Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook). ---- If you're looking for purchase advice, READ THE BUYERS GUIDE FIRST. Then post, stating budget and requirements (e.g. size and performance). Don't buy anything OTHER THAN T, X AND W/P SERIES if you want the Real ThinkPad Experience™
Recommended models: T420 - 14", normal size X220 - 12.5", ultraportable ---- Why ThinkPad? (also applies to other business laptops) >Used machines are plentiful and cheap. >Excellent keyboards - tactile feel and quiet. >Great durability: chassis uses a magnesium rollcage for structural integrity, with high quality plastic body panels. >Utilitarian design: e.g. indicator LEDs, 7 row keyboard layout on older models. >Docking stations that easily turns your laptop into a desktop. >Easy to repair, upgrade and maintain thanks to readily available service manuals for every model. Spare parts are easy and cheap to obtain. >The best trackpoint (that red thing in the middle of the keyboard). Great for those who type a lot or hate swiping their fingers all over a touchpad. >Excellent GNU/Linux & *BSD support. ---- Used ThinkPad Buyers Guide: ktgee.net/tpg
Why does the sticky say the edge series is one to avoid, all the specs on them seem okay, but maybe I'm missing something
Elijah Cooper
they're built of cardboard and wishful marketing
Henry Rivera
As someone who has a somewhat early edge series, everything on it is cheap plastic. Nothing feels good on it except the Think clit. Yes, even the keyboard is trash. The only good thing about it is that it has an HDMI port, and they can be had cheap. I got mine for $30, solely for its HDMI.
Michael Kelly
Shit nigger, where did you find one for $30?
James Campbell
G40 is bloody insane. ...you have some use in mind besides posting it I hope.
Nathaniel Jones
Craigslist. No HDD, so I slapped in an old one that I had and it worked fine. Honestly though, it is shit. Kinda nice for the price, but a shit thinkpad. Very consumer grade.
Jeremiah Taylor
actually, workstation use might be a good option
i have autocad 2005lt and a lifetime license, i could do productive stuff with it
Bentley Diaz
What doc can I get for my x220t for a another hdd and external monitors
Ryan Nelson
How much memory can be rammed into a X220?
Liam Gonzalez
Two sticks of eight iirc
Jack Stewart
Series 3 Ultrabase if you want to carry the hard drive in it with you. Otherwise, any Series 3 Mini Dock or Advanced Mini Dock will do the trick if you like them done through USB ports and then you get to do multiple external monitors But bear in mind that the limit is 2 active monitors at one time due to IGP limitations
Christ, is that what they're going for thesse days?
Ryder Allen
Can anyone link me to a legit ultrabay battery for the T430? either that or an ultrabay.
Sebastian Young
Is the price for that x300 particularly good/bad? It's less than what it goes for on the the thinkpad guide for reference.
Dominic Davis
It just seems exceedingly high for what it is, unlesss you really want a typewriter.
I can't comment on market prices, but you could get better performance for your money, that's all. If you're going for aesthetics/godkeyboard then more power to you. State your use case if you want more opinions.
Could I use steam's in-home streaming service to play vidya on my X201 and make my nephew think my laptop is some kind of uber sick gayming rig? My desktop computer has the juice to do it.
Isaac Martin
Hmm, ok. This will mainly be a side laptop (have a MacBook I'll be using most of the time, or at least in plan). I'll be installing Void or Gentoo Linux on whatever Thinkpad I get. Budget is under $110. I have a preference for higher res screens more than anything else which is why I wanted a x200s earlier but I lost that bid. The form factor of the x300 is pretty appealing though since it looks pretty sleek.
Jose Fisher
Sure, if he's gullible. There's noticeable video compression and some latency though.
Colton Lopez
??? It has the same keyboard as any pre T430 ThinkPad
Grayson Bailey
I managed to play some Dota on it with no hiccups, so sure.
Hunter Stewart
It's sleek but you're paying thru the nose for "muh thin". You may be able to win an x201 or x200 at that budget and it will perform better.
Won't argue, any pre-%30 series is godkayboard if you don't factor in """""old"""""models.
If it's anything like the 2440p I can say it's somewhere betweeen tolerable andgood. I don't think it's as responseive as TPs of the same era. Dells I'm no sure on...my excperience with Dells are with the D8/410-era for what thats' worth.
Brandon Morales
Was listening to this yesterday (the original which was on Yearmix 2005)
I'm off to bed, but if you want to circlejerk Trance sometime Skype me: geokoder
(Put a different Trance song in the request so I know it's you).
Good track. Could circlejjerk [old] trance all night, but my bread+butter is in D&B; only have a handful of trance records. Regaredless, roger that and will hit you up sometime when I'm less drunk.
THIS THREAD IS FILTH, LET'S CLEAN IT UP
Nolan Diaz
Looking at getting a windows XP era thinkpad as a spare. Which XP era thinkpad is recommended, and is there really a difference between IBM and Lenovo models from that period other than visually?
Aaron Miller
I'm jelly
Jordan Anderson
How's the T420 screen? Is it anywhere near as bad as the T400?
Leo Moore
considering buying a T560 would it make sense to get a dedicated GPU (geforce 940MX instead of hd 520)? does anyone know what impact it would have on the battery life?
Nicholas Davis
also, regarding the same question, would it be possible to configure the system so it uses the 520 when on battery and only uses the geforce when the power supply is plugged in?
Liam Moore
In wangblows you can choose to start up shit with the nvidia card, and it'll take over automatically for "3d" stuff. The /high performance/ gpu will tank your battery life.
idk about linux t x200 shitposter
Jaxon Ward
Is there a cheap thinkpad that has good battery life and can be upgraded to a full hd ips screen? So far the only options are t420s or t430, but I've read that their battery life is not good. I need at least 6-8 hours for college
Ryan Carter
THICCPAD
I paid twice that for mine but it also came with a swank IBM bag in perfect condition, maxed out RAM, a genuine charger, and even the owner's manual and other papers, so that's about what I'd expect to pay for a more barebones model.
Ryder Nelson
hows the t450s desu?
William Diaz
you could get an x240 with a 256gb ssd and upgrade it to a 1080p ips screen and decent touchpad for $450 ish
Brayden Torres
I have a Thinkpad t410 and it does not want to take more than 2gb of ram. Is this normal?
Brayden Lopez
So I'm trying to put together a laptop out of the corpses left in the wake of my Frankenpad, and so far I've got my Nvidia board in the 4:3 Intel T61 with the T500 cooler I originally used in my T60. While it worked great with my ATi T60, it seems completely incapable of keeping the NVS 140m from burning down the house. Am I doing something wrong or should I order a T61p fan to replace it?
Grayson Hernandez
What distros do you guys like on your TPs? Not sure if pic related is accurate but would Lubuntu be the best thing for an x220, battery wise? My SSD is coming in soon and I'd be doing a fresh OS install.
Jaxon Carter
That heatsink though. Also, 12 cell and how's the charging connector? iirc it was something chunkier right?
Considering the T61p nvidias were known for being housefires in other ways, I'm not surprised
Julian Reed
is your OS 32-bit?
Landon Cruz
It honestly makes very little difference. I run Xubuntu on my X220 and it gets the standard 9 hours.
Evan Diaz
>9 hours >x220 Wat. I'm getting 3-3.5 hours tops on this 6cell refurbished unit. I heard the 9cell only gives you about 6 hours
Carter Torres
>tfw waiting for it to come in the mail
Cameron Gutierrez
One hour per cell on a good battery. You can pull off 20 hours with a slice battery.
Nathan Gray
Debian for me
Samuel Wilson
Fuck, my x61 tablet hinge just broke
Levi Johnson
Can a thinkpad x200 hinge be tightened? Do I need to get a new one?
What about a new fan?
Jose Barnes
Can I drive 2 external monitors with an X220 via displayport?
If I were to use the ultrabase series 3, would I simply use the x220's display port and 1 from the ultrabase for this kind of setup?
Ryder Adams
Goddamnit I had one of those on craigslist near me for $50 but was too late
Nathan Evans
I have x220, bought it like a week ago. Since it has an intel network adapter i wanted to change to atheros and since it has a "whitelist" it doesn't allow me to boot the OS. I patched a modded bios (1.40) ofc everything works flawlessly and i noticed my Ethernet doesn't work. I tried reinstalling drivers, even booting live linux to check if its working. No luck. On W7 it even doesn't show Local Access Network. In bois ethernet port is enabled. So my modded bios fucked up my ethernet or is my ethernet port kill. When i connected my cable only 1 out of 2 LEDS is on. Wat do senpai?
Jordan Rogers
oops
Xavier Garcia
Wow, thats good. Paid $224 for a X300 just a few years back...
Jordan White
If I buy an average used t420, how long will the battery last for web browser + text editor?
What if I swap the battery for a new one?
Brody Myers
I'm installing debian on my x220 I got a 300 gb hd, what kind of partition scheme is recommended
Oliver Young
If you don't know, just use default. If you're running an SSD make sure it's ext4.
Jaxson Rodriguez
They're about $15 on eBay. The original hinge that went into the X60 and X61 tablets wasn't beefy enough, and IBM made a much stronger version very late in the run and for warranty replacement. The original has an 'E01' mark on it. The beefed up one is 'E02' or 'E02a'. Don't buy the chinese copies. They're strong but have some play and are _always_ slightly crooked.
Nicholas Rivera
I am between an x220 a t420 and a t520 for different reasons. All of them have an i5-2520m , 4gb ram , a 1366x768 display and a 320gb hard drive. I will fit whichever I buy with the best screen available and an mSata ssd.
i need something fast , small or both. So here is my dilemma. I love the portability of the x220 but i will be left with a 2520m which i find to be quite mediocre. So i was looking for the t420 which can be upgraded to an i7 quad core to make it fast as fuck but it will have temperature issues , according to what I read. Then I saw the t520 which can officially support the quad core but it starts getting rather big.
I will mainly be using it for programming at school and diagnosing network and computer issues at work.
Eli Morales
>programming Get the T520 and upgrade the screen to 1080p. Small Thinkpads suck, don't compromise.
Luis Johnson
>I love the portability of the x220 but i will be left with a 2520m which i find to be quite mediocre. NOTHING WRONG WITH ME >So i was looking for the t420 which can be upgraded to an i7 quad core to make it fast as fuck but it will have temperature issues , according to what I read. Nothing but over heating issues, and you need the 90w power cord and it's still not enough. >Then I saw the t520 which can officially support the quad core but it starts getting rather big. If you want a quadcore and these are your options, this is your best shot.
Ryan Long
T420, best god damn choice of my life.
This shit is perfect i try every fucking thing with this meme, and jesus christ it work like a charm i upgrade it, with a SSD and i stick with the I5 it work pretty fast. hope it help.
Evan Torres
t520. Only get a t420 if you really know why. msata slot only supports sata 3gb speed afaik. Don't get those with an nvidia dgpu.
Ryder Johnson
X220. i5, 4gb, 160GB SSD, came with an IPS screen though with pressure marks. 6 cell hardly used.
around $130, worth it?
Parker Bailey
I feel like carrying around a t520 with you everywhere would be a pain in the ass.
I have a 14" chinkpad and it already feels kinda big, and I don't think you can even get a decent screen for the t420.
If I had to make your choice I'd just get a x220 with an ips panel.
Evan James
Good to know, thanks.
Angel Watson
How does it run now? My use cases are listed here (forgot to mention I'll just mainly be web browsing and ricing).
Jaxon White
Yes
Jaxon Davis
Runs OK but my X61T runs a lot better. I mean passmark score is sub 1200, so like its not that good. I mainly use mine to type shit and music, but otherwise I just wanted one just coz.
Its decent for websurfing.
Tyler Cook
Tomorrow i will be living the meme
Angel Jones
This
Bentley Sullivan
x220 might surprise you Hook into a different monitor when you're not out-and-about if the screen is upsetting
Christopher Scott
Will an x220 with i5 and 4GB RAM run Elder Scrolls Oblivion on arch with wine?
Thomas Barnes
>Arch >Gayming
You are doing it wrong. Try again.
Julian Clark
the charging cable was a huge 4 pin fucker that could be almost locked in place
Ryder Torres
2gb of ram and a pentium 4 will run oblivion
the integrated gpu should handle it just fine at medium to low settings
Jonathan Scott
How do I set charge thresholds on my T400 in Windows 10.
>inb4 wincuck
Ryder Brown
But through wine? Thanks for the response.
John Stewart
If I could figure out how to properly burn a windows 7 flash drive with an iso from arch I would setup dual booting, but until then it's linux native and wine for me
Jaxson Murphy
I'm seeing scanlines on my x220 IPS, is this normal?
Evan Cooper
>X220 >Xubuntu >9 hours Teach me. What battery? Did you install any power management? What do you do usually do with your laptop?
Joshua Green
Apparently I stopped seeing those scannlines when I reseated my dock.
Caleb Lee
It's not my dock I guess, it's my brightness. I see scaliness when I'm like 75% bright
Samuel Robinson
I'm bumping this. I hear these remarkable battery life stories that I can't replicate for the life of me. I'm sick of sitting in the shadows. How the fuck do they do this?
Jaxon Hall
/ 40GB /swap/ 8GB /home/ the rest
I'd use ext4 file system.
Idea here is that if you want to reinstall your system you can just wipe / and not lose your files. Desktop installation with bunch of stuff should take less than 15GB but you want to have plenty of extra space on / to grow into if needed.
Remove WWAN card, have a low power SSD, mute sound when not in use and dim the screen when not in use. If you're on Linux fuck around in powertop until you've enable all the powersave features that don't cripple your usability.
There might be panel options that use less power than the stock panel but I haven't looked into that.
If you're concerned about X220 performance you could consider getting a X230 and upgrading the keyboard if you dislike it.
Connor Richardson
So, this week I'm going to get my first thinkpad. Very hard to get a good price in my shitty country where everything is overpriced. Anyways, what should I check? Which distros would you people recommend?
Lucas Hughes
I bought a x220 less than a month ago, I love it. Last week it started randomly shutting down and not turning back on for "a while". Now it just won't come on at all. Tried
With battery (charged) With battery and AC adapter plugged in Without battery with adapter plugged in
Expected: x220 to come on Result: Nothing, absolute silence
Before random shutdowns, computer was not hot, fans did run and were not running when the x220 shut down.
Going to try to get the ebayer i bought it from to either give me a refund or should I have him get me another x220 if he has it? google says x220 has a "random shut down problem", so I don't know where to go from here.
Looks like a good deal. There's a whole slew of electronics recyclers in that part of Texas who buy up huge batches of NOS parts and accessories and resell them.
