Impressive durability...

Well, this isn't exactly the way I wanted to test out durability on a ThinkPad, but here's what happened yesterday:

The shop I work at has very limited space, and as such my laptop bag has to be set upon a rather high shelf. Unfortunately it was jostled and took a nearly eight foot tumble all the way to the floor, including a rather harsh stop onto my desk. My T500 was inside and in a padded compartment, but in all honesty that was a very severe fall for any notebook. I took the T500 out to observe the damage, thinking the worst.

The 'worst' happened to be the fact that one of the LCD latches was broken off, and I now have a large amount of dead pixels on the right side of the screen. I'm likely going to need a new LCD, but other than that my T500 works perfectly. I'm pretty impressed.

 

lol! Same goes with my Vostro 1500. It was in a backpack on top of my car. A strong gust of wind made my bag fall off my car and it hit pavement in the parking lot. I thought you know cracked screen, dead laptop, only the plastic bezel had slightly cracked, and the top palmrest/bottom housing. Been working great 2+ years after that mishap.

 

picture ?

 

Good stuffs, i have similar stories with my x60, t43, t61, t400... they all still work perfectly with some cosmetic damages.

 

My t400 was tossed across a room(5 foot drop 6 foot distance) while running I picked it up and went right back to work. I have also had my t400 and vostro 1700 drop all the time while in a bag. Tough little buggers and that is why I sometimes fear when taking the xps places as its no where near as tough.

 

Last week I was involved in a Motor accident when a lorry clipped my car and smashed my VW on the side. It sent the car spinning and went backwards to the barriers (Scary but I’m OK!). The force was so great that contents from the boot were thrown out from the car via the smashed rear windscreen which included my ThinkPad R61e in a laptop bag and landed on a ditch.

In all honesty I wasn’t at all worried about the ThinkPad since it was built like a tank so I had a good feeling it would survived the ordeal and my assumptions proved correct when I booted it two days later as if nothing happened.

 

Yikes! I'm glad you're okay after that accident.. that must have been a scary experience. Glad you and your TP are both doing okay!

Just ordered the LCD for my T500 last night. I'm a little miffed this happened, but in all honesty it could have been much, much worse.

 

next time it is probably it is better that you place the laptop into a casing with more cushioning.

 

O_O That's pretty scary. Did you have an SSD in your ThinkPad or a normal HDD? Not sure a normal HDD would survive that kinda trauma.

You guys are scaring me with your stories, I am going to baby my ThinkPad..

 

According to Lenovo's marketing videos regular HDD should survive such accidents, unless the HDD has been phisically damaged as in bent or torn apart.

 

With the fall sensor the hdd actually locks in place during moments like that. Mine was running when it took a nasty fall and picked right up where it left off before I got tripped.

Glad to hear youre alright after an accident like that. Scary stuff...

 

Well I tend to be careful with my stuff, so dropping a HDD is outta the question.

I have seen cases people drop their HDD and they work perfectly fine afterwards, and a slight fall makes it go click o' death.

Did any of your ThinkPads suffer cosmetic damage after such a trauma like that?

 

Well my case was un avoidable as I was tripped while carrying my laptop. But yeah I try to avoid dropping my laptop/HDDs whenever possible.

 

to the OP:

well .. it seems like your thinkpad wasn't exactly as tough then. I mean it was in a bag, and then considering the so called tough cage of the laptop it should've suffer minor to no damage at all, yet you get broken LCD with bunch of dead pixels .... not something I'd expect from a thinkpad T-series.

if say the LCD got separated from the rest - that's still no reason for dead pixels

 

Thanks for well wishes on my accident guys. My ThinkPad R61e doesn’t have a SSD, it has a Seagate 250GB 7200RPM HDD drive but it's still working fine - no clicking or unusual noises to report. There aren’t any cracks or dead pixels on the LCD screen either which is pretty good considering the mobile phone I also had in the boot now sports a cracked screen and is completely unusable.

I guess the internal roll cage from the ThinkPad R61e played a part to prevent major component damage, it’s a shame Lenovo had opted to take out the roll cage on the newer budget models since it really helped on this occasion.

 

there is no such thing as a tough cage, it is just a magnesium rollcage. The purpose of rollcage is not to protect the screen from minor shocks, but rather it resists bending or torsional stresses when a large force is applied. Also, depending on the type of bags used, the shock of dropping a laptop from 8 feet high is still considerable i would say around 30 to 40 g.

 

The T500 was in a Swissgear backpack I purchased for my old T60p a couple of years ago. I can't say it was the best-padded case I have, but it was pretty secure. To be honest I'm pretty sure a fall like this would have completely killed an off-the-shelf consumer laptop.

I'd have to say I beg to differ. As above, I'm pretty sure a fall from eight feet in a bag with numerous other components inside jostling against it would have cracked a normal consumer laptop. I would have expected severe cosmetic damage, a cracked LCD, perhaps the casing. The T500's LCD didn't physically crack, but the dead pixels did appear. Considering that I didn't receive any damage other than that and the latch I'm pretty impressed. I'm still able to use the T500(I actually typed my post on it) as-is, and I'm sure that any business traveler could have used it as needed until getting back home to get it fixed.

 

An impressive story!

It is always comforting to see how well something you paid for stands up to accidents and punishments, and laptops are no exception!

 

Since we seem to be sharing tales of woe, here's mine:

My ThinkPad T500 was sitting on my desk, lid closed, charging. I reached for a book on some shelves approximately five feet above it, and in the process knocked a drum of protein mix weighing several pounds off the shelf. It fell and landed square on the lid of the T500.

The damage? Aside from a dusty mark in the center of the lid (which washed off), nothing. Obviously YMMV, but that was impressive enough for me (especially considering my experiences with MacBook lid strength...)

 

Actually, in a strange turn of events, here's a bit of an update.

I left my T500 at home today in lieu for my X200(bag for that one is much smaller and it tends to stay put on that shelf at work). I fired it back up and approximately half of the 'dead' pixels are now gone... it seems to be repairing itself somehow. Strangest thing I've ever seen on a notebook. But... I just ordered a replacement screen, thinking it was permanently damaged. I hope I can send it back in case it actually does return to normal.

 

Kind of like Terminator 2?

 

T1000 to be exact.

 

Hi!

Since my W510 is quite new and I never had any serious accidents with notebooks I have a question regarding backpacks and stuff. Would the Lenovo backpack ( Lenovo - Laptop and desktop - Carrying Cases 43R2482 (US)) be a good choice of "transportation and storage" or in other words does anyone have any experience with it? It does look quite classy and the interior is padded but I don't have any comparison to others.

 

Lenovo ThinkPad - damage is not an option.

 

Pretty much!

I have absolutely no idea how it's doing this... shouldn't really be happening in the first place but somehow it is. I guess I could call it the stubborn machine that just doesn't quit.

When the LCD is completely turned off there's no visible damage to it at all, either.

 

When I turn off my ThinkPad, close the lid and let it sit on the desk, there are no problems whatsoever.

Seriously, though, your (lucky) incident makes me think carefully about investing in a "decent" backpack with ample padding and some kind of "suspension" mechanism.