I like used Thinkpads. I bought a T430s off eBay and used it for several years. Recently I got a T570 from work. It had a screen issue, so I bought a new screen. That didn’t fix it so I bought a new mobo, but it has a loose drive connector so won’t boot. Just now I killed it for good by putting an nvme in a sata slot lol.
Anyway, I need another laptop and I don’t want to buy something new. The t570 did everything I needed it to, but I’m concerned about the design/build quality. What Thinkpads are people running these days that aren’t very old but still solid?
T480 is a great machine. You can find them on eBay for $200-$300 quite easily. They work great with Linux and are still old enough that they are decently repairable.
I’ve also heard that the older X1 carbons are really solid if you want something a little sleeker.
The nVidia GPUs on the Tx80 line suck. They throttle much too early and too aggressively bringing them down so much they can’t even handle Quake 3. And because they’re on the same heatpipe as the CPU that can happen very quickly.
I have never been able to properly use the GPU in my T580 although it should be able to at least handle Tomb Raider 2013 or Doom 2016.
CPUs are also somewhat choked. I had to use throttled to make mine run above 2.4 GHz under load. (You need HWP_MODE and possibly Disable_BDPROCHOT, if anyone’s interested).
But other than that, waaaay better compared to …70 laptops, and some models seem to beat maxed out t440p-s. Also quicksync massively speeds up video decoding/encoding, so I’m overall happy with mine so far.
Ironically fixing the CPU throttling makes the GPU problem worse. For a long time throttled didn’t support the 80’s and back then I could at least play Tomb Raider when playing off of battery.
@electric_nan I run a fleet of ThinkPads for the family (except my wife, who gets a Ryzen Framework 13).
Kids run X250s and a T470s. Great little systems if you make sure to get the 1080p displays. The 470s has a touch-screen which, weirdly, even works out of the box in FreeBSD. Recommend both models, especially if you want to run FreeBSD as well as Linux.
I run a W540 as my daily driver. Do *not* recommend purely because of the trackpad, which is awful; lack of separate buttons makes the Trackpoint useless too. By all accounts the W541 has a “proper” trackpad and is good. The battery life on the W-series is bad, because of their design (CAD desktop replacements). Otherwise fast for what they are.
@electric_nan Following up on this: my favourite _ever_ ThinkPad was my old X220. Robust, easy to work on, fantastic non-island keyboard, ThinkLight (!), … just great. I used it as a daily driver for years while consulting.
However it just got too slow, and the 768p display became a liability for Web development, even by ~2018 when I retired it for the W540.
If you don’t need a fast system, and are willing to do some hardware-hacking to upgrade the display, an X220 might still be worth looking at.
Thanks for the recs. I am looking pretty hard at a T580 refurb on eBay right now. I am looking for a bit more modern processor than most of what you have suggested, I think.
I’m on a T580, great machine, basically a P52. Dual batteries. No TN screens (I think, make sure). I put the discrete graphics card cooler in my (integrated graphics) coz I live in a hot place and some TPN7950 on the CPU, and it never cracks 70C and usually stays silent. Upgraded the SSD to a 2TB nvme, and it’s basically been flawless for 2+ yrs, touch wood.
@electric_nan Yeah ours are all a bit long in the tooth. Given the kids’ proclivity for destroying equipment though they’re on the cheap stuff :)
Not Thinkpad related, but: my next laptop will almost certainly be an AMD Framework. They’re just so good. _Better_ design and construction than even older ThinkPads, fast, powerful, and with great matte 4:3 screens. My only gripe is the lack of a Trackpoint.
Right on. If I was buying new, I’d be looking at Framework or Tuxedo.
@electric_nan Issue for me is the cost. Frameworks are actually cheap for what they are (compare with a MacBook!) but we could replace our entire family (second-hand, elderly) ThinkPad fleet for the price of one Framework.
Yeah I can’t really justify the cost right now either. If I was more patient, I could just wait until we retire another Thinkpad at work :p
Yup, Framework 16 highly tempting, that 8xOculink project is awesome. I’m usually a firm believer in out of contract business models, but this…
x380 for the 2 in 1 gimmick!
