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
T420s = possibility of 1080p IPS with converter board (T420/430 at a later date).
Use it?
Isaiah Hill
Both are fine choices, pick the one you like the looks of better.
Elijah Parker
Tfw gaming on a t450 with i5 5500 graphics and work on an x200
Brody Gomez
I'm in the process of a full charge cycle, powercfg tells me it's 68/71Wh (5% worn) and the serial matches a ThinkPad SL410/510 4 cell battery. First 30 mins of discharge has taken 7% It was going for $60 but I called bullshit so the seller halved the price
Nolan Butler
thanks senpai
Isaiah Sanders
From last thread. Any idea what's powered USB truly for?
Benjamin Lopez
I already told you. Yours is not working as expected, keep an eye on your USB devices.
Angel Jones
Charging devices when the laptop is turned off
Jacob Gomez
poweredusb.org/whatispusb.html Also after some experimenting I noticed the following. 1. all the USB ports supply power when the laptop is on regardless if it was being charged or not. 2. all the USB ports supply power when the laptop is off, but only when it's being charged.
Christopher Diaz
Did you not scroll down on that page? Does that look like your shit?
How come dock stations doesn't come with built-in fan?
Evan Long
because it doesn't house a cpu
Daniel Long
So you mean the Laptop coolers are a hoax?
Isaiah Long
docks are oem. not going to happen...
>we designed this laptop >also, it overheats so use our dock
Christian Brooks
I don't see a need for one, but I have the Advanced Dock that wasn't designed by retards. Apparently the T420 dock actually blocks the fan ports? There's little holes in that corner on the Advanced Dock to prevent that from happening, idle temperatures stay nice and cool and load temperatures never go over 75C. If I offload graphics work to the eGPU in the dock, it'll stay under 70.
>lelnovo in charge of not fucking up previous designs that worked perfectly fine Seriously, why do they do this? What is wrong with those chinks?
Levi Scott
Just picked up a t420 with an i5 and 8GB of ram for $100.
Howd I do?
Daniel Reed
>If I offload graphics work to the eGPU in the dock, it'll stay under 70 What?
Jack Ramirez
The Advanced Dock has a PCI-E slot that can take a small, low-power desktop GPU and use it with your Thinkpad. If I use it, my Thinkpad's integrated GPU doesn't have to do any work, so internal temperatures are reduced further than if the laptop were in the dock but still using the internal screen and GPU.
This thing is a behemoth, you guys think this will be a powerhouse when it hits the pre-owned market?
Andrew Gonzalez
That's pretty damn good user
Joseph Hernandez
I went and bought an E560, how fucked is that?
Julian Lopez
Can anyone recommend a good laptop sleeve for an X220? I'm trying to find something made out of more traditional material (canvas and/or leather for instance) that doesn't look like some cheap nylon crap.
Adam Taylor
the E line is generally frowned upon, but I dont have any experience with it.
Owen Phillips
Link? I have a T420 myself with intel HD 3000 GPU. And since I pretty much use it as desktop, I though getting a dock station would be a good idea. What's you opinion on dock stations?
Parker Williams
>Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/
Opinion on the current Dell Latitude 5000 series? I'm in love with the way the 14" looks, only draw back for me is nothing more powerful than the skylake U series. They even have a wireless dock that supports two monitors, that's a major selling point for me.
Jeremiah Torres
The last model to support the Advanced Dock was the T400, sadly. For T410-T430, your only eGPU option is Expresscard/mPCIe adapters, which are clumsier and have some annoying drawbacks, though you'd get much better performance than the Advanced Dock since you wouldn't have the size/power limitations, nor would you be stuck on a Core 2 Duo CPU.
Hey I have a T400 with advanced dock. I don't have a good GPU for it yet (GT220 I had lying around) but I have a few questions to ask.
1:With the GPU in the dock my laptop does not boot if it's plugged in. I.E. when I try to start the laptop up from a cold boot while it's in the dock the fans just start spinning but it continuously resets. Is it possible the GPU is trying to draw too much power?
2: When I plug my laptop in after it's already booted it works fine and recognises everything, including the GPU. It says however that there are insufficient resources to use it (as I have my dGPU active). Does this mean the eGPU will only work if I start the laptop up in the dock?
3: What's the best GPU for the dock? I heard the R7 240 is best but I'm wondering what the best version of that card is for the slot.
Thanks.
Aaron Gray
How do the BIOS locks work?
If one of my friends/family members ever locked it accidentally i would be able to remove the lock myself?
If someone stole my thinkpad and i had it protected and SSD encrypted that laptop would be useless for whoever stole it from me right?
Aaron Bennett
>mfw my x201 is fully compatible with windows xp
give me a reason to update or switch to linux
Lincoln Rogers
because xp is shite
Austin Barnes
>give me a reason to update >What is 64-bit computing
Luis Howard
Docks are nice. I have the i7-2620m and the HD 3000 and i can run dual 1680x1050 displays off of it nicely (but the fan goes to max on youtube etc yet ive never gone above 95c even in stress tests so the blockage of the fan isnt an issue.).
As te other user said, the only egpu option is expresscard/mpcie.
make sure you get the model 4337 one if you want audio on the dock, the 4338 has a ton of video ports but no sound.
Thinking of buying my first Thinkpad, probably on eBay. I got some noob questions:
1. Should I get Used, Seller Refurbished, or Manufacturer Refurbished? 2. Is the difference in price between T410, T420, and T430 worth it? I'm just going to be doing routine school work and watching movies. 3. Is SSD a must? Will I even notice a difference versus a HDD?
Robert Hughes
Also,
4. Besides BIOS password, are there any other "red flags" to watch out for in the seller description?
Aaron Edwards
1) Any of the above, just make sure it looks ok and has everything you need so you're not searching for little parts or trying to fix plastic. Pictures are worth a thousand words. 2) For schoolwork and movies, any of those 3 will be fine, the T430 will be more useful for if you branch out to other things like light gaming or stream viewing. 3) SSD is not a must, but its nice, and you will definitely notice a difference between. Boot times will be much quicker and general responsiveness when loading programs will be higher. 4) Stock Pictures, people always try and pull shady shit by posting stock pictures. If there is only one picture, try and reverse google image search it to make sure they didnt just take it from the web somewhere. Never buy a laptop with only one picture. In the description watch out for "untested further" when talking about the bios boot testing, sometimes thats a loophoole for if the machine has some huge problem, they can say they booted to the bios and presumed it worked fine.
Connor Long
Got my T420 today~ Bought it for 200 on eBay. Feels nice, just a little squeaky on the palmrest.
Asher Butler
Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Zachary James
Hi. I love thinkpads classic design, the hard angles, the rubberized finish, the muted colors, and the empty space. It is the prettiest thing in the world for me However I am NOT a professional user, I don't have the energy or will to mod, and I'd like to use it for games and stupid shit. Is there an alternative for me?
Jonathan Ross
EWW What the fuck I've never seen chrome on XP and that's the ugliest shit ever.
Owen Allen
Are you legitimately retarded?
John Brown
No.
Dominic Thompson
no, I just know how computers work
Kevin Rodriguez
T400 is the latest compatible with it.
Parker Cook
I want to buy a thinikpad for my uni my budget is 400 euro I want it to have good battery life Any suggestions ? thanks in advance
Jeremiah Ortiz
Hi guys. I have a x230 but need some extra juice to run some graphical applications. Regarding the use of an eGPU, what would be the best adapter? I see a bunch of "exp gdc" adapters in the wild.
Also, what would be the best card that wouldn't bottleneck the x1 pci-e connection? A 970? Something lower?
Also, how hard is it to configure AMD cards? I know they don't have anything like Optimus, so supposedly they're a pain to work with in an eGPU setup, or is there a trick to it?
And something unbelievable, a coworker that's an apple drone said the x230 looked sharp as fuck.
Gabriel Wood
Is $300 too much for a T420? I live in Canada so everything here is more expensive.
Joseph Cruz
get some liquid electrical tape, put it on the seams where the plastic sticks together. Gives it enough room to compress but not slide and squeak.
Thinkpads dont have to be about modding, just buy a new one or a lenovo refurbished one. You can get a t4xx that runs as you want right out of the box. Modding thinkpads is for people who either want frankenpads or have old machines they are trying to upgrade
Even then, if you're talking about upgrading the ram, cpu, etc, its not that hard. Its literally just unscrew a bunch of shit, switch out the parts and screw it back together.
Henry Jones
How come recent thinkpads have almost 20h of battery life while most of other laptops such as those from asus acer or even ideapads have only 3 or 4 h ? Why don't asus... pull out their fingers from their ass ?
Jeremiah Stewart
X230/X220 with a 9 cell and a slice battery. X220 takes non-original batteries too.
X220 200-350€ x230 250-400€ Slice battery 50-100€
Austin Martinez
not him, i know what you're suggesting works on most desktops, i'm not so sure that it will work on these laptops, specially considering features like computrace built in, the password is probably not on some sort of volatile memory.
Adrian Walker
I want the same and got about the same budget. You can go route, although that will make the laptop pretty thick. I am considering getting a x240.
Henry Moore
Are there any sites besides shitbay for buying pallets/large lots of gookpads?
Jeremiah Evans
My 2009 M@C finnalllllyyyyy died so I have a reason to get a new laptop. Any good recommendations from 500-800 dollars?
Ayden Ramirez
consumer versus enterprise products
Asher Jenkins
worst case scenario I can physically replace a chip on the board but I really doubt this is necessary
Jason Fisher
Hey Sup Forumsuys, got a couple of questions, pretty please respond
In regards to new thinkpads, what is the difference between the T series and the E series? I am looking at the lenovo website, and it seems they have similar hardware options and yet the E series is much less expensive, what gives?
Also, how is that pastebin discount real? Is this too good to be true. how did anyone here even get it? Would it be unwise to use your real information to buy one and send it to your home address?
Zachary Diaz
>*30 line still expensive as fuck on ebay
I don't want a thinkpad with the shitty sandybridge CPU and trash-tier TN displays...
Zachary Long
derp I meany GPU, sandbridge CPU is fine
Austin Cooper
Found an x200 for $80 should I go for it
Elijah Reyes
E series is consumer line like you'd find in Best Goy, etc. Normally they lack certain features that their business lines (T, X, and W series) have. Those features may or may not be important to you coming from non-thinkpad experience, but once you have them they're hard to do without. Also, and more importantly, the build quality is considerably worse.
Don't confuse their Education line with E-series. People will still laugh at you for buying one, but they're built to withstand the abuse of middle-schoolers (they still lack features of their business line offerings though).
The employee discount is legit. Just go with it, plenty of people have with no repercussions. The absolute worst they could do anyway is cancel your order which to my knowledge has never happened.
Jonathan Barnes
you at least installed 64 bit xp right?
right?
Jaxon Williams
you have to replace the entire motherboard there is no cmos jumper, removing the battery does nothing, if you dont have that password you cant do much with it
trust me, trust /tpg/ theres a reason nobody buys thinkpads with bios locks or bios passwords on them
Nicholas Watson
what's the latest on 1080p IPS adapter for T420? Is the guy still having intereference issues?
Michael Cook
sounds like a tasty challenge
Hunter King
Is the i5-2520M in the X220/T420 capable of decoding H.264 and VC-1 bluray streams (both in software and hardware acclerated?)
Such benchmarks are difficult to find (all I can really find for the 2520M are geekbench/passmark and other worthless shit like that) and as for the hardware side of things, the wikipedia article for SaBr GPU only lists "VC-1: Simple, Main, Advanced" which is quite ambiguous.
Nicholas Rivera
When you do it, post pics.
Evan Ward
So I'm trying to scoring a X240 for the Uni. I'm doing good, Sup Forums?
Ayden Moore
It can, though CPU temps will go high.
Jason Myers
T430 is you want more of a battery upgrade otherwise t420 if you don't care and want a good deal, also it uses third party batteries unless the T*30 and later
though both can be sold around the same price...
T440 was laggy but i am content with 'gaming' on my T430s
Honestly I believe the eGPU is better for performance, other than it being a pain in the ass to look at. The advanced dock sucks because its limited to a certain watt iirc.
short answer, no, long asnwer, maybe Maybe & maybe. the average shmoe wont know what to do though.
Also I am happy using a dock on my T430s while gaming. it just werks havent tried two monitors because lazy..
Sound advice fuck stock photos and 'manufacturuer refurbished' unless its specifically stated. I didn't get burned but wasted a week waiting on a seller's shit laptop. they aren't selling no more because they've got too many complaints :)
Who cares if you have a /biz/ laptop. There has been people doing serious work on consumeshit and old as fuck computers.
No modding is necessary, apart from maybe installing an SSD if you were to upgrade and having some technical knowledge reinstalling an OS if you go that route.
W530 played LoL fine for me, I was most happy with the performance and the 5+ battery life that thing had with switchable graphics.
Luke Roberts
Good deal?
Jacob Evans
tough to say, if a X220 is much more cheaper, yeah its pricey. dont be fooled by E420/L420 price, they were wayyy inferior machines.
BrokerBin? Check local recyclers desu.
Edge series don't have the nice frame, they are basically a plastic body like other consumer laptops. the keyboard feels like shit, i mean you might not know given youare coming from consumeshit/non professional laptop so you'd think it would better.
Edge laptops are a little bit harder to work on. though new they seem cheaper and a better deal, buildwise thats a totally different story.
dumfucks sell and buy used edge laptops at T/X pricing because they look at specs only.
Elijah Ross
found an x220 for
Joshua Long
>1:With the GPU in the dock my laptop does not boot if it's plugged in. I.E. when I try to start the laptop up from a cold boot while it's in the dock the fans just start spinning but it continuously resets. Is it possible the GPU is trying to draw too much power? The GT220 is apparently a 58W card, so that's certainly possible. The most the dock can supply is 50W. I've heard GPUs are even able to exceed their TDP for just a moment at boot, which would definitely explain this issue.
>2: When I plug my laptop in after it's already booted it works fine and recognises everything, including the GPU. It says however that there are insufficient resources to use it (as I have my dGPU active). Does this mean the eGPU will only work if I start the laptop up in the dock? Could be power as mentioned above, could be due to a conflict with your dedicated internal graphics. I'm not too sure, my R7 240 works perfectly with both my integrated graphics T601F and my dedicated graphics T61. The T400 has switchable graphics, right? Have you tried using it with the dedicated card disabled in BIOS?
>3: What's the best GPU for the dock? I heard the R7 240 is best but I'm wondering what the best version of that card is for the slot. I have the Sapphire R7 240 in mine and I have no complaints. It just werks and it's pretty evenly-matched with my T9300 CPU. It's a bit of a noisy card by default, but that's nothing that some tweaking with MSI Afterburner can't fix. That said, I would wait until the low-end 16/14nm cards are out before buying anything. We should be seeing a good upgrade from that, and if nothing else it'll at least lower prices further on current cards.
Austin Lopez
Mmmmmmm.... Ehhh... no? sold a W520 for $500 w/ 16 or 8GB ram
Christopher Foster
Best price/performance GPU to use as an eGPU with a T420?
I was thinking the 750ti.
Juan Mitchell
I know I have a 1GB video that's 6m long and a 12GB file that's like 2h long, and it can't play either.
Kevin Smith
RX 460 when it comes out, it will be a
Dominic Foster
>tfw just bought my tenth memepad it's too late for me now
