I can't agree enough. They don't seem to understand that they're destroying a great brand. If they want to create minimalistic MacBook-like designs, they should come up with new models. But at least some T, W & X Thinkpads should stay true to their IBM origins.
Thinkpads are workhorses. MacBooks are mostly targeted towards the consumer market. Glossy screens are just one proof of this. They are great machines. I type this from a MacBook Air. But better laptops should exist for developers. However, manufacturers seem too busy copying Apple's design cues and upgrading their enormous product lines.
The thing is they have created a gazillion other indistinguishable lines, which I presume are even junkier due to not having the head start of IBM designs.
Sometimes I question whether my recent upgrade to a T61 was a good investment. A faster processor and more than 8GiB would be nice. Power efficiency and LCD technology has gotten a lot better and I could learn to live with a shortscreen. And playing with a T431 for a short time, the changed trackpoint buttons didn't seem that bad.
Then I read articles like this and their comments and remember the reasons I generally keep my head in the sand for the technology upgrade cycle.
On a tangential, what's the deal with glossy instead of matte screens on all mainstream laptops? Is it that they're more durable and easier to clean? Do the colors look better?
Color saturation is also much better on a glossy screen; matte screens will dilute colors and look less vibrant. So there is a real benefit to it, but detractors like to ignore that and pretend its just because its "shiny".
My X1 is matte, and therefore its colors aren't as vibrant as a MBP (more washed out, its easy to tell), but there are advantages to matte, like lessened glare. So it is literally a "wash."
Thinkpads are workhorses. MacBooks are mostly targeted towards the consumer market. Glossy screens are just one proof of this. They are great machines. I type this from a MacBook Air. But better laptops should exist for developers. However, manufacturers seem too busy copying Apple's design cues and upgrading their enormous product lines.