Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vacri 5404 days ago
None of the Thinkpads that I have on hand (x30, T41 tablet, X201, Z61m, covers ~ 10 years) exhibit that feature, so it's not something "thinkpad does".

The difference with the Apple logo is that it is usually illuminated - rather than mere branding that you have to look for, it actually pulls your eye and works as an advertisement due to the difference in illuminance.
2 comments
kubrickslair 5404 days ago
Yes, the difference with Apple is illuminance. But I think they started it when they were much smaller, and it was meant to be promote word-of-mouth-ish promotion. Sure now that Macs are popular, it sucks to have too many illuminated logos being thrown in your face. I don't like that either. I too find it sad that too many children these day will think the Apple logo is synonymous with computing devices. At least in the earlier days there were many different logos from different companies.

Going back to ThinkPad, I think the difference was that it was a small logo on the corner. Consider having a big ThinkPad logo in the center, and how odd it may look to anybody who looks at the user. Probably why other manufacturers also do it.

link
dredmorbius 5403 days ago
The apple logo is also designed to be viewed by others, NOT the owner.

Thinkpad's branding ("Lenovo" and the angled "Thinkpad" in the corner) face the owner when the laptop is closed.

The Apple is inverted. When the laptop lid is up (in use), it's advertising Apple to others. When the laptop lid is closed, the owner sees an upside-down apple.

That's marketing genius.

(Typed on a Thinkpad, running Debian GNU/Linux, of course: while I appreciate marketing genius, I prefer technical superiority ;-)

link