Thinkpad Design
First, a bit of background. Lately, I've been fascinated by the design and engineering that's gone into Thinkpads. Sure, the design (from a visual perspective) hasn't changed since the Stone Age, but the point of the Thinkpad is to provide a robust and reliable business-class notebook that can take the bumps from being on the road. Or, if you're like me, from being clumsy and dropping the computer a lot. (Not really, I baby all of my electronics!) Either way, I feel much better about carrying around that much more durability in a laptop.
Recently, leaked pictures of the yet-unannounced Thinkpad T400s [jkontherun.com] have surfaced all across the Internet. The T400s obviously incorporates lessons learned from the X300 design; the T400s looks like a bigger brother, much like the Dell Latitude E4200 and 4300. The inside of the lid surrounding the display is noticeably flat, which accentuates the thinness of the display. In fact, this design can be seen on pretty much all of the recent Thinkpads, gradually getting more and more shallow, in stark contrast to say, the X32 which I have.
(Take a look for yourself: X31 lid [ibm.com] X300 lid [flickr.com])
This is rather disappointing. One of the earliest posts on the Lenovo Blogs included a video about the inset display lid design [youtube.com]. The "full contact frame" is designed to distribute pressure exerted on the screen, and as stated in the video, is a feature unique to Lenovo. But apparently not for long. It seems like with every new model introduced, more and more of the Thinkpad design is succumbing to the whims of cost savings.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. While some things (like 4:3 aspect ratio screens) can't be helped, there are still innovative features being introduced. However, these should not come at the sacrifice of prior good design.
Recently, leaked pictures of the yet-unannounced Thinkpad T400s [jkontherun.com] have surfaced all across the Internet. The T400s obviously incorporates lessons learned from the X300 design; the T400s looks like a bigger brother, much like the Dell Latitude E4200 and 4300. The inside of the lid surrounding the display is noticeably flat, which accentuates the thinness of the display. In fact, this design can be seen on pretty much all of the recent Thinkpads, gradually getting more and more shallow, in stark contrast to say, the X32 which I have.
(Take a look for yourself: X31 lid [ibm.com] X300 lid [flickr.com])
This is rather disappointing. One of the earliest posts on the Lenovo Blogs included a video about the inset display lid design [youtube.com]. The "full contact frame" is designed to distribute pressure exerted on the screen, and as stated in the video, is a feature unique to Lenovo. But apparently not for long. It seems like with every new model introduced, more and more of the Thinkpad design is succumbing to the whims of cost savings.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. While some things (like 4:3 aspect ratio screens) can't be helped, there are still innovative features being introduced. However, these should not come at the sacrifice of prior good design.
(it runs Linux).
