I'm surprised how much these X230s are still being used. People who love real keyboards love them.

Personally I didn't think Lenovo's later keyboards were too bad. The one on my T490s was wonderful. However since my work moved to the T14s series, the keyboards have become terrible. The key movement range is too low now, and the feel is crap. It's too bad because Lenovo was the last holdout which still had decent keyboards. The T14s is also bad in other ways, the body got thinner but the screen got a lot thicker and heavier so it's actually worse to carry than the T490s.

Anyway, ontopic: I'm not surprised these cam controller firmwares can be hacked. It's very specific to the controller though.

However, most people I know that care about privacy close the cam door anyway, or put a sticker over it. I use the SpyFy. https://spy-fy.com/collections/webcam-covers . Good luck hacking that.

What worries me a lot more is the microphone. It doesn't have a light, and it's really hard to block. A simple sticker won't do much. These things are super sensitive. I can literally hear myself talking in the other room with the right boost settings.

100% agree with you on the keyboards. I had an X220, then a T490, and now I'm on an E16. The keyboard has gotten noticeably worse every time I've upgraded, sacrificing key travel and feel for flatness. It's such a shame - I would happily take a little extra body thickness for a nicer feeling keyboard.

Still use my X230.

I swapped its keyboard with an x220 one, which is the thing to do if you are into the older thinkpad KB feel.

Yeah there are at least two X230's powered on in my home as we speak. To me that was the last good keyboard. I got an X250 and it's not even close. Same with T480… really disappointing. Using the X230 (and X220) is always a pleasure with the solid-feeling keyboard that makes it easy to type accurately on. I mis-position my fingers on the newer keyboards and make typos on them frequently because it's just one big flat surface (or feels as such).