2024 has been a good year. While I was hoping to get more content out and share more with you, several things ate my free time for breakfast and it didn’t quite work out as intended. Despite that, the statistics from both YouTube and this website paint a positive picture. Views are holding steady and only a slight drop in subscribers per year. Funny enough, the number of uploads for 2023 and 2024 is the same.

Website statistics are likely a result of search engines and other bots combing the content and learning from what I write here. I wrote very little, likely as a result of doing a lot of writing for school, so doing it as a hobby was less attractive. My goal is to write more articles in 2025.

YouTube Stats for the year 2024.
Stats for laptopretrospective.com

As has been my tradition, I will break down each month and pick a highlight for me.

January

January was a slower start to the year, but it had me feature the P53, which was capable of 128GB of RAM—a very impressive piece of gear. Workstations aren’t super common around here, so looking at one, especially a P-series, is always fun. I remain grateful for Rob Herman helping me frame what makes a workstation an important addition to a laptop lineup. As an aside, he was a familiar face I met in person at Lenovo Tech World 2023.

February

Speaking of workstations, this highlight for February came in a nice carrying case that helped sell the idea that this was true portable power. It isn’t often we see hard cases for laptops so this was fun to look at for that reason as well. The owner had a portable monitor tucked away in the lid making for a comprehensive setup.

March

March saw the release of the series of interviews I did with Luis Hernandez, a wonderful storyteller and all-around great human being. He worked for both IBM and Lenovo, retiring as the VP of Lenovo Commercial Product Solution Development. You can see the full interview below:

April

This month was mainly releasing the interviews I did with Luis in terms of main channel content. I did feature the L14 G2 which had more modularity than the T series of the same generation. Thankfully the T series now has just as much. Looking at a modern L series was still very educational.

May

A conversation with David Hill is always a highlight. In May we discussed the Lenovo Skylight project and David shared stories of its development and how Richard Sapper created this sleek-looking laptop that was never released. 

June

This video may be close to the highlight of the year for me, being able to bring you a sealed Lenovo Skylight, open it and tour the operating system. Special thanks to David for locating it and for Tommy to help me get it to Canada. In terms of rare machines, this is pretty high up on the list.

July

Lots was going on in July but the video that stands out is releasing the full interview I had the pleasure of doing with Tom Hardy for the 30th anniversary of ThinkPad several years ago. The video contains just over 30 minutes of additional conversations and stories. It is worth the watch to hear some of Tom’s stories about the challenging and rewarding environment that design work brings.

August

August is a draw between two smaller laptops. The Toshiba T1910CS with the weird trackball attachment was a lot of fun to film and was the first laptop I filmed in my renovated film space. The runner-up is the ThinkPad 240X which was the first Japanese-exclusive ThinkPad I’ve featured on the channel and one of the smallest ThinkPads to be featured as well.

September

The IBM TransNote is a strange device with an even stranger story. One day I will release the video of the one I have in my collection, I promise. David Hill remembers working on it with Dr. John Karidis of butterfly keyboard fame on the ThinkPad 701C. It is clear to see why the machine didn’t make it to another generation but it clearly left an impact as many people I have interviewed over ther years reference this device.

October

My highlight here is an upgrade to my tool kit. To make a long story short, I follow David Hill on X/Twitter and enjoy his Design of the Day posts. One post was for a company, HOTO showcasing a flashlight. After a little digging, I saw they made a screwdriver kit and wanted to treat myself. I’ve been enjoying it ever since. Honestly, I should probably treat myself a little more often than I do. I imagine that the production quality would continue to improve if that were the case. The challenge is how to improve production quality without adding additional work and not impacting the speed of production. Being a one-person crew that does everything, every additional step needs to pay off and then some for it to be worth slowing things down.

November

This next highlight is thanks to Dan Basterfield, who is an amazingly knowledgeable and kind individual with quite an excellent ThinkPad collection. He digitized some service tapes like the one I did for the ThinkPad 701C and asked me to share them with the greater community. You can expect to see another release from this VHS collection soon in 2025.

December

The last item to bring up would have to be the LG-IBM video. Back in 2022 I covered the story of LG-IBM in detail on this website, but didn’t have a machine to present. This changed and I was able to create a video showcasing not only the IBM ThinkPad 570 but also probably the strangest rebrand in the IBM lineup at that point.

Jul
28

The Strange History of LG and ThinkPad (The Story of LG-IBM)

Update This article was originally published July 28, 2022. It has been updated to include a video showcasing an LG-IBM ThinkPad 570 that I featured on the channel. It contains references to this article in its originally published form. A Sticker If you are like me, you have spent some time looking through Hardware Maintenance […]

Thanks everyone for watching and reading and I will see you next year!

The Situation

So let’s get this out of the way.

Leaked images are floating ahead of CES 2025 showcasing a device called the Lenovo ThinkPad X9.

This ThinkPad does not have a TrackPoint.

Several news outlets have picked up the story, including Notebook Check, one of my favourites. You can read their article here.

The bottom line is, we do not know a lot about this device, where it will be released or if it will be released. Concept devices are common at tradeshows like CES and TechWorld and many do not make it to production. The bendable phone I saw at TechWorld 23 is a good example.

Nov
04

My Lenovo Tech World 2023 Experience

I was able to attend Lenovo Tech World 2023 thanks to my participation in the Lenovo INsiders program. My travel and accommodations were covered and there was no cost to me to go to Austin, Texas. As part of my efforts to ensure 100% transparency, I am disclosing this information at the top of this […]

Another thing to consider is the odd nomenclature; X9. This does not fit within any existing product line-up which is encouraging that this might not be a mass rollout or an idea that would even stick. The TrackPoint is also part of the accessibility feature package that they advertise on the ThinkPad lineup.

Why does it matter?

There are many possible explanations for this but the reason this move is seen as strange to so many ThinkPad users and fans is, that this is one of a few features that make ThinkPad iconic and not just another brand. You can take the badge away and still know a ThinkPad is a ThinkPad based on the sleek black colour and the red TrackPoint present on the keyboard.

I do not believe this is the end of the TrackPoint, I will make that clear. That would be the equivalent in my mind of prying the Jaguar off the hood of the car (An expression I picked up from David Hill, Former Chief Design Officer & Vice President of Experience Design at Lenovo). That example might not be a good one to make any more with Jaguar’s recent advertisement that famously featured no actual car or Jaguar.

Jerry Paradise who retired from Lenovo in March 2024, said this quote during ThinkPad’s 30th anniversary celebrations as reported by PCWatch.

Q: Will the TrackPoint continue to be implemented in ThinkPads?

Paradise : That’s right. We believe that the TrackPoint will be implemented forever as long as ThinkPad exists. It is our promise to our customers, and we believe that it is an iconic part of the ThinkPad brand and part of the design.

As an aside, Jerry Paradise is on my wishlist of individuals to interview as his history with ThinkPad runs very deep. I imagine he has a lot of amazing stories he could tell. Perhaps one day.

What is the history?

The TrackPoint, an isometric pointing device embedded in the keyboard of ThinkPad laptops, was invented by Dr. Ted Selker while working at IBM Research in the early 1980s. He drew inspiration from research on mouse-pointing devices and hypothesized that a finger-operated pointing device integrated into the keyboard would be faster and more efficient than a mouse. Selker collaborated with colleague Joe Rutledge to develop the TrackPoint. They conducted research and experiments, discovering that a non-linear transfer function improved selection speed by preventing cursor loss. This approach challenged conventional thinking at the time and led to disagreements with other researchers in the field.

Several factors contributed to the significance of the TrackPoint:

  • Improved efficiency: The TrackPoint offered a significant speed advantage over trackballs and mice. Users no longer had to take their hands off the keyboard, saving valuable time and maintaining focus.
  • Space saving: The compact size of the TrackPoint made it ideal for use in confined spaces like bank teller stations, airplanes and other places where space is limited.
  • Accessibility: Users with shaky hands found the TrackPoint’s overshoot prevention algorithms particularly beneficial and only required one point of contact to manipulate the mouse cursor.
  • Brand identity: The TrackPoint became a signature feature of ThinkPad laptops, contributing to their brand identity and attracting a loyal following.

I’m very fortunate to have the history of the TrackPoint from the sources that were there when it all happened. I had the chance to speak to both Dr. Ted Selker and Tom Hardy and both had stories to tell about this iconic device that has been on essentially every machine to carry the ThinkPad name.

Why remove it?

I can think of a lot of reasons why people would want to remove it and I suspect that most of it revolves around cost. It is no secret that making room for the TrackPoint comes at a cost both financially and spatially.

  • Changing user preferences: As touchpads have become larger, more responsive, and feature-rich, many users have come to prefer them over the TrackPoint. The wider adoption of touchpads has led to some manufacturers prioritizing them over the TrackPoint to cater to evolving user demands.
  • Cost considerations: Including both a TrackPoint and a touchpad increases manufacturing costs. To reduce expenses and potentially lower the price of their laptops, a manufacturer might choose to eliminate the less popular pointing device.
  • Design trends: The trend towards thinner and lighter laptops has put pressure on manufacturers to maximize internal space. Removing the TrackPoint and its associated hardware can free up space for other components, such as larger batteries or improved cooling systems.
  • Competitive pressure: If competitors are successfully selling laptops without TrackPoints, a manufacturer may feel pressured to follow suit to remain competitive. This is particularly true if the manufacturer wants to appeal to a wider customer base who may not be familiar with or prefer the TrackPoint.

So while the reasons to remove it are many, we are still talking about one of the most visibly iconic features of any laptop brand in the history of laptops. That would be like taking one of the most well-known social media brands in history and renaming it. Alright, I promise to stop with the not-so-good examples.