is 2GHz with an 880MHz bus.
Looks like a fantastic machine, could compete very well with the Sony TX ultra-small, full-powered laptops (models I have used for several years). The only thing obviously missing is the option to buy it with no OS and/or with Linux. Before someone cries about "Linux isn't ready" or "Linux isn't mainstream", I would stress the word *OPTION*. Let consumers decide what they want, if it means no OS, so be it... Lenovo doesn't HAVE to offer Linux support, although that would be even more courageous.
MS-Windows can be preinstalled but licensed separately, meaning there only has to be a single packaging, model, inventory, etc. They could even choose a free, redistributable Linux distro and install that too and the user can have a working machine in minutes, even if they opt to not spend money on Vista. Initialization of the machine can automatically remove the space consumed by either, based on the user's choice.
I kinda doubt Microsoft would allow such competition, though... but it seems a reasonable objective to combat such restrictions based on an anti-trust lawsuit.
I'm personally not a fan of ultraportable laptops with the footprints of ordinary laptops. If a laptop is going to be minimalistic, its manufacturer ought to go all the way. A subnotebook will never replicate the functionality of a typical 14" computer, so it's pointless to give it the footprint of one. I'd much rather see a diminished footprint than a minuscule thickness. I would personally prefer an updated version of my Thinkpad S30 [nifty.com] than this MacBook Air competitor.
Why is it every time you buy a new piece of hardware, the next day something cooler is announced?:)
I've owned various thinkpads since '98, and they have never let me down. I'm currently running a t21 (850mhz, 14.1" 1400x1050, 512mb) that's suffering from case fatigue. I bought it almost 7 years ago, and it's been running the same Debian/sid install the entire time. I use it for at least 6-8 hours a day (home machine) in all kinds of awkward positions (laying down, on the easy chair, etc)... it's travelled around the world, and to many a datacenter.
I did have to deal with IBM service once. At one point in 2003, I sent it to IBM (their cost) with what I believed to be a bad hard disk (I/O errors). After they ripped it open, they told that I'd spilled coffee in it.... I was quite upset at this as I didn't believe them, so they sent me pictures. At some point, probably while it was on the floor (I really abuse my machines), I must have kicked over a mostly empty cup of coffee or something.
After apologizing to them in a phone call, they explained to me that they didn't find anything immediately wrong with it at that point (it was booting), except the coffee spill. I told them about the I/O errors, and they ran a thorough scan, confirming the problem. Because the coffee was unlikely to have caused a disk failure, they offered to replace the drive, but after doing so, found that the problem persisted. It was the controller (or connector)... and, to my astonishment, I received an email later that day along the lines of: "Sir, we just need to get you back up and running. You're a long-time valued customer, so we're going to replace whatever parts need to be replaced."
3 days later, an express shipped package arrived with what used to be my laptop - 90% of the components had been replaced (except, amazingly, the original hard drive, which was fine). I was floored, and wrote a quick thank you note to the CSR's boss.
Here I am, 5 years later, with the same machine chugging away. I can't even hazard a guess to how many hours it has on it. It's starting to make funny noises, and 850mhz just ain't cuttin it anymore.:) Time for a new box.
While I did take a good look at various others (dell, hp, acer) - some of which less than half the price - I eventually settled on a refurbished t43p (2.13ghz, 2gb ram, 1400x1050). I want the trackpoint, and 3 mouse buttons. I want the rigid case. I want the support (we'll see how Lenovo does) and I want the well tested, mature components (particularly for Linux). Can't wait!
I never used to be all that big on Thinkpads until I started to work for a consulting firm that's a partner of IBM. They give all their employees Thinkpads to work on. I started off with a T43, and they recently upgraded me to a T60. I have to say, they have grown on me quite a bit since I started using them. My only gripe is the models I've had only use a 4200 rpm hard drive. My personal laptop, and Asus model purchased about 3 years ago, still has its original 7200rpm drive... makes quite a noticeable dif
Is that it has both GPS and WIMAX on board. That is what makes it a more interesting and forward looking design than Mac Air. Physically, it's boring. The cornucopia of ports is boring. Laptops have these things. It looks so like every other Lenovo laptop that there's nothing 'must have' about the appearance. But I am convinced that the next killer application will be location sensitive and require ubiquitous mobile connectivity. WiFi doesn't have it and 3G isn't very fast.
Steve Jobs isn't going to lie awake tonight kicking himself because Lenovo have brought out yet another dull black corporate laptop. He's going to be kicking himself about the GPS and the WIMAX.
Firefox Watch Movies Skype Urban Terror Audacity Thunderbird Abiword Civilization 2 Burn CDs Play mp3s
That system is overkill. Don't get me wrong, extra horse power is always a good thing, but aside from burning a cd, a EEE will do everything I want and (I'm sure) is much cheaper and smaller, and easy to carry. I'd like to see more competition in the ultra cheap department, once I can get something of EEE functionality for $150, I'll be considering lots of extra fun little projects.
I mean, other than running Vista (why would you do that to yourself, anyway?), is there a point to spending more for that much horse power? Ubuntu runs well on a pentium 3 and does 99% of what most people need!!!
I'm surprised nobody mentioned that this apparently has a DVD-RW built-in. That makes it, in something a little thicker than the Air, less weight, a swappable battery, an optical drive and a heck of a lot more ports.
If we get out of the realm of special purpose laptops, I don't think the current low cost SSDs are up to snuff. Try working off a fast thumb drive if you don't believe me. There's good points and bad points but the bad point is very bad: very slooow write times. Finding the information is great, getting into the SSD (and to a lesser degree getting it out) is not so great.
It's not that I'm against SSDs, but I'd prefer to have both flash and regular hard disk, or a hybrid disk. I've been experimenting with fast thumb drives and CF cards up to 166x, which is rated just like a CD-ROM drive: 1x = 150kb/second, so 166x is 24 MiB/sec. You can go higher form more $$$, maybe 40 MiB/s? Not shabby for flash, but orders of magnitude below a cheap hard drive.
I'm considering going with a SSD for booting and most static data, a nice hunk of RAM with 64 bit linux to avoid much swapping, then a very modest hard disk for thing where there's a writing, including swap space. Why wear out your flash drive to experience frustration.
for reference, the MacBook is 123 cubic inches (1.08 x 12.78 x 8.92), making it about 30% bigger than this machine. Interestingly, it weighs twice as much, so the ThinkPad must have a lot more airspace inside.
Gizmondo is a failed handheld (Score:5, Informative)
Light? (Score:2, Insightful)
Behold! (Score:4, Informative)
Black Air.
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OS X Intel does not work all that well on Thinkpads if you actually want to use them as a laptop. It installs just fine and some people actually use theirs that way. However, sleep mode doesn't work due to an incompatibility between OS X and the Thinkpad's ACPI implementation regarding power states S1 vs. S3; the computer will fail to wake up and give a BIOS error message that the system configuration has been tampered with, after which you need to go into BIOS setup, go out again and
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I hope not.
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Need video and wireless specs (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds really interesting, but I'm waiting to hear more about video and wireless card. Thinkpads have been very good for me in running Linux, but Linux on laptops these days often comes down to the video card, modem, and the wireless card. Modems are usually winmodems, which are hard to support - but I haven't used a modem in years. Anyone have other details to point to?
Re:Need video and wireless specs (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Need video and wireless specs (Score:5, Informative)
Card readers and express card slots went the way of the floppy and serial port.
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Re:Need video and wireless specs (Score:4, Insightful)
- Add a(nother) GigE port.
- Add a discrete GPU and a second monitor port.
- Add an external disk interface with enough bandwidth to run a RAID array.
There are probably a few others I haven't thought of.Parent
Is there a tablet version? (Score:4, Interesting)
Light is nice but Steve Jobs seems to have a bit of a Clive Sinclair complex. He just pushes the envelope one bit too far. Sinclair did it on cheap (microdrive not a floppy), Jobs does it on practicality (no exchangable batteries).
The Lenovo looks like it is slightly less cool but a lot more practical. I bet you can swap out the battery. In fact I bet that nobody even thought of not allowing the user to swap it out.
Looks to me like this is a deliberate, sanctioned leak in response to the Air. Looks like solid state drives are becomming mainstream. Getting rid of the mechanical components from the board is going to make it much easier to do thin.
I suspect that the actual battery life is 3 hours and 6 with the extended battery pack, my T43 still does that reliably with two year old battery packs.
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I like the specs better (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I like the specs better (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I like the specs better (Score:5, Insightful)
Catch up, indeed.
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Re:I like the specs better (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows API/ABI at least is stable. Apple's new OS is less so. I wander how long it will take for 10.0 apps to be unusable. The only "problem" with 64-bit Vista is you can't run Windows 3.1 apps anymore.
I know you can argue that manifests are nasty and all that, but at least the overall situation with manifests is a little better than the old DLL-hell we used to experience. Apple has a better solution from user standpoint, though it has its shortcoming (ie. app bundles).
But if you are speaking from a programming world (as someone that writes software for all 3 OS - OS X, windows and Linux), Linux's userland is way ahead in the programmer friendliness. Stuff just works. Tools just work. Automation just works. In this light and my experience, both X and Windows are light-years behind.
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FunctionForm (Score:5, Insightful)
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To me, the Thinkpad looks like a better laptop than the Macbook Air, because it's got an optical drive, three USB ports instead of one, built-in ethernet, and a faster processor. But why even compare these two laptops, instead of comparing a Macbook or Macbook Pro to whatever model
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It's easy.
The Air isn't a notebook; it's a wireless portable screen & keyboard for your network (& limited stand-alone use). You walk in, sit down, open it up, and work on files stored on the network. It's not aiming at a market segment; it's aiming at a paradigm.
It's a bold and interesting idea. And it's not quite there yet; at the very least Apple needs to put some work into VPN, automount, & sync support in OS X bef
Missing features... (Score:2, Funny)
why are thinkpads so ugly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why are thinkpads so ugly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugly?
Some of us think the black boxy design is incredibly sexy. The design behind the Thinkpad is based of the elegant design of the Japanese Bento Box [quickspice.com]. One of think Thinkpads is even on permanent display at New York Museum of Modern Art!
The day these machines stop being black and boxy is the day many of us stop buying them.
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My Macbook Pro's keyboard does all that I need in both OS X and Windows, and doesn't have all of the extra keys and extra writing on them that the Thinpads do.
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Re:why are thinkpads so ugly? (Score:4, Informative)
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/10/richard_sapper/index_01.htm [businessweek.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad [wikipedia.org]
It's a nicely detailed design. His most famous design would be the Tizio lamp, as seen in flash offices in movies from the 80's:
http://land.liquid-light.org/tizio/tizio-treff.jpg [liquid-light.org]
You can kinda see the same aesthetic carrying over: simple, straight lines, technical, precise.
Sapper is an interesting guy - no industrial design training, just picked it up and got world famous.
Since then, IBM/Lenovo seem to have diluted the original design intent until now all you've got is the fact that it's black and boxy. I don't think they really understood the design language they inherited, and most of the stuff in the ThinkPad line is just darn hideous. Lines and edges all over the place, arbitrarily mixed with curves (NO curves in the original). The fact they claim lineage in that he 'influences' their current design doesn't convince me he actually creates it.
mod (-1): pretentious - go ahead...
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Damn right. (Score:3, Interesting)
Also I love the 'nipple' pointer. So much nicer to use than a trackpad (although mysteriously I find myself in a greater minority on this every day). If I want to move the cursor across the screen, it's easier/faster and doesn't leave me pawing away like a cat at a window.
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Some of us think the black boxy design is incredibly sexy.
I don't think the ugliness I see comes from the black boxy design of the outside, which isn't too bad. It's kind of nice all closed up, except for that stupid multi-colored logo on top. But when you open it up the damn thing is full of various holes, marks and different colored buttons that make it look almost like they forgot to put the final case on it. Personally when I opened the linked article the first thought that came to mind was, "How do they manage to make these things so damn ugly?!" with the ne
Re:why are thinkpads so ugly? (Score:4, Insightful)
My laptop is about a year old and only travels occasionally. It looks great except for all the scratches, discolouration, chips etc. Unless you always store your laptop in a padded laptop bag, in a separate compartment from the power adaptor and other accessories it will only stay pretty a few months.
You can just throw a Lenovo in the boot every day and a couple years later it will come out looking the same - see your comment above
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MacBook and ThinkPad not really competing (Score:5, Informative)
The guy on the Gizmondo blog that compared it with Volvo vs Porche got it right (a car analogy always helps
The rest of the bloggers aso got it right, they focused on how ugly, boring, old fashioned, and conservative the Thinkpad looked (it looked like every other Thinkpad), which is exactly what the Thinkpad market wants. They don't want something looking flimsy and flashy as they would consider the MacBook Air to look.
No pricing, no game (Score:2)
If this is true, then Lenovo looks to have some heavy competition for the Macbook Air.
It can't be a competitor until Lenovo releases pricing, and I doubt Lenovo considers the very niche-market Macbook Air to be a competitor. Also, Apple's shipping units in a week or two, and Lenovo hasn't officially announced their product yet (and they missed doing so at CES, not a good sign.)
I know it's hard to resist the comparison, but just because they're both ultralight doesn't mean they're competitors. Success
Is it actually a Thinkpad? (Score:5, Interesting)
A quick glance at the picture suggests it could be either way- it has the keyboard light that most thinkpad users come to love and adore yet the screen hinge looks plastic instead of the heavy duty metal hinges that give thinkpads that smooth and secure feel while adjusting the screen you just don't see with most other laptops.
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Please get rid of the stupid window keys
Says you. The Windows key is indispensable in Windows and is very useful in Linux. I find myself wishing my old Thinkpad keyboards had them. If you're upset over the smaller Ctrl or Alt, just remap the Windows key to one of them.
and useless finger print readers
What's your problem with the fingerprint readers? They cost like 10 dollars extra and you don't have to use them.
don't ... get rid of the 14.1 (non widescreen) XGA format.
It's not the aspect ratio but the display quality that matters to most people. I personally have no idea why anyone whose vision is not seriously impaired would use a
Target Market (Score:3, Insightful)
lenovo already has ultralight... (Score:5, Informative)
Lenovo already has a computer in the ultralight space, the X61. The X61 has almost identical specs to the macboook air, at a much lower price and significantly higher clockspeed.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3765 [notebookreview.com]
Looking at this new machine, I really like that they've lowered the weight more and slightly increased the screen size; however, I have to wonder what the point of a 1440X900 resolution is at 13' inches.
I also have to ask what the point of including a touch pad is, when you have one of those "keyboard nipple" trackpoints. The trackpoints are so ridiculously and unambiguously superior to a touch pad, that it just seems like a waste of space.
The third issue with the new spec, is that it is still VGA output instead of DVI output. Pretty much all modern monitors have DVI inputs, so I don't see the point of going with the old standard.
Finally, I'm not convinced of the benefits of a flash harddrive. If they are saving weight, that's nice (although I'm not sure they are lighter). However, it's a pretty small drive, and it is a myth that flash drives are faster. Flash drives have better random access, but slower sequential access, and most accesses are sequential. Things are going to seem *slower* moving to flash, not faster.
Re:lenovo already has ultralight... (Score:5, Funny)
So *that's* why geeks have such a hard time getting laid...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Having to take your fingers off the keyboard to use the mouse on a laptop is not ergonomic.
Dual Core CPU 2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ? (Score:5, Funny)
looks lopsided to me = O o
Re:Dual Core CPU 2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ? (Score:5, Informative)
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Non MS-Windows option needed (Score:3, Insightful)
MS-Windows can be preinstalled but licensed separately, meaning there only has to be a single packaging, model, inventory, etc. They could even choose a free, redistributable Linux distro and install that too and the user can have a working machine in minutes, even if they opt to not spend money on Vista. Initialization of the machine can automatically remove the space consumed by either, based on the user's choice.
I kinda doubt Microsoft would allow such competition, though... but it seems a reasonable objective to combat such restrictions based on an anti-trust lawsuit.
Footprint vs. Thickness (Score:4, Insightful)
Figures (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it every time you buy a new piece of hardware, the next day something cooler is announced? :)
I've owned various thinkpads since '98, and they have never let me down. I'm currently running a t21 (850mhz, 14.1" 1400x1050, 512mb) that's suffering from case fatigue. I bought it almost 7 years ago, and it's been running the same Debian/sid install the entire time. I use it for at least 6-8 hours a day (home machine) in all kinds of awkward positions (laying down, on the easy chair, etc)... it's travelled around the world, and to many a datacenter.
I did have to deal with IBM service once. At one point in 2003, I sent it to IBM (their cost) with what I believed to be a bad hard disk (I/O errors). After they ripped it open, they told that I'd spilled coffee in it.... I was quite upset at this as I didn't believe them, so they sent me pictures. At some point, probably while it was on the floor (I really abuse my machines), I must have kicked over a mostly empty cup of coffee or something.
After apologizing to them in a phone call, they explained to me that they didn't find anything immediately wrong with it at that point (it was booting), except the coffee spill. I told them about the I/O errors, and they ran a thorough scan, confirming the problem. Because the coffee was unlikely to have caused a disk failure, they offered to replace the drive, but after doing so, found that the problem persisted. It was the controller (or connector)... and, to my astonishment, I received an email later that day along the lines of: "Sir, we just need to get you back up and running. You're a long-time valued customer, so we're going to replace whatever parts need to be replaced."
3 days later, an express shipped package arrived with what used to be my laptop - 90% of the components had been replaced (except, amazingly, the original hard drive, which was fine). I was floored, and wrote a quick thank you note to the CSR's boss.
Here I am, 5 years later, with the same machine chugging away. I can't even hazard a guess to how many hours it has on it. It's starting to make funny noises, and 850mhz just ain't cuttin it anymore. :) Time for a new box.
While I did take a good look at various others (dell, hp, acer) - some of which less than half the price - I eventually settled on a refurbished t43p (2.13ghz, 2gb ram, 1400x1050). I want the trackpoint, and 3 mouse buttons. I want the rigid case. I want the support (we'll see how Lenovo does) and I want the well tested, mature components (particularly for Linux). Can't wait!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What you've all missed so far... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that it has both GPS and WIMAX on board. That is what makes it a more interesting and forward looking design than Mac Air. Physically, it's boring. The cornucopia of ports is boring. Laptops have these things. It looks so like every other Lenovo laptop that there's nothing 'must have' about the appearance. But I am convinced that the next killer application will be location sensitive and require ubiquitous mobile connectivity. WiFi doesn't have it and 3G isn't very fast.
Steve Jobs isn't going to lie awake tonight kicking himself because Lenovo have brought out yet another dull black corporate laptop. He's going to be kicking himself about the GPS and the WIMAX.
I want something cheaper! (Score:3, Insightful)
Firefox
Watch Movies
Skype
Urban Terror
Audacity
Thunderbird
Abiword
Civilization 2
Burn CDs
Play mp3s
That system is overkill. Don't get me wrong, extra horse power is always a good thing, but aside from burning a cd, a EEE will do everything I want and (I'm sure) is much cheaper and smaller, and easy to carry. I'd like to see more competition in the ultra cheap department, once I can get something of EEE functionality for $150, I'll be considering lots of extra fun little projects.
I mean, other than running Vista (why would you do that to yourself, anyway?), is there a point to spending more for that much horse power? Ubuntu runs well on a pentium 3 and does 99% of what most people need!!!
Optical Drive? (Score:3)
SSD not ideal (Score:3, Informative)
It's not that I'm against SSDs, but I'd prefer to have both flash and regular hard disk, or a hybrid disk. I've been experimenting with fast thumb drives and CF cards up to 166x, which is rated just like a CD-ROM drive: 1x = 150kb/second, so 166x is 24 MiB/sec. You can go higher form more $$$, maybe 40 MiB/s? Not shabby for flash, but orders of magnitude below a cheap hard drive.
I'm considering going with a SSD for booting and most static data, a nice hunk of RAM with 64 bit linux to avoid much swapping, then a very modest hard disk for thing where there's a writing, including swap space. Why wear out your flash drive to experience frustration.
Re:This thing is huge! (Score:4, Interesting)
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