I lost all respect for them when I tried using the trackpad on their newer laptops. After a year of use it still took me multiple attempts to right-click on something. My brother just disabled his and learned to use the nipple. I can't imagine how an established company could make an essential part of a laptop that unusable.
Basically everyone wants to mimic Apple superficially. Apparently Lenovo thinks people are buying W540s because they look like MacBooks[1]. It wasn't enough to ship the X1 all weirded out, they had to go fuck up the rest of the line, too.
Lenovo even had a blogpost where they claimed "most users adapt" in a short amount of time. Not that there was any benefit, just that they needed to modernize the design and it wasn't that harmful. Idiots.
The X201t is like the pinnacle of their design. 16:10 screen (important if you use Windows, especially inside a RDP app - 1366x786 just doesn't have enough vertical pixels).
The X201 also had a FULL keyboard. They used every cm of the laptop to fit all the keys in. The newer X series 12", they remove keys, and added blank space around the keyboard. Here they are trynna cram stuff in, and they literally throw away 2-3 keys worth of space.
Lenovo is just beyond incompetent in designing things at this point. I don't know about the sales side, but since everyone else in this space is just as bad, it probably doesn't harm them. But if Dell ever wakes up and says "oh, hey, maybe we should make real laptops", they'd steal away ThinkPad's marketshare pretty quickly.
Oh and just to insult us on top of all these bad changes, they ship utterly crap panels with some of the laptops. I bought a T440p last year, and I absolutely hate it. It has a viewing angle of 0 - there's no point at which you can view it and get anything remotely decent.
1: I've tried MacBooks... the ergonomics are terrible, as is the heat. Beautiful displays though.
Lenovo changed from producing business notebooks to consumer centric stylish notebooks that tries to mimic Apple notebooks.
Very sad, given that IBM ThinkPad and later Lenovo ThinkPad up to T420/X220 where very good robust devices and had a great build quality including a good keyboard and screen. I would pay premium price for a T420 series notebook with a brand new Intel i7 chipset that support 16+ GB RAM (or the T60p series style with a 4:3 display).
I've posted this on another thread, but it looks like Dell is trying to make real laptops. The newest XPS ultrabooks have received rave reviews, and some of them even ship with Linux preinstalled [1]. That said, my personal laptop is a Lenovo T440s, because IMHO Lenovo still wins on upgradeability. I was able to buy a base model, and in short order had the RAM upgraded to 12GB (the max this model supports) and swapped out the hard drive with a SSD from Amazon. I'm not sure how feasible that is with any of the other laptops being discussed here.
I just bought an X250 after searching around for an alternative. The XPS 13 looked pretty good and I was about to buy it ... but no physical nipplepoint buttons. Maybe next time I'll be willing to risk it. (Yeah, the X250 looks like it has plenty of downgrades from the X201, but it's better than a T440p, and at least it's a known quantity whereas Dell has an even worse rep...)
I'm typing this on an X230, with 16GiB RAM. I busted the screen recently and considered an X250... it's such a shame that "ultrabook" means "one DIMM slot" these days, i.e. they max out at 8GiB RAM - same as I was using in '2009 on my old X61s!
Luckily replacement screen parts are quite affordable these days. And before anyone complains, I do use all this memory, currently dom0 has 4GB free.
Good news! There are 16GB SODIMMs from "I'M Intelligent Memory". You'll have to look around to figure out what model exactly, but people have put them in new X series and they work.
Every recent laptop I've tried with a clicky trackpad has been absolute crap. The texture will be too rough or too sticky, the click won't work half the time, the right-click is hopeless, some try to do clever things with multi-finger gestures which usually triggers the mfg-provided crapware launcher, and they're too small.
Apple got the clickpad pretty much perfect, except for when they get dirty or bent. Nothing else that I've used comes within a mile. Trackpads on laptops were not amazing, but usually workable before everyone went clickpad-crazy. Now, it seems like you have to hunt to find something with buttons so you can actually use it. I can't imagine that any of these are getting good feedback, yet it's been a trend for a few years now. PC mfgs make me sad.
I personally also prefer a traditional ThinkPad keyboard, trackpad and trackpoint (up to T420/X220 series).
I won't buy any notebook with these slim keys, that might look stylish and fashionable. I need a business notebook for work and IBM ThinkPad and early Lenovo ThinkPad were robust and very good at that.
The first manufacturer that learns from their recent mistakes, be it Lenovo/HP/Dell/etc, will be the winner.
But if it takes too long, maybe someone should start a kickstarter campaign and produce truly business notebooks without any compromises with a 1500-2500$ price tag. A traditional keyboard, trackpad, trackpoint, robust plastic frame, maybe even a 4:3 IPS screen (1600x1200 or higher).
I don't mind clickpads, but the one on the 450s is shockingly bad. I use my rMBP a lot on the train, and I never realized how good the Apple trackpad was at smoothing inputs until I tried to use the 450s on a rough patch of the northeast corridor.
Totally agreed re: the newer trackpads. Those things used to Just Work (tm) 10 years ago, now it's a gamble whenever you buy a PC laptop.
As a general rule, physical buttons and total lack of multi-touch support seem to go hand-in-hand with good ol' quality... but even that is not a foolproof rule.
With the new touchpad, the trackpoint is useless because it badly positioned.
The trick is to use the multitouch pad like in a mac and forget about the trackpoint. It is actually not bad, you got pinch to zoom, two finger scroll, etc. Actually is better than the trackpoint sometimes.
That being said, I will change it for a W541/T541 ultranav touchpad asap. But not sure if I will keep it. Getting used to the pinch-to-zoom.
With libinput 0.14 you can just use two fingers for a right click, and three fingers for a middle click. Anywhere on the pad.
Edit: as you can see with Macbooks, clickpads are not the problem. Drivers are the problem. With the right drivers [0], the T440s clickpad is very precise, clicking doesn't move the cursor, and scrolling is pixel-perfect.
Same. The touchpad on my x230 was terrible--hours of forum searching and 2 driver updates never fixed it. I'm happy that I learned to use the nub, but it just felt ridiculous that Lenovo hadn't figured out how to make a functioning touchpad.
Tried that on my T440p. It sorta works. Unfortunately clicking makes the pointer move, so I end up clicking the wrong thing. All. The. Time. It's comically bad.
I ran into the same thing with a T440 we got for a customer, but he didn't care because he just carries a wireless mouse from exam room to exam room with it.
Made working on it a bit surreal recently though until I figured out that he'd stuck the mouse in his pocket and was walking by in the hallway.
I'm using Windows too. I tried playing with the settings and using default or various drivers. Accurately getting right vs left click is nearly impossible (takes 3 tried on average to right click) -- I simply don't use it as a laptop.
It seems all hope is lost with Lenovo ThinkPad. They simply don't understand what a keyboard layout means nor why it's important to group keys and create keys with different sizes. Also the slim keys are bad in many ways. The omission of the F-keys, the omission of the audio&mic-keys. ThinkPad was easy to open using just 2 screws. Replacing parts was easy. Forget that with their new consumer style T430+ series.
I personally give Lenovo one more chance for a "T460" in 2016, but I doubt it will resurface the T420 series style. I would support a kickstarter campaign that sole goal should be creating a premium business notebook "IBM ThinkPad style".
