Best Thinkpad before IBM sold??? (no more Lenovo for me)...

[redgtxdi]

So after the hinge fiasco on the POS g570 that I bought my mother that turned into a door stop, she borrowed a friend's old Thinkpad. She really likes it and since I'm not sold in windows 8 anyway, as I am going to replace it for her, I would love to know what was the last great Thinkpad that was still IBM??? (preferably widescreen and camera would be great too if they ever came with one before Lenovo)

TIA

FWIW, I had an old A20 (still do but dead) and it was always great. Tough, durable, resilient, did what I needed and great keyboard! I do miss the old IBM

 

[corkyg]

A G570 is not a Thinkpad. The T42 proobably still had a lot of IBM content. My old T60 came from Lenovo, but still had the IBM logo. My newer T510 lost the IBM logo, but all the aulity and reliability remained. Never had so much as a bluescreen on any of them.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

So after the hinge fiasco on the POS g570 that I bought my mother that turned into a door stop, she borrowed a friend's old Thinkpad. She really likes it and since I'm not sold in windows 8 anyway, as I am going to replace it for her, I would love to know what was the last great Thinkpad that was still IBM??? (preferably widescreen and camera would be great too if they ever came with one before Lenovo)

TIA

FWIW, I had an old A20 (still do but dead) and it was always great. Tough, durable, resilient, did what I needed and great keyboard! I do miss the old IBM

Yes, I think your mistake was buying a non-Thinkpad Lenovo.

You have to get a REALLY old Thinkpad to get one that was truly made by IBM. I think the T60 was the first series to use Core2Duo, and that was made by Lenovo. In getting a T4x series, which was produced right around the time of the sale of the Thinkpad division IIRC, you'd be stuck with a single core Pentium M, SATA-I, an old GPU that doesn't accelerate much of anything, and a 2 (or maybe 4) GB RAM limitation. They did make some really nice IPS Flexview screens for the T4x, however.

If I were you, I would look at a newer Thinkpad, even though they're made by Lenovo. Stick to the T-series (or X-series for ultraportable) and you're pretty certain to get a quality machine. I just bought an X200s built in early 2009 for $250 off ebay, and I absolutely adore it so far. It looks almost brand new, gets 6 hours on the original battery, has a 1440x900 screen, and is nearly as responsive as my desktop for every day use (after I added a 160GB Intel G2 and an extra 2GB of memory, of course). This replaced a T60 that was still going strong (built in 2007)--I sold that one to a friend for $100 and he's quite happy with it.

TLDR: Thinkpads are still great, even though they're not made by IBM anymore.

 

[akugami]

Be careful, they've bastardized the Thinkpad name and are selling cheaper laptops using that brand. I think you want at least a T series Thinkpad.

 

[Anonemous]

Yea got a Thinkpad Edge and it lasted 1.5 years before the mobo died. You may wanna google some of the Thinkpad problems that show up.

 

[holden j caufield]

as long as you get a thinkpad you'll be fine.

for business laptops

1. thinkpad
2. toshiba tecra
3. dell latitude

 

[Rvenger]

Thinkpads are just fine and hold similar quality characteristics as the old IBM models. I have a T420 for work and its a tank. T400's and T410's had fan failure issues, T61 had screen cracking issue due to a screw putting stress on top of the display etc. T420 and T430s are rock solid and I turn my laptop on when its been sitting in my car freezing cold overnight and it boots up fine everytime I see people at work holding them by the screens and using them as cup holders etc. They go through a beating and still run for 3 years +.

 

[Anteaus]

Thinkpads are just fine and hold similar quality characteristics as the old IBM models. I have a T420 for work and its a tank. T400's and T410's had fan failure issues, T61 had screen cracking issue due to a screw putting stress on top of the display etc. T420 and T430s are rock solid and I turn my laptop on when its been sitting in my car freezing cold overnight and it boots up fine everytime I see people at work holding them by the screens and using them as cup holders etc. They go through a beating and still run for 3 years +.

+1

 

[Tushaar]

Bought an X200 second hand a few months ago. Built like a tank, that thing. My brother on the other hand has one of those C2D Lenovo laptops, and to be honest, it's like most other consumer crap out there. Stay away.

 

[PCTC2]

Thinkpads are just fine and hold similar quality characteristics as the old IBM models. I have a T420 for work and its a tank. T400's and T410's had fan failure issues, T61 had screen cracking issue due to a screw putting stress on top of the display etc. T420 and T430s are rock solid and I turn my laptop on when its been sitting in my car freezing cold overnight and it boots up fine everytime I see people at work holding them by the screens and using them as cup holders etc. They go through a beating and still run for 3 years +.

I'm on my third Thinkpad for work now (in a good way!).

I had used an old IBM T4X-series back in 2006-2007 (don't remember if it was a T41 or T42). I left that job (and lost the Thinkpad) and bought a Toshiba. After 9 months I decided to hell with it, and I bought a Lenovo T61. I still use that T61 every day. The only two issues I have had with it were a bad Wi-Fi card (replaced via eBay), and a dead battery from over 5 years of charge cycles. It now has an SSD and I love it to death.

At my current job they got me a T420s. I don't feel like it's as much of a tank as my T61, but I still like it better than any other plastic laptop. It's relatively light, and it still feels like a Thinkpad.

 

[Lanyap]

The G series is Lenovo's low end home series like Dell Inspiron, HP Pavilion, etc. They are not built to last. You're lucky if you get 2 years out of them. Batteries, motherboards, hard drives, etc. fail after a year or two of normal and especially heavy home use.

I purchased several Inspiron M5010s from Dell outlet a couple of years a ago a sold them to friends and neighbors. All of them have come back with the 7 beep motherboad failure. It's the nvidia GPU chip problem all over again except it's ATI this time. The heat generated by the laptop warped the case which warped the motherboad causing the chips to start coming loose.

Like others have said. Stick to the business models which includes the real ThinkPads, latitudes, probooks, etc.

 

[dagamer34]

Yea got a Thinkpad Edge and it lasted 1.5 years before the mobo died. You may wanna google some of the Thinkpad problems that show up.

Unless it's related to heat and thermal design, I don't get why the build construction of a Thinkpad would affect a mobo failing (the parts aren't made by the same manufacturer).

You buy a Thinkpad for the quality of the laptop itself (external casing). A failing mobo is more about customer service and ease of warranty claims than anything else.

 

[KentState]

I really like my X1 Carbon that I just got for work. Probably one of the best machines that I've used in a work environment. I also like my HP Workstation, but that thing is heavy as hell and overkill.