Still waiting for more ergonomic Thinkpad notebooks...

Personally I've always been a great fan of the Thinkpad notebooks and the more business approved and oriented philosophy behind them. Thinkpads over decades have always influenced notebook designs in general (trackpoints, sturdy keyboards, case materials and hinges, business like security features etc.) and are nowadays still ergonomic to some degree (especially the Thinkpad keyboards and trackpoints).

However, I somehow miss the next big things in " ergonomics and ease of use" for Thinkpads (...and other notebooks in general), as they were once shown in some promising ThinkPad T40 based prototypes.










I'll hope that Lenovo might jump on here and thus will have the courage to implement one of these promising designs.

 

Ouch. Ease of use is not something that is conveyed by these photos.

 

It certainly looks innovative... bt not quite practical. That is certainly a desktop replacement...

 

that picture scared me

 

Probably too small of a niche to be cost effective.

 

Maybe I should add some more descriptive informations about those prototypes (design studies).

The first shown ThinkPad prototype has a special double hinge that allows the keyboard to tilt upward and slide forward for more comfortable typing. The height of the display simultaneously rises by about 3 inches. The keyboard does not detach, however. It can be used like a traditional ThinkPad, what's different, though, is it gives a choice of using it like a notebook or more like a desktop by pulling the display upward.

The second shown prototype opens like a clamshell, but once open, its keyboard can be detached and the height of its screen increased to a more comfortable level with a special hinge. The machine allows more options as to where to place the screen and where to locate the keyboard relative to it. This way it enables different ergonomics for using the machine and also for doing something different with it.

All in all, from an ergonomic point of view, I like the idea of those prototypes with adjustable displays and detachable keyboards, since these allow to use notebooks in more comfortable ways. - If a notebooks panel is still of overall good display quality, you won't need a notebook stand or something like that. You would be able to adjust it's display to some more eyeviewing friendly, ergonomic and comfortable viewingpositions. Additionally you could also position the keyboard to some more comfortable and ergonomic postions for typing. Or you could detach it completely in order to sit more far away from it's base with the adjusted display unit.

I think those designs offer much more ergonomic advantages than actual nowadays notebook designs offer. - If I remember correctly, in the past there were already some notebook available, where you were able to detach the keyboards ( some Toshiba Satellite Pro and a Siemens Celsius H models).

However, on the other side I also sadly believe that zazonz is right here and that the acceptance of such innovative designs by end-consumers might be actually too small to be somehow cost effective from a business point of view.

But who knows, if some notebook vendor starts to offer such designs and might be successfull in selling such units, maybe others will then also soon follow with some more inovative and ergonomic notebook designs.

 

Wasn't there also a design for a folding keyboard, or more correctly a keyboard that is cut in the middle and slides over itself to allow for wider (more standard size) keyboards to be fitted on the thin and light category of laptops. But tha never happened, which doesn't come as a shock to me since the design was just too awkward with the keyboard hanging from both sides.

But I must admit I kinda like the idea of being able to lift the screen up. That's one of the main reasons that I find working on a laptop more tiring than a desktop. Have the laptop to high and it is ucomfortable for the arms, have it too low and your neck suffers. I can never find a sweet spot!

 

Sounds like you meant the good old Thinkpad 701 Butterfly?

(see: http://www-nrg.ee.lbl.gov/leres/images/tp_ft_full.html
http://bharucha.com/tp701/
...etc...)

 

As vkyr said, the ThinkPad 701/701C/701CS had that.

You can buy one, but they're collector's items, due to the keyboard.

 

Where we are on the Butterfly and keyboards theme in general, I've forgotten to point to one of my Thinkpad info-page collections about Thinkpad keyboards etc. (sorry it's all mostly in german, but I think the pictures there are still meaningful enough for most people, you have to scroll down the pages in order to see all images).

- Butterfly and some other keyboard designs:

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105681199494

- Sturdy TP 770 and TP 560 keyboards with perfect thick keys

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105681120598

- External IBM UltraNav and USB Travel Keyboards with UltraNav

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105681086120

And for those who like to see some little, but incomplete, put together/collected IBM Thinkpad timeline in images...

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105680769731

 

Finally, for those interested to see some images of how Thinkpads are assembled, refurbished, cleaned or stresed tested etc. take a look here...

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105680772835

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105680772763

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105680773401

http://29991.forum.onetwomax.de/topic=105681199464


Maybe the above shown gives some people an impression, why Thinkpads usually ought to be legendary well approved bussines machines, which are also famous for their worldwide good support.

 

wow! How did you get all of those pictures of the ThinkPads being refurbished and where were they taken (which city)? Those are very cool to see.

And that timeline of ThinkPad designs is so neat to see. Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like the 1992 ThinkPad 550BJ had a built-in printer, which is really funny because I was just talking with a friend the other day and he mentioned how cool it would be to have a laptop with a built-in printer for printing a quick map or location directions. And the CrossPad is obviously the design Microsoft stole upon for the current Tablet PC. It's true IBM (Lenovo now) has been less adventurous with design ergonomic break throughs lately, but sadly as Zazonz says, when your PC division is just trying to stay afloat and be profitable I guess the focus just becomes on what they know works instead of investing a ton of time into a new design that could be a hit or could be a failure.

 

It's kind of funny all of those thinkpads on loop tests next to each others.

That's a nice library of pictures!

 

@abaxter

Most of the shown image material stems from IBM Japan and was done during the ThinkPad 10th Anniversary at their Asia Pacific manufacturing plant in Fujisawa/Japan.

Yes, the ThinkPad 550BJ had a built-in printer, see these nice scanned in pics from IBMMANIA related to that model ( click on those images to enlarge them):

http://www.ibmmania.com/gallery/cataloggallery/550bj/catalog-550bj.htm

However, I still have some hope ( isn't hope here all we have... ) that Lenovo/IBM might continue to be also for the future a little bit more innovative. Let's say in a manner as IBM for sure was in the past.

 

The 550BJ also appears to simply be a Canon NoteJet 486 with an "IBM" label slapped on. The lack of a TrackPoint makes it painfully obvious, along with the non-IBM keyboard layout.

 

Not quite correct, see...

..or...

...or...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_1993_March_5/ai_13669623

..etc.

 

Still, look at the NoteJet 486's keyboard, and compare it to a ThinkPad 550BJ. Also, look at the 550BJ, and compare it to any ThinkPad available in that era (or, any ThinkPad that isn't an i or Z series - after all, they haven't changed the layout at all, except for adding two keys...)

 

What I meant related to the ThinkPad 550BJ is, that this was once a co-production (joint venture) of IBM and Canon Japan. The computer's notebook part of these models is from IBM and the printer part from Canon. Afterwards (after 1993), Canon continued it's own NoteJet line, but Canon was never a real notebook builder and so I believe they took at least the computer parts for their NoteJet line from some other sources.

 

Looks really nerdy in my opinion and i dont think they would make it that much more comfortable...but its always good to think outside of the box

 

I think, from an ergonomic and flexible usability point of view, something like those shown prototypes would make much sense. Personally I could imagine that using such a notebook design, where the display could be better adjusted for usage in higher view positions on a desk, would be a good feature to have. Also being able to detach the keyboard for desktop like work, makes somehow sense here, since you wouldn't need another external keyboard to plug into the unit in order to sit back a little bit more from it's display.

Finally, don't oversee that these notebook designs also still offer the same usage handling capabilities which every notebook nowadays offers, when the unit is in an folded in display and not detached keyboard state. So you can still work with them in the usual old fashioned mobile notebook way. But additionally those units would then also offer a better desktop usability, since their display is on demand height adjustable and the keyboard detachable for desktop work.