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
T420 or T430 in 2k16? Also is a 1600x900 upgrade worth it, considering that it will drain the battery?
Juan Long
Let's play find the ThinkPad!
Caleb Barnes
X61s 15th anniversary edition (brown one)
Too easy user.
Charles Martinez
Yep. Its a reserve edition though. Waiting on the seller to email me to see if he will ship them to my corner of nowhere.
Interesting things can be found on craigslist.
Nolan Flores
Rare as shit, I'd pay a decent amount for one.
Easton Baker
Okay, I'm on mobile so I'll make this short. T420 Mini pci-e 4g LTE Unlocked How do? It seems no one has info for this online or I don't know what keywords to put into google. Has anyone done this?
Xavier Morris
$100. Needs a battery, hdd, and screen, but idgaf. Might just repair it and resell it on eBay, might just keep it as a shitpost machine.
Carter Bennett
>Isn't it a driver for the GPU? Not in the sense that it would replaces the normal driver or such, it's basically just a small lib for the main libva (which you already have installed) that tells it how it can talk to the gpu.
Ethan Fisher
Man I don't know who would buy a thinkpad with storage. It will just fail in 3 months anyway. Just buy your own and get $20 bucks off.
Christopher Robinson
My T420 is a few cities away boys, too hype.
Jonathan Morales
Yeah, plus it would have been a 5400rpm 160gb. I'm either going to throw in a /csg/ meme ssd or the 500gb OEM seagate from my T420.
Camden Thompson
Exactly. I should have also said. Who would buy used storage. Period.
Hard drives are just shit for reliability after first owner and generally just over time with enough runtime. SSDs have limited write cycles afaik, feel free to update me. So I can but an ssd, write 50TB to it, then try to sell it to you. Fuck that.
David Sanchez
Tell me one good reason why I shouldn't buy a i5/i7 thinkpad, gut it and make a server out of it as those things have far better hardware to $$$ ratio than any of the new small form factor "home server/media pc"-pcs
Logan Ramirez
You can write a couple hundred tbs to a ssd before it fails, its still shit, but a good SSD will last a while and you should replace storage every few years and frequently backup anyways.
Liam Morgan
Why would you even need to gut it? You've got a built-in UPS and plenty of I/O.
Alexander Richardson
Enjoy your dogshit screen
Aaron Robinson
Makes it considerably smaller and opens up the fan/heatsink for better air flow? Keeping the battery is a pretty good idea tho
Sebastian Roberts
only good reason to do that would be for better cooling, but you would have to carefully gut it and maybe extend the connection to the battery so it isn't near the mainboard or anything that heats on load. It's not a bad idea but honestly I would weep a little if i see it torned apart.
Adam Lopez
Non-Lenovo alternatives to a T420?
I'm looking for something that does not have a shitty screen.
whitelist your bios and install a wireless card that works with your carrier. but tethering off your phone would probably be a better idea.
Grayson Baker
Should I have gotten a W700DS with no HDD cover and no battery for 400USD?
Kevin Jones
neat toy
Jackson Barnes
Of course you dip.
Henry Russell
Fuck, regretting it since yesterday Had only seen one go for lower once
Didn't really think about the purchase until 10s were left since I assumed it would go much higher
Noah King
You didn't purchase the machine that gives women (and ~20-30% of men) in a 5 mile radius an orgasm every time you slide that second screen out? Do you suffer from some kind of crippling non-specific mental disorder?
Angel Gutierrez
>Do you suffer from some kind of crippling non-specific mental disorder? It's called stupidity
I know that was a good price
Cameron Bell
You could have sat on a bench in DC and given the entire senate an orgasm, you disappoint me user
David Robinson
OK, any cards u can recommend? They seem impossible to find. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places? Huawei. Novatel wireless, sierra, etc. Don't have online stores for these. Newegg has like, none. At all.
Michael Jones
I recently reverted to 7 from 10 on my T420 and now my OS is acting up a bit. I'd like to do a clean install.
I no longer have my Lenovo recovery partition or any sort of install discs.
What is my best course of action here? Where can I download a clean vanilla Windows 7 Pro image?
Lucas Garcia
yes, i got mine from him 3days ago
John Russell
What are some good resources about to achieve a faster boot time with X220 I have it at around 13 seconds from cold pressing into arch x, but I feel it could be faster. Takes ~8 seconds to GRUB which is skipped unless shift is held down. The thinkpadVantage flashes unto the screen, anyway to remove this entirely?
Kevin Hernandez
There is a leddit thread somewhere that has a mega mirror of the original digital river isos that are clean. Find it and then use rufus to make a usb windows installer.
Probably a memory card reader or something, I know with the driver packs on torrent sites they include all those drivers.
Angel Barnes
I am thinking of getting t430 coz I want bigger screen and the comfy size of my x220 is not a requirement anymore, since I use it mosly home now.
Is it worth it ? Or if I am going to spend $ 300-500 on it I am better off buying something else ? If not, what should I look for in t430 ?
Kevin Bell
keep ur x220 fagit. do the 1080p screen upgrade for maximum comfy
Jordan Rivera
I am keeping it bro, I just want to get another one, so far my x220 has 250 gb ssd, dual channel 8 gigs of ram and.. thats it, tell me more about the 180p screen ? where in europe can I get it ? ebay.co.uk ?
Mason Cox
not sure, I saw it on some chink website. I think some other anons probably know more. A few people here did it.
Luke Lewis
It's called a mouth fedora please.
Brandon Green
cancer
Wyatt Gomez
Unless you're willing to sacrifice your Displayport port, don't bother looking into it.
Logan Baker
OUT
Logan Moore
>1080p screen 12" laptop why? you'd need scaling to read text comfortably, and with only a 1080p screen you can't do 4:1 scaling (the only good scaling)
Benjamin Rivera
>Excellent keyboards - tactile feel and quiet. I call bullshit. This was the main reason I bought a Thinkpad six years ago (which I still use as my laptop), but the keyboard really isn't that great.
The main problem is that a button press simply doesn't register if it's short enough, so it's literally impossible to exceed a certain typing speed. I can reproduce this perfectly -- if I press the keys fast enough, they fail to register with almost 100% certainty, even though I depress them to the bottom.
Alexander Hill
OH IS THAT HOW THEY DO IT!!!
Luke Wood
>why? Because you often get a TN screen if you don't get the upgraded screen. Don't know if that's true in this particular instance, but it is commonly so.
Zachary Parker
must have had broken keyboard or not actually a thinkpad...
Gavin Perez
It's a Chinkpad L412.
Thomas Hernandez
My old T520, and a T510 I handled recently both have a rougher feel on the lid than the old IBMs and the T410-20. Not damaged rough, but cat tongue rough. Did I just goof and get some with third party lids or are they not coated the same?
Henry Sanchez
I want to upgrade the screen in my X220 to IPS.
Anyone have an eBay link of a trusted seller in Yurop? And not the shitty kind of screen which has ghosting and shit.
Thomas Sanders
not a real thinkpad senpai
Chase Peterson
are they cleaned up? im considering getting up but dont want it to come dusty or semenstained
Owen Anderson
I hardly believe they'd be using different keyboard makes for the T-series.
Brandon Gutierrez
it looks different maybe i'm retarded, or you have 4 hands or something
Chase Carter
.. why would I have 4 hands?
Pic related is a picture of it. I don't see it being substantially different from other Thinkpad keyboard visually.
Charles Thompson
Shit, I didn't even realize my cell phone camera sucked that badly.
Colton Gutierrez
by four hands I meant maybe you type significantly faster than most
Adam Thomas
Different 6-row layout that would later appear on the chiclet models. Bet they cheaped out on the construction relative to T/W/X series as well, since it's a budget model.
Jace Ward
Look at the top row, also shit hinges
Jason Edwards
175 euros for a Thinkpad x220 with 8GB RAM, 320GB HDD and a shitty battery that lasts about 2.5 hours.
Should I?
Evan Bell
Bought this for about £50 a while ago. Slapped a 1TB drive in there, upped the CPU to a 2.8GHz C2D, and 6GB RAM went in. Works nice enough for a toy.
Logan Butler
There are lots of different top-row layouts, though. This picture is a random T-series model.
The hinges are properly metal, btw.; they're just painted to look just like the surrounding plastic.
I do type faster than "most", but not a whole lot faster than 110 WPM or so.
It has torrent links to most of the old MS digital river isos. grabbing Win7 Pro x64 Sp1 DVD_U and seeing how she goes.
Cameron Miller
>What is my best course of action here? Where can I download a clean vanilla Windows 7 Pro image? Just pirate it. As long as you use your legitimate key, there's nothing illegal or technically strange about it.
Jackson Allen
Where can I buy an IPS display for my x220?
Thomas Cooper
Lenovo chiclet abortion
Adrian Young
Hey guys, what's a good laptop that's on the cheaper side, and I can use to store music/movies. I'm a pleb, so something easier to set up would be great. Thank you!
Juan Williams
if onboard storage is your goal, I'd get a T series, because it can potentially run 3 hard drives (two 2.5 and one MSATA card for your OS)
Adam Foster
(not who you are replying to) I had a t400 and it was pretty old. I bought a t430. The new keyboard, while better than 'normal' notebooks, is fucking shit. I wish I had bought a t420
Gavin Reed
I would like to know this as well.
Daniel Powell
I appreciate your help a lot, but I don't really know what you're talking about, sorry. Is there a particular T series computer? I'm sorry its not that youre explaining things bad, i just never come here.
Matthew Hernandez
I hear differing opinions on the chilclet board. what don't you like about it? I've heard key actuation and actual key surface area are virtually identical to the T420. sucks they killed the seven row layout, but is it really that bad?
Aaron Harris
T520
T420 is cheaper but has the shittiest screen imaginable, only bother with it if you're going to use an external display to watch these movies you'll be storing.
For maximum capacity, get an mSATA SSD for your OS, a 2TB HDD for the main SATA bay, and an Ultrabay HDD adapter to hold another 2TB drive.
David Clark
>EPP discount for new ThinkPads (USA & Canada only, usually 15%+ off): >pastebin.com/DujvzEzU Anyone got one of these for the UK?
Jason Perez
We constantly recommend the T420. I'm using one right now, have been for over a year now thanks to recommendations here. It's a very solid machine, but we really need to know your goals and budget.
what requirements do you have besides storage? these machines generally don't have decent 1080p screens until the T440 which ramps the price up substantially. The T420's best screen is a 1600x900 TN panel which has pretty abysmal viewing angles, but is sufficient if that's not a huge deal to you.
The T420 can be had for maybe $150-200 based on options. If you're after storage, you'd then replace the DVD drive with a hard drive caddy and an HDD, giving you two hard drives. The T420 also has an MSATA slot. you could install an MSATA drive (a small SSD card) and migrate your OS to it, and then swap out the original HDD for another large storage drive, and have several terabytes of storage all in one machine.
Thomas Long
>T520 Cool! Where should I buy this? its not on amazon.
Ayden Martinez
I don't have one either, but here's a comparison video with both positive and negative impressions: youtube.com/watch?v=doEZMNXz1JY
Isaiah Evans
>these machines generally don't have decent 1080p screens until the T440 which ramps the price up substantially. 15" Thinkpad screens have always been good, even great. It's just the smaller models that are stuck with shit-tier panels, especially the T420. It really shouldn't even be a recommended model with how abysmal that screen is.
Jayden Lee
I would like larger storage, and a good screen would be neat as I plan on watching movies on it. Storage, speed, and decent screen would be cool. That's pretty much all I need, as all I use my computer for is internet, music, and movies.
John Garcia
I'd probably listen to faggotanon above and get a T520 then. it's not as portable as a T420 but if you're just using it for media, whatever
that is, unless you want to get a dock and plug in a 1080p monitor, in which case I'd still recommend the T420
Ebay is the place most of us swear by. It's where pretty much all the best deals are found, and they'll back you up in seller disputes if anything isn't as it was listed. Avoid listings that only have stock photos and don't be afraid to ask the seller questions about the unit before buying. If you can get the seven-digit type number off the bottom of the laptop, punch it into tp.krelay.de/ to see that model's factory specs. In the case of the T520, the main thing you want to look for is the 1080p screen, but the 1600x900 panel is acceptable too. Just avoid 1366x768 models. A good price would be $300 or less, and I would say that you start overpaying at $400 and up.
Xavier Kelly
Why doesn't anyone buy a P-series thinkpad on /tpg/? I'm thinking of picking one up for architecture school. Any suggestions for 3d rendering, 2d cad and photoshop? I will be running all these programs simultaneously most of the time.
Jace Edwards
check out the buyer's guide in the OP. look up the model you want and read over the options available for it (particularly graphics options, processors, screen resolutions, and ram). Then go on eBay and find one that matches what you want/need. Wouldn't recommend buying one on Amazon unless you're sure it has the specs you want.
they aren't available for under $200
Asher Gutierrez
Are they worth spending $1000+ though? Or should I just go for consumer grade memeshit like the Pavilions and Inspirons with i7s and GTX 960Ms?
Carter Collins
People don't even buy older W series around here because they're either working with that small of a budget or just aren't looking for that kind of power in a laptop. It shouldn't come as a surprise that almost nobody here has the newest and most expensive Thinkpad available. There's a couple of them, but they're vastly outnumbered by the T420 plebs and even the collectorfags.
Landon Anderson
Ahh that makes sense. Would /tpg/ recommend a P50/70 for the use case I mentioned though? If not, any good, rugged alternatives?
They still haven't worked out the flickering issue with that mod, have they? Until then the only screen mod that's really viable for the T420 is the Alienware panel swap.
Ayden Nguyen
If you have the money to burn you really can't go wrong with a P50 or P70, but I'd definitely look into other options before deciding... Are you opposed to maybe a Macbook Pro?
Benjamin Hill
This
The only viable swap options are just better TN panels. There's no 1080p IPS screen that works perfectly in the T420 yet, and if they ever do get around to making it work, you'll probably be better served just upgrading to a T440 or higher
I've accepted my T420 for what it is and will make do until I can afford either a newer Thinkpad (possibly the Classic if it ever comes to fruition) or a Macbook
