/School Essay/ Why do people like old ThinkPads?

(This is for a school essay, don't make fun of me for writing about ThinkPads for my project, the bar is very low, everyone else is just making generic things using ChatGPT, which I can do to, but I want to talk about ThinkPads because I like them). What it is about them that makes so many people call themselves 'ThinkPad users', you don't see many crazy about laptops by other brands, other than Apple (even though Lenovo's recent laptops are pretty bad) What do ThinkPads have that other laptops don't have, and even if old ThinkPads are really the best laptops money could buy, why does a laptop being the best matter when you could do the same work you do on a ThinkPad on any other laptop or computer.(USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST, You should always elaborate on your opinions rather than just spilling the soykaf.)

1. my first computer ever was an old thinkpad that my mom’s work was going to throw out. lasted me nearly a whole decade with about 200$ max in maintenance 2. comparably easy to repair, lots of spare parts on the market for cheap 3. fuarrrking beautiful aesthetically. just look at the x40. wonderful sturdy form in comparison to laptops today.. where did we go wrong? 4. ability to repair- ah yes the bar is incredibly low here but i think it’s a good point. if your screen breaks you don’t have to go to a genius bar so someone can upcharge you by $1000 dollars to fix a ding in your screen. you just go onto ebay and buy a new screen for a couple bucks and look up a youtube video to replace it. also thinkpads don’t intentionally try to fuarrrk you over and try to keep you from repairing it… unlike apple who can brick your device if you try and change the battery lol overall, old thinkpads weren’t made to break, and they come from a time where most tech companies weren’t trying to milk every last drop from consumers. it used to be about making the best laptop, but nowadays it comes to brand loyalty i think. a lot of people prefer just going with apple because of “muh device ecosystem” or something similar. anyways, good luck on your essay lain. hope it goes well :D

>>75926 the original ones were made as robust work tools for business with the expectation to hold rough handling while traveling. So it was a no bullshit solid product. In contrast the modern ones are consumer goods with looks over substance. Likely because brand image made it viable to exploit the brand selling cheap soykaf to consumers.

>>75928 Do you have a link to the bricking laptop thing? I remember seeing a video by Louis Rossmann about that but I don't think I can quote a whole YouTube video in my project, there are probably a lot of websites covering it but if you know the best article covering it, could it you post it here? Thanks. Also I agree that ThinkPads look aesthetically beautiful, the only laptops that look that nice today that I've seen are Panasonic Toughbooks, specifically the 'FZ-55', but those are expensive as fuarrk. To be honest a lot of old laptops look really good, even ones by HP and Dell, they all look really solid and have lots of detail and indicator lights on them. It makes me so upset that Framework went with the macbook aesthetic. >>75929 Yeah that is common knowledge amongst the based imageboard people, but do you have any articles that go over how each generation of ThinkPads gets worse over time? I'm sure someone has wrote about it in an obscure blog. Also I agree with the notion that modern ThinkPads are not worth buying, I would rather just buy some cheap gaming laptop where you have ability to upgrade the RAM.

>>75938 as >75929 i was just going by personal experience. My first workplace hoarded some old 133mhz thinkpads and i took one out for a spin. Immediately noticed how it was build like a brick where you couldnt make any plastic move with a bit of finger pressure compared to my modern thinkpad and it weighted a lot more too. Felt like there was more metal and the plastic itself was thicker which made it less flimsy. You say you cant quote youtube video but i think simple image comparison would suffice. Should be clearly visible that the cover walls are thinner on newer models and weight would even easier. In same line i bet a lot of people welcome it because they care more about carrying less weight than laptop breaking over time. As for maintenance the newer thinkpad i have is a malicious trap. They have some cover screws that are normal and some that you cant fully unscrew - they are locked into the cover and only detach from bottom part. If you dont know which is which and do it wrong you break the thin plastic. I cant come up with any reason outside of fuarrrkers intentionally building a trap so you fuarrrkup repair.

>>75939 Which newer ThinkPads are you aware of that have non standard screws?

Update, I'm making a comparison of current ThinkPads to old ThinkPads, what model should I refer to for the old ThinkPad? I need one that represents the general old glory of retro ThinkPads, specifically one that represents the repairability of old ThinkPads.

>>75940 The one i have is a yoga thinkpad from ~2015. I didnt try to open any other model so cant say if norm. Just personal experience with one model. The screws are standard but they have a metal ring that prevents fully unscrewing (illustration). Just enough room to get them out of the bottom. While drawing the layout i think i might have been a bit to mean perhaps. You can distinguish between corner casing and other screws. I still think its a trap and bad design but perhaps not intentional to be misleading. Also just looked for the old thinkpad and this one from ~1997 looks like what i had found back then https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:380 You can see from image its literally build in brick shape and the cover has a ridge which slides over bottom grove so there is no way to rip it apart while closed. You can get similar look nowadays if you shop for "rugged laptop" while the new thinkpads are chasing slim sleek design.

alr im gonna keep this short and snappy this all applies almost exclusively to the old t60 to t420 / x60 - x220 laptops >they have this style that screams "i'm going to get soykaf done" which is kinda ironic considering what people tend to use them for (basically nothing) >you get internet street cred >they have amazing keyboards (even the chiclet ones aren't too bad) >the ime can either be disabled or neutered to the point of no longer being a security concern which is great if you're one of those privacy schizos >libreboot has good support for them >good linux support >a soykaf ton of io >upgradable screens >(for me) windows xp and 7 support

>>75938 unfortunately i dont have a link, but i think i vaguely remember what you’re talking about. i looked up “macbook repair bricking” to no avail, so maybe im misremembering. i found this article https://www.extremetech.com/computing/278261-apple-now-bricks-macbook-pros-to-prevent-third-party-repair , though. i do have some sources on other stupid soykaf they implemented in iphones where they have to “authenticate” the battery when it’s replaced, or something similar ( https://www.ifixit.com/News/32343/apple-is-locking-batteries-to-iphones-now ) or how they give persistent warnings when you replace the screen with a “non genuine” one, apparently they store data in the screen itself? why would something like that be necessary? ( https://www.ifixit.com/News/33147/apple-is-discouraging-screen-repair-with-an-iphone-11-genuine-warning ) and yeah, i love the old look. i prefer my machines to not look like i can snap them in half with my bare hands lol. i like framework a lot as a concept, the framework 16 looks like a cross between a macbook and a thinkpad. but yeah it’s trying way too hard to emulate apple. i also had no idea they still made toughbooks, but 2k dollars for a mediocre-spec laptop? god no. and you’re right, laptops used to look way better. now we just have every major company trying to get as close to macbooks as possible. when the hell did thinness and minimalism start being equated with being good? we should bring back the days of clunky laptops that were made to last

>>75947 i went searching for the article halfway through writing this response and forgot to delete the first 2 sentences, whoops lol initially a lot of the articles that popped up were about some macbook update bricking the laptops, so do with that what you will: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253315438?sortBy=best “ The procedure also requires access to another Mac running macOS 10.15+.” who the fuarrrk owns 2 macbooks? or why is someone expected to go out and get access to some other persons macbook just to restore normal function to theirs? it’s very silly. i might add that if you look through the “related questions” on the apple community section, you’ll find many cases of macbooks just randomly bricking and not turning on. thankfully never had any issues with that with my thinkpad. the hdd needs to be replaced? it gives me an error code and tells me what’s wrong. with apple, usually you have to go out to their store and get someone to tell you what’s wrong. it’s a stupid system imho

They're pretty durable, easy to take apart and fix/mod things (as well as remove hardware components you personally don't need for your usecase), and are some of the most compatible computers when it comes to open-source firmware images. They also keep the Home, End, Insert, Delete, and the PgUp and PgDown keys, something that I was suprised to see is missing from many consumer laptops now. I work a lot in the terminal, so being able to zip around from line to line and start of a line to the end of a line is very important to me. The only laptop that even gets close to a classic (creation->2012/2013) Thinkpad is Panasonic's toughbooks, which are a mark above the Thinkpad in durability, but they miss a mark in FOSS firmware compatibility. The audio quality Thinkpad soundcards have, however, isn't really great. I'm one of those people that care a fair bit about audio quality for music, not an audiophile or anything, but audio quality is something that can bother me. I managed to fix this by using an external portable audio interface, specifically the Focusrite Scarlett Solo. On Linux and OpenBSD, the thing doesn't even need to download a driver. It's very plug-and play, and it uses a standard USB cable. The form factor is also really good; it's no larger than ~6 inches. Overall, Thinkpads hit all the marks of what I want from a laptop. The exception to that is their audio quality, but that is easily solvable with things like external audio cards/audio interfaces.

Update I found these two videos, both by Louis Rossmann; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doEZMNXz1JY One talks about how Apple repeatedly fails at making good hardware and the second one are their thoughts about modern ThinkPads. Both really good.

>>75926 >School Essay I through you had to be 18 to post here? Regardless of that you'd be better off using Chat GPT to write it to you, it'll will be awkward to cite an imageboard as one of your sources kek Anyway here's my legitimate answer: Old ThinkPads are pretty much the casios of NoteBooks, they're cheap, and they do their job well, they're also modular and hard to break, look up Luke Smith on JewTube for more in-depth analysis

>>76033 Maybe they had to repeat a year 5 times so don't be too harsh on them. They're slow but trying their best.

>>76033 >>School Essay >I through you had to be 18 to post here? Honestly, they are probably in college, anon.