The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
and the answer to your question is....no (at least to my knowledge)
thinkpads in the past few years (even while IBM owned them) where built by lenovo...so unless you're looking for some ancient 5+ year older thinkpads...then no.
You should also be aware the ThinkPad brand is the same as it ever was. THe Z series was designed by the IBM ThinkPad guys. From what I understand the only difference now is ThinkPad paychecks say Lenovo on them instead of IBM.
ThinkPads still come with the highest quality plastics and resins that China offers.
I beg to differ.. I am pretty sure that the T42 were IBM build. Lenovo may have had some say if any for the early T43s. All parts come from China etc.. its the quality control of the respective companies that make the difference and that is the Dell vs IBM difference. Z-Series may be build by IBM employees, but the design engineer sure has no say in what quality to make the product with.. that is a higher management call... Anyway, we can be assured that Lenovo has to build its identity so the new Thinkpads like the T60, barring the ugly plain looks that Lenovo gave it may actually be of better build quality than previous Thinkpads.
So ya.. if you don't mind the uglier looks, the new Thinkpads are as good as any Thinkpads from their same series.
I have a T40 Lenovo built thinkpad at work. I guess the main question here quality control and of course materials. Now that you mentioned that T60 is more uglier I had to take a look at some pictures and hmm... is it just the pictures or is that plastic ('armrest' and around touchpad) "polished"? Other than that it has gone even more bare (concerning the looks) wich is nice I think. I've always hated the touchpad. My personal laptop is X31 and looking at the X60 does make me drool... Anyways, I'd like to hold one in my hands and make the final judgement after that.
And since I have some experience on Z-series I might say it here once again that they are (my opinion) more like home computers, not workhorses like, say T-series. They are more flexy, feel more 'plastic', but then again have more power for your pennies...
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