I agree there are no signs of it going away. But speaking on the merits, it would be better to have one standard, and DisplayPort has so far taken the edge on capability and interoperability. HDMI is a redundant player kept in place moreso by convention than practicality.

In addition to leading the charge on bandwidth, DisplayPort has historically supported passive HDMI conversion (DP++) as an extension of the standard, while the same has not generally been the case for HDMI to DP. This situation has evolved somewhat over time, but not to the extent that we need to continue developing two parallel standards.

I am calling for an industry-wide shift to DisplayPort, with passthrough HDMI support for as long as we need, not just the port's removal from laptops specifically.

Strongly disagree. There are zero signs of HDMI going away. As long as projectors and TVs with HDMI continue to be the standard, calling for it to be removed from laptops is highly premature.

On a different dongle note, HDMI is long overdue for retirement. The port takes up valuable space that could instead be used to offer an additional more capable USB-C with DisplayPort support, and display adapters don't carry the same portability concerns as those needed to connect mice and thumb drives. It's time for HDMI to join the league of relics including VGA, DVI, composite, component, and S-Video before it.

Quote from: Eyes for design on March 29, 2025, 13:46:36How about a DVD drive and an Ethernet port?

DVD drive is not good because it's a reliability risk having something spinning at high speed and you drop your laptop. Not to mention disc drive tend to go bad after time and start scratching the actual discs themselves until they become unusable. And that's before going into the significant additional power they take which kills battery efficiency. So I don't mind losing this.

Ethernet is crucial imo. Having high speed with consistent low latency internet connection is paramount. The fact that most gaming laptops don't have this despite being marketed for gaming is a joke. The ethernet ports isn't even that huge.

I'd like to add having VGA port to is a must (for projectors, etc) although I'm probably gonna get crucified for it.

Everything else I don't really care for. Go ahead with dongle life. Remove them all. Barely use usb. What am I gonna use usb for? I can transfer photos wirelessly at Gigabit speeds. Usb mouse? I'm fine with wireless. External storage? Meh don't need it and the people that do are literally docked all day anyway.

Quote from: Eyes for design on March 29, 2025, 13:46:36

Quoteno USB-A port

It's time for you to take up. It's the year 2025.
Did you never hear of the things which are called adapters?

Lmao!! What an actual clown. Yeah, just remove everything and get a dongle for each removed thing. "It's 2025 baby!!!"

Sorry, but no. USB A is still a standard that is used a lot and most business laptops still have it. If the X9 wants to play in this category, not having USB A is a disadvantage. Adapters are cumbersome and annoying.

No to mention the 15 inch X9 has USB A. "It is 2025" is a crappy justification.

Quoteno USB-A port

It's time for you to take up. It's the year 2025.
Did you never hear of the things which are called adapters?

Otherwise: Some more wishes? How about a DVD drive and an Ethernet port?

- cheap looking port areas (as if Lenovo realized too late that they had forgotten the port ranges... too late to create a coherent design)
- cheap looking and misplaced looking ThinkPad logo below the keyboard area

Lenovo probably had to remove their trackpoint from this model to avoid killing the rest of their more expensive line up

Is there no mention here about keyboard repairability? Especially with a new keyboard design like this you could easily end up with a laptop ending up as a useless brick after 3 years if the keyboard breaks and can't be easily replaced.

With a 1920 x 1200 display and 24% pricier, it's no MacBook Air competitor.

I would remove "Windows" from the title of this article. A lot of Thinkpad users run Linux.

Quote from: CamelHorse on March 27, 2025, 20:17:29As if the track point, is the sole reason for all of this. Lmao..

Trackpoint is the main reason behind buying Thinkpads, for me. If Thinkpads had no trackpoint, I'd probably buy other business machines, instead of tolerating many of the Lenovo's questionable design decisions upgrade cycle after upgrade cycle.

The Macbook Air competitorship argument is an interesting one, as displays are a critical component of the comparison.

On one hand, the review unit has only a WUXGA resolution. Just as, in the days of old, 1366x768 ultrabooks with bad TN panels could not be seen as level with the 1440x900 Air with a better TN, we cannot compare the 1920x1200 in this review unit with the 2560x1664 of the MBA 13. On the other hand, it does offer 2880x1800, and both display options are OLED in comparison to the globally-backlit (not MiniLED) IPS LCD of the Macbook Air.

In any case, this 1920x1200 and the Mac's 2560x1664 displays are both burdened by a 60Hz refresh rate. Only the 2880x1800 option here resolves that with its 120Hz. Moreover, we don't know how the upgraded panel will affect battery life, which is its own point of contention.

At least we're well ahead of those 768p TN days. We can rest easy knowing that every display in question here is respectable.

Quote from: Dom on March 27, 2025, 16:00:44It's not a proper Thinkpad. There's no track point!

That's literally the best thing about it imo. Just wish the entire ThinkPad line-up had no trackpoint and not just a few models.

Who cares what ThinkPad once original ly was. It was originally owned by IBM and they sold the division so that's how much the original inventors of the project cared about their own creation.

At the moment we've apple hemorrhaging pc laptop marketshare while we've dinosaur neckbeards like yourself reminiscing like it's 1967. *Shaking my head* As if the track point, is the sole reason for all of this. Lmao..