Thoughts on the Lenovo ThinkPad Retro?

[monika2]

Hi everyone,

So, Lenovo celebrated 25 years of the ThinkPad brand last week and released the "Retro" ThinkPad to the public. As somebody who cherishes the ThinkPad brand and has been a happy customer of their products for my entire life, I was excited to hear that Lenovo were supposedly going to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of ThinkPad with a cool laptop. That was until I watched Louis Rossmann's review of the product and found myself disappointed with Lenovo's intentions with this. (Louis' Blog here https://www.rossmanngroup.com/lenovo-retro-thinkpad-piece-junk/) Video here: 

(There is some strong language in the video and the blog. Just a heads up!)

It's essentially a T470 with the old-style keyboard,  but you can configure pretty much NOTHING in terms of the specs. Even though it is not supposed to be marketed to the business user (a little irony considering what the ThinkPad line stands for) it is still an expensive laptop, starting at $1899 (or at least it was? Now it seems to be unavailable). Don't get me wrong, great looking machine and I applaud that Lenovo decided to somewhat listen to users, but as Louis Rossmann mentioned in his video, it felt like it was designed by the marketing department, and a way of getting rid of old stock Lenovo had lying around, which was a shame really. I feel like the product had a lot more potential than that. They could have even released the old keyboard configuration as an option to all professional-class ThinkPads as a "retro" thing.  I don't know. I really wanted to like this product, but it was overpriced for what it actually offered.

But what does everyone else think? Did anybody on here buy one? Did you enjoy it? Did you want one when they came out? Or did you not like the concept either? All viewpoints welcomed!)

 

Lenovo webpage: https://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-25/ThinkPad-25/p/22TP2TTTP25

[Crunchy Dragon]

 

 

 

[NumLock21]

The entire video can be shorted down to like 10 seconds on why it's the Lenovo 25th anniversary is a disappointment.

1. Outdated specs when Intel 8th gen are out  and

2. It's too expensive.

Yet he continues blabber for half hour...

[PlayStation 2]

Overpriced shite.

[monika2]

3 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

The entire video can be shorted down to like 10 seconds on why it's the Lenovo 25th anniversary is a disappointment.

1. Outdated specs when Intel 8th gen are out  and

2. It's too expensive.

Yet he continues blabber for half hour...

True and sometimes he has a habit of repeating himself (but that's easily done with unscripted content), but he does make some interesting points that are important to customers of ThinkPad products. In a way, the blog sums it up better than the video does; especially as there were screen capped comments discussing how Lenovo could have made some features optional to reduce the price. (Or if they were adament that they going to use older gen CPUs, they could have at least made it a quad-core) But no, Lenovo forced those expensive features by default. The ThinkPad was designed to be customised! You never had to spend all your money at once. You could buy upgrades later. Though I suppose that fact it seems to be unavailable after a week might suggest they didn't sell too well at such a ridiculous price.

3 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Overpriced shite.

Unfortunately so. That ultrabook CPU is a big kick in the teeth at that price too. (I'm guessing it's also non upgradable...Could have sworn I didn't see an Apple logo on this product...) I feel like Lenovo took the 25 anniversary as an excuse to ask a higher price.

[ErrystioT]

For what it is, the price is really steep. I'd take other ThinkPad models for cheaper (like X270 or Carbon X1 for example) than the 25th Anniversary edition any day cuz it's not worth the price for what you're getting (even the "retro" feeling). It's also quite disappointing that they opted for 7th Gen at its release while 8th Gen Kaby Lake-R laptops are on their way to mainstream. Adding insult to the jury is when they decided to use 940MX instead of MX150 for the GPU. If it at least uses 8th Gen and MX150 GPU, I think many people won't complain.

[monika2]

My thoughts exactly. From what I've heard, the MX150 actually provides better performance per watt over the 940MX. The same probably goes for the 8th gen CPUs. From what I've seen I thought that the 8th gen CPUs are fantastic at managing their power consumption, as Intel made it a focus of production.

With an 8th gen CPU and the MX150, it would have probably been a decent, portable laptop for the money, especially if it had a 1440p display option at the very least. Again, being able to customise it would have helped spread the value out for those interested in it.

Which does mean for somebody who wants a notebook that's light and has great battery life, customisable at purchase and doesn't mind the 'U'-class processor, the ThinkPad X1 is the way to go.

The ThinkPad 25 seemed rushed when you consider all of that.

Meanwhile I'm probably going to purchase a used W520 or W530 for my "retro" ThinkPad experience!

[Pendragon]

6 hours ago, ChloeTheDaftPunk said:

Meanwhile I'm probably going to purchase a used W520 or W530 for my "retro" ThinkPad experience!

Massive disappointment. Nothing special. If it had the new KBL 4 core CPU + MX150 + TB3, would be sick.

 

But for now, the T430 and T/W530 will have to do.

 

Btw you can slot a quad core extreme edition CPU in the T430 and with a LVDS to eDP connector specific for the T430 you can slot in a modern 2k display.