So Why Did My AC Adapter Change?
Power and power management are going to be my theme for the next couple of entries.
There's was a lot of confusion when we introduced our new AC adapter barrel plug starting with our ThinkPad Z series last year. Speculation abounded, but most thought that we were trying to boost options sales and help our bottom line.
That's absolute hogwash.
In this industry everyone is always fighting a battle between supporting the status quo and providing support for the newest and greatest features. Microsoft faces this issue with every new version of Windows — how much legacy support should they provide for those six-year old peripherals that are still being used, and how much does the system benefit by not supporting everything under the sun and making Windows less complex overall.
As a side note, I like to update my stuff as much as possible, but even I'm still running a very serviceable HP 722c printer that I bought in 1997. I'd be angry if support was dropped in the next version of Windows.
And this is a similar issue we faced with our customers and AC adapters. We had been using the same barrel plug and system AC adapters for approximately 6 years. The same AC adapter powering your T43 would also charge your old ThinkPad 600. I personally enjoyed walking into a meeting and being able to borrow power whenever I needed it. Our customers enjoyed this as well. Many are on their 3rd or 4th ThinkPad, and have an AC adapter in their bag, one at the office, one at their home office, one at Grandma's…
Suddenly, horror of horrors, we had to introduce a new adapter. We were faced with the legacy dilemma that plagues all PC vendors. We wanted to provide support for the latest Core 2 processors, fastest graphics cards, increasing numbers of USB ports, and standards like HD audio. Yet, to do so, the 56 watt and 72 watt adapters were not going to be able to provide enough electricity and still provide charging in an acceptable length of time. We had to change and provide more wattage for the system.
We decided to change the voltage at the same time, going from 16V to 20V. I'm not an electrical engineer, and I'm sure that someone out there will correct me, but stepping down from a standard 120V/240V wall socket voltage to 20V is a lot more efficient than stepping it down to 16V like on our previous adapters. This allows us to do the conversion with smaller power packs than we would have needed if we had kept the 16V standard.
In order to make sure these new chargers with their different voltage outputs did not fry earlier system units, we changed the size of the barrel to make sure that you couldn't plug the wrong adapter into the wrong system.
As we did this, we also wanted to be as intelligent as possible and design for the technologies we expect to be in notebooks for the forseeable future. While we cannot guarantee the length of time these power adapters will be around without change, we hope that it is just as long or longer than the yellow barrel plug that many of you know and love.
If there is an upside to all of this, the same adapter you use on your newest ThinkPads (anything that has a '60' or newer), will also work on your Lenovo 3000 notebooks.
David Hill had an excellent post on this topic on the Design Matters blog last summer in response to some annoyed customers.
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
January 18th, 2007 11:22 pm
Dear Nokia: Why don’t you open up a hardware blog?
I love Nokia. Period. This blog should be proof alone of that. There is however one company I am even more passionate about: Lenovo If I had a choice between a brand spanking new N95, better yet the unreleased E90
January 19th, 2007 1:53 pm
The reason you go to a higher voltage is for higher power capacity. Power loss = Voltage^2/Resistance. So, a 25% increase in voltage means the same connector and the same wire carries 56% more power.
But here’s an idea for next time: make the adapter talk with the computer and select the right voltage. Targus makes an adapter which talks to the plug you put on, and Dells talk with the computer to check wattage, and prevent you from buying a non-Dell adapter.
January 25th, 2007 12:07 am
great blog great tips i love my new x60 thinkpad
January 25th, 2007 4:17 pm
One additional shortcoming (since the thinkpads are touted as business notebooks) is that the increased 90W for the notebooks adapter (except the X series) makes them unusable for many of the power plugs on board (which are normally rated 75W max). This reduces the usability of the notebooks by quite a bit.
January 30th, 2007 9:27 am
Matt,
your comment on the power brick actually leaves me puzzled. The CPU runs with ca. 1.5V, the memory with ca. 3V and USB, HDD and CD need 5V. The display is up-converted to 1200V through the converter.
So instead of using the converters in the external power supply where the heat can be dissipated easily you migrate a part of the problem to the notabook’s delicate mainboard. Not really clever, isn’t it?
Besides, there always have been power design envelopes from Intel, ATI, etc.
All components are still within the very same power specs that have existed the past few years.
Remember, your brick drove those extremely hot electron guzzlers (Pentium 4 with 40 Watts) with big ATI graphics (e.g. A31p), no those bricks should be too weak to power a modest Core 2 Duo (30 Watts) and a modern X1600 GPU?
February 13th, 2007 4:42 pm
I am actually glad to see this post although I was plagued by the change as well: I have 3 old 16V adapters now sitting in my den to collect dusts. So as long as this is a calculated move and it helps to develop newer better next gen products, I am all for it. I just hope that you won’t break it in another 5~6 years…
October 7th, 2007 3:19 pm
When Apple changed their power adapters for the latest Intel PowerBooks, they added a new magnetic quick-release feature. And in their previous power adapter change, they added an in-sleeve LED feature, indicating connection/charging status.
There is a very important lesson here: when you have to inconvenience your customer base by introducing an incompatible change for *purely functional reasons*, don’t just do the change and then post a message on your blog saying “we share your pain” – go ahead and innovate! Make the thing better.
At the end of the day, Apple’s little magnet or LED weren’t the big deal. What was important was the message these small details sent to the customer: “if we have to change things, we’ll make them better in the process.” It is a design-centric, user-centric approach, not an engineering-centric one.
Thinkpad, under IBM care, always put innovation first. That’s why I loved Thinkpads. Sadly, the message that Lenovo is sending with this latest change is that they don’t understand the design-centric game. The new message is “yes, we have changed your power supply because we needed to support a new core 2 gizmo gadget. sorry.” This is the language of an engineering-centric organization.
I currently use a ThinkPad and a PowerBook. I wonder how long I’ll keep buying both…
November 17th, 2007 11:10 am
Or better yet just get a Dell, they are SO much better.
The Thinkpad looks so out of date, they’ve looked the same for years – like a brick. Also, the Fn key is on the outside of the Ctrl key, is this an Americanism?? Plus the Dell comes with a serial port which is really useful. They’re also much cheaper…
There’s nothing about the T61 which would make me want to personally buy one. If I had the choice I’d much rather have a Dell D820 again…
Ok, rant over.
January 12th, 2008 3:16 pm
I love thinkpads, but the serial port is the only reason I would want a dell. There is still lots of equipment being made with serial consoles but not much for IEEE 1284 so dump the parallel port and there will be room leftover.
February 13th, 2008 8:08 am
Parallel port? I’m supposed to have a parallel port? Talk about bricks, my printer is now a brick because this T61 doesn’t have one.
-Joe Todd
May 29th, 2008 11:54 pm
So, while your engineers were redesigning the new adaptor, why didn’t they go outside in the sunshine a little bit and take note of the nice way that Dell’s adaptors have: A) a right-angle on the AC cable connector to the adaptor, B) ridges on the side of the adaptor so that you can wrap the cables around it without them slipping off, C) a built-in rubber tie-down, D) strategically-designed lengths of the the two cables so that both the AC and DC ends finish wrapping at the same place? The adaptors are so nice to use that I’m tempted to try splicing a newer barrel connector onto a Dell adaptor and hope that the 20V Thinkpad will take the 19.5V from the Dell. Please, hire some human-factors people to make the AC adaptor stow nicely… or license Dell’s design.
June 28th, 2008 4:45 pm
I like Lenovo’s new adapater as opposed to the old adapter that IBM Thinkpads use to use, one is it is much more compact in size and also the connector itself is far more easier to connect by using touch alone (i would dare to say it is more robust for day to day use).
June 28th, 2008 6:46 pm
Joe – while I agree there is room for improvement in the ThinKPad ac adapter design (the slim ac/dc one is nice but not perfect as the nibs need to be smaller, y-cable longer and cable removable and replacable with a retractable one like kensington) but to compare to Dell isn’t really sensible, the right cable cable drives me insane personally, the rubber tie down to me isn’t an improvement on a velcro one and the Dell adapters are much bigger than the ThinkPad ones which is a major compromise for me. For me, Apple are at the leaders of the pack in AC adapter design (magsafe, charging LED, plug directly onto the adapter or with cable).
Incidently, some of the older ThinkPad adapters had ridges (before Dell) to wrap the cable but it resulted in the cable/connector being damaged internally (so to rough usage and cable twisting) so it was decided it is better to gather your cable separately without wrapping it around the adapter.
July 7th, 2008 10:40 am
Not sure if anyone else has had this problem but I am on my third power supply as they keep failing just after the strain relief on the plug. I am getting a bit fed up with this
July 8th, 2008 3:12 am
Martin, I use over 20 of these adapters at one time and i’ve never had that problem (although I have blown 2 by letting them fall between cushions and overheat), however, I do expect it to happen on the new AC/DC adapter at some point as it seems too rigid and the cable is too short often leading to strain on it.
December 9th, 2008 8:34 am
I’ve just purchased two ThinkPad X61 tablets with the 20v power supply. I’m frustrated by the power plug provided, which sticks straight out of the computer and pokes me in the belly when I use the machine in my lap in portrait mode. Turning the machine around causes hot air to blow on me.
The easy answer to this dilemma is to get a right angle adapter. But I can’t find one for that huge, 7.5mm or 8mm OD barrel. Does anyone know where I can find such an adapter?
I’d even buy a whole new AC adapter if it had a right-angle plug on the DC side. Anyone know of such a product?
February 22nd, 2009 12:17 am
Failing to specify a right-angle plug is just dumb. Poking you in the belly will seem like a dream when you get the bill to replace the motherboard after you snap off a chunk of it.
As for the strain-relief cord problem, I always glob and taper an inch of semi-soft hot-melt glue where the wire meets the plug on both ends of the low-voltage wire to prevent this from happening in the first place. A tight wrap with a rubber band or even a couple hundred wraps of thread would do the same thing.
Anything made by Apple will look smarter, have features unavailable anywhere else, and cost far more than any similar product. Always have, always will.