Rethinking

With just a glance, the new ThinkPad looks far more modern. The reality is that older ThinkPad bodies never really felt as if they were designed for the current generation, but the company has abolished needless hooks, latches and bumpers, while also ridding the interior of the convoluted multi-button control mechanism. The widened trackpad now dominates the palm rest, and the protruding ThinkLight has been replaced with backlit keys. Oh, and as for the LCD bezel? It's the thinnest to ever grace a T-series ThinkPad. The revamping of the T431s is merely a taste of what's to come from Lenovo's most storied laptop line. Redesigning a hugely iconic (and frankly, loved) laptop line is something that must be handled with delicate gloves; change too much, and your loyalists flee, but change too little, and your rivals maintain the edge in design.

The revamping of the T431s is merely a taste of what's to come from Lenovo's most storied laptop line.

As part of a planned revamping, Lenovo tapped dozens of departments across the world to put new ThinkPad prototypes into the hands of average people -- people from all walks of life and strewn across a variety of cultures. Then, they watched and logged the feedback for a total of 18 months, chipping away and retooling the final product. The company didn't invest more than a year of research to polish up a single machine -- it's putting those findings to work across the entire range. While the machine that debuted at Engadget Expand will be the first to showcase the fruits of that labor when it ships in April at a $949 starting point, I'm told the siblings and cousins that follow will boast similar marks.

I asked Proctor -- along with Jason Parrish, manager of Lenovo's ThinkPad strategy and planning, and Tom Butler, director of worldwide ThinkPad product marketing, why the team felt it was necessary to redesign proactively. Making no bones about it, each agreed that the ThinkPad line isn't a guaranteed success just because it has been around for a score. But just scoping out the competition and trying their best to hop ahead based on conjecture wasn't going to cut it this go 'round.

"The nature of this research -- perhaps unlike some other research where you check a box for everything you need on a notebook -- was much more about understanding users and their behavior," said Proctor. "From there, we sought to telegraph those observations into design."

Such is the mentality of an adult stifling the lustful intuitions of a younger soul.

Just north of 100 people were intimately involved in refashioning the ThinkPad line for the modern era, with varying research studies taking place in the United States, China, Germany, France, India, Mexico, Russia, Brazil and Japan. Instead of just plopping a few paid participants down and asking them to fill out a form detailing their ideal laptop, the company "shadowed" individuals to see how they actually used a machine. Only a small segment of each group were genuine ThinkPad loyalists -- the rest were early adopters of consumer technology, as well as those ardently opposed to selecting a ThinkPad as their primary machine. After all, one's biggest opponent often provides the most truthful revelations.

Painting a picture of what it was like inside one of Lenovo's mobile R&D labs, Parrish described a "wall" of ThinkPads, glazed in every color and shade imaginable. Exteriors doused in the glossiest of blacks to the carbonest of fibers were on display, with a panel of laypeople asked to provide raw feedback on which version they'd consider tossing in their briefcases.

Parrish described a familiar refrain when folks waltzed by one particular machine -- a blissfully red ThinkPad. The initial response? Unanimously positive. Around 10 seconds later -- practically without fail -- each critic changed their tone. "This is pretty, but I couldn't see myself actually owning it and using it on a daily basis." Such is the mentality of an adult stifling the lustful intuitions of a younger soul. What would clients think of such a flashy lid? Would it send the wrong message? At the conclusion of the group's research, a gently tweaked coat of fingerprint-resistant black was settled upon. People love style, but professionals require class, and that's the delicate balance that Lenovo's trying to strike going forward.

Practically speaking

In discussing the myriad choices made over the life of the redesign project, I pressed the group to reveal what items the subjects simply wouldn't budge on; the things that were prioritized highly without fail.

"No one who doesn't work in the computer industry sits around and thinks about whether they'd be willing to trade off thickness for dropping a given component," confessed Proctor. "But, when you talk to people about these topics, they'll quickly rationalize needs. They'll suggest to themselves that they can just use an external optical drive if they need to use a DVD. They always ended up preferring something thinner when you ask them to think about choices and ask them to tell you what's most important."

"They always ended up preferring something thinner when you ask them to think about choices and ask them to tell you what's most important."

Reiterating the point, Proctor added: "When we talk to people, they'll say things like, 'Well, as long as [a laptop] has around four to five hours of battery life, that's good enough -- I'm never away from an outlet for much longer than that.'" She did, however, admit that select responders vocalized "very high needs" and resorted to other methods in order to stay powered up for longer periods, but it was quite clear to me that we aren't yet living in a world where the majority of OEMs are feeling pressure to radically innovate on the battery life front.

According to Proctor, "battery life, mobility and a laptop's thin-and-light nature remain top of mind." I offered something of a counterpoint, noting that many laptop users that I've spoken with have confessed that they'd be willing to buy something marginally thicker than the ludicrously thin laptops shipping today if it just had all-day battery life. And, in a separate world, many iPad loyalists are spending $150-plus to buy horrendously bulky keyboard cases that make their (far less utilitarian) tablet much, much thicker than -- say -- an 11-inch ultraportable.

Proctor's response? "We actually addressed that very topic in our study, and the feedback that we received was essentially the following: 'If it's my choice to add a thick and bulky case, that's fine. If the device arrives thick and bulky, that's not fine.'"