I'm comparing my 2007 vintage T61 screen which wasn't IPS - just a regular LCD panel to a 2012 vintage T430s screen. The viewing angle on the new screen is really small (both horizontally and vertically).

That's interesting. I rate the 4:3 T61 screen as not very good, but I'm comparing it to my UXGA Flexview so that may be a little unfair. I have to wonder if Lenovo thinks people just don't care about viewing angles.

I have the 1680x1050 (IIRC) 16:10 T61. That was the upgraded screen not the standard at the time. It was perfectly acceptable, and has decent viewing angles, but not comparable to the IPS panels of previous generations.

On the Lenovo blogs almost any post will have comments complaining about the screens. Lenovo's response has been that they could only get better screens if they had large orders and that doesn't happen (apparently it would take tens of thousands of orders to get a screen manufacturer to change tooling for a 16:10 run). But somehow Lenovo charge $1,000 to have 16GB of RAM in a laptop (the most expensive place I have found for buying the RAM as a component is $200), yet don't offer better screens for any money.

I am very grateful for Apple making screens an issue that can no longer be ignored on decent laptops. I'm very happy with all other aspects of the Thinkpad, but the screen made me seriously consider an Apple product instead. Lenovo are just lucky that some of the non-screen aspects of the Apple products are sufficiently annoying to this Linux user that I didn't switch.

Apple is well known for being able to get what its wants from suppliers, but I'm sure Lenovo sells enough laptops that if it cared enough to make screens a big issue with suppliers and a selling point for customers, it could get good screens too. When IBM wanted good screens, it created a new company (IDTech, since sold to Sony) as a joint venture.