wjli2,

"I have posted my reasons...."

My question is this: Are your reasons just speculation on your part, or do you have some source of information that we don't know about? If so, please tell us what it is, so we can become believers too.

Centex

Dear Centex,

If everything that members said, had to be justified or authenticated from other sources, then would it not make sense to just google for the information.

As far as I am concerned, I would happily use a post from wjli2 to authenticate what I am writing. I have learned much about ThinkPads reading his posts.

What you believe -- or don't believe -- is upto you. However, one can always evaluate a post and its content by testing it against well understood tenets of logic. So welcome, and enjoy this board -- even if you are a non-believer. What's the point in preaching the converted.

Okay let me put it simply for you:

-Notice how the T500 has perforation in a disc shape exactly over the Ultrabay Slim drive??? Do you think it is by coincidence it happens to look like that and that particular spot???

Heat Transfer 101: Stagnant Air has the lowest heat transfer coefficient of any naturally occuring material. This in fact is well used for insulation, i.e. foam insulation and passenger airplane windows. However, what is good for insulation is bad for cooling, when the old ultrabay slim drive is inserted into the T6x machines, there is little pocket of stagnant air between the drive and the magnesium chassis. This may not matter for the old ultrabay devices, however the new Ultrabay Slim bluray drive would run lot hotter. Heat soak is bad for the bluray blue diode. Having the perforation ensures that cooler circulating air can effectively cool the drive and no stagnant air builds up. This also the case with the Mg Chassis covering the harddrive, where more perforation is added, inorder to increase the airflow across the harddrive.

Material strength wise, a plain sheet metal has the lowest strength/weight ratio, while if you carefully perforate the metal in a specific way (i.e. honey comb like structure) then you would not decrease strength but the weight decreases, therefore the strength/weight ratio increases. While if you add cross members and extrusion members to the structure the bending strength of perforated members increases, these cross extrusion members are noticeable on the chassis top of the harddrive bay.

Do you also notice how the Mg chassis covering the PCMCIA and the ExpressCard slot did not change from T6x to the T5xx it is in fact exactly the same.

Therefore many of the changes in the Txxx chassis are due to better heat transfer consideration.

wjli2,

"Okay, let me put it simply for you:

Notice how the T500 has a perforation in a disc shape..... "

Thank you.

Centex

Centex,

I had marked Wjli2's post as an "Accepted Solution" because it had answered my questions and concerns.

Obviously, Wjli2 may not be 110% right. He is not David Hill, and, as such, we will never really know why Lenovo has made these changes unless Mr. Hill answers for himself.

I cannot believe that Lenovo would be so daft as to butcher a ThinkPad.

Wjli2 is one of the most knowledgeable people on this forum, and his post had made sense to me.

If you have a better explanation for the recent changes to ThinkPads, please let me know, and I will gladly mark it as the solution. For now, Wjli2 had addressed this issue.