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
X220T is the most significiant thinkpad and is the only one that will be remembered through time
X220T is the coolest thinkpad, and is objectively the best thinkpad
you CANNOT consider yourself a thinkpad buyer or collector if you do not own X220T
Colton Lopez
What kind of ThinkPad would you recommend for someone who uses Photoshop a lot? Are there any remarkable differences in the displays?
Jace Reed
What about my W700? :(
Justin Gutierrez
Picked up an X220 in mint condition for €150. i5, 320GB, 4GB
This will be my first Thinkpad. How'd I do?
Jonathan Long
Is it IPS?
Sebastian Baker
why not X220T?
you will try to swivel your screen one day but it won't swivel, it will just break off and you will be reminded of the mistake you made
Xavier Wright
No. Have been looking for one for weeks, but no luck so I just went with the default display.
Might upgrade it myself. It's pretty easy, right?
Colton Harris
No idea, I own an X200T, came with IPS by default.
Tyler Foster
It's super easy, don't worry
Nolan Hughes
What's the best out-of-the-box Linux distro for T420?
Kevin Green
*buntu or fedora. Havent had any issue with either of those.
Basically any non edgelord distro will work nicely though.
Nicholas Hill
Vanilla debian is the only correct answer. No arch autism, and no baby buntu either.
Oliver Reyes
Benchmarks say that the x230's i5 runs faster than the x220's i7. Is this true? In other words, would buying an x230 i5 be a better move than an x220 i7 if i'm after performance?
Alexander Collins
If you have dual graphics Manjaro with nonfree drivers has bumblebee set up out of the box You might need this though
sudo pacman -S virtualgl lib32-virtualgl lib32-primus primus
Aiden Roberts
If you can get over the chiclet keyboard and micro USB port, the X230 is an obvious upgrade over the X220 in the same frame Besides that, it makes perfect sense. The Sandy i7 is just bumped up in clock whereas the Ivy i5 is a new architecture with perhaps a little less clock. The other reason to not get an i7 is that the X220's one has a mysterious tendency to drink substantially more power despite having the same TDP. X230 can get a solid 1 hour per cell on a fresh battery, more if you try - also easier than the equivalent X220 I guess due to energy efficiency improvements
Austin Nguyen
except for drawing furry porn why would I choose it over the x220?
Bentley Parker
How long till the P50 comes down to a reasonable price on ebay? I'd pay £500 max...
Jordan Hughes
Is the additional bulk of the X220t compared to standard X220/X230 really all that noticeable? My X61t was a lot bigger and heavier than my X60s.
>tfw I lost all .psd files for this shit
James Kelly
woot has a thinkpad X140e for 180, and it looks tempting for portable work/media
is this a recommended model? is it easy to swap out the rust drive for an SSD? would obviously be expanding it to the max of 8gb RAM
Hudson Mitchell
less battery life than nonT because less cells, more weight, also I read that remapping bios is done so if you aren't hackintoshing (or don't mind non-working internal wifi) **30 series looks better this comes from guy owning only two thinkpads: X220 X220T
Kevin Peterson
only if it is DS version
Josiah Hernandez
>tabletshit >singular wobbly hinge gross
Angel Ward
The X220 feels really fucking small after you've used the tablet for a while, so yeah..
Ryan Peterson
A guy came to our house working on security system and used the x220t. I fell in love with it and he let me play with it a bit(he hated it).
I wish I could get one, but only have a x60t at the moment with a yellowing display.
Btw, where can I get replacement keys for it? The keyboard is missing a lot of keys after someone else borrowed it.
Grayson Bailey
Why does /tpg/ recommend ChinkPads that aren't libreboot-compatible? What's the best one to get that does work with libreboot?
Nathaniel Bell
They lack functionality and they're old.
Jeremiah James
Alright so which one would be the best one to get that I can install Arch Linux on and wifi and everything will work without too much of a hassle?
Jace Perry
>libreboot X200/T400/T500
Fuck. It's hard to get a X220/X230 with an IPS display for cheap and all the ThinkPads I already own feel way too slow sometimes.
Luis Roberts
>Libreboot >expecting things just work pick one
Owen Johnson
I just abandoned the idea of libreboot. So if I don't want libreboot which one should I get which will work out of the box or with simple pacman/pacaur installs with Arch?
Cameron White
How much should I expect to pay for a: i5-2540M 8GB RAM 128GB SSD IPS panel x220?
Should I buy one like that or just a basic model and upgrade the drive/screen/memory?
Really looking forward to getting it.
Brody Martin
>Tripfag of middle-of nowhere shithole also yes, 6cell vs 6cell
btw can you swap 230 board to X220 body? best answered by someone who has both so he can post pics
just get the screen separately, should be about 50 (respectable_currency_here)
few years ago I paid for that something around 425 but I was in a hurry, felt like I overpaid and also got 500GB drive with it (basicaly it was 350 and I bought msata ssd myself) nowadays I read somhere that you shouldn't pay more than $150 but it depends where you live
Daniel Cook
Now that Lenovo has made the Thinkpad into an ultrabook-style notebook, what is going to be the go-to laptop in the future?
This isn't a troll, I'm being totally serious. Right now, we have infinite supply of T420/T430, X220/X230, etc. What will we use in ten years from now?
Have new latitudes and Elitebooks maintained their design and durability?
Ian Gray
>lenovo has made the Thinkpad into an ultrabook-style notebook David Hill why?????
Bentley Green
>nowadays I read somhere that you shouldn't pay more than $150 but it depends where you live I'm going to order in the US and $150 sounds dirt cheap. I checked eBay and they go around $270 (something is broken) - $370 (good condition).
Thomas Butler
I looked one up to make sure I'm not just talking out of my ass here - look at the design on this thing
I'm not trying to be memeing or anything, again, I don't understand. Right now we're all good because the market is still flooded. What will we do for our computing needs 10 years from now? I know there are many kids and spillovers from Sup Forums here on Sup Forums, but most of us are involved in technology or IT to some extent.
Do you see technicians walking around with the new Macbook TM Pro TM to work, or a reliable business laptop? If the big companies ruin the only good laptops, what is left for "power users" and people with tech-related jobs?
Isaac Evans
thank you user
Nicholas Jenkins
Does debian netinstal pickup wifi firmware fro a T420 or does it have to be ethernet? also what about normal non netinstal. I know it picked up my old shitty HP wifi back in day
Thomas Jenkins
I had to have mine on ethernet iirc.
Jackson Cook
No, you need to put the iwlwifi firmware .deb package in a folder inside the USB/ISO to make Intel cards work. And they do.
Jose Gray
ah been awhile. had to do that before on another desktop. but forget how to find location. a bit rusty.
Hudson Smith
You see, first download "firmware-iwlwifi" from tge non-free repository(packages.debian.org/jessie/all/firmware-iwlwifi/download) Then in your netinst USB or ISO go to lib/firmware folder and put the .deb file there without extracting.
your Intel card should work after that
Austin Davis
Ok okay. Much easier than how I used to do it then lol.
I used to do this manually sudo dpkg -i DEB_PACKAGE and was annoying because had to be typed perfect and location.
Thanks for info. been awhile
Gavin Robinson
maybe $150 is cheap, but $370 is waay too much
Benjamin Collins
What is the most important thing to check when buying a used gookpad? Going to buy some suspiciously cheap X230T units
Here is what I am thinking so far: Check for BIOS lock Check function of AC adapter Inspect ports and physical condition Run RAM test Check for HDD/stylus
Jordan Hughes
The chinks finally delivered my t460p, someone asked about it so if you need to know something let me know.
First impressions: >breddy fast >warms up a bit when full load, not noisy >not warm at all during normal usage >build quality seems pretty nice >1440p matte monitor is nice and has good brightness >comes with surprisingly low amount of crapware installed >keyboard feels solid, doesn't bend at all >touchpad work alright >mouse buttons work perfectly
Dylan Flores
RAM and HDD are easily replaceable, check the hinges too
Thomas King
What are these? Are they fixable?
Dominic Wilson
I can offer a price. How much should I expect to pay?
Jaxson Evans
Will do. Thanks Do you know anything about anti theft software/hardware? Are these things typically easy to notice? Really don't want to waste my money with stolen shit
William Hughes
They're fairly anemic. If you just need chromebook-tier performance (i.e. facebook machine, remoting into other systems) then it'll be fine. Anything other than the T, X, and W business lines are eschewed here, but the education line models (X140e, 11e, Yoga 11e) are still pretty durable. No IPS screen in the X140e and the 6-row keyboard layout. It's not the best choice unless you're hampered by availability wherever you are or you're one of those "muh warranty" or "I cba to install my own OS" types. For the price you could get a more powerful model as recommended in the OP.
Just pick up a replacement keyboard from Amazon or eBay or wherever. If you've got a handful of keys missing, buying them individually (i.e. from laptopkey.com) is going to get you close to the price of a full replacement anyway.
>Arch >no hassle Choose one and only one.
Julian Roberts
Just got my thinkpad x60t up and running. Now the screen is really dim, almost barely lit. Any way to brighten the display? Don't remember it being this dim.
Christopher Thompson
Computrace and intel AT are found inside the Security tab in UEFI setup. Check if they're disabled
Hunter Cook
>what is left for "power users" and people with tech-related jobs?
death
Daniel Sullivan
at first it looked like stickers, but it is just broken is ssd 2.5 or msata, how's battery life? don't go above 250
Jordan Hughes
This is what it looks like. Might have to get a spare keyboard since the Q key is missing part of its hinge.
Justin Scott
It's always been dim, but they degrade with time even more. Though if it's unevenly lit, a tube may have gone out or some voodoo happened. I recall with a previous version of kubuntu or the like, my X61t would do weird shit out of sleep. Only one backlight would power on unless you restarted. Didn't even know software could control them individually like that
Obtain new display bezel
Nathaniel Hall
>X series >all of them use IPS but thats wrong
Chase Cooper
SSD is 2.5 Battery at 75%.
Chase Turner
>X-series tablets >all of them use IPS But that's right. Well, technically some of them are AFFS.
Hunter Wilson
>But that's right. Well, that's wrong
yea
Henry Foster
AFFS are pretty much IPS displays, just made by Hydis.
Brandon Brown
Linux zenmaster detected.
Jaxon Hall
i agree
Tyler Gutierrez
L440 here, can I just use the same screen upgrade kits as a a T420 since they're the same dimensions? Please help, I don't want to deal with this shitty resolution forever.
Jason Hughes
T420 has msata driver right? How much quicker is it than a normal SSD hd? is it worth it?I already have 2 HD's installed
Ethan Kelly
Got a T420 yesterday, is there anything special you need to do when installing Windows 8 and such? Heard about problems with Windows Update in 7 in some other thread, is it the same for 8?
Aiden Powell
Slower, it's SATA 2
That said it's still way faster than a regular-ass hard drive
Nathan Torres
yeah just googled. I meant i have 2 SSD's installed already. I'll pass. no reason for it. thanks
Lincoln Flores
>btw can you swap 230 board to X220 body? best answered by someone who has both so he can post pics No. The HDMI port is replaced by Mini DP, so that spot won't fit.
You can put an X220 keyboard in an X230 though which has practically the same effect, the two chassis are otherwise pretty much identical
Gavin Gonzalez
This infographicable is pretty outdated senpai
Julian Peterson
But that's not right either. Some X laptops have TN panels
Aaron Hughes
>X-series tablets >tablets
I know, can't be bothered to make a newer version though.
I found a T430 on craigslist for $160. I'm thinking about getting it but what gaymes can I play?
Would I be able to play CSGO or Depth?
Hunter Brown
FUUCK thanks though
Jace Ward
What advantages does t420 have over t420s?
Leo Martin
>playing GO CSS is fine, and it can definitely play CSS.
Superior home defense capabilities.
Connor Gomez
Anyone here use a T510, T520? Tempted to pull the trigger but the only one I used had a really sandpapery feel to the lid, felt completely different from my T420
Oliver Bell
The main drive slot is sata 3?
Wyatt Moore
Anyone else having this problem with x230 win10? Clock is for some reason out of screen partially.
Caleb Richardson
Too much botnet
Hudson Powell
Install debian
Brandon Howard
I'll be receiving my first Thinkpad ever in two days.
Fuggggg, I can't wait.
Dominic Gomez
What distros do you guys install on your old thinkpads? I'm sitting here with a circa 2001 240x which is a beautiful machine but I don't know what would make best use of the hardware.
David Adams
So here's my new T430. I need more resources, so I just ordered 240GB Intel 1500 SSD, 2TB Samsung HDD, 16GB DDR3L 1866MT/s RAM, 9cell battery and T420 palmrest + keyboard w/ fingerprint reader for it. Screen is much better than the shitty non-IPS x220 one, so I think I'll stick to it for a little longer.
How badly am I cucked, Sup Forums? I paid $300 for it.
Sebastian Hughes
Also forgot about >2GB NVS 5400M with overclock Just tested fallout 4 and gta v. Both games works fine on 1600x900 and everything set to medium. I guess that's my new main PC.
John Peterson
I'm going to buy a T420 with the NVIDIA NVS 4200M today or tomorrow. What should I look out for?
Jordan Ross
OH SHIT
Looks like it'll be delivered tomorrow
Xavier Richardson
X230 eGPU setup with Gtx960 and a EXP GDC 8.3 adapter with expresscard connection. External monitor
Works perfectly. Only thing that had to he done was deactivating pci-express power managing in BIOS. Never tried, but the setup is supposedly plug and play. The performance seems to be 85+% the performance of a Gtx960 in a desktop. Using the internal monitor a pass-through with the iGPU is made and performance drops to roughly 65+% of desktop performance. Laptop runs a lot cooler now when not using the iGPU, roughly 65-70C while gaming.
More questions?
Chase Brooks
>16GB RAM You fell for a meme.
>fingerprint reader >botnet I guess you should just be happy with your purchases.
Jack Roberts
>PCIe x1 Do you enjoy being cucked?
Josiah Price
What is the preferred DE and distro for a memepad T420 ?
What do you folks enjoy?Gnome 3 any good with the resolution?
Joseph Evans
Im computer illiterate, how do I check to see if a thinkpad is BIOS locked?
