Thinkpads are DULL!!! I fixed mine! Dull no longer!!!

Thinkpads are workstations and not made for looks. The main layout has been the same for years... so I decided to make mine.... MINE! I wanted POWER & LOOKS!

I've painted notebooks before:
http://1-4u-computer-graphics.com/notebookpaint.htm

Before: (first to clean up the keyboard area)




After:




Update:
Finally got some sun! Here is a couple pics from today:





Here is celebrating to my new paint job and upgraded W520.

 

oh wow lol

 

Ooooo...

...It SPARKLES !


Hey George, you seeing this?


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Well if attention at the executives meeting was your initial plan, I think you might have achieved that. I'm all for laptop mods....that one might be a fair bit extreme.

 

Most people not in the know or computer savvy... when they see a Thinkpad, they think it is old as the style never changes like most other brands. Kinda like a Jeep vs other cars. The Thinkpad is like the jeep, tough, but bland.
I'm sure if I'm in a corporate office, I'd get laughed out of there.. but I'm not and this is MINE!

 

Well that's why some people buy ThinkPads, to buy the same style. I don't particularly like glossy screens, island keyboards, which is why I try to go for business oriented laptops over consumers. I personally think the Lenovo designed ones are far superior to the ones IBM designed from a repair/design fashion, but again personal opinion. And that's partial reason why I haven't bought a new ThinkPad in 2.5 years, they have gotten worse and worse and eliminating features that made Think...well Think.

 

Yes, they had quite the reputation for years and why they're popular for business. I wanted power and that screen.
Mine is two years old and can hold it's own with any out there now, except I didn't have to pay $2 grand to get it.
I couldn't get past how dull and old it looked, hence the change. Now, I've got both.

 

Not exactly my color of choice, but it looks like you did a nice job with the implementation. Did you apply the paint directly to the cover or did you sand off the rubberized coating first?

 

...and what color would you choose? Everyone has their favorite color. Mine is purple or ruby red. Since I had ruby red on my Dell XPS, I went with purple this time.

I got the notebook that was very worn, fair amount of scuffing and a few scratches on the lid. I tried the auto rubbing compound, then wet sanded with 2000 grit. Then painted 5 coats of primer, 20 light coats of purple metallic paint, then 5 coats of clear. The Keyboard area I was able to clean up using auto rubbing compound and Auto Trim Restore... looks like new again.

 

looks like a job well done, have always thought about doing digital or flecktarn camo

 

Here is one of my better paint jobs I posted on this forum:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/224478-i-painted-my-xps-m1530-lid.html
It was pretty popular, 11 pages: 113 Replies: 38,102 Views.

 

Personally, I wouldn't do that with my W520, but damn, nice job on the paint.

 

Finally got some sun! Here is a couple pics from today:

 

Gosh...really good work I have to admit, but the color...why? (ok, I understand, you like purple, but still, red is in my point of view would fit more to the ThinkPad design - considering the red TrackPoint. Also, I would have left the display-bezel as it is). Still, impressive work with the paint, I agree.

 

Well I was trying purple to see how it looked as my last few notebooks have been red. How many purple ones you've seen? Lot's of red. Was trying to be different. However, I might paint it again metallic ruby red like I did here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/224478-i-painted-my-xps-m1530-lid.html

 

^^^ Personally, I see a lot of purple, and orange, and purple+orange notebooks where I live. Though those are also my college's colors, so it's not that surprising to me to see those .

 

While I wouldn't do it to any of my machines - I prefer them dull - gotta admit that I love both the colour and the craftsmanship.

One unrelated question, though: it looks like you have a glossy LCD judging by the picture in the post # 13? Or is it just the light conditions in which the shots were taken?

 

Ah... that is also my college colors also... UW.

Your pretty sharp! That is glossy. I don't like matte. Never have. So I went with glossy.

 

Did you swap the screen for the glossy version of the AUO or did you just apply a glossy screen protector?

 

I put in a new screen, SSD & 8GB memory as part of the makeover of my W520

 

Here is celebrating to my new paint job and upgraded W520.

 

Well... I sold my Thinkpad a couple months ago and have regretted it.
I got a great price for it, $300 more than what I had into it, so I couldn't resist at the time...
And kept my Samsung Samsung Ultrabook 13" Series 5 NP540U3C-A03UB thinking it would be good enough.
That Samsung couldn't hold a candle to the Thinkpad... so I'm thinking of selling the Samsung and finding me another Lenovo ThinkPad W520 to upgrade and paint. I sure enjoyed doing the last one and it was a SUPERIOR notebook!

BTW, I painted the Samsung notebook too!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/758629-samsung-ultrabook-13-series-5-np540u3c-paint-job.html#post9740748

 

Sorry, but while beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder, that’s one hell of an abomination of a ThinkPad!

 

Hard to believe I've been on this forum for over 9 years now! About that many notebooks too.