White LED ThinkLight too bright?

I'm more used to the amber ThinkLight on an old ThinkPad. The white LED ThinkLight seems way too bright on the X220i and T420 and "in your face". Does anyone feel the same?

 

Yea it's like a flashlight. Too bright in a dark room.

 

It's so bright that makes even the matte black keyboard reflective. Is there any new ThinkPad that doesn't have the white color LED ThinkLight?

 

Which Thinkpads had amber Thinklights? The Thinklight on my T500 seems to be the same--as far as I can tell--as the Thinklight on my dad's X220 and his old T60.

If you clean your keyboard with a water/alcohol solution regularly, you can prevent finger oil buildup that causes reflection, though.

 

Z61m has amber ThinkLight

My keyboard is spotless because the lappy is brand new. I just took it out of the box.

 

I also noticed the reflective keyboard first time i used the light when mine was new...

 

Looking around the house you might find a small, thin piece of colored cellophane, like used in modern gift-wrapping, and tape that over the LED/light.

Gray would be good, but not many people want grey presents. A Baby-bel cheese is wrapped in red plastic. Bread and pasta is often wrapped in colorful plastic. Hobby stores might have thin colored plastic too, in colors such as amber. Make sure it doesn't bind or hit unduly anywhere. If you absolutely cannot find any plastic, you can print out something gray (or colored) on a printer, and tape that over the light.

If you are really crafty, you can cut a thicker piece of plastic and gently wedge it in the LED/light opening, making sure it cannot fall out and hit somewhere.

I've used red plastic for astronomy to protect my night vision.

Hypothetically, the LED could be swapped out for a different one, but that would be delicate warranty-breaking work.

 

The R Series also had the Amber Thinklight but I prefered the White LEDs on the T Series, with Amber it doesn't light the keyboard very well compared to White.

 

Ya I noticed that too. My T60 and T410s have white ThinkLight and are enough IMO. Both my Z61t's have amber lights...and do not light up anything. I wonder if it can be changed..

 

I'm going to mod mine with some red or green material of some sort, for that stealthy night vision look.

 

I'm very happy with the white ThinkLight on my T520.

 

When I turn on the Thinklight I can see the LED is white, but the way it reflects on the keyboard gives it a bit of an amber effect. Is that normal on the T420? This is the first Thinkpad I've owned so I'm still not sure how exactly everything works.

 

Well yes since the the white LED isnt really white it is a combination of colour, and some people are sensitive to it.

 

Agreed 100%. The white light illuminates the keyboard far more effectively than the amber one, in my opinion.

I also don't find the white light to be too bright, but just right. I often work in a darkened room in the early morning hours, and the white light in my T60 is perfect. The amber light in my X40 doesn't do as well under the same circumstances.

 

There was a temporary move to the amber Thinklight on Thinkpads around the T43p or earlier. I remember not caring for the amber as much as the white since there were certain low light conditions where it just wasn't bright enough. If it was darker it would have been fine but there was enough ambient light to render amber ineffective yet I could have still used more light.

 

amber was available in the R series + Z series, and the R61 14.1 inch and R400 were the only one to not come with the amber LED, as they used the T61 14.1 inch and the T400 lid with the white LED light.

No T series that i can remember ever came with the amber light (from T30).

 

The white light on the x220 is so bright that it almost functions as a substitute bedside lamp, helping to prevent eye strain in low-light with the screen at or near it's lowest brightness.

Paradoxically, the strong light reflects against the black keys, making the lettering harder to see.

A thinklight plus backlit keys would be perfect, imo.

 

The Thinkpad will probably never have a back-lit keyboard, but I hope they eventually will though. The white LED Thinklight is a nice feature, BUT you can only use it when the room is like PITCH BLACK. And even then the light is sometimes overpowering bright. I think I've only used my ThinkLight 4 times in the 4 years I've owned my T61, and I've NEVER even turned it on on my X301 lol

One of the reasons it's sort-of useful is insted of lighting up the keyboard, it also lights up the general area around the laptop. So you can also read documents, books, etc. So it serves a duel-purpose. Whereas a backlit keyboard you cannot do that (read a document) with.

 

reading documents is definitely a plus with the Thinklight. I would imagine having a dual use technology is preferable. Don't think it is too hard to to put in the backlight keyboard on the normal thinkpad, since the X1 backlight is very simple and there is only some modification needed to the current keyboard to get it working with backlight.

 

I don't find the ThinkLight to be too bright, but then again at the same time, I rarely even look at my keyboard so I haven't used it much if any outside of testing purposes.

 

My last Thinkpad before this T520 was a T43p so it was one of the previous models. I can't remember which models but they were all T-series Thinkpads.

EDIT: Actually, nevermind. My Thinkpad experience had always been with their mobile workstations with one of my first being the A31p. This might have been the unit with the amber Thinklight.

 

Red would be real nice. Big fan of red leds to preserve my night vision when out in the bush. Course the screen kinda ruins that benefit on a computer, but would be easier on the eyes than the white.

 

Any idea how much power one of these ThinkLight LED's use up? I'll love to use it for maybe an 1hr, but not if it's going to shave 30mins battery time.

 

Probably at least 20 watts -)

 

that would be WAY too much, lol. Especially for a small LED.


Off topic: I think Lenovo dropped the amber for white, due to color balance percieved by our eyes? If there is a yellow/amber light, it may shift our eyes white level to make all colors see off? I guess this would make more sense in photography/print/etc.

 

What happens when our keyboards start getting shiny?

 

Sunglasses or learn to touch type.

 

Older _60/61 style keyboards get "shiny" with the more wear they have on 'em. I should get a new keyboard for my T60 and my Z61t's, they all have been pretty worn down. My T410s isn't as shiny, but the keyboard is nowhere near as good..

 

My ThinkPad keyboards are still in pretty good nick including the T/R6x keyboards. Mine doesn't suffer from shine but then again its probably because down to my hands being a bit dry usually... (=_=)

 

My T61 is slowly starting to develop that "shine". I'm pretty sure that shine is inevitable because I clean (ie -wipe down with a damp, lint-free cloth) about once every two weeks since new, and I STILL managed to get the "shine" lol

Does the newer Thinkpads keyboards resist that "shine" ? They've been out long enough now that the users would start to experience some shine by now.

I remember seeing some older Thinkpads (like T30 or something) and thier keyboard was SUPER shiney. Mine is only very little here and there.

 

The LED power use is minimal, probably less than .132 watt (3.33v x 40ma, even at the high side of LEDs in that brightness range.) I doubt that would affect battery life much, as it is 1/151.15(...) of even a AMD-350's power consumption.

The key wear and shininess is probably from the acids and oils on our hands softening the keys, aided by the action of grit and dust on our fingers, and accelerated by ultraviolet light and ozone.

[It's a shame more companies do no longer use double shot keys whereas the plastic is injected in 2 colors instead of being printed, because when the keys became shiny, one could just dull them with a scotchpad, but don't try it, as they are only printed, and sealed AFAIK, and the letters will rub off.]

Lenovo should put in a switchable 2-color LED white/red.

 

I don't believe that ThinkPads have used double-shots for a long, *long* time if at all. I just checked the 600 that I have (the oldest that I have available at the moment), and it doesn't use double-shot key caps.

 

Is there anyway to adjust the brightness on the Thinklight for my T420? I think it's too dim, then again, I'm not sure how bright it's actually supposed to be as this is my first Thinkpad.