Build quality of new v.s old

Did you read my posts carefully? What you said here is exactly what I said in previous posts.

 

First, while you haven't heard rugged ThinkPads, I have heard Lenovo people boasting about ThinkPads passing MIL-spec ruggedness tests.

Second, responding to your post does not mean that I disagree with your thoughts.

 

Lenovo officially announced this. You can see their announcement in my first link. But in my posts, I meant that Lenovo haven't used this to market Thinkpad laptops. .

 

Announcing it is some form of marketing...

 

I guess we all understand what each others mean, no matter if such announcements are considered some forms of marketing.

There does not seem any dispute in at least most of the facts, namely that i) some Thinkpads pass ruggedness tests, ii) Lenovo announced it in a public albeit not elaborated manner. Whether it is considered marketing or not may, IMHO, resorted to mere personal tastes.

 

Is there really a "ThinkPad" quality, I'm not so sure anymore. I've tried very few notebooks outside of the ThinkPad line and about 4 to 5 years ago I would definitely say ThinkPad was superior. Now I'm not so sure, I recently tried my sisters HP dm4t and even for a consumer notebook it felt really really solid. My T410s had more creaking, palmrest flexed more (due to it being plastic). It felt that if I dropped the little HP it might be a little safer. To be honest I'm not so sure if I could justify the premium of ThinkPad anymore, are they really more durable now a days?

 

I can tell you my wife's work Thinkpad has survived many drops and despite being loaded down with a lot of startup software that she has to have for work, it performs flawlessly. I also think that some of Lenovo's software is actually pretty useful.

 

Im not an expert and cant say anything from my experience, but I do think that having internal roll cage adds extra durability to laptops internals, if your laptop doesnt have internal safety cage and has only outer shell made out of metal it might not survice drop, because the outer case should be made of really thick and stiff metal to keep it from flexing in case of impact. If metal is thin or fragile then your laptop might not survive the drop.
Not a ThinkPad fanboy, just my subjective opinion

 

As long as lenovo makes thinkpads as well as they made my t400 or better Ill be a customer. My t400 has been a dream to own and use, and honestly even with it being 3 year old tech and actually 2+ years old it still feels like I have barely broken it in. As for consumer based laptops I would steer clear of them. The only series I can stand in that segment now is the XPS machines, but then again given the choice Id take a business model over anything aimed toward non business consumers. Just my $.02

 

Have any of you noticed better quality hinges in *10 series ThinkPads? (like W510)

I've just noticed after 6 months of use that hinges of my W510 are still stiff unlike hinges on my t61 or W500 after the same period of time.

 

Yes, the T510/W510 hinges are stiff and remain stiff (giving a "new" feel) after months of daily movements. The T410/T410s hinges are not as stiff -- the lid stays put, but the hinges feel soft when the lid is moved.

 

My t400 feels just as good as it did the day I got it. Nice amount of tension on the hinges and no signs of being loose.

 

As mentioned above I find hinges on my T410 softer than the ones I had on R400.

 

That's been my experience too though I put that down to my machine being newer than the T410 that I compared it to. When I say newer, I mean I bought my machine at a later date than the T410.

Also, I don't know exactly why my friend tells me so, but he insists that he wishes he had a R400 instead of the T410. According to him, his perception is that my R400 is "better built" than his T410. For those of you who own or have owned both kinds of machines, perhaps you can clarify this.

 

I haven't noticed any significant difference between the 14.1" T60's hinges, the T400's hinges, and the T410's hinges with respect to their wear over time; all three have held up quite well.

 

The T410s is not exactly designed to be a tank as much as it is a subnotebook with a large screen.

I've got a T410, and honestly I wouldn't doubt it would survive a drop from a couple feet -- say, from a dinner table. Not that I tested that recently...

 

If you drop a laptop with a casing made of magnesium or aluminium, it would probably lead to either the laptop casing bending horribly as in the case of aluminium or having a large crack that extends to a large part of the body. Aluminium yields easily and Magnesium have a low fracture toughness as compared to that of the CFRP, GFRP, SEPC or even ABS.

So having a polymer composite cover with an internal magnesium rollcage is stronger in resisting crack propagation or denting during fall than an aluminium/magnesium. This increases the serviceability of laptop during normal use and if you drop it.

This is one of the reason why car manufacturer shifted away from the use of alloy/metallic bumper bars and towards the use of polymer bumper with enhanced 'memory effects' (the other reasons are lower cost and easy of manufacturing).

 

Thats what I thought, lead_org.

Besides moving palmrest and HDD cover issues that I had I was very pleased with my R400. It had superior screen protection IMO, because after screen replacement I could not produce any ripples or distortion on the LCD no matter how hard I tried when applying pressure on back of LCD .
T410 on the other hand has IMO weaker LCD protection producing visible ripples on left side of the screen and bit softer hinges. Also, it has palmrest move, not as annoying as on R400 that felt like its going to fall apart any day, but Ive come to accept that its there and I dont care much about it, its not that big, tho I would like it not to be present on supposedly premium laptop.
CPU noise is annoying since it runs most of the time at high rpm's, could barely hear one on R400 so I had to install TPFanControl on T410 which now makes my T410 as silent as R400, unless I stress the CPU/Intel graphics and temperatures rise, its either i5 getting hotter than T9400 or because fan on T410 is either idle, 2000rpms or 3500rpms and up, no middle 2500rpm speed to keep it cool and quiet when doing something more than browsing or both. High fan rpms and limited rpm modes make T410 fan loud.
Might do the paste job on it this summer, well see how it handles atmospheric heat. Its winter here atm, so CPU idle/load temps might change when summer comes.
T410 looks slimmer and feels lighter than R400, I like the new keyboard better with larger ESC/DEL keys, appreciate that alot .
R400 with its angled sides looks bigger than it is, but that makes it feel like brick when handling and problematic to get into sleeve and out due to its thickness and form.
Overall T410 has cleaner looks, more modern design which I liked immediately after unboxing and decided NOT to sell it to get X201. Its also more powerfull than my R400 could ever be due to better CPU+IntelHD GPU.
It has better looking 9 cell battery than R400 had, its not protruding out of the back as much as on R400 and makes laptop look and be more compact.

 

Thinking of upgrading my laptop now and was considering a new Thinkpad going from my old T41p with IPS panel i am starting to question if the Thinkpads by Lenovo is going downhill for each generation?

My father have a T400 and the screen is plain crap, dull, bad viewing angles, cracking plastics etc etc...

Now reading the new generations T420 it seems the displays are even worse, the plastics even thinner and crackles.

If i want a quality laptop today, do i only have the Sony Vaio Z-series and Macbook Pro to choose from as it seems the new HP Elitebooks is a big downgrade from previous generation as well?

So who is the HTC mobile equivalent of PC laptop world? Sony Vaio Z?

 

Sony Vaio Z is quality laptop now? If you want good quality TN screen, then MBP offers that in bundles, the rest of the package is all right.

Maybe you should get the T520 or W520 with HD+ or FHD LCD.

 

Vaio Z is a great screen.

 

If HD screen is good enough for you, you might want to look at the HD+. Maybe you want to look at the Elitebook and M4600 with an IPS screen. In term of screen quality, they seem to be going downhill, but they are getting cheaper each generation, because corporation ask for the Laptop to be cheaper. I just hope they could add a premium screen to their whole lineup, which I think more individual buyer will choose.

 

My T420 is solid as a rock. No squeaks or crackles when I pick it up. I dropped it several feet onto tile floor and it slid several feet further the first week I owned it, not a scratch on it. No flex in the frame.
I had a T60 that was of shoddy quality, dull screen, had this weird bump in the keyboard that I couldn't get rid of (like 1mm higher than the rest of the keyboard, my Dad's T60 had it under his fingerprint reader).
The T420 is nice and bright, yeah the viewing angles aren't awesome and contrast isn't good enough for a photographer, but for office work? Just fine. I watch movies or TV shows on it in bed and it works well enough.
IMHO this is uphill from my old T60.

 

Sony Z is considered worlds best business laptop so i don't understand your comment.

But T520 and W520 is not designed well, lots of ppl complain about inferior quality.

I need FHD screen. nothing less.

 

lol...if the Z is the best business laptop (which it's not btw) then why aren't you buying one?

there is more to any ordinary laptop than a nice display and there's more to a business grade laptop than your ordinary laptop.

 

The Vaio Z is a great laptop.
It has all of the security features of a business laptop and the little extra for entertainment.
The drawbacks are $$$$.

I have used the Z and would love to get one but it's a little to expensive for me.
My old TT was by far the best laptop ever for me.

I am hoping the X220 will fill the niche. I always thought the Thinkpad series were better than average.

 

I don't know how downhill they are going but I agree they are cost cutting on every line and they need to have some "highest" quality line?? Like the x301 level of fit and finish (or any other high quality thinkpad from the past)

Lenovo is trying to compete as well... I still love my t410s (hate the screen with a passion)

 

Lots of people have complained about the inferior quality of pretty much every laptop ever made. Read the enthusiast boards for any make/model of notebook and you'll find a host of people declaring that the "feel" is inferior to previous models/competitors and discussing how quality has gone down, etc.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from the presence of complaints.

 

If we look at the screens from Apple on the MPB they are superior to Thinkpads despite being simple TN panels.

How come Lenovo fails miserably in delivering a good screen on their models?

 

Offhand, the build quality of my X220 seems every bit as good as my ThinkPad T42.

 

"Fail" implies that they are actually trying to deliver high-end screens.

They're not.

Most of their customers (hint: not us) don't care about the screen quality, hence Lenovo doesn't either.

 

I think Lenovo notebooks are garbage and going down hill fast. So I bought one. :wub: :wink:

 

My X220 arrives on Monday so I can't comment about build quality. But I can tell you that my T400 is better built than my T61 was (although I got the T400 late in its lifecycle after the keyboard flex had been fixed). And my T61 was better than my friend's T60. And his T60 was better than the T4x series ThinkPads I've used.

One of my friends is decently hard on laptops. His T4x had cracks and other issues within a couple of years. He currently has a T61 which is basically in perfect condition after almost 4 years.

If anything I would say that quality has improved. And given that ThinkPad laptops are cheaper than almost any other business brand (unless you have a huge discount from Dell/HP or are buying refurbished models), that's saying quite a bit. The HP EliteBook 8460 is a fine laptop but the configurable models are almost double the price of a similar spec ThinkPad T420, which doesn't make any sense. You can get a decent deal on an EliteBook but you need to buy the Smart Buy (preconfigured) models which often means you end up with things you don't want (like the higher-end CPU) to get things you do (like the higher-resolution screen).

 

I can tell you that my fathers T400 is inferior in every way.

What he has done to his T400 in the 2 years he owned it:

Changed systemboard, had to be sent in, the problem was that there was something wrong with a component on the board that made the computer work very slow, booting it took ages.
Lenovo changed this on warranty.

Changed keyboard twice, Lenovo changed this on warranty

Changed hardddrive once, the harddrive that came with the laptop failed after 1 year, now he got a Intel SSD and it works.

Changed DVD unit, the unit stopped working one day, couldn't eject the disc or anything, replaced by Lenovo on warranty.

Changed bezel cover, the cover started to have cracks, Lenovo changed this on warranty.

Changed CPU, the laptop was running very hot for a long time until it broke down and it wouldn't start again, the fan was working so there must have been something else wrong.
Lenovo changed this on warranty.

To sum it up, this laptop costed more in repairs for Lenovo than it costed new, a cost loss situation.

Now it works pretty ok, but the screen is bad so the next thing is that the screen will be replaced as there is a couple of months left on warranty.

Should a $1500 laptop have these problems? no, i would accept it if it costed $500, then i would accept it.

 

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".