Spill Free!

To help save the jobs of employees who spill water/coffee/vodka/other beverages while tapping away at their ThinkPads, Lenovo designed their notebooks to be spill-free. That does not mean the ThinkPads come with a force field that prevents water from spilling on the keyboard. That will come in the future. For now, you will have to be satisfied with Lenovo's less-futuristic but no less useful spill-free design.

These Lenovo notebooks have been designed to channel any liquids spilling onto the keyboard and wrist rest area to flow down two drainage holes located at the lower end of the keyboard (see pictures on the right). The spilled liquid would then flow out beneath the chassis. This prevents the liquid from coming into contact with the sensitive electronics within the chassis and shorting them out.

It looks really simple, doesn't it? Well, the wheel looked simple too, but it took mankind thousands of years to think of it.

With such a design, you can spill water on the keyboard without worrying about destroying the notebook, which is what Kobayashi-san demonstrated in the video. The water he poured flowed down to those two drainage holes and out the bottom of the chassis.

Of course, you should not try this out in your office, just for the fun of it. Certainly not using coffee, chocolate drinks or any sweet drinks. These can be especially hard to clean off the keyboard and the drainage holes. They may even attract ants, which is not something Lenovo can help you with!

Fortunately, the Lenovo keyboards are designed to be user-replaceable. So, if you cannot clean off the mess properly or if it malfunctions after the spill, you can easily order in a replacement keyboard and replace it yourself.