Photo of BIOS keyboard config screen of ThinkPad Edge 13
Continuing on the trend of keyboards, my diligent readers reminded me I hadn’t commented on the Fn-Ctrl key swapping that was supposed to be built into the new models, despite having published my full ThinkPad T410 review.
I am here to report that all is well and as it should be on the ThinkPad Edge 13, which I am in the process of reviewing. You can see the BIOS menu for keyboard options in the photo above. Flipping the switch to “Enabled” and pressing F10 to save & exit will have you non-ThinkPad traditionalists in all of your Ctrl-Fn glory. Everything worked as expected, but I didn’t leave that option enabled for too long, being rather used to the Fn-Ctrl layout.
Another tidbit I noticed when exploring the BIOS, which you may have noticed above as well. The Edge 13 keyboard has supplanted the top row keys with system functions like volume and screen brightness, with the traditional F1-F12 keys relegated to secondary role and requiring a Fn-key combo.
Thankfully, Lenovo’s engineers saw fit to include an option to swap this function as well. This adds a few points back to the Edge in my book, having used this keyboard layout before on the HP Envy 13 and Envy 15, being that I use the F-row keys quite a bit as a touch typist.
For you T/R/W 400-500 series owners, you could always go out on a limb with a hacked BOIS to get your swapped keys.
It may sound crazy, but social and economic factors have led to a shortage of labor for LCD manufacturers, which in turn means production isn’t meeting targets and us consumers have to wait longer.
A few factors are contributing to the shortage of laborers in factories, including higher cost of living in the cities, increased labor demand in rural areas and a general dislike of factory work among this generation of young workers. This fundamental shift in China’s labor force looks to present a longer term challenge for companies that rely on production workers, which of course effects nearly every piece of electronics on the market today.
I’ve not see any laptop shipment delays due to LCD availability just yet, but if demand increases it may very well become apparent.
We found out last November that Lenovo would support switching the controversial Fn & Ctrl keys (not physically of course), but only for the new models announced since then. Thankfully, an enterprising customer has taken it upon themselves to hack the last generation T4oo & T500 BIOS to allow this same key swap.
User “middleton” on Lenovo’s official forum is supplying a modified BIOS for ThinkPad T400, T500, R400, R500 & W500 systems that allows the user to swap the mapping of the Fn and Ctrl keys, of course with a very strong “at your own risk” warning label. He isn’t new to this process either, having created this same patch for the IdeaPad Y550 and Y450 laptops.
A couple people have responded noting it works perfectly, but of course proceed with caution. Also consider that future BIOS updates from Lenovo will undo this feature and you will have to choose between feature/bug updates, or having your keys swapped.
To Lenovo’s credit, rather than denouncing the hard working Russian and banning his files, they chose to cite the obvious concerns with using an unofficial BIOS. Beyond what I mentioned here, you also need to be clear that if the machine is “bricked” or otherwise needs repair due to this “hacking” process, Lenovo’s warranty will not cover that repair.
Hit the source link to grab the files and try it for yourself. Let us know how it goes in the comments
Lenovo’s making another push to empty its shelves of the “old” ThinkPad T400 and T500 notebooks, now offering 20% off discrete graphics models that are configured over $1250.
While I feel the ThinkPad T410 (Read the review) in particular offers some great functional improvements over the T400, both the T400 and T500 are still very solid machines. Plus, the T500 has a 16:10 aspect ratio display, compared to the T510’s 16:9.
You can get a pretty well loaded ThinkPad T400/T500 for around $1000 after discount, compared to a more bare bones T410 or T510. Unfortunately you shouldn’t look for either of these systems to ship soon, as both are listed with a 4+ week shipment time. We expect this deal to end by March 10th, or sooner depending on volume of orders.
If you are looking for a new model or one that ships faster, Lenovo also has 5-15% off other ThinkPads. LogicBuy has all the details.
Details on how to get the deal are below and hit the jump to check out our recommended configs
Lenovo’s head honcho of design and Design Matters blogger David Hill was recently interviewed by a UI & design firm out of Australia. In the interview/podcast, Hill discusses a wide variety of topics around design and ThinkPads. I thought I’d heard it all when it came to ThinkPad design, but this is a very thorough interview and I came out knowing a few more things.
I’ve included my favorite Q&A below, but I highly recommend you read or listen to the whole thing. Enjoy!
Gerry: You’ve been an advocate of – I think you’ve called it an “evolution design strategy”. Can you tell me what you mean by that and whether it’s at odds with the current trend towards sticking the word “innovation” on everything?
David: … For many years we have been practicing what I call an evolution design strategy, which is specifically linked to ThinkPad. When I first took over the management responsibilities of the design of ThinkPad a lot of people asked me “So what are we going to do with the next generation design?” And my theory was if it wasn’t broken, I don’t really think we should fix it. I don’t think we need a new design. This was way back in 1995, when the design of ThinkPad was only three years old. And I didn’t think that we needed a new design, I just felt that we needed to continue to make it better and better.
This is very similar to the way many European car manufacturers have treated the design of their products. One that I use often is the Porsche 911. Every year somebody at Porsche is not trying to figure out what’s this year’s 911 going to look like. What they try to do is improve, enhance it and make the breed better and better and better. And I have always been a very strong advocate of that. And I think it’s connected to the ThinkPad brand. The word “think” obviously suggests thought and thoughtfulness and I think that means that the design had to have thought and thinking behind it. We shouldn’t do things arbitrarily, we should do them if we believe that the solution is truly better.
We covered the announcement of the new X201 models last week, citing the major revisions as Core i5 and i7 processors, an updated fingerprint reader and the optional touchpad. Lenovo also recently updated their handy PSREF documents, which confirm to us that the X201 models officially support a maximum of 8GB RAM, via two 4GB sticks. This is great news for power users, who can now really take advantage of a 64-bit operating system.
Also of note is that the controversial, and optional, touchpad on the X201 is a $20 option. The X201 Tablet is particularly limited in its configuration options: you can’t even get an 8-cell battery, so expect those offers to expand in the coming weeks.
On the opposite side of Lenovo’s laptop spectrum, the value line G455 and G555 laptops are also now for sale. We knew at launch that both would be powered by AMD dual core processors, with the smaller G455 starting at $699 and the G555 at $729.
Lastly, you can also pick up the refreshed IdeaPad Y460. The overall design appears the same as the IdeaPad Y50 when I reviewed it, but with more powerful Core i3 and i5 processors and ATI graphics.
Hit the jump to check out the base specs and price of each model
Lenovo recently discussed with CNET that their experience shows businesses and even many private customers don’t want a slate only PC with no physical keyboard. The informal interview coincides with the recent launch of their ThinkPad X201 Tablet convertible notebook and is certainly fueled by the attention on Apple’s slick new iPad.
Lenovo has shown enterprise customers mock-ups of slate devices that would be business-appropriate, but no one was interested due to the lack of physical keyboard. They even went as far as to ask high school kids:
Majapuro said Lenovo even got feedback from high school kids. “These were 14-year-old kids, who, I thought, would be most willing to try a virtual keyboard but they said no, we want the physical (built-in) keyboard.”
Although, somehow I doubt they asked high school kids if they wanted a super slim, stylish device that “has an App for everything” and will automatically elevate you to cult status, free with every purchase.
You can have a convertible netbook, a dual-screened giant workstation, a true convertible tablet and even a 14-15 inch multitouch laptop, but no slate (from Lenovo) for you.
An errant press announcement on Intel’s website dated March 1st lets us know that the faster 1.83GHz Atom N470 PineTrail processor will officially launch…on March 1st.
Of course Lenovo wasn’t selling netbooks with the N470 last month. Of course not.
This means we may see some updated Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 and S10-3t netbooks soon, with the faster processor and hopefully a better OS choice than Win7 Starter.
Adobe recently updated their beta version of Flash 10.1 to include hardware acceleration support to Intel GMA 500 graphics and the Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder.
I’ve been following the Flash HD video acceleration news for a while now, as an admitted addict to sites like Hulu and Netflix Watch Instantly. I rarely watch cable TV and feel that these sites are the best thing since the invention of the TrackPoint. Up until now the Flash acceleration talk has been limited to discrete graphics chipsets, like the NVIDIA Ion.
Unfortunately the GMA 500 graphics are only found on netbooks with the Atom Z5xx single core processors, which are relatively rare compared to the ubiquitous Atom Nxxx models. Wikipedia has a partial list of netbooks with GMA 500 graphics, but no Lenovo models have used that platform.
Still, this is good news that Adobe is committed to bringing a good Flash experience to all platform and hopefully it won’t be too long before we see near universal hardware acceleration support.
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