Holding on to 'end of era' Thinkpad's

You and I have a very different definition of the word "fact"--although I've learned from reading various online forums that "FACT" written in all caps normally means something entirely different that its lower-case sibling...

 

You see, we do agree on something...

Either that - which is a debatable argument - or making them more Applesque, like the rest of the laptop market...

Which is exactly why I brought the statement in question to your attention. While I disagree with you on a range of issues, I would expect that you're able to maintain the discussion on an adult level. You've proven so in the past.

Given that you reside in the country with a stunning tradition when it comes to philosophy - where debating one's opponents is an integral part of the concept - I'm certain that it was explained to you that discussions are not being held just in order for their participants to agree on something - or anything at all - in the end...

 

Oh yeah this is an official flamefest, super informative one at that...

I'm still using my X220 and will keep it at least until its 3 year warranty ends next year. It's fast enough, runs debian wonderfully, and I can't do without expresscard in a new laptop (I have a deck of expresscards). My one major gripe is that it doesn't have eSATA or USB 3 (I didn't opt for the i7).

Newer 12"-13" laptops are going more toward the ultrabook trend that kills ports, because they're apparently uncool. Hipsters don't use ports, their data is all in the cloud.

 

You can get a cheap express card (also deleted now) usb 3.0 or esata adapter from Amazon. I remember some people paying the $200-300 for the i7 just to get that.

Do you use your X220 by itself or with an external monitor.

 

It wasn't empty even on T430 - there were physical buttons there. Just fewer than on 7 rows layout. Between xx20 and the latest series, we lost at least 10-11 physical keys depending on series, not counting the Trackpoint/Touchpad buttons, which are now executed by maddening, and buried in the manual, keyboard shortcuts. For a keyboard with about 90 keys to begin with, it's a massive difference. It's a lot closer to MacBook keyboard than it used to, and it's not a good thing.

"TouchPads bigger and the palmrests longer -> Ergonomics" has a little side note (trackpoint destroyed). And another one, "Egronomics = Apple-simurgonomics". OK, Apple wanted to make touchpad larger, so they moved the keyboard very far. Why a shortcoming of a particular brand suddenly becomes a good thing worth following? Normal keyboards, including Apple's owns, don't believe in "palmrest longer -> Ergonomic" motto and typically lack the "palmrest" altogether.

Many Macbook-loving online reviewers do see MacBook keyboard as perfect, and see little use of silly keys like F1-F12, or Menu/Pause/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End, but it does not mean their advises and praises are worth listening to in this area. If they would complain about the pointless Delete (Fn+Backspace is there) and ask for 'Power' button instead, should Lenovo follow too?

And I bet a keyboard with 3 physical keys: Power,PrintScreen,PostToFacebook, with the rest being a big touchpad/onscreen keyboard, would still find reviewers who'd find it an exciting innovation. Even w/o these legacy physical buttons, with 4 rows on-screen keyboard it's almost perfectly minimalistic: http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/268565-sony-tablet-p-mail-composer.jpg

As to smaller, well, T420s: 343x230 (mm), T440s: 331x226 (mm). 4mm smaller is a bit steep price for 10+ physical keys lost.

 

Both -- the X220 is my desktop too, with a NEC EA232WMi. I've been (excited and subsequently) disappointed by ivy bridge and haswell so I haven't built a desktop in a while.

 

Neither have I. My last one was SX386/16. Not kidding.

 

I'm quite happy with my 2500K based desktop connected to a whopping almost eight megapixels of monitors

Oh, and a proper keyboard.