Lenovo's 25th anniversary ThinkPad is a huge throwback to 1992
I am literally as old as the ThinkPad.
When I was born in 1992, that's when floppy disks seemed high-tech, and when Microsoft Windows 3.1 was latest OS on the market. That's also when the first IBM ThinkPad was introduced.
For all of the business laptop's changes internally, it'll always be associated with its black design and red trackpoint.
That's why its dedicated fanbase asked for the ThinkPad's 25th anniversary version to come with some of the older features they loved from 1992.
Kevin Beck, one of Lenovo's ThinkPad ambassadors, told us that the company's design VP, David Hill, asked fans what they'd like to see in the next model. 13,000 people responded to the survey, and their requests were detailed, to say the least.
Start with the laptop's multi-coloured logo. That's a throwback to the classic ThinkPads, which bore IBM's red, green and blue coloured logo. Since Lenovo can't exactly put IBM's name on its newest laptop, this is the closest it can get.
The new laptop also comes with the ThinkPad's classic seven-row keyboard.
Most keyboards today have six rows of keys, including all of Lenovo's newest models. When the company first announced it was changing to a six-row keyboard in 2012, it caused much controversy, with many fans saying it was a "deal-breaker."
The keyboard also comes with a blue enter key, as well as dedicated volume buttons, both features that are unique to 1990s-era ThinkPads.
Specs wise, the ThinkPad 25 is pretty modern -- running on a 7th-generation Kaby Lake i7-7500U processor, and equipped with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.
The ThinkPad 25 is retailing for $1899, far less than the original 1992 ThinkPad, which went for $4,350 in 1992 -- or a staggering $7,589 in today's money.
So thanks to its fans, it looks like the future of the ThinkPad is firmly in black.
"The primary design will always be black and there will always be a trackpoint, because that's us," said Beck.
We got some more nuggets about the ThinkPad that you can use to impress a ThinkPad fan you know.
10 ThinkPad things you didn't know:
1) The ThinkPad's design is inspired by the Japanese bento box. The idea behind it was that it was black on the outside, but you were "in for a surprise when you opened it."
2) The ThinkPad logo is positioned asymmetrically on its laptops on purpose. More specifically, it sits at a 43 degree angle -- not 45 degrees, as most people think.
3) The "red" trackpoint is not officially red, but magenta.
4) The rubber used for the original trackpoint was the same type of rubber used to make roller coaster wheels.
5) The 700C ThinkPad, the first ever produced by IBM in 1992, was internally named "Nectarine".
6) The 700C had a 25MHz processor. Today's ThinkPads have a 2.8GHz processor -- approximately 112 times faster in raw power.
7) In 1993, IBM produced the ThinkPad 555BJ which had an actual in-built printer.
8) There are huge ThinkPad fan clubs across the world, from Japan to Indonesia.
9) ThinkPad sold its 100 millionth unit in 2014.
10) The name ThinkPad was inspired by pocket notepads, which had the motto "Think" on the front, once issued to all IBM employees.
Topics Lenovo
Yvette is a Viral Content Reporter at Mashable Asia. She was previously reporting for BBC's Singapore bureau and Channel NewsAsia.
