Physical trauma your thinkpad had survived from

Tell us about the physical trauma your thinkpad survived from. True stories only.

I have a T43. Fairly solid construction. Regardless, I treat my thinkpad with the utmost care. Its my 3rd thinkpad.

In a non-permanent setup, I once had the power cord in the front of the desk which unknowingly hooked around the armrest of my chair for this T43. I did a quick swing around followed by a leg push with the chair to grab something from far away my working space. During such time I had felt the added tension and unfamiliar scraping noise that came with the turn and thrust - from which i realized in a split second I was on some path of doing damage to my thinkpad.

I of course quickly turned around to try to save my laptop in reflex but I was already too far away, such that gravity beat me to it. I did manage to observe the entire event of the free fall where in that split second I didnt think my laptop will survive the fall or at least certainly cause permanent damage to the pristine condition I had left it. It was a hard wooden floor. Such damage as to the screen, harddrive, and maybe a few scrapes were my immediate fears. The thinkpad fell fairly flat first on the floor (much like in their tests I suppose) but with one of the corners hitting the ground first. After some chaotic transient impacts from the fall, it certainly didnt look or sound good. The impact was followed by another shockwave that was my profanities.

I noticed it was still on, which was a good first sign. But to my suprize I couldnt find any damages from the fall. Trust me the fall looked pretty bad. Granted however it was actually a wooden floor vs say a concrete floor and that it didnt land first on the corners of the main body or even corner screen first but fairly flat bottom with its rubber footing. Still, I was pretty amazed. Sad thing is this sucker is starting to get noisy with the fan, dvd drive and harddrive after 4 years of usage. The screen is also discoloring especially the center of the screen where the screen meets the trackpoint. Other than that I'm thinking of getting a T400 that hopefully surpasses this standard of robustness.

 

My x200 Tablet has only fallen once. I had it placed on an equipment cart (turned off and closed, but without any kind of sleeve/bag). It fell off the cart on a turn and drop about three feet onto a concrete sidewalk (right side first, then onto the bottom).

It took a few minor scuffs on the front right of the palmrest and display cover, as well as a few scuffs on the battery. Aside from that, it's no worse for the wear.

I'm also fairly cavalier about tossing it around as long as I have it in a bag.


My T40 took more than a few hits in its time. I had it fall out of bed and onto the floor on more than one occasion. I had it scrape against a few walls (caused more damage to the walls than the ThinkPad). As well as the other usual wear and tear.

Luckily I've never had it pulled to the floor by its power cord. However, I think Lenovo may want to look into some kind of mag safe like cord to prevent that from happening.

 

Wow, ~3 feet on concrete is quite something. Glad to hear the x200 survived that. I think probably of all the thinkpads (even within recent history) probably the smaller lightweight lines of thinkpads like the x20x lines are perhaps the most sturdy of them all.

Plus with the advent of solid state drives I bet these things can start to really take a beating too if they give the laptops a solid chasis.

Yea. Same deal with me. Since that event with the fall I had more trust in my laptop and its taken on more regular abuse cause I kinda know its threshold. Plus its not exactly new anymore either.

 

I have an SSD like Jon (in an x200 vs x200t). I am also pretty cavalier about tossing it around. I move my laptop EVERYDAY so my laptop has the normal paint wear, but I've sort of knocked it over or dropped it on to tables a few times. I have knocked it off a chair 3ft but that landed on plastic covered carpet.

So no serious drops, but I also use my laptop has an elbow rest (both of my elbows on the closed screen) at times. I am pretty confident in what it can take. Maybe just wouldn't want to stand on the screen, hah.

 

In my dorm room, the ethernet cable connected to my x61s hangs over the front of the desk instead of going behind it. One night I was....moderately inebriated, and when I got up from my seat I caught the ethernet cord and the laptop fell 3.5 feet onto a laminate floor. Naturally this happened at least 3 more times in succession. A small piece of plastic is chipped off of the front-left corner but other than that the laptop is fine.

 

I've stepped on my x200 flat in the center around 5 times to date, and also dropped it from tables, and the likes for around 6 months or so. Yes I'm fairly abusive to it for some reason. So it's definately a crazy resilient laptop, but last week i stepped on the top center of the screen with my full weight and managed to crack the top of the inner lcd. So i'm ordered a new lcd when i'll install. Other then that which any laptop under that weight would break, it's one heck of a well built laptop.

 

Well youve stepped on it a few times so that is pretty good either way, hah.

 

I think this thread has more potential than 7 posts.

Now it has 8.

 

Do you use your laptop as a doormat? lol You seem to treat your laptop like a Toughbook .

Well I purchased two Thinkpad 600 laptops on eBay a few months ago and they were sent via USPS Air from Hawaii to California. The top laptop survived unscathed, but as you can see from the pictures, the bottom laptop took a beating.

Its not much of a story, but that's my thinkpad adventures .

I hope to buy a Thinkpad for school soon!

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I have a t61p that I was (stupidly) holding with one hand while standing. I bent slightly to grab something and it fell while open and operating onto its left side. It fell about 4 feet onto a carpeted floor. And surprisingly it stayed on and was working just fine, I think the active protection system saved the HDD. It did however sustain some damage, the USB port some how very weirdly got bent badly enough that nothing could be inserted. I managed to bend it back into place with some tools and its fine now (doesn't look like a brand new usb port, but you can only see the damage upon close inspection and it operates just fine.)

 

The T21 i used to own was jumped on by a 6 foot man a few times.

 

My wife stepped on her X30 when it was on the floor back when she was heavier (180lbs, now 145). Nothing happened.

Later on, the LCD's bezel developed cracks in it, but it was out of warranty, and superglue fixed it.

It lasted 4 years, until I sold it to a friend, whose sister knocked it off the nightstand, broke keys off of it, broke the bezel where it had been superglued, and god knows what else.

But it still ran.

I saw an X30 get dropped down a flight of marble stairs, and still work. That started my Thinkpad purchasing: it was a far cry from my Toshiba that cracked if I looked at it wrong.

 

here is a guy tossing his and showing it still works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CrpUU3cCPE

 

nothing major, one of the person on Lenovo forum posted a picture of a T61, which shows it run over by a car, the only thing that broke was his LCD screen. The laptop was pretty much unscathed.

Try that on the Macbook Pro, and see what happens. It maybe machined out of solid aluminium, but it is still fragile. Toughbooks are great, but it is too expensive and underpowered by today's standards.

 

Also my cousin got a T43 from a friend whom left the laptop next to a heater overnight, in the morning the power adapter melted and the plastics on the T43 all melted. The hdd was also damaged, with bad sectors (although most data was retrieved). But after replacing the hdd, the laptop worked like nothing had happened. Now that is the Thinkpad quality that everyone endears themselves too.

The price on thinkpads are fairly cheap now under Lenovo, and most people can afford it on their budget. Unlike, in the older days, where Thinkpad was only a product of immense desire, but can't be had.

 

I've never had a Thinkpad fall onto the floor but I ocassionaly slam the power brick against the floor and never had failed, those are really reliable power adapters. Compare those to those crappy HP/Compaq adapters.

 

t61p fell of the top bunk in my dorm room...about5ft onto tile floor,cracjed palmrest thats all

 

I recently knocked my x200 off of my bathroom counter...which is probably about 3.5ft high. It didn't fall flat but there was no damage except a slight scrape on the corner it fell on.