Item — HN Reader

I’ve been a bit of a Thinkpad fanatic ever since my dad got a T42p somewhere in 2004. I have been on Thinkpads since 2006. I bought old ones on eBay and now have a collection of about 15 machines. The 700c, two butterfly keyboard 701cs, the 240 and a lot more. I’m currently on a T495s.

From my experience I can say that the “old IBM machines were reliable and well constructed” is not true. They were bulky and over time, everything breaks. Especially the heavy stuff as bulky things take so much more wear & tear. The newer machines are much thinner and lighter and still very good. At least the T and X lines. I exclusively buy Thinkpads for my team and have been very happy with them.

The only thing I really miss is the thinklight. Not super useful, but it was just so cool.

Edit: I always buy barely used machines of about 2 years old, this seems to be the most cost effective.

8 comments

My nostalgia for the ThinkLight is not for the light itself, which was all but useless, but for a past where there were things outside your computer that you might want to read. Now everything is behind the screen.

I actually miss the thinklight. I used it a ton on my units that came with it. It was very useful imo

I used the thinklight a lot in college when I'd want to do homework in bed with the lights down low. You could both read papers and see your keyboard easily. The backlit keyboard really killed off the thinklight as I'm sure that was the primary purpose of it. I had an X61 tablet, X200 tablet, and a beefy T420 I used in college. They all got beat up in my backpack, anything plastic around the edges was cracked but they all performed dutifully. I only replaced my X61 because I finally had to use 64bit software for school. The T420 was too heavy to carry around all day and I wanted the tablet feature for homework so I bought the used X61. I still use my decade old T420 but I really wish I had sprung for the high density display as websites think I'm using a mobile device at 1366x768. There are ways to upgrade but I don't think I love my old Thinkpad that much to put in the effort.

Screen replacement isn't very difficult for that model even as an amateur tinkerer. Finding the right screen is the most difficult bit. (Briefly, in the *30 era, one could have both ThinkLight and backlit keyboard.)

The T42p is one of the best laptops ever made (in my opinion).

I saved for months and bought one using a friend's IBM employee discount.

I remember thinking that I wouldn't need to ever buy another laptop again.

I still have it and it works fine. I wrote this on it.

Edit: and there is another java update!!

What operating system are you running, if I may ask?

Java Update makes me assume Windows of some kind?

Windows 7 ultimate on 1500mb ram

"Everything breaks", but my X220 is readily repairable. It's a veritable Laptop of Theseus at this point, with the only original parts being the LCD rear cover, hinges, and base cover assembly.

I stick with it, both because I dislike modern ultra-thin/ultralight laptops (, and because I personally find chicklet keyboards completely unusable. (Aftermarket replacements for the keyboard aren't as good as originals, but they're still better than chicklets.)

Haha, I did not include the X220. It's great. With the bulky stuff I meant the real IBM ThinkPads from before 2005. Although 2000-2005 was pretty good too, before that most machines were still really heavy.

> From my experience I can say that the “old IBM machines were reliable and well constructed” is not true. They were bulky and over time, everything breaks.

Too right. I know the T40 series Thinkpads quite well (the 2004-5 era) and they're not very robust at all. Pick one up from the front edge and it'll just bend - the edges of the palm rest crack first, then the traces lift from the motherboard and the USB ports stop working. Back then it was common knowledge that you shouldn't pick up a laptop from the front edge. Nowadays that's no big deal.

The T60 series (2006-7) hugely improved chassis rigidity but lost out in keyboard quality and were noisier and a bit chunkier in profile. Both series were fantastic laptops and are still delightful to use, but they had obvious limitations and the changes made by Lenovo since then are not all unreasonable.

I can't remember if it was a T40 or T60 series, but I regularly picked it up from the edge, and this popped some solder joints loose on a BGA-monuted GPU. The board sort of still worked, but the problem kept getting worse, and I had to replace the board.

Same experience. The old ones made creaky noises when held with one hand. My latest is a X1 Carbon and it's a much better machine. Zero nostalgia from me.

Separate mouse buttons are such a better experience than a clickpad, though. It's enough I always 3D-print some button overlays for my laptops.

Are your designs available somewhere?

Sure. Here's the one sized for my laptop, but you'd need to dial in the corner radius so it matches your clickpad, the width so it stops at the halfway point, and the thickness so it doesn't put pressure on your screen when it's closed.

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/9igWZfgh07J

https://preview.redd.it/dnvcnv8f6mi81.jpg?width=4032&format=...

Idk, the Thinkpad design itself gets in the way of longevity IME: the extra touchpad buttons collect dust much faster than Apple-style bodies without unnecessary apertures and then start to hang, not to mention they're smaller and much worse than both XPS let alone Apple ones.