'Battery Safeguard' comes to T series?

Battery Safeguard functions via an authentication chip in the official batteries, which is used to lock out the possibility of using third-party products. It was reported recently with regards to the Edge series, but now seems it will be implemented on the T series as well.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/16/lenovo.may.have.hard.coded.notebook.batteries/

The official line will be that you should use official components to ensure compatibility, best performance etc. but of course it's really about profit. As far as i'm concerned it's just something else to go wrong , and leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

 

i don't use aftermarket battery, so it is not really a problem. i am sure there is way to override it, if people really want to, just like T61/X61/R61 SATAII limit.

Company is always after profit, as retaining shareholder value is what keeps the share price up, not really that strange.

The only thing i think it would irk people is when Lenovo stop producing these batteries and you are stuck with aftermarket option. Since most T series ThinkPad last quite a while, so people whom still use it after say 5 years, would be stuck with expensive battery option or a desk bound laptop.

 

I find this to be quite bizarre, for years I was quite happy swapping out T400, R400 and R61 genuine batteries on my T61 with minimum hassle. Now it seems those days are now over with this battery DRM policy.

 

Do they typically stop making the batteries after 5 years? This does concern me as I tend to keep my laptops until they die, and my older ThinkPad is approaching 5 years (realize that aftermarket is ok with that one)

 

well they do keep a stock of it, but they are not cheap.

 

After many innovations with their Ivy Bridge systems, Lenovo added this one that is undersirable and short-sighted. It places profiteering above their customer's user experience as well as stifling third-party innovations like higher-capacity batteries. This and WWAN/wifi whitelisting are engineered sabotage and should be illegal.

Workaround: add Ivy Bridge CPU support to a one-gen older Series-6 system

Those disappointed with this feature may wish to explore the possibilities with one-gen older Sandy Bridge gear. Those have the traditional keyboard preferred by many. An example would be to hack the Series-6 system T420/T520/W520 to gain Ivy Bridge cpu support. Supposedly all it needs is ME 8.x firmware flashed to the bios. A Series-6 system + Ivy Bridge cpu would only lose the Series-7 chipset's native USB 3.0 support. Not a big deal given some of those systems had USB 3.0 or could add it as a $15 expresscard.

Can refer to http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ebook-2560p-owners-lounge-19.html#post8527661 to see how would go about it for a Series-6 HP 2560P as an example.