What Goes Behind the Making of ThinkPads?

The red track point, the think light, the one button recovery, the metallic hinges-these are just a few innovations that differentiated ThinkPad brand of laptops from other brands, and made them a success amongst busy corporates. Recently, the brand completed 20 years, and to celebrate the occasion, Lenovo invited PCQuest and other media houses to witness the making of ThinkPads at its manufacturing facility in Japan.

Lenovo continues to improve the brand, and we were quite surprised to see the amount of research and the level of detailing that goes into its making. We were told for instance, that to check the effect of dust on a ThinkPad's internal fan, a team was formed that collected sample dust from six countries. Tests were then conducted at Lenovo's Yamato Lab (Japan), and a new fan design conceived only after that.

There are various other elaborate scientific

tests that are conducted on each line of ThinkPad products before its reaching to the consumer. Here's an account of the kind of physical tests conducted on ThinkPads.

Durability tests

You may not have really wondered why your laptop opens up the same way every time, but the team that manufactures ThinkPad has to worry about it. The test facility repeats this operation on each ThinkPad thousands of times. Each ThinkPad is subjected to mechanical closing and opening of the lid and data is collected about any fault that may arise from it. Apart from this, each ThinkPad is subject to different types of falls like straight fall or corner fall and twist tests to check that test product feels sturdy to consumer.

1 A Lot of drop tests in different conditions are conducted on ThinkPads. Here, the machine is tested for real life shocks.

2 The ThinkPad screen is continuously swirled to check for any fault that could lead to low product life.

3 The media was also invited to stand on the latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop to show how durable it is.

4 Each laptop's screen is continuously closed and opened to check for any fault that may arise after a certain number of opening-closing cycles.

Electromagnetic emission test



To attain mass-production nod, the prototype ThinkPad has to go through emission testing. In this, the ThinkPad is placed in a specially designed chamber which is sanitized from all environmental electromagnetic emission. In this chamber, the product (to be tested) is placed on a rotating table along with a fixed high power electromagnetic receiver. This receiver collects data over a long period of time and plots graph of wave activity of the prototype product. If emission is high components are checked and rectified.

Noise test



To make sure that there is no disturbance while you are working on your ThinkPad machine, it is tested for noise level. The test machine is placed in a sound proof chamber and then high power microphones are used to check every tiny noise coming out of the machine.

Temperature test



To make sure that ThinkPad reaches its destination intact, whether exported by Sea or Air, extreme temperature tests are conducted on it. The humidity in a storage area of a ship may rise to exponential levels, while the temperature of the storage area in an airplane may reach sub zero temperatures. To make sure that the ThinkPad withstands such extreme conditions, similar conditions are created in the lab, where the ThinkPad is not only exposed to extreme temperatures but also to the quick variations in temperature.

Static test



We all get static shocks now and then, but these short electric currents can be dangerous to your machine and might lead to system failure. Each ThinkPad goes through elaborate testing where artificially generated static (which is many folds stronger) is passed through test machines.

A little bit of history

The first three ThinkPad models introduced were the 700, 700C and 700T, which debuted in October 1992. The 700C had a 25 MHz 486SLC processor, 120 MB hard disk drive and had the industry's first 10.4-inch TFT color display. It measured 2.2 inches (56 mm) x 11.7 inches (300 mm) x 8.3 inches (210 mm), weighed 6.5 lbs (2.9 kg) and cost US$4,350. The design of the commercial versions differed significantly from the prototype's keyboard-less tablet design. The bright red TrackPoint, a kind of pointing stick embedded in the keyboard, enabled the notebook to be used on an airline tray table without a mouse. The first few ThinkPads were very successful, and soon collected more than 300 awards for design and quality.

The original design was collaboration between Tom Hardy, corporate head of the IBM Design Program, Italian designer Richard Sapper and Kazuhiko Yamazaki, a lead notebook designer at IBM's Yamato Design Center in Japan. Sapper proposed a design inspired by the Shkadbent, a traditional black-lacquered Japanese lunch box.

Upcoming ThinkPads



Lenovo X1 Carbon: Made from carbon fiber (and hence the name 'Carbon'), this one is the latest ThinkPad from Lenovo, and the lightest till date. As the name suggests, X1 Carbon is the next version of X1 which was launched in 2011. It weighs 1.36 Kg while X1 was 1.69 Kg, though there is loss of weight there is an extra inch added to the screen size in X1 Carbon (14 inches as compared to 13 in X1). The other 'wow' part to look for in Carbon is its ability to open to 180 degrees and the sturdy design. X1 Carbon is powered from Intel Core-i series processor and would be available with Microsoft Windows 7 business skews.

Lenovo Yoga



This is one of the converged devices from Lenovo which gives both tablet and PC experience, and we would soon see similar products from others vendors too thanks to the touch capability in Windows 8. If you would pick this hybrid device, it looks like a normal Ultrabook, but you can fold the screen lid to convert it to a tablet PC. Devices like these might bring back single screen era if they succeed. A clear advantage of Yoga and similar devices is that one can work in one environment and there is no need to carry two devices. Yoga would be launched on 26th October 2012 in India.

Lenovo IdeaTab S2110



This is an Android based device that comes with a docking station, so you use your tablet and then dock it on a keyboard and use it as laptop. The challenge with this design is that the Android environment has limited office usage, but we found that device is quite optimized to work with keyboard.