ThinkPad's Eras Tour [Large Photos]

[TPFanatic]

ThinkPads have been part of my life since an A31p landed in my home in 2002. My primary PC today is a lineal descendant, the true blooded workstation P71. Between these bookends are the numerous different ThinkPads I've acquired in my addiction to the art of ThinkPad design. I am not ashamed of what has become my objectively large collection of superficially indistinct black bento boxes. A lot of money has been sunk into this love affair, and I've loved every moment of it.

That out of the way, the intent of this post is to showcase six distinct eras of ThinkPads.

Era #1: Cut Corners



Presented here are an A31p and T30. This particular A31p was a wired-network only model, but I've retrofit it with the WLAN and Bluetooth lid of my original A31p. This wound up being pointless as I didn't transfer the Bluetooth antenna and the WLAN card has killed itself. A unique button switch on the lid bezel would toggle the Bluetooth. The T30 was given to me on this forum. Both sport their premium resolution LCDs, for the A31p the timeless UXGA FlexView and for the T30 the respectable SXGA TN. Both run Windows XP, it makes them feel young.



The A's plastic lid has held up better than the T's rubberized version, as is typical.

Era #2: IBM PC's Swan Song



By now Ultranav is standard across the mainstream lineup. On the right is an R50p, the only -p variant of the R-series ever marketed, leveraging its 15" case to replace the A31p as the new FlexView offering, as 15" T-series did not exist yet. Alongside it is a T43p with the still-novel fingerprint reader. I get the feeling IBM was trying to save money at this time, as we know it was losing money on PCs. Cleverly, all T4* and R5* share case-compatible motherboards. Concurrently, all T4* and R5* are unreliable post-warranty disasters. This particular R suffers from the infamous Southbridge-detachment and the T has succumbed to a power delivery failure.

Era #3: The New Legends



Lenovo saved the ThinkPad, with the new *60 series models enduring as fan-favorites to this day. Each model shown here is actually a FrankenPad of sorts:

- Leftmost is an X60s bottom case with an X61 Penryn board and palmrest holding up an X61s lid carrying an SXGA LCD harvested from a Tablet.
- Middle is a T60 "SchwabenPad", reconstructed from the leftovers of a T601 FrankenPad.
- Right is Lenovo's FrankenPad, the rare 15" R61i, which is nothing more than an R60 updated with the GM965 chipset. This unit has been tricked out with an EDID-equipped IDTech UXGA, a less-slow T9500, and X200 keyboard accents. Enragingly, this machine's original motherboard encountered a rare and permanent malfunction of the function hotkeys. In my aggravation I replaced it with the motherboard of a water-damaged 15.4" T61. Now the only thing setting this apart from an R60-based Frankie is the expensive R61i badge.

Era #4: The Golden (Ratio) Age



By the time of the R500, T410, and X200s pictured, widescreen was nothing new, having already infiltrated the brand in 2005 to the distaste of purists. But at the cusp of the new decade, a worse evolution lay over the horizon: 16:9. The overnight threat of television screens transformed the unfavored 16:10 aspect ratio into a luddite favorite. Amid other "radical" changes (key mutations, status LED attrition, dock downsizing, etc.), the loss of the golden ratio brought an abrupt end to the "golden age" of ThinkPads.



This particular R500 is wearing an R61e palmrest.

Era #5: The Last Classics



Enter the **30 generation, initially detested for their heretical chiclet keys and terrible displays. But for all that ThinkPad fans weep and despair, they are just as much begrudgingly adaptable and resourceful. Enthusiast-driven innovation has uncovered multiple game changing virtues in the rehabilitation of the Ivy Bridge ThinkPads: The physical 7-row swap, hamish's EC mod, the IPS adapters, the penultimate CPU sockets, 1vyra1n, the multigenerationally competitive performance, and anything else that is yet to come...

Pictured are a W530, T430, and X230. All three have had the 7-row swap. The T430 is IPS-modded to FHD. The X230 has been given the full "X330" treatment with a BGA quad core and WQXGA mod. The W530 had, until late last year, an IPS QHD crammed into it, until the display suddenly and catastrophically failed, so it's been restored to its original TN FHD. These machines are no slackers, even today. I am typing this on the X330, my former daily driver, which has come back out of retirement to serve as my travel laptop. She may not be the fastest, most efficient, or thinnest or lightest mobile workhorse. It is second-best only to a modified T480* in serving the combination of a powerful quad core, the classic keyboard, a large battery, a high quality high-DPI LCD, and rugged ThinkPad reliability. Sadly I don't have a T480, but I also don't think I need one...

*The 51nb laptops also exist.

Era #6: The Dark Times

I have totally skipped over the Haswell-Broadwell lineup of drab gray slabs, which failed to adequately succeed the Ivy Bridge models and offer no virtues over their successors.

Era #7: The Last Classics Redux



Sometimes Lenovo surprises with an about-face from questionable design changes. Here are my P71 and T470/DIY T25. The P71 is the first ThinkPad I casually dropped $1000 on in the secondhand market. It's the vanishing point of transiently resuscitated retro features (big screen, discrete volume keys, high travel keyboard, drive activity indicator, christmas tree LEDs), legacy I/O (expresscard, UltraBay, MXM, bottom dock), and modern standards (4K, NVME, Thunderbolt 3). It's my Roman Empire, my David, my Pietà.

I built the T470/DIY T25 because I didn't want to drop $500 to MSRP on the real T25, and I'm glad I didn't. It's underwhelming, slow, and uncomfortably flexible. It's a quirky and sexy unit that's already been criticized enough.



Final Random Thoughts

My favorite ThinkPads, in order:
- P71
- X330
- R61i
- A31p
- T430s (tricked out, not depicted)
- T500 (not depicted)

If I could only keep one:
- P71

Total cost:
- Don't ask

Regrets:
- None

[RealBlackStuff]

Nice write-up, thanks.
I also went through most of those, except my 'oldie' favourite was the T23.
On and off I went through 38 (!) of them and the last one (a beauty!) I sold in 2022, due to lack of need.
I used those mainly to remove passwords from other Thinkpads.
But when the tweezer trick (shorting SDA and SCL) became popular, that 'business' faded away.
I was never a collector, I just bought and sold whatever I could find cheap with a password, removed it and sold them on with a small profit.
My daily is a T440p (with T450 touchpad), because it still runs W7 perfectly, without any updates since 2018.
The T480 has Micro Win 10 LTSC on it, but I have not yet used it this year, as I still don't like W10.
Linux Mint is waiting to be installed on it instead.

[600X]

Some awesome machines you have there. I agree with most of your era classifications. The P50 was a real surprise when it came out. Certainly gave me A31p/T60p vibes at the time.

I have a T480 and it's probably one of the worst ThinkPads I've ever owned, so you're not missing out. I'd say the best one I ever had was the 600X. It's hard to believe that I was using it as a daily driver that could do anything, including YouTube, as "recently" as 2011. It was closely followed by the X301. As a halo product and spiritual 600X successor, that should not be surprising though. The original X1 was up there as well, another halo product. Funnily enough, all the X1 Carbons that came after the X1 have been somewhat disappointing, though I haven't owned any of the most recent ones, so not sure about the current state of the line.

From the regular range of ThinkPads, the T440s was by far the best machine I ever had. After the disappointing build quality of the T420 era, the T440s really picked up again. Sadly, it started declining yet again right after the T450s, so I'd classify those 2 machines as surprises, just like the P50 series.

These days, I don't even own a laptop anymore (the T480 is being sold). My collection (see signature) is just sitting in a display case and my actual computing needs are all done on my desktop. I guess things went full circle in the end, since I started out on desktops too. I'm considering a Framework 13 though for those rare occasions where I might need a portable computer.

[dr_st]

That out of the way, the intent of this post is to showcase six distinct eras of ThinkPads.

Thank you very much for this lovely tour. To be able to cover so many eras with such eloquence is remarkable. I salute you.

Era #1: Cut Corners

I have a strange fascination with the cut corners myself. My specimens are the A31p and the X32 - the latter a weird anachronism - Era#1 design with Era#2 hardware.

My X32 lid does not look nearly as bad as that of your T30, but it's getting there... With a 4-year age difference between the machines, it's conceivable it will end up as just a huge mess, so I might end up doing a layer removal to revive a fresh look at some point.

Era #2: IBM PC's Swan Song

This is the era where I entered the Thinkpad domain. My first Thinkpad (unless you count an old 380-something that my dad had from his work in the mid-nineties) was the T42. I got lucky to be on the market for one exactly when the 15" FlexView T-series were introduced, and even more lucky to have gone for the 15" version on someone's recommendation before I knew anything about IPS vs TN, etc. Still have this machine to date. It's one of the late (spring 2005) T42 units that do not die from GPU failure, nor southbridge syndrome. You hear me?! It does not die! It cannot die! I won't allow it!

An acquaintance once showed me a rare beast - the R51 SXGA+ IPS: the last R series FlexView machine, which co-existed with the T42s. It looked nice. I think it was stolen from him at some point.

Era #3: The New Legends

They are fan-favorites as you say, and for good reasons. Last ever 4:3s, maintained many of the design aesthetics of the IBM T4x/R5x before the T/R61 series trashed it. Thank goodness for X61, R61 4:3 and T601 Frankenpadding which allow Santa Rosa generation hardware in Napa generation chassis.

Enter the **30 generation, initially detested for their heretical chiclet keys and terrible displays. But for all that ThinkPad fans weep and despair, they are just as much begrudgingly adaptable and resourceful. Enthusiast-driven innovation has uncovered multiple game changing virtues in the rehabilitation of the Ivy Bridge ThinkPads: The physical 7-row swap, hamish's EC mod, the IPS adapters, the penultimate CPU sockets, 1vyra1n, the multigenerationally competitive performance, and anything else that is yet to come...

It's this enthusiasm that landed me a modded T430s which I love dearly, and inspired me to write the Last Classics Tour.

The P71 is the first ThinkPad I casually dropped $1000 on in the secondhand market. It's the vanishing point of transiently resuscitated retro features (big screen, discrete volume keys, high travel keyboard, drive activity indicator, christmas tree LEDs), legacy I/O (expresscard, UltraBay, MXM, bottom dock), and modern standards (4K, NVME, Thunderbolt 3). It's my Roman Empire, my David, my Pietà.

It's an amazing machine. If only it was 7-row keyboard moddable, or if only I had been less keyboard-crazy, I'd love to have one.

The bottom docking connector is why I would love for there to exist a T470 motherboard with an 8th gen CPU. Doesn't seem likely to happen unless I find a professional BGA-resoldering enthusiast.

I have a T480 and it's probably one of the worst ThinkPads I've ever owned, so you're not missing out.

I don't recall... what have been your problems with it? Owning a TP25, I find the design in many ways a sweet spot. A T480 gives you that + quad core CPU and a QHD screen option (not that I want it). A friend has a T480 and loves it as well.

[astral]

I find the T480 to be plenty good but underwhelming.
I have an i5-8530U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1080p, with the largest battery option.
The biggest fault I have with it is that the keyboard is very underwhelming. I honestly think I prefer the newer keyboards with lower travel to the T480 keyboard, although I admittedly haven't used the newer ones for longer than a couple quick tests. I just feel in regards to keyboards like the classic 7 rows are the best of them all, the newest ones are worse than the 7 rows, but they have a crisp feel that provides some satisfaction. That just places the T480 keyboard in the middle, without the great feel of the 7 rows, but without the crispness of the latest ones, leaving them feeling very meh. Don't get me wrong, it still beats a Dell, but it's just not great.
Beyond that, I really do like the T480. I would like to put a nicer screen in at some point though. It's an IPS panel, but it's dimmer and has worse colors than the LG IPS panel I have in my T430. The best I have is still the 1440p IPS panel I have in my Latitude E7470 though, it's sooo nice. I'd like to get something similar for the T480.

The main thing that's made me use the T480 over my T430 (which has a 3840QM in it so it's basically just as fast as my T480) is just the battery life. I think my T430 gets around 2 hours off its tired 9 cell, this T480 goes all day easily with the extended battery. I thought the hump on the bottom would bother me but it really hasn't.

Battery I bought was just a "New OEM" one off eBay. Probably fake, but it's been doing fine. It did drop immediately to 86% health, but it hasn't dropped further since and lasts plenty long for me. My internal bridge battery is also above 90%, and it's original to the machine. I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of it for many years.
Sure, I get why one might not like it, but it's a decent compromise, and it was CHEAP.

Right now I'm using both, the modded T430 and the T480. The T430 is a better experience to use, but the T480 is more practical.

[TPFanatic]

I feel the keyboard lottery could augment your T480’s keyboard feel. My sister’s P70 has an incredible keyboard, it feels like a Liteon or Alps whereas my P71’s is a lot mushier, could be a Chicony or Sunrex, I haven’t checked for sure. I prefer the P70’s keyboard. My donor T470 for the DIY T25 had a crappy feeling 6 row, the 7 row is a huge upgrade.

[astral]

Could be. I'm not sure it would be worth replacing though as it has basically no wear on it. Would look off if I bought a used liteon or alps that had more wear when the rest of the machine is near mint. I assume finding a NOS one will be just as much of a lottery with how many fakes are out there?

I'll pull the keyboard tonight and look up the FRU to see which I have. It may be that I have one of the better ones though, it doesn't feel BAD at all. Just not as good as I was expecting given how much people praise people give the keyboards on these. Saying it blows a Dell keyboard out of the water, stuff like that. One guy on YouTube also called it the best he's used, over other generations of ThinkPad 6-row keyboards. Compared to my Latitude E7470, it is better, but not by much, and I think the layout is a big part of it. If I have the two side by side there's only a slight difference, but with long use sessions, the ThinkPad ends up feeling better.

Also - I have a second parts T480 in rough shape and with a motherboard with bad thunderbolt, so it won't charge, but in theory boots with a charged battery. I'm about 90% sure its keyboard was a Chicony and that it looked different from the back than the one in my good T480. So I don't think my good one has a Chicony, but it could be Sunrex I suppose. I'll have to see.

If I could find a T25 keyboard for under $100 that I could know for sure is genuine then I'd just mod the palmrest and put that one in instead.

[dr_st]

If I could find a T25 keyboard for under $100 that I could know for sure is genuine then I'd just mod the palmrest and put that one in instead.

As ridiculous as it sounds - if that was all that was keeping my away from my "dream laptop" that I knew I could use for years to come, I'd pay even $200 for the keyboard.

[astral]

Well, I checked eBay and the only option is a Japanese keyboard from China, so at the moment I couldn't get one at any price.
I think to pay $200 for one I'd have to try it out in person first. I've never used one so I'd like to see if it's "better", or if it's "$200 better", if that makes sense. I've heard some conflicting thoughts about them.

I think my laptop plan for the coming years is to keep using the T480 until the latest T14 that was just announced goes under maybe $500 on the used market. Those seem like the next "last great thinkpad" that everyone's going to jump on in a few years.

[600X]

I have a T480 and it's probably one of the worst ThinkPads I've ever owned, so you're not missing out.

I don't recall... what have been your problems with it? Owning a TP25, I find the design in many ways a sweet spot. A T480 gives you that + quad core CPU and a QHD screen option (not that I want it). A friend has a T480 and loves it as well.

It's just underwhelming in almost every aspect. Low quality materials and material choices, flexible chassis, bad speakers, bad webcam, bad mic, bad DAC, bad displays, massive bezels, just to name a few. Some of those you can upgrade, but most you can't. Keyboard and touchpad are decent. Port and feature selection is good, but that doesn't save the device. Then there is Intel, so not Lenovo's fault, but the battery life, heat output and noise levels are quite bad too. I've just never had a ThinkPad come in a package that was as underwhelming as the T480. Although I guess to be fair, the T440 to T460 are in similar boats, but then those machines don't receive the same praises as the T470/T480, so expectations are different.

[solidpro]

I'm assuming a T25 keyboard is a 25th Anniversary Thinkpad keyboard? Not some soft of franken-sibling of the T20, T21, T22, T23 keyboard......?

[TPFanatic]

It's just underwhelming in almost every aspect. Low quality materials and material choices, flexible chassis, bad speakers, bad webcam, bad mic, bad DAC, bad displays, massive bezels, just to name a few.

I forgot about the bad mic, T470 has the same problem (but P71 seems alright).

@solidpro: T25 is the pseudonym for the 25th anniversary, yes.

[dr_st]

I'm assuming a T25 keyboard is a 25th Anniversary Thinkpad keyboard? Not some soft of franken-sibling of the T20, T21, T22, T23 keyboard......?

Yes, that's generally the term. I always call it TP25 to avoid this confusion.

[unlawfulsoup]

Just got an A31p and they are magnificent machines. The whole A series are among my favorite thinkpads personally.