2022 has been a very busy year for the channel with nearly 100 videos published. This year saw the beginning of many new projects, some that I have yet to announce and the continuation and expansion of others. To help celebrate, here are my Top Picks for each month of 2022.

January 2022

The year started strong and it was a tough race between an interview I did with David Hill regarding the TrackPoint cap and the ThinkMods NVMe to Express Card Adapter. Since it is my list, I refuse to choose and give you both of those fantastic videos.

February 2022

February saw the one-year anniversary of my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano ownership which was a milestone to be sure. SaotoTech did steal the show a bit with their 3D-printed TrackPoint caps. See the video below to learn more about how to get a modern version of a classic TrackPoint cap.

March 2022

This month was especially busy with lots of laptops and Think Design Stories. My favourite has to be David Hill’s story about the Hardened ThinkPad Concept. Special thanks to Brian Leonard for the best photos that exist of this important concept.

April 2022

I finally looked at the IBM ThinkPad 600 which was a very important model for the ThinkPad lineup as it laid the groundwork for the T series that would shortly follow. Lots of design choices that are still with the ThinkPad brand started with this model. Special thanks to Tommy for getting this model to me.

May 2022

This was a quieter month in terms of easily stand-out machines but it did see me tear down the ThinkPad E580 which went to show that good value still exists in series outside the T series.

June 2022

June soldiered on and several machines came and went but one that couldn’t quite go fast enough is one of the least repairable laptops ever made, the Surface Laptop 2. It is impossible to over this device without destroying several components.

July 2022

July was insane with 17 videos released. Two of my favourites from this time were my review of the Keychron K8 and Q0 keyboard and number pad. I did particularly enjoy the IBM ThinkPad A20m video as it gave me the chance to highlight Rob Herman’s work again as I finally got the chance to look at the first A Series on the channel.

August 2022

This was easily the quietest month of the year since I was already hard at work on my celebratory planning for ThinkPad 30th’s birthday. A lot of work was going on behind the scene so the fewest videos were produced during this time. I did manage to squeeze in a few videos and the Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 1 was one of the good ones..

September 2022

September began the rolling release of the videos that celebrated ThinkPad’s 30th anniversary. I collaborated with not only David Hill, but Tom Hardy who shared some amazing stories about their time with ThinkPad and Design. Here are some of the many videos that were produced:

October 2022

With the ThinkPad 30’s celebrations in full swing, there was a lot to talk about. I strongly recommend you check out the playlist of Interviews for all the goodies that were happening at that time.

Think Design Stories: Dr. Ted Selker, Interviewing the man behind TrackPoint

Think Design Stories: 21st Century Customer Engagement (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Stories: The Colour Black, The Challenges of Making ThinkPad Black (ft. Tom Hardy)

Think Design Stories: TrackPoint Origins, The story of how it became red (ft. Tom Hardy)

Think Design Stories: People Driving Design (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Stories: Developing ThinkPad, The People, Technology and Timing (ft. Tom Hardy)

Think Design Stories: Design Saves Branding (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Stories: IBM and Design, The Road to the Personal Computer (ft. Tom Hardy)

Think Design Stories: 180 Degree Hinge: Durability Built-In (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Stories: Hardened ThinkPad: Durable Design Concept (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Short Stories: Zippers, TrackPoint Caps and Batman (ft. David Hill)

Think Design Stories: The Cut Corner: Purpose Revealed (ft. David Hill)

November 2022

This year seemed to have been dominated by ThinkPads. November saw the examination of the X390 which was the last three-digit X model before they went to the X13 variants. It is a strange evolution that I got the pleasure of unpacking for the channel.

December 2022

December and much of November were very busy months for me, unfortunately not channel related so there were many projects that I didn’t get started, or finished. I hope to start the next year strong and wanted to get two wonderful donations filmed. The Lenovo ThinkPad X61s and the Lenovo ThinkPad T430u. Thanks to Justin and Kemish for making that possible.

Looking Ahead

Looking into 2023 I feel like there is much left undone. I’ve been generously provided several donations I still need to film. I have several collaborations in the works that need to be continued that ideally, would be further along and I am definitely the slow factor. As I mentioned earlier in the article, things got busy outside of the channel and I never was able to claw that time back.

I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunities that are new that have also come my way that I cannot wait to share them with everyone. All of it, every success the channel has had this year and years previously has been a direct result of your kindness and support of what I do. Laptop Retrospective remains a wonderful hobby that I’m excited to work on every time I sit down to write notes for a video or edit together the next episode. I hope you will join me in the year ahead, we have so much to explore together.

This article was inspired by the Tweet and the article linked below.

The power of customer advocacy and reviews https://t.co/iH7THmxBSi via @thedrum

— Yuszela (@yuszela) July 1, 2021

One of the stretch goals I had for this channel is to one day use my growing experience and accumulating knowledge about laptops is of course to review newer ones. This is a stretch goal though and not the purpose for Laptop Retrospective to exist. I’m happy with the direction of the channel overall and the exciting opportunities it has given me, especially in the last year. Those have been something really special. So special in fact, that even my original stretch goal is something I could let go of because I’m having too much fun. I consider myself very fortunate to have the freedom to explore so many different avenues.

Long-term viewers will know that I have a full-time job and do not intend for YouTube and content creation to support me in any way shape or form. The channel supports itself.

Now, getting to the article and how that relates with what I’ve said above are some of the interesting statistics it includes. Entering into the world of reviewing is a sticky one that can be difficult to navigate.

“92% of buyers state they are more likely to purchase a product or service after reading a trusted review.”

“How many reviews are people reading before buying: 5, 20, 50?

112.”

“…a whopping 95% of us believe reviews are fake if the feedback is only positive.”

There are more statistics included in the article but these three jumped out to me and allow me to outline why.

Trusted reviews are really important. I am not confident there are enough of these out there. With varying disclosure laws about partnerships with ad companies, content creators and influencers, I feel that this is a murky area that can be very challenging for the consumer to navigate. I’m fortunate that I do not require funding from any company to create content but I understand others do it as a source of income to sustain their livelihood. That isn’t a bad thing by itself, but it is something that the viewer should know about to help evaluate your relationship with a brand or company. I’ve tried my best to be upfront and transparent about my relationships with any company I’ve worked with and have avoided and even stopped projects where I wasn’t allowed to be critical or the company demanded a specific outcome. It is for this reason that I have never accept financial compensation for my work as I feel that would impact my content and I know that is not something everyone can do, nor would I expect it. Our goals are simply different.

There is a difference between an ad and a review. This should be obvious, especially to the consumer, but sometimes it is challenging to spot. Most companies know the difference when it comes to working with content creators and influencers but a lot of them do not, especially the ones that work with smaller creators such as myself. They do not have robust or dedicated marketing teams that actually understand these subtle differences and feel that any constructive criticism will harm them. In reality, it will probably do more good than harm as we can see from the third statistic.

One of the reasons I wanted to get into this sort of work was to see what the industry was really like as a content creator. I also feel that if something is too polished or professional-looking, it starts to look more like an ad and less like a review. There is a fine line and some creators do a fantastic job of balancing these audience expectations whereas others seem to go “all in” to the ad side of things. That is perfectly fine, so long as that clear and spelt-out relationship is made clear to the viewer.

Anyway, I just wanted to bash out a couple of thoughts here on this since I do not feel I get the chance to talk about this sort of thing very often. Honestly, reviews are less and less of a focus and as I mentioned earlier, that is really okay with me. I want to have fun and learn, those are the two major objectives.

I hope you have found it entertaining and/or informative.