What Do ThinkPad & Ferrari Have in Common?

You don't have to read the logo to know who made this one!

I thought I would share a link to a recent internet interview I did with Think Digit about what makes ThinkPad design tick. Read the article and find the answer to this question and more.

What Do ThinkPad & Ferrari Have in Common?

I hope you find the article interesting.

David Hill

majk19

Oil

yousefshaban

nice

dodger52

dwhilldesign,
The Island style keyboard, is a typical example of style over function, something Apple is really fond of (why for instance build a phone made entirely of glass, it's really fragile).

Thinkpad's are renowned for they great keyboard, (obviously island style keys are no that great, especially when comparing to the original Thinkpad Keyboard.!) being rock solid, and not compromising on function to make it more stylish, oh and not to forget the easy serviceability.

Using island style is not a good move on the Edge series; i can understand but on the real Thinkpad's?

Another example of Lenovo slowly destroying the Thinkpad brand is moving from the Lenovo Think-vantage Toolbox to the Lenovo Solution center (LSC).
LSC has a dreadful, carnival like, layout it's like you go back in time for like 20 years. Whereas the Thinkvantage Toolbox has a great, calm, business-like, orderly layout, not to mention the LSC has a lot less functionality then the think-vantage toolbox did.

I really, really like Thinkpad laptops but i really really don't like where Lenovo is going with the Think-Brand.

Markela Tawanan

I guess what they meant with "Regarding 6 vs. 7 rows and island style keys, we have done a huge amount of very detailed research on this topic with customers. There is a great deal of very positive feedback on this move." => There is a great deal of very positive feedback on this move internally in Lenovo as changing to a 6row will mean less cost and more profit to Lenovo, the hell with their customers. :D

perzsamacska

Why shift not split? Good point, I have no clue.
My initial guess would be that high quality machines do not bring profit at all, but this would be weird.

Or the other, they decrease quality and price, see the nice charts for profit and they are pleased. And they might not realise that big portion of Thinkpad sales are due to the brand, and not to quality anymore, but this group of customers will start to look elsewhere and go away.

I'm just thinking, nothing is sure, but these are the most reasonable causes for me at this point.

perzsamacska

Hi Hecke,

Good question, I would love find something similar as well. One model to look at is the Sony Z2. It does not suffice all your needs (nor does any current Thinkpad, I guess...), but at least they have a concept of offering a good machine (with a high price of course) rather than just cheap machines (with strong compromises of course).

My compromise is a T400s, the issue with it is durability (dropped once from ~0.7m, multiple cracks). It's ok for now but I have no clue for a future update.

Bests,
perzsamacska

Chung-Ping Hung

Most Thinkpads aren't sold to crowds, they are sold in batches to enterprise ITs instead, which is a more profitable market. Marketing toward general public is nothing wrong and I think Lenovo did this pretty well with Thinkpad Edge/L-series/Xe-series, and Ideapads so far.
But should Lenovo kill classic Thinkpad lines to make the higher market share in general public happen? Why not keep both lines side-by-side?

Hecke Schrobsdorff

Hi perzsamacska,

i did look somewhere else.
Criteria:
- sub 1.8 kg
- Trackpoint
- i7 processor, quad would be nice
- matte, high res, good contrast and viewing angle display
- survive drops from 1.5 m
- dockable
- Nvidia GPU
- Linux friendly
- different battery options to optimize for either weight or long life

results: None.

Do you have a hint where to look?

My compromise was a X220 IPS i7, stuffed with a Crucial M4.
Still too low vertical pixel count, Nvidia GPU for Cuda applications missing, suboptimal speakers, sometimes too loud fan.

sad but true: There is nothing better than Lenovo for us techies. Which does not mean, i do not like the brand, but I am rather disappointed by the compromises they make, even in the no-compromise models.

best
Hecke

perzsamacska

Hey Guys,

We should realise Lenovo is going for the masses. They decrease quality and prices together. They lose 0.5% on top techies and gain 5% on the crowds.
And they won't turn around as they are doing it well: market share is 7->13% in 5 years, profit is up, etc.

This is fine. The problem is that they consistently spread the "not so true" message of improvement to not let those go who are ok with high prices but want top quality. This story is not about us anymore, we should look elsewhere.

Mahmud Qureshi

David,

I absolutely concur with thomasg's points, especially about ThinkPad's keyboards, displays, and clamshell locking mechanism.

I use a ThinkPad T420 with an HD+ display and my previous laptop was a T61 WSXGA+. When upgrading I was hard pressed to find a comparable display resolution and aspect ratio; I eventually had to settle for and get used to the HD+ resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio available.

I was also disappointed to find that the new T420 did not have that classic clamshell locking mechanism any more either and instead had those rubber nubs on the sides of the display like all other non-ThinkPad laptops do.

Agreed its not a usability roadblock but the question still stands, why would you change something that's become as much a ThinkPad signature as the Ferrari logo?

thomasg

> Ferrari always has supercars in red doesn't mean their yellow
> supercars are "less Ferrari" or red Toyotas are "a little bit Ferrari".

Actually, they are a little :-)
A yellow Ferrari is in my (and many other peoples) opinion a little less of a Ferrari, a little red Toyota is what people buy if they'd like a Ferrari but can't afford one, and a silver Thinkpad most certainly is less of a Thinkpad than a black one :-)

Hecke Schrobsdorff

Hi Dave,

did not find the time to read the interview, but the comments got me already;-)

I wanted to reply to the point you often repeat:
"we have done a huge amount of very detailed research on this topic with customers"
I believe you did.
But to convince people like me that had the opportunity to compare an A31p, a T60p, a T400s and an X1 side by side for the typing experience (and all the other sceptics too, of course), could you please publish the results, if not the data?

In my experience, there is a well linear trend of typing feel downwards through time.
I adapted to the 'new' layout of the T400s, and can type quite well on it, but every time i do some stuff on my wife's T60p, i feel much more at home. (Even though, btw, my regular desktop keyboard also uses the T400s layout) And the feeling with the A31p was absolutely excellent until the ATI-Chip was burnt by some youtube video (ugly smell, that).

So, now to your tip of the keyboard evolution, the X1: (I wrote that before, but still do not feel like being heard)
the feeling was a lot better than on a MacBook, for sure, so there is room for decline left, but the response of the keys was not what i want to type my papers and code on. The need for less key travel is obvious (and i do want my 10mm-height-Laptop) but the feedback to my fingers to actually know whether i hit the key or not, was not present.
Additionally, the space bar was not responsive for off-centered hits, and one shift key was already damaged. OK, it was a presentation model and some of my predecessors might have abused it, but not more that i abused my old Thinkpads over years without a single key to fail (despite severe cookie crumbs, a reversable issue...)

just had to repeat that...

best wishes and looking forward to your next post
Hecke

T_L_L

If you really think that "You don't have to read the logo to know who made this one", can we go back to the T61-style outside top cover with no Lenovo logo on it? Just the discrete ThinkPad logo in the corner.

Jam Ning

They're instantly recognizable as ThinkPad or Ferraris from their design.

Jam Ning

How about an IPX-7 ThinkPad 20th anniversary Tablet with dual Tegra 4 (Wayne) and 24 hour battery life.

To the future, just like Ferrari.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

Waterball (Liu Jen-Hao)

Maybe Steve Jobs (and his worshipers) didn't need typing for many hours especially inside dark meeting rooms or airplane cabins, but most business workers did. Please figure out "whom" are main customers of ThinkPad since 1992.

Galaxy Lee

In the article of u300cDifferentiation of u201cIsolationu201d(2010/01/27)u300d
(URL:http://blog.lenovo.com/design/...

Mr. Naito said:u300cFor those of you out there for whom it just "has to be seven rows!"
you can relax. Lenovo will continue to provide you with a 7 row keyboard layout, even if it is an "endangered species". (lOl)u300d

So after 2 years, Lenovo wants abandon 7-row keyboard? (lOl)

Chung-Ping Hung

Programming needs PgUp/PgDn, Home/End frequently. Putting them in the traditional "grid" is the most efficient way to locate them while focusing on lengthy program code on the screen.
If making frequently used function keys more easily to be located doesn't matter, why did they enlarge the Delete and Esc keys the last time they updated the 7-row layout?
When I worked for a well-known company in Silicon Valley, I was so glad they provided me a classic Thinkpad to do my job. It was the best thing happen in my first day.

ImThink

@O8h7w,
on their new version of the island-style keyboard are the Esc- and Delete-Keys also entlarged and the arrow keys are bigger too. You can see that here: http://www.notebookcheck.com/t... (you canu00b4t see the Esc-key, but the Delete-key) This layout is still not as good as the classic-7 row layout, but better than the old island-style layout from the first Edge-Series.

O8h7w

While it does seem like (I have not been able to try it) the island style keyboard on the X1 really is a good keyboard to type on, probably better than my somewhat flexy X220, it simply lacks a bunch of keys. I would much rather have a keyboard with more keys than standard as opposed to less.

And what happened to the glorious large Esc and Del keys? All of a sudden they shrunk to half-size instead, along with the similarly much-used arrow keys. How does this correlate with your research? Bring out the heat map and rethink the keyboard once again, please.

Typing experience is not the *only* feature of a keyboard, but it is the one feature that makes all other laptops on the market useless to me. As thomasg said, if the only functional tool on the market stops being functional - what would we do? Stop writing on the move? Not really an option. The situation is without comparison!

Ps. While you're at it, please do something about the all-to-hidden numeric keys. On a Swedish keyboard layout they're a pain, since the parentheses can't be reached without turning NumLock off again... And on the 6-row keyboards they seem to have gone away completely!

spinbutton

What the heck are you guys doing w/ that 7th row? I confess I do use PrtSc sometimes :-) What applications or professions require the 7th row? Is it some crypto- Masonic-mystery-ritual that uses the 7th row?

I just thought that the black box w/ the red belly button meant ThinkPad.

Geez what a noob I've been all these years.

feklee

Thinkpads, to me, have always been "text machines". Unfortunately, not anymore. The biggest problem in my opinion: The displays don't offer enough height. Given the thick plastic bezel seen at the top and bottom of current Thinkpads, wouldn't it be feasible to put in a 4:3 or 5:4 display?

Lo Phi

Full ACK.
I just compared a heavily used classic KBD in an old X31 to some new keyboards (eg. in T60-non-NMB, MBP), and the X31 KBD is still the better experience!
They knew how to do it right in the past.

Chung-Ping Hung

Furthermore, if you really hate the deep keystroke classic keyboard and try everything to support your decision in order to make Thinkpad thinner. That's fine. Please give the island keyboard a 7-row layout. (And stop saying the 6-row island keyboard is better than the classic one. Geez, do those "feedbacks" actually came from anyone who ever used classic Thinkpad keyboard in typing-intensive works?)
The current 6-row island keyboards don't even have a fixed and sensible layout, unless you believe it makes sense because Apple makes a similar one.

Chung-Ping Hung

Many Thinkpad design elements were removed after Lenovo took over the brand. 7-row classic keyboard is among the last elements keep my loyalty.
If no Thinkpad has a 7-row classic keyboard, I's rather just buy a discounted laptop and paint it in black.
C'mon, color isn't a design feature at all. Ferrari always has supercars in red doesn't mean their yellow supercars are "less Ferrari" or red Toyotas are "a little bit Ferrari". Any laptop company can make their laptops in black, Lenovo doesn't own the exclusive right to produce black laptops. However, no one can reproduce the typing experience of Thinkpad's 7-row classic keyboard, even Lenovo itself cannot make it on 6-row island keyboard.

Waterball (Liu Jen-Hao)

It seems that I need to buy nothing but the most expensive x220 as my final ThinkPad succeeding with x201, x301 and x31. Maybe second "New Cake" storm shall emerge leading to speculation that the reformulation of the keyboard was just a marketing ploy.....

thomasg

I really would be interested in seeing this positive feedback, because I have yet to hear anything about that.

Yes, I know, "Apple does it" has become a popular paradigm in the industry - and I feel every new ThinkPad series embraces on that. However, I strongly doubt that this is a wise move. You can't copy Apples success by copying Apples products, because their features is not what it is about (I'm sure I don't need to get into detail why people actually buy Apple).
Doing what Apple does, even if doing it slightly better, is not going to convince anyone to buy from _you_.

It saddens me to see, how Lenovo has still not realized, that the ThinkPad brand carries a similar paradigm, carried by a series of style elements, but largely pure pragmatism.
For years, ThinkPads have been famous for some core features that Lenovo seems to work hard on getting rid of.

I really shouldn't need to, but it seems I have to mention some of the things why people always wanted Thinkpads, even if it meant paying a big premium above other brands. These are only some of them that really have been the "core" that makes a Laptop a Thinkpad for almost 20 years.

- Best-in-class keyboards
If you wanted a laptop with a keyboard that didn't suck, you had to buy a Thinkpad. Even though the keyboards have been gradually getting worse in the last years (and every Thinkpad user confirms this), they have still been best in class. Changing that in favor of getting another brands style is something I cannot understand. Even if doing it better than the original brand (which really isn't hard, as Apples keyboards are incredibly bad) doesn't change the fact that you replaced something that is so good, that people make it a point to buy a whole device around it, by something sub-par.

- World-class stability
When in use, it's hard to break a Thinkpad. That's how it has always been. But when in use, a opened laptop is always somewhat vulnerable, and that goes for all laptops. What really makes Thinkpads shine, however, is: When not in use, it's unbreakable. The classical clamshell design is the reason (of course the used materials and frame other plays a big role, but not the major one).
All classic Thinkpads have been tanks, you could take them wherever you wanted and be sure it wouldn't break on the way. Moving away from the clamshell and a solid locking mechanism is as bad move which takes this away.

- Great displays
It's hard for me to even list this here, because since Lenovo finally dropped the IBM logo it just isn't true anymore. It was not even true in the "early days", because there wasn't much options.
However, for a long time, IBMs (and Lenovo-produced, with IBM logo) Thinkpads offered a range of worldclass displays, something nobody else would. They usually were expensive, but people were willing to pay.
For some series now there is no option anymore, there's only one kind of display you can buy in a Thinkpad: a terrible one.
Every Thinkpad-user knows, and most professional reviews confirm, that all Thinkpad displays are at best mediocre. The panels are the cheapest TN panels available and it shows, the resolutions are poor, the choice is small. It even goes so far, that Thinkpads are actually known to have worst-in-class displays.
Even Apple does this better, not to mention the real competitors in the professional segment. While Apple is on the way to boost the display resolution (because solid marketing has shown that this is a real selling point!), Thinkpads keep getting worse.

There would be a lot more points, but it's looking dim there, too.

I don't know if Lenovo realizes, maybe you just don't want to, but:
Even though techies don't make the decisions on what hardware to buy when it comes to large orders of "standard hardware", behind most sales a techie has been asked, and more often than not, if there are solid arguments, their views are valued and show in the decision.

If feel, that Lenovo is gradually taking away our arguments. Please stop.

You might ask: why do I care? If I don't like it why not buy something else?
The reason is simple: everything else is so bad, I don't want it. If you continue your path, I really won't know where to go; and if someone asks me - and people tend to - all I will have to say is: it's all the same crap, just buy what's cheapest. A Thinkpad won't be it. A "Medion" might, maybe that's enough for you.

Emmanuel Galanos

Interesting.

My 2 cents:

The main things that have concerned me as a Lenovo customer is the designs not keeping up with the latest in screen technology. Nearly every model across the board has only a lowly 1366x768. It's sad that the nearly 4 year old X300 still has a higher resolution than any of the following X series (and even then only the T420s really succeeds it) :(

The other big problem is product confusion. Way too many different laptop models (18 FFS!) and series. Things really should be culled back to just the Thinkpad series and much fewer of them.

vgeecc

I do not think the difference between a 6- and a 7-row keyboard will ever be the rate-limiting step in my productivity. It is just that I am more comfortable with one, and I will get it if I can. (I asked for, and got, a Dell Latitude D-series instead of the newer E-series because of this -- we get Dells). I will look for the same feature for my personal Thinkpad.

dwhilldesign

Galaxy Lee, I certainly did not mean to suggest that the color of a ThinkPad is it's only brand/design attribute. The typing experience is clearly another strong component of the ThinkPad experience. Regarding 6 vs. 7 rows and island style keys, we have done a huge amount of very detailed research on this topic with customers. There is a great deal of very positive feedback on this move.

Galaxy Lee

Dear Daivd:

Sorry,but you are wrong.

The Symbol of ThinkPad is not only color(Black) but 7-row keyboard and Trackpoint. In 20th anniversary, maybe Lenovo will give up 7-row keyboard in ThinkPad Classic models, but even you create the greatest Island-style 6-row keyboard, it's not what ThinkPad users want.

Traditional ThinkPad 7-row keyboard represents honor and Brand value for ThinkPad. If Lenovo want to follow Mac style, why don't we buy a Macbook Pro? Please think twice of the "Keyboard Storm" in replaceing 7-row keyboard.

Design

What Do ThinkPad & Ferrari Have in Common?

What Do ThinkPad & Ferrari Have in Common?

Follow Us

Filter by

Top Posts

ThinkPad 20th Anniversary Edition?

Keyboard Illumination: ThinkLight or Backlight?