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Follow us on TwitterLenovo Trebuchet Launch – Gadgetoff 2009 from Gizmodo on Vimeo.
Update: Courtesy one of our commenters, Gizmodo’s post was updated to indicate that when the hard drives were inserted in another system, they did indeed work. Wahoo!
Were you really surprised that they didn’t survive? One look at the force they were flung with over such a long distance will make things pretty clear why even the tough ThinkPads were turned into carbon-fiber reinforced plastic garbage.
Two ThinkPads were launched: an X200 Tablet and T400. The tablet was launched in slate mode, with the screen outward, and it was thoroughly spider-webbed. What did surprise me a bit was that the hard drives wouldn’t boot when placed in another machine, although data was able to be recovered from the hard drives.
Source: [Gizmodo]
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Acording an update in the source(Gizmodo):
“Update: Jeffery let me know that the smashed laptops themselves didn’t boot, but as soon as the drives were removed and inserted into another system, they booted up fine. No fancy data recovery required. Not too bad considering they fell hundreds of feet to the ground. [Thanks, Jeffery!]“
This is such an obscene waste of laptop. I go on this site because I am trying to decide on a Thinkpad that I really want to buy and need for work, but which I can’t aford until I pay off a £1000+ overdraft, and I see two perfectly good laptops getting catapulted into oblivion. I only hope this event was raising money for charity, which might to some extent justify the waste.
How is this a plus for lenovo? The hard drives are not produced by lenovo!
Because the protection afford by the chassis combined with Lenovo’s Active Protection System would be what allowed the actively-spinning hard drives to survive.
I have to agree with Daniel. This is completely stupid. If they knew the thinkpads would fly this far, why not use really old, useless thinkpads? Destroying fully functioning computers is as bad as wasting all the water and energy that was used to actually make these computers. I hope Lenovo’s green policy will someday have an impact on its loyal consumers!