How I've Become A Luddite

[TPFanatic]

Foremost I am disposing of any unsubstantiated folk wisdom saying that I have become Conservative because I am now older, with purported Individual Evidence that I have actually begun a sort of treatment that makes me feel younger, with respect for fact that in my younger days I was coincidentally more Conservative than I was one week ago.


I have become a Luddite for the IBM ThinkPad.


IBM engineered the ThinkPad as the ultimate tool for personal productivity and unlimited opportunity, if you could afford or access them. My access point to ThinkPads was that my engineer father purchased a ThinkPad from IBM. Market forces subsequently depreciated the resale values of every ThinkPad and I can now personally afford a $30 or $60 ThinkPad here or there.


Everyone who over the last 18 years has complained about the loss of quality, features, etc. etc.., is CORRECT.


In 2007, the IBM logo disappeared, and this is the least important loss.


In 2007, the T-Series lids got over-engineered with these ridiculous magnesium frames that actually weakened the entire integrity of the laptop. But this is simply coincident. Luckily the R-Series retained Reasonable lid engineering.


In 2007, the X300 appeared and it had NO docking station.


In 2008, the SL-series appeared and it was a piece of [censored].


In 2009, the T400s appeared with cheaper plastics and an inferior Ultrabay.


From 2010 onward, the Ultrabay was never the same.


In 2010, the E-series appeared and it was a piece of [censored].


From 2012 onward, the keyboard was never the same, losing media hotkeys and the integrated numpad, and they are still not with us to this day.


All this brings me back to type this out on a T60 from 2006, accompanied by its harem of R-series from 2006-2008 (R500, R60e, soon to be joined by an R61) to serve as Redundancy. Sans-R60e, all of these machines have Ultrabay, Expresscard, MPCIE expansion, and can sit on a Dock, as IBM intended.


This is How I've Become A Luddite.

[dr_st]

I like very much the way you describe and present things.

I feel less strongly about most of the items on your list.

The presence of low-end models doesn't bother me as long as high-end models are available.
Cheap plastics on CS09 systems were a temporary thing, and as we learn from the distant past - it is actually the cheap simple plastics that hold better over time compared to fancy rubberized coating.
Ultrabay is a thing of the past as almost no one uses optical discs and spinning drives anymore. Even desktop PC cases no longer have external drive bays, and some are doing away with internal as well.
Bottom docking port persisted until ~2017 and while I do prefer it overall, the new standardized Thunderbolt solutions are really quite good. Takes away the need for ExpressCard as well, for the most part.

The only point which I feel is an irreparable loss is the 7-row keyboard layout.

[TPFanatic]

To the extent that the consumer-grade series at all increase access to ThinkPads and increase profits for IBM/Lenovo, I respect them. However, they replaced such models I favor as the R60e and R61i which effectively already did that job.

I think the the T/R dynamic is akin to the Left/Right dynamic in politics. Whereas T pushed the limits of engineering with such examples as the Magnesium Rollcage in the lid, or the thinness of the T40; R brought things back to normal keeping a single-piece Plastic lid and not pushing for extreme weight-loss.

One thing that changed for better or worse was Lenovo's stewardship was the position of the X-series, formerly serving solely as the most physically compact ThinkPad possible in all dimensions, became host of the Premium/Top Tier/CEO-level/Flagship ThinkPads, as seen with the Reserve Edition, the X300, X1.

With X becoming 1, T became the sheeple computer, R got deleted, Ts got worse, SL E and L appeared and are worse than R, and if Lenovo proceeds to delete the TrackPoint as their chief advertiser on Reddit keeps teasing about, I will only with great begrudgement purchase brand new ThinkPads when the time comes. Actually you know what, screw them if they do that. I'll buy [censored] MacBooks because APPLE actually respects peoples' time, money, and privacy, things any CORPORATION will appreciate over whether there's a little red nipple in the middle of the keyboard, so GO AHEAD and delete the TrackPoint because the ThinkPad brand is already dead and it died in 2012.

[RealBlackStuff]

Are you sure you're not a Troglodyte?

[TPFanatic]

Not yet RBS, but the woods have never looked more appealing.

https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2017/m ... rmit-maine

On that note, how many solar panels and car batteries do I need to power a ThinkPad?

[unix_joe]

Coming home for Christmas and using my old laptops made me realize that I prefer the old ThinkPads to pretty much anything. T43p, X201, T430 with FHD and classic keyboard. On all of them, I knew by heart the keyboard shortcut to turn up brightness, to turn on the ThinkLight, to turn off the volume, etc. It was comfortable. I ended up buying another T430 with classic keyboard on a whim.

I will say that pulling out the P71 was great. New keyboard layout, but great tactile feedback. I thought I was going to swap the SSD over and daily drive that again for the next few months. But now my oldest son is old enough to appreciate it, so we ended up taking *his* ssd out of his X280 and putting it in the P71. So now it's his computer.

Naturally, I bought myself a maxed out P51 to daily drive. Xeon, UHD, M2200, 64GB ECC, etc. I like dedicated volume keys, and it's a bit more convenient to carry around through airports than the P71.

I've tried the newer stuff, complained about my Z13 and Z16 here, etc. In the end it's just another laptop and a tool. And among laptops, there are many other brands from which to choose. The bar for a "premium" laptop is low and doesn't include anything that I desire. But it's an easy jog to the finish line, so many manufacturers can meet the threshold now.

Lenovo doesn't care about us. They sell more laptops in a week than the entirety of this forum will buy in ten lifetimes. They did what IBM couldn't do. It's the world's biggest brand now. I thought they would at least throw us a bone every 5 years with a limited edition "classic" ThinkPad but I guess they forgot at year 30 while they were swimming around in all their money.

At least you can say you were here first.