As a semi-loyal ThinkPad fan, my love for the TrackPoint is no less than my love for Ms. Atsumi Tanezaki. So whether on the X230 or the X250, the TrackPoint has become my go-to pointing device. Sometimes even with a Bluetooth mouse connected, I’ll find myself using it for a while and then tossing the mouse aside to go back to the TrackPoint. So here’s the thing: my X230 has been in use for almost two years now, and its TrackPoint is battered—gray and no longer bright, and it seems a bit shiny too. So I figured I’d find a new one to swap in. I knew Taobao had them… but I didn’t know there were actually three kinds of TrackPoint:

Part One: Replacing the Screen Last Friday, I suddenly noticed a very small white spot in the bottom-right corner of my ThinkPad X230’s screen. I have no idea when it appeared. All I know is that from the moment I spotted it, it became absurdly conspicuous. I could barely stop myself from fixating on it. Sure, it only shows up against white, and my desktop is black—but it still looked wrong, plain and simple. First thing I thought of was checking whether there was any after-sales service, even though mine’s a gray-market unit. Asked the seller I bought from. Answer: after-sales is possible, but the process takes a month if everything goes smoothly, and it’s not even certain this situation would qualify for repair. Fine, fine. So I bought another screen off Taobao. Supposedly it’s an upgraded STB1, thinner and lighter than my old one, and more power-efficient too. As for the old screen, the Taobao seller said they’d take it for 100 yuan.