Recently I’ve seen a few blog comments regarding the stiffness of the keyboard on the new ThinkPad T500. Since the legendary feel of a ThinkPad keyboard is of great importance to both Lenovo and our ThinkPad customers I thought it would be best if I shared the facts. The historical stiffener plate was removed because we discovered a superior method to provide overall keyboard stiffness. We shifted from a stiffener plate to a stiffer chassis. The net impact is a more rigid keyboard and less weight. Who wouldn’t want that? It was not done as a cost saving play. We would never trade off keyboard feel for such a small cost saving opportunity. The rigidity of the keyboard when installed in the system chassis is, however, as flex free as always. Great care was taken to ensure the new design was superior to the previous one. It’s important to understand that this functions as a combined system, not individual components. For example plastic laminate for a counter top is bendy and floppy until it is glued to the sub-structure. Together they are very strong and rigid.
The combined system of chassis and keyboard were ultimately rigorously tested using real people typing in actual user scenarios. The typical force applied during typing is between 60-120 grams. Probably closer to 120 grams if your having a bad day. These types of tests are designed to capture the overall feedback on the feel of the keyboard, palmrest, and related navigational controls. The T500 performed beautifully.
We don’t drop bowling balls from space on the keyboard and inspect the remains, but we do put flex to the test in a classical engineering way. Our engineers perform a flex test where they apply a 1 kilogram force at each key location for 10 seconds at 18 unique points. This force is much greater than actual typing. This test yielded an average temporary deformation of no more than .73mm. When compared to previous systems the new design is superior by .03mm. From an engineering performance perspective this is exceptional. Stiffer and lighter is certainly a worthy outcome..
In addition to keyboard flexure tests we also run ThinkPads through an extensive suite of classical torture tests such as shock and vibration. I think it would be a fun job to try to break a ThinkPad, although a bit frustrating. ThinkPad’s are just plain tough. With these and other tests, the T500 exceeded previous levels of performance.Myth busted.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who participated in our Power Manager survey and shared some of their thoughts in the comments. We’ve gotten some good feedback and you may see some of it incorporated in a forthcoming revised interface.
Power, especially the lack of it, is top of mind for any ThinkPad user. I often find myself strangely compelled to scan rooms I am in for available AC outlets. I guess this is a disease that you develop after years of mobile computer use. We have all devised our own strategies for milking the last drop of power out of a rapidly draining battery. To assist ThinkPad owners with this task, we provide the ability to manage power settings using the Power Manager utility. This handy utility sets the balance between things like screen brightness, sound level, and system temperature to optimize power use based on the desired behaviors. Sounds complicated, but it really isn’t if we have done a good job. Our goal is to make it a lot easier than running a nuclear power plant.
We are currently studying a revised user interface and feature set to further improve this utility. I’d like to ask that you take a moment and participate in a brief survey that my team has created. You can take the survey here. Thanks for your valuable time and feed back on this important topic.
I recently drove by a local lumber yard while on a weekend motorcycle outing and witnessed one of the saddest architectural statements I have seen in years. Stuck to the front of a warehouse style metal structure was a ridiculously stylized southern colonial facade. It looked as though two buildings were unceremoniously sawed in half and fused together with no respect paid to either party. There was clearly no attempt to blend or transition the joining. Dr. Frankenstein would be very proud of this one. It makes me wonder how such a thing could have been created. Did an architect actually think this one up? I’m guessing not. The architect was more likely asked to design the building with the warmth of a fine colonial, but on a prefab metal building budget. This is where the impossible task comes in.
Great design is generally not made by magically blending two totally dissimilar concepts or styles. This is where keen design leadership skill is required to sell the client on what the real problem is and what it is not. A well armed designer can clearly address the budget issues faced by the client, but they must not lose sight of the final design result. Designers need to recognize this dileama and avoid painful design operations like this one. I’m sure it would have been possible to design a pure metal building with a more human or warm quality and stayed within budget. I don’t think anyone is really fooled by this design facade.
X300 compared to W700 - Click here for high-res version of this to-scale photo
Having lived through the design of the X300 it’s very easy to fall in love with thin and light. Beauty, however, is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone is bent on owning an ultraportable, even the richly featured X300. There is a certain type of user who demands ultimate power over all other attributes. As people in fields such as digital content creation, computer-aided design and manufacturing, digital photography and science fields become increasingly mobile, they are demanding the full-featured performance of a desktop workstation in a mobile workstation. In a nutshell, they want extreme performance, not wafer thin.
Today we announced what I think these demanding customers are looking for. The ThinkPad W700 takes extreme performance and user experience to new levels. This thing is a 17″ wide screen nitro burning funny car. You can read all the speeds and feeds details here. In addition to the amazing under the hood specs, there are pioneering features that interest me as a designer.
As an option we include the industry’s first built-in palm rest digitizer and color calibrator. Designed for digital content creators and users, the mobile workstation’s digitizer helps them easily configure an image, either mapping it to the entire screen or to an area defined by the user. We used the same stylus as our ThinkPad tablet. High performance users, especially digital photographers, will love the models with the built-in color calibrator. Being able to see accurate color is very important to designers. The calibrator automatically adjusts the display’s color in up to half the time of many external calibrators and with higher accuracy. The end result is highly accurate, true-to-life images in an integrated easy to use package. The optional 400-nit WUXGA display provides up to twice the brightness of earlier ThinkPad mobile workstation models, and the 72 percent wide color gamut provides more than 50 percent greater color intensity. The image quality is stunning.
Designing this one was a big challenge, no pun intended. We spent a lot of time determining the size of the palm rest, digitizer pad size and position. As usual there is not a single wasted cubic millimeter inside the W700. Even a machine of this size goes through the same level of analysis and tradeoffs for the placement of every component. Just because the puzzle pieces are larger it doesn’t make finding the ultimate solution easier.
Okay it’s big, but more importantly it’s a beast. I think this one will have great appeal for designers or anyone else who wants extreme performance.
Ask most any ThinkPad fan what pointing device they prefer and the answer will be unanimous: the trademark TrackPoint. A group of CNET editors came together recently asking the same question about a “new ultraportable laptop” that is equipped with a “pointing stick, but no touch pad.” I wonder which laptop it could be.
Head over to the CNET post and let them know which pointing device you prefer, and tell them where you came from.
I just read an article at Sitepoint written by Josh Catone that ranks corporate blogs from around the world. As the official first Lenovo blogger I must say that I was very proud to see us in the number two spot. We have worked hard to publish relevant information and create an open dialogue via comments, polls, and surveys. I don’t have a squad of professional writers cranking out sanitized “corporate messages”. Design Matters is the real thing. Thanks to all my readers for your continued interest and support. Here is the copy about Lenovo.
Lenovo - The great collection of blogs from computer maker Lenovo demonstrate that the company really understands blogging. Lenovo intersperses posts about its product line with musings about business, design, life, and technology. Definitely don’t miss the Design Matters blog, which should be a must-read for any designer.
Designers are always looking for new and creative ways to solve the problems they face. Ideas are often inspired by things we see, own, or have used. A few months ago I started a weekly event within my team called “The Design of the Week.” The idea is that designers bring in something that inspires them from a design perspective, talk about it in front of the entire team, and then place it on a display pedestal for a week as a reminder and conversation piece. It’s a bit like a design show and tell. The feedback from my team has been very positive. We’ve all learned something in the process and it has been great fun.
I kicked off the first session by showing a great Sake carafe from Japan. It’s a blown glass form that has a embedded glass chamber that suspends and isolates the ice from the Sake so that it can’t be diluted by melting ice. There is nothing worse than a diluted Sake. Some of the designs brought in by my team include a unique coat rack that suspends from the ceiling with aircraft cable, a LED flashlight that stands on it’s own tripod, a cork screw that resembles a set of brass knuckles, and a classic claw hammer with a wonderful stacked leather handle.
We intend to keep this going throughout the year as a source for design inspiration. We may possibly switch in 2009 to the “Bad design of the Week” to honor the things that frustrate us most. I’ll continue to share some of the designs as the year progresses.
We just announced a new ThinkPad line optimized for small business called the SL series. Quality, affordability, service and support are critical factors to small business notebook users, and Lenovo’s ThinkPad SL series combines all of those. We designed the notebooks for the unique way these users work – whether at home, the office, the park or a coffee shop. The notebooks also excel with their enhanced multimedia capabilities. Nice speakers, high quality microphones and an optional webcam provide excellent support for internet voice and video conferencing. The keyboard continues the quality tradition with the legendary ThinkPad feel. Last but not least, the stripes are back.
The SL designs also include a black mirror finish top not seen since we retired the S30 ultraportable. You may remember this one from 2001. Sure it may attract a few fingerprints, but it looks fantastic. All the other series continue to be matte finish. We also hid the hinges and used a latchless closure to further simplify the appearance and draw attention to the new ThinkPad logo. It now features a unique red LED embedded into the ThinkPad signature replacing the typical red dot over the letter i. When powered up it glows constantly reminding everyone who has the ThinkPad in the room. It also cleverly communicates overall system status. When the lid is closed and the ThinkPad goes into standby the LED begins to slowly pulse like a human heart. We spent a lot of time on this feature working with both development and marketing. It’s not easy squeezing a LED into the display cover. In the end I think it adds value and richens the brand experience.
Avram Piltch , a reviewer from Laptop magazine , perhaps said it best “The coarse, rubberized plastic of the traditional Lenovo lid has been replaced with a shiny piano-black surface that sports our favorite design change: a sexy ThinkPad logo where the dot in the letter “I” is a laser-red light that reminds us of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s eye in The Terminator. ”
Collectively these design extensions have been recognized by the targeted small business customers as being appealing. For the tried and true ThinkPad loyalist, we still have you covered with the more traditional design details you have come to expect. I love our new X200 almost enough to surrender my X300. Almost.
Color coding has long been used by designers to enhance both the usability and appearance of a product. Traffic lights, fire extinguishers, jumper cables, electrical resistors, and of course computers all use color coding. One of my favorite examples of color coding is the now classic calculator designed in the 1970’s by Dieter Rams for Braun. The subtle colors used for grouping like functions are beautiful and provide wonderful utility. Only Rams would think of using a rich chocolate brown and forest green on a black product. His use of brighter colors denoting keys of highest importance adds a beautiful spot of color. I really like the bright yellow “equals”key. I’m not the only one to notice the power of this design. Apple clearly borrowed from this design classic for the iPhone calculator interface.
Samsung and Bang & Olufsen have also used color for very similar reasons on their remote controls. They both look great.
For many years ThinkPad has also used color on our keyboard. The enter key is currently a rich muted blue and we have historically used a subtle grey to group the function keys. I think colors like this are useful and add visual interest. I’d love to get your feedback on this topic.
