Why do you think Thinkpads are great?

Hi! I'm thinking of buying a new laptop, but I don't know which brand I should choose. I'm leaning towards Lenovo/IBM or Dell because they seem more reliable. The one laptop I have worked with is a Thinkpad, but it's really slow and unstable even after a reformat for some reason (it's more than five years old, so that might be it). I don't have much experience with other brands (the desktop I'm using is a ThinkCentre), so I'm asking you guys - why do you think Thinkpads are as great as people make it seem to be? I'm thinking of trying other brands, but since my past experiences with IBM Support has been pleasant, I'm also thinking of staying with Lenovo/IBM. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

The thinkpad build quality is phenomenal. That is the reason so many people praise them. You can beat the crap out of them and they take every second of it. Not to say that this would be the intent of anybodys computer but accidents happen and these take them well.

 

I agree. I still have a 7 year old thinkpad 570e which is still working great. The keyboard is probably the best part though, it's easy to type on and you get used to it easily, quality wise it's way better than my 1 year old satellite m40 and I wouldn't be surprised if my m40 actually dies before my 570e.

 

IBM's are well known for their superior reliability. All my friend's thinkpads, whether new or old are all still running in great condition. I've heard their support is very good as well, compared to the rest of the industry. Dell's support was still in India last time I checked and it's no fun dealing with them...

 

Product itself: great build quality, best keyboard, smart design(ultrabay, docking stations).

Software suite: the more I use Thinkvantage, the more I love it!

Customer Service: one of the best!

 

I use thinkpads primarily because of the outstanding physical quality, and unmatched keyboards. I also really like trackpoint, but it wouldn't keep me away from an otherwise amazing laptop from a different brand.

 

I'd like to add the fact that TinkPads are true laptops, whereas some manufacturers make laptops with 2-hour battery life. Lenovo's prices are also wide-range

 

My T43P is a decent machine but the **** noise is a turn-off. If it is quite, I would consider marry it but right now it is just a sexy mistress with nagging noises. ;-)

 

Thinkpads are great because they emphasis function over form. its built what its designed to do, nothing flashy. no one is going to oooohs and aaaaahs over a thinkpad unless you're a geek. I think reliability is one of the biggest reasons why its a best seller for business users, they dont need all the fancy bells and whistles, they just need something that works and work very long hours.

 

hahaha, great analogy

 

Lenovo uses magnesium alloy to make thinkpads shock resistant. I believe that even if you drop ur thinkpad from a table it wont break, it wont even shut down.
Exceptional build quality, however at a steep price.

 

With regards to the hard drive, active protection parks the heads on the hard drive if it detects it is dropping thus hopefully avoiding damage.

 

Will Break The Floor If Dropped!

 

funnykid,

I honestly do not think there a way known to man to go wrong with buying a ThinkPad of any type.


That said, I will go into detail:

1) The build quailty is insane. I couldn't have said it any better than the person who posted directly above me.
2) ThinkPads are made for buisness use. That means no messing around. You get great performance without terribly losing battery life.
3) All ThinkPads are generally thin and light weight. While the are not eye candy, I find them much nicer and cooler than a comparable HP or Dell for say.
4) The hinges on the screen are made of metal. This means firstly that the screen will not break off, and secondly the screen will not get lose and flimsy.
5) Although when you buy a ThinkPad you pay a premium price (most times this premium price is reasonable), is undoubtly worth it. You simply cannot argue that.
6) The pointers (TrackPad and TrackPoint) are sensitive and accurate. In my past experience with them, they have been dead on.
7) Fingerprint scanner security. That phrases says it all, I don't think an explaination is necessary.
8) The ThinkVantage software is incredible and extremely useful when in tight situations.
9) Obviously, their keyboards are top notch. In fact, they're so top notch that they happen to be the best when it comes to notebook keyboards.
10) ThinkPads can be equipped with up to 4GB of RAM and 100GB of hard drive space. Which leads to a more than quick enough notebook.


I strongly advise buying a ThinkPad.

 

The premium is steep. Spec for spec, you're paying double. Yes, they are awesome, but it's like trying to convince someone buying a car to buy BMW.

 

Mturco's post was over the top, but the premium is not double. I paid about $400 more ($1399) for a Thinkpad T60 with better specs than the HP consumer model I initially bought. A ThinkPad can be had for a price comparable to Dell or HP business-line laptops.

Chris

 

I agree that the price is definitely not double on thinkpads. My brother just got a z61t for $1300 and a comparable HP or Dell with 3 year warranty will still run you over 1k.

 

Thinkpads are by NO means problem free.

I have had 2 hard drive crashes with the Hitachi Travelstar drives on a T41.

I've also had the LCD blow on a T40.

And my T43 screen went all pink (the red seal broke).

I think the older thinkads built until 2000 are the legendary ones. I have thinkpads that are a dozen years old, obsolete but still dependable & running strong. Those costed $10,000 - $20,000 tho wow (got em from work)

 

Computer in general are by no means problem free.

 

LOL! so true. I read that on another tech forum about the Thinkpads.

Do you mean like the T20s?

Anyway, I also recommend the Thinkpad as, on average, they last longer than most comsumer/ semi-business laptop, with proper care, that is.

 

Thats a harddrive problem. Really not a thinkpad problem.
Yeah I know, it depends on how you look at it. But harddrives fail and thats a fact. No matter what brand and since lenovo/ibm just buys harddrives from different brands - just as everyone else - there are bound to be problems with them.

 

I would say that Thinkpad is becoming a cult (though the machine is decent).

 

After owning ( in order from the early 90s) a Sharpe, Toshiba, Dell, and now a Lenovo Z61t, I can say without question the Lenovo is precisely what I had hoped for. The fact that the touchpad can be disabled, the keyboard is flawless, and the little extras are all great, made it my choice without question. My only issue has been a battery that failed (not one of the SONYs) at random. But it was reassuring when I called customer technical support to hear a recorded voice tell me my call was being transferred to the Lenovo center in Atlanta. That was one of the major reasons I did not buy another Dell. I do not want to deal with a person half way around the planet that is reading from a script over a noisy connection, and reading it so fast with a hard-to-understand accent that makes it almost unintelligible.

 

As for me, I am totally unimpressed with Thinkpad quality. T60 is my second notebook after 4 years with Dell Inspiron 4150. I was spending hours and hours in forums before choosing my next machine (I didn't have an opportunity to see any of possible choices live), and finally pulled the trigger for T60. I received it just yesterday, 3 months after it was purchased (but that's another story). So far I cannot say that T60 met my expectations.
The build is indeed far better then Dell's, but not perfect. The biggest complaints are the battery wobble, WWAN antenna which sticks out (can it be removed since I don't need it?), and of course the screen.
I had bad luck and got a TMD screen and Chicony keyboard (two worst options of all). I read so much about the IBM keyboards, but it appears that Chicony is in no way better then my old Dells - it is not bad, but nothing to brag about at all. Also the reduced-size Windows key looks terrible - why didn't they make the spacebar a little shorter to have enough space for regular size win key?
The screen is the biggest disappointment. It has no bad pixels so far, but the viewing angles, brighness and response time (50ms) are awful. No decent gaming on such screen.
Tons of bloatware (and some unnecessary for regular user thinkvantage applications) make clean windows install a must. It takes forever to log on an off with factory default settings.

Of course, there are some good things about thinkpad, but I cannot say that they are significant enough to make a cult out of it.

Btw, my 4 year old dell is still up and running smoothly after some upgrades, so reliability is not thinkpads' proprietary feature.

 

True. But none of them (with the exception of recent battery failiures ) do fail that often. The battery is of course something that will decrease and then die with time but the rest will hang on for many many more years (the very most of them) if treated properly. And thats something that IBM can do something about. Because unless you use your laptop as an server where it will sit still for many years (and most of us don't, atleast not with new laptops) it will be subject to many forces and depending on how well it's built it will handle more or less.

Harddrives die often in even the perfect conditions imaginable. Thats like buying a house and complaining about build-quality if a light-bulb dies
OK, not really but my point is burried in there

I agree with Kodum about the bundled software.
It comes with waaay, way, WAY to much crap. And you don't even get an XP CD so you can just wipe it all of. Thats poor. Especially from a brand-company.

 

The windows key is new to thinkpads, and loyal thinkpad owners HATE it.
Look for the win key to disappear again in the next refresh, i hope.
And if you think the win key is small. bad on the T, you should see it ion the X... and the spacebar was made shorter, hate that move!
Hate the win key! Ugh!!!

 

I'd be alright with the windows key if they took off the caps lock and put the control key there. Then there would be plenty of room, but I'd prefer it be labelled neutrally. Or have pop off keycaps with an option of Tux or the BSD daemon.
Why do I always choose losing battles?

I really didn't see any problems with the software. Besides ThinkVantage, all I saw was some google software. ThinkVantage is kind of heavy, but it has some nice functionalty. It's easy to disable if you want.

That's compared to Dell and others who load their systems full of demos for all sorts of junk software, not to mention the outright advertisements (as if the demos weren't.) There have even been some instances of Dell installing some fairly nasty spyware as well.

 

I used to think thinkpads were the ultimate. Indeed they are not bad, but in our university, we are seeing a LOT of problems with thinkpads, just after the 3 year mark.
From fan failures, to problems with video cards, to motherboard problems. I'd say there's around a 75% failure rate over a 3-4 year period.
A similarly used old Dell Inspiron 5000 (horrible build compared to current inspirons) failed at the 3 year mark.

Their customer service has indeed been great though. Sony & HP's service sucks.
Dell's inpsiron line service sucks too (I presume their business line service is better).

 

I tend to agree... thinkpad quality began to decline in the last 3 years or so.

Before my T41, i NEVER had anything go wrong with a thinkpad (my 6 year old T21 had pcmcia problems after a kid poured a bottle of coke into it whilst it was running - but everything else survived and kept working). I have 13-14 year old thinkpads that have travelled the world and still function perfectly.

I've had problems beginning with my T41. These have been failures in components supplied by other companies(eg., Hitachi hard drives and Samsung LCD's) but nonetheless the ThinkPad is ultimately responsible for their quality control and the quality of parts supplied.

 

The problems I mentioned were for T30 and T40s.

 

I like everything about ThinkPad's (like the built quality, reliability, design, and everything else). I highly recommend anyone to get a ThinkPad . And anyone who says that ThinkPad's quality began to decline or is declining, are wrong! And also, anyone who thinks that the ThinkVantage software is bloatware are also wrong! The ThinkVantage software is very useful. And one more thing, anyone who thinks that ThinkPad's are problem free are also wrong because nothing is perfect.

 

How about Z Series? Are those inherit the legendary T Series quality?