Morrisville Design Center: Behind the Curtain
Earlier in the year I blogged about the Yamato design center and showed pictures and a detailed diagram of the facility where the ThinkPad designers work. Now that the construction dust has finally settled and we have moved into our Morrisville design center, I thought I would share similar information about where my other team works. The design center is perched on the 5th floor of building one at our Morrisville headquarters. Our design gallery is directly behind the large Lenovo logo that is suspended from the glass curtain wall. Adjacent to the gallery is a studio space where we all sit, a model shop for constructing quick study models and prototypes, a usability lab for testing hardware and software, and a dramatic design gallery for displaying works in progress.
This is shot peeking into the design gallery where we keep all the secret stuff I can’t show you. The freestanding monolithic walls provide a sense of mystery and screen the view.
This is where we often meet to discuss and create new design concepts. If you look closely on the table you can see a glimpse of a glass serving container for the three types of TrackPoint caps. You never know when you might need a new one in the middle of a meeting. The chairs are the Think Chair manufactured by Steelcase.
We often bring customers into the center for guided tours and to get feedback on concepts we are working on. Enjoy.
David Hill
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
September 10th, 2007 5:19 pm
Nice… Do you also tell them about the design problem that we all have on the X61t.
September 10th, 2007 5:49 pm
Me like it.
September 10th, 2007 10:37 pm
I love the TrackPoint-colored chairs
September 11th, 2007 12:43 am
I love it … seems like the new management let you guys have a splurge that IBM would never have approved!
September 11th, 2007 4:02 am
Why no Aeron chairs?
September 11th, 2007 8:08 am
All three Trackpoint caps side-by-side; which is the most popular? Just wondering…
I’m an unwavering ‘Cat’s Tongue’ diehard myself. If I hadn’t hoarded them from new Thinkpads at my last job, I’d be inquiring about a trade-in for the two flat-tops and some vintage smooth models right now.
September 11th, 2007 1:39 pm
Very cool.
September 14th, 2007 3:21 am
multivee: If you’re near San Jose, come to one of our TrackPoint cap swap parties. I have extra flat domes. I give them to the guy with the cat’s tongues. You can trade him for some concave rims which I will then get. Simple!
I even have some vintage smoothies, both red and black! Did you say you want those, or you are trying to get rid of some?
Bill: When will we be able to buy just the kind of caps we want, instead of these “TrackPoint collections”?
September 14th, 2007 3:23 am
I meant David, not Bill. Sorry! My head was still spinning from the TrackPoint swap party.
September 14th, 2007 10:31 pm
David, looks like the new design center turned out really well. Congratulations. Let me know if you need some photos for the walls.
September 15th, 2007 4:02 am
Think Chairs, niiiice
September 16th, 2007 11:59 am
Wow… everybody is talking about ThinkPad here…
I own a Lenovo Y400, does anybody designing it is around here?
Cause I’ve got some suggestions & critics for it:
* Touchpad is too “center”. Should move it a little bit to the left. Everybody knows why.
* The hard-edged design is hard to the hands & wrists.
* The keyboard is too “hard”. It requires too much force to push the keys.
* The speakers give mild electric shock, even when not connected to AC power.
* My right speaker is stronger than left speaker. I’m not sure whether it’s a design flaw or manufacturing flaw specific to my laptop.
* What’s up with the subwoofers? I don’t even know if it works.
September 16th, 2007 10:08 pm
the best efforts into designing the Thinkpads is irrelevant if your contract manufacturers can’t translate the designs/specs into a quality product or if customer service provides service that would even make cell phone companies look good.
Unfortunately, I returned a T61. Naturally, everyone’s mileage varies (I’m jealous of those who got well built machines) but my computer’s build quality was horrid. Furthermore as I was on the cusp of the 21-day window for returns I opted to get socked with the 15% restocking fee after spending 1.5 hours on hold over the phone with customer support rather than trying to resolve my problems through customer support. I didn’t want to deal with Lenovo any longer.
I was excited at buying my first Thinkpad as I always had positive experiences using other people’s Thinkpads, being a 10-year Dell customer….and as I always considered Thinkpads to be a premium brand as opposed to mass-consumer/mass-corporate market Dell. I was wrong.
In your company’s quest to take market share from Dell and HPQ, I think that Lenovo is experience some very noticeable growing pains. Please tell someone in Quality Control and Customer Service to do better jobs….their efforts are ruining the great design of your products.
Lenovo Thinkpads = great design, poor execution. Dell = acceptable design (but getting noticeably better), good execution.
Naturally, YMMV. Good luck.
September 18th, 2007 12:33 pm
Mr Hill:
I feel the T61 is losing the charcteristic of thinkpad!
I am a user of T43, it is my first laptop and I love this machine very much, it is an elegent and powerful tools for all kind of computing task. I will kept this machine forever as my collection. For two years using, it is time for me to look for a new generation Thinkpad to replace it and T61 comes, but this new type made me feel deeply disappoint, the design and build quality is not as good as T43, even worse than T60. From the marketing strategy of lenovo, I have a strangge feeling, T61 is missing its own characteristics. using roll cage for the screen is fine, but emphasize too much on the its tough design and affect the other aspect of the product is not good. Thinkpad should be the best business laptop not a half-tough laptop(even it has roll cage, but this product still can not use under extrme using condition like Panasonic tough book, it is not designed for that purpose). if customers really want a very tough one, they will chose the real tough laptop provided by Panasonic or Motorola, those product are designed for exteme use condition, but Thinkpad should be best business laptop,what we need is reliable, powerful, elegent, classic and high quality design and built. the design of 43 and 60 is solid enough. tough should not be the only future direction of Thinkpad. I think the changes on X60 61 is fine, more portalbe and powerful. people love it, but T61….
I will not buy a T61, instead I will keep using my T43 until a new T62 or T63 appear or maybe change to X61 this year. I can not leave the track-point and thinkpad keyboard, I don’t want chage brand!
this is not just my personal opinion, I talk with many users in US, main land China and Korea, we all love Thinkpad, we don’t want this legend disapear and we really don’t want one day when we have to change to HP or SONY.
I wrote this, because I love thinkpad!
Thank you!
Best wishes
T43 user
September 18th, 2007 12:40 pm
David:
as a user of T43,I feel disappoint about T61, we are not expect a 50% tough laptop (thinkpad is a business laptop and is not designed for that purpose as Panasonic toughbook).
Put too much attention on the tough aspect and hurt the design of other aspect is not good!
I will not buy a T61, use T43 until I can see the classic and elegent T62 or T63, or change to X61 or other brand.
i really don’t want change, I love Thinkpad, love trackpoint and best keyboard, but…..
please do not let Thinkpad fans feel disappoint!
T43 user
September 18th, 2007 12:42 pm
as fans, we will continue support thinkpad and its design team
good luck!
September 19th, 2007 10:37 am
Apologize for sharing my saga (please bear with me)….so I just received a Vostro 1400 to replace the T61 I returned. Though the T61 isn’t meant to be cross-shopped against the Vostro 1400, the Vostro was approx. 33% cheaper than a comparably equipped D630/T61, albeit with a loss of many higher-end functionalities.
Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised as the keyboard on the Vostro “feels” the same (or just marginally inferior) to the Alps keyboard of the T61. Additionally, the Chi Mei display of the Vostro is identical to the Chi Mei display of the T61. Not bad for a value computer, though it’s very heavy…it’s a beast. Yet I’m happy that I got slightly more than I paid for.
Naturally, you all already know this as Lenovo probably has a bunch of the D630s and Vostros along side the M1330, etc.
Anyhow, please please consider introducing a 13.3 WXGA notebook to complement the ultraportables. Text on a 12.1 with 1200×800 is too small for my aging eyes and I’m only 31!! With so many baby boomers out there I’d imagine as the population grays, 12.1 WXGA will just be too illegible.
However the 14.1 T61 XGA/WXGA are cumbersome for daily mobile use. Though I read that the 13.3 WXGA screens are more expensive to produce, to me it hits a sweet spot between daily portability and legibility.
So please consider a feasibility study (if you’re not doing on already) on a 13.3″ Macbook-sized Thinkpad!
Thanks.
September 19th, 2007 10:40 am
sorry…addendum…..I forgot to mention the absolute biggest problem with all of the 13.3″ notebooks on the market right now (Macbook, M1330, Vaio SZ, etc) is that they all use the glossy screens!
Which as you all know are infinitely horrid under fluorescent lighting. Thanks again.
September 19th, 2007 12:18 pm
Very nice and neat facilities, congratulations. We are waiting with great interest your new Thinkpad´s designs. Time has come to make a revolutionary shift in the design concepets, all competitors and I mean all are years ahead in design, yes it is true our machines are reliable and durable ones, but gentlemen design is important too, you know the comfort feeling when you´re in front of your machine also has to do with productivity. May I suggest you to contact again Mr. Richard Sapper? I am sure He is able to make this important shift into a more contemporary design.
September 19th, 2007 6:36 pm
Well, I ordered a T61 on Aug. 25. It had a ship date of today up until today, when they moved it out to October 10. I called customer service, and of course got India. Jaya offered absolutely no help, and wouldn’t even get a supervisor. “They’ll call me back when it’s convenient for them.”
Pretty sad. This was to be my first Thinkpad, but I believe I’m going to cancel the order. I’d love to talk to this David Schmoock guy that supposed to be over the center of excellence, but forget finding a phone number other than the 800 number.
If the customer service is this bad now, it scares me to think I’d be stuck with that for the life of the laptop.
October 20th, 2007 8:39 pm
Hi.
I am a ThinkPad fan even that I don’t own one.
This month I wanted to buy the T61 but changed my mind when I saw that the screen is not centered.
I will not buy Lenovo for this reason. I am very disapointed.
Please consider resolving the estetic issue with the screen, next versions.
Thank You
November 15th, 2007 9:18 am
Congratulations on the new space David. Looks awesome. The Think chairs are a nice touch. The abstracta in the background brings up memories!
Take care, Neil
December 29th, 2007 10:59 pm
Thanks for the interesting insides!
Is the B&O stereo there as a design inspiration?
June 17th, 2008 12:04 am
I cannot see the pics.Will see Lenovo Think pad t 63
July 5th, 2008 8:21 pm
Hello,
Kudos on the new space (even though this posting was a while back
)!!
To be completely honest, when looking at the T43 and prior, all design queues taken, were great and beautiful when compared to the current models.
While I love the T60, it somewhat deviates from the traditional styling of the earlier models. The T61, I feel, completely breaks away from this and does not look to my eyes, elegant.
As another person commented before, the asthetics to the offsetted LCD bezel & display alone was enough for me to sign off on purchasing this model and hope for changes in the following models.
I love the fact that the nVidia Quadro card was chosen rather than the ATi cards, but completely removing the option for a non-widescreen SXGA+ 14.1″ screen was also disconcerting. But I’m hopeful!
Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing new and innovative technologies!
Best,
John
October 28th, 2009 6:06 pm
Which as you all know are infinitely horrid under fluorescent lighting.