A first time for everything...

... After upgrading to every new thinkpad series since the 7xx series I may finally have hit the end of the wall with the thinkpad. I ordered my T420s the day they were announced to replace my T410s.

After a side-by-side view the display (for me, ymmv) on the T420s is horrifically bad. The resolution, smaller viewable screen area, brightness, color, and the obvious screen door effect. Granted if I didn't have them available side by side I could have gotten used to it, but imho it's a huge step backwards. Even the chassis isn't optimized for the form factor.

I boxed up the T420s and went back to the T410s.

I understand the debate about aspect ratio, and that the forums are rife with comments on mfg picking lower quality displays on their business grade laptops, but this is the first time in over fifteen years of buying Thinkpads for myself and for work that I've actually said "no thanks".


Ugh.

 

I have been sticking with 14” thinkpads for many years. But, the new 16:9 screen format made me consider moving on to 15” screen. This is the only way to have a reasonable vertical screen space and not have huge bezel below the screen. My next notebook will most likely be T520.

 

any way I could get you to take pics of both side by side? or is the 420s already gone?. I'm in a similar dilemma and pretty much desperate for pics. see my thread .. t410s vs t420s.

ym

 

I fear this is going to be my state of affairs when I am done with my X201 unless Lenovo/ ThinkPads do something about the 16:9 resolution. The only problem for me is that I need the advantages of mobility which means that heavier class of machines like the T520 will not work for me.

 

you can move down to 11.6

i compared the edge 11 and my X201 side by side and i seriously could barely see any difference in screen size....

 

I suppose psychologically, my bare min. requirement is 12" and max is 14". Puts me in a tough spot no?

 

use one for a short while and you'll realise the new screen sizes are 11.6 instead of the 12.1 u r used to. the new 12.5 does look bigger, albeit narrower

 

I posted this in another forum, but it may help people see the difference between 16:10 and 16:9.

 

I dont think I will be upgrading my laptop anytime soon, seems to be the new screen resolutions are not going over well...

 

which models are those?

 

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Thanks. The apparent difference seems quite stark. This is what makes me hesitant to go for the more recent 16:9 res.

 

T61 and Ideapad y460.

 

sadly, we dont have any choice it may not be this year or next, but we will have to replace our notebooks eventually. and it dont look like there is much chance of 16:10 coming back.

its nice that software makers have seen this problem, for example you can now minimize the ribbon in microsoft office, and web browsers are keeping their height to a minimum, and some people i know have even started putting their taskbar verticall orientated instead of down there

 

I really don't have a lot of love for 16:9. I would only get a 15" or 17" notebook in the form factor, and it better have FHD. My current Asus G73 is my first 16:9 notebook, and it came with a 1600x900 display stock. I ditched it for a 1920x1080 display as soon as I could.

Either way, I'm not really hot on the new form factor, but ordering 16:10 displays is apparently a very cost-eating measure since the display manufacturers don't particularly want to make 4:3 or 16:10 panels anymore. The notebook manufacturers are pretty much held hostage by the display manufacturers, who are likely making their profits off of 16:9 TVs. I've said it before and I'll say it again: unless a rogue display manufacturer decides to open up and churn out 16:10 and 4:3 notebook panels almost exclusively, there's really no return to the 'good 'ol' days.

 

As I see it, the problem with the 16:9 - despite the attention that folks like MS with their collapsable ribbon, slimmer browsers etc. - is that it becomes a little difficult to satisfy the need for mobility (not necessarily ultra mobility) with the need for an efficient display space. This is the reason that I think the 13" screen size with a min of 1440x900 res would be ideal - this having ued both 14" and a 12" machines.

So the choice essentially - at least for folks with my requirements or thereabouts - comes down to either (1) achieving portability/ mobility at the cost of screen/ display space or (2) sacrificing by moving to a less portable but larger screen machine (like the T520 etc.).

In this sense, I am literally caught in a bind. My preference is to maintain portability - so, I'll have to sacrifice screen space (in my next upgrade - unless I look for alternatives to the ThinkPad - I really don't want to use OSX though).

Maybe its all a matter of getting used to new/ different things. But I personally find carrying and working with squarish devices more comfortable than those that are more rectangular!

Edit:

What I feel really let down about is the X1. I could probably even compromise on the keyboard. But there again, on a 13" screen, they end up with the "new" res. Of course, there are other problems with it, but that discussion is going on elsewhere.

 

I found a home for the t420s so I don't have them to do a side by side of .. sorry. My impression was that the t420s screen area felt more comparable to my old X200 than anything else. The quality of the LCD (again imho) was awful.

 

I could live with a 16:9 but as others have posted it works better in a larger size lcd. I was using a W520 and at 15" it seems to work pretty well. The problem for me with the W/T520's is they're just way too big and heavy.

I have no idea how they'd pack all of the other junk in the bezel, but if they did something similar to what they appear to have done with the new X1 (I haven't seen one in person yet) it looks to me like they could get pretty close to a 15" 16:9 and stay close to the existing T4xxx footprint.

Overall I don't think they optimized the design for 16:9. They're still using a roughly square chassis to package a rectangular LCD and keyboard.

 

Yup...though I am not sure about Sony laptops anymore. I have had one die on me precisely one day after the warranty expired. The experience rattled me and more so because I was traveling. Since then I have avoided Sony machines. It's a real sad story that there is not a single (high-end, if necessary) ThinkPad that can address these specific issues.

While I am sure a market does exist for such machines, I am not sure how big that market would be and how profitable it would be for OEMs to serve that slice of the market. Though when I look at Apple machines (MBA, for example), I don't see them having a problem with sales - and it all can't be attributable to just the OS, if you know what I mean!

I guess all this reinforces the adage: Adapt or perish!

Seriously off-topic. Sorry.

 

If only they offered 1080p in a 14in thinkpad I would continue to buy 14in thinkpads. But I think my next one will be a w5XX unless that resolution and quad core are offered in 14in form.

While the screen is shorter they do offer a higher resolution then before. 1600x900 is better then 1440x900, but honestly I think Im done with sub FHD+. While linux allows me to use 1440x900 very well I could be more productive with a higher res.

 

Well after using 1600x1200 on my 14" T60p Flexview, anything new seems like a giant step backward. I tried the X220, and yes, it's IPS, but going from 1200 to 768 is not fun. I tried the vertical taskbar idea but whined and complained about it to myself until I went back to horizontal Tried the autohide taskbar, that was actually a bit better, but then resizing every screen to fit the window...ugh...

 

Once you are used to looking at 16:9 then it doesn't seem so bad. And, if you drag the task bar to the left side of the screen then it will use about half of the extra width without having to rely on auto-hide (which doesn't hide itself if any of the open programs is trying to tell you something).

John