Sup Forums, is buying a brand new, most up-to-date ThinkPad a meme? Or should I buy an older one?

Sup Forums, is buying a brand new, most up-to-date ThinkPad a meme? Or should I buy an older one?

yes

why not both?

No

if i wasnt a poorfag and i could, i would
im just saving as much money as possible and want to know that if i buy a new thinkpad then i'll still be getting the good keyboard and the nice body is all and im not being overcharged for it

The current thinkpad line hardly even resemble thinkpads anymore and have none of the features that Sup Forums faps over when they talk about thinkpads.

You get no magnesium rollcage, no ultrabay drive port, no way to service the machine without completely taking the computer apart.

And they no longer have that willfully ugly, functional design that made them so nice to look at.

so basically they sacrificed ruggedness and longevity of the body for the styling?
desu i might be an odd one out here but im not sure im a massive fan of the old thinkpad design, i know its shit on purpose and its functional but it just seems so clunky
other laptops in recent years still last with a more stylish design, and i dont think that the new thinkpads arent entirely not built for longevity, just not as much anymore

Get a Clevo brand laptop if you're going to spend a fuckton for no reason.

If you want an actual Thinkpad get a T420.

I've got both a new P50, and an old T400 and both are great. The P50 though is, much much nicer than the T400, however I like the T400's keyboard layout better. The P50 however is fairly Linux unfriendly so if you want linux I'd suggest getting an older thinkpad.

X260 owner here, even if you get an older ThinkPad, it's still THE best laptop I've ever owned. ThinkPad or die t b h

i do intend on installing linux on it, im just wondering if a t420 would be able to run something like csgo on integrated graphics as the ones i find are always without the nvidia card. is it possible to install a discrete gpu yourself on one of these?

>fairly Linux unfriendly
explain

ask yourself what are you going to do with it and buy an appropriate laptop

don't listen to these autistic fucks with their thinkpad bullshit, i use a macbook air with arch linux cos im based

Not him but it can however it's not very playable imo.

The HD3000 runs csgo at 30-60 fps with random spikes in 1366x768 and everything at low.

>is it possible to install a discrete gpu yourself on one of these?
No because it's soldered to the mobo, however you can do an eGPU setup without hassle with the ExpressCard slot.

i intend on using it for the foreseeable future, through university for a CS degree and for a bit of light gaming if possible

I have an x250. Thinkpads are still great laptops, better than pretty much anything else bth.

The specs certainly look good to me, especially the battery.
The keyboard isn't as big a deal as it gets put on as.
The lack of spill-proof keyboard is a slightly bigger deal, but hardly a deal breaker.
The screen gamut is as mediocre as any other thinkpad, which does suck. I do want to look into replacements before I pull the trigger.
Apparently there are build quality issues as well, or so i heard in a YT review. I wnt to look more into that as well.

Have a rare-ish thinkpad

How do you like the p50? Is a reasonable laptop to carry for a college student?

mmm...
This is probably a missed plastic clasp that just snaps right back, but it's still pretty questionable

Older ThinkPads are better for Linux. Newer ones have more powerful hardware, but are more reliant on external shit if you intend to use it as a desktop replacement.

Why does Sup Forums always shit on Thinkpad Yogas?

Bought a refurbished one off eBay for a huge discount. Looks and feels brand new, you wouldn't even know it was refurbished. I love the touchscreen and folding screen so much that I literally cannot go back to a normal laptop.

I dont intend on using it as a replacement for a desktop, i'll use my rig that i have now and upgrade it as i go so i can have a good powerful rig for whatever i want. i just want a laptop that I can use for programming and some light gaming that i can bring with me.

The only ThinkPad that's worth it is a P70 if that suits your use case. You could always wait for the Retro ThinkPad.

Then you don't want a ThinkPad. You want an IdeaPad or something else entirely.

There's no point in getting a touchscreen computer unless it also has an active digitizer so you can draw on the screen.

If you don't have one of the Yogas with Wacom tech then you have only my pity.

Not that guy, but T520 owner here. I see they weigh about the same ish, around 2.5 kg.

I carry my laptop to and from work in a messenger bag and it's no biggie.
I'd say it depends on how many books you have to carry along with it, it is a bit on the heavy side for a laptop, and with a lot of books that shit will add up quickly. I know I wouldn't want to carry a ton of books along with my laptop, but if your shit is otherwise fairly light it should be fine.

if i had the money for a p50 or p70
im a student i cant afford that shit

why is that?

ThinkPads aren't for gaymen. IdeaPads are. In a ThinkPad you'll have an iGPU and fairly slow RAM or a CAD/GPGPU oriented video card. IdeaPads have gaymen GPUs. That being said IdeaPads are typically overpriced compared to alternatives from Acer, Asus, and MSI.

the heaviest gaming im gonna do on it is csgo and i dont give a shit if i have to run it at low settings really. i dont see the point in splashing out to get the gaymen version when its not my main priority for the laptop

For the price of a T460 you can get a decent gaming laptop and you can program on basically anything.
Of course, if CS:GO is your poison, it doesn't really matter. You could get away with a $200 T420.

>ThinkPads aren't for gaymen.
fuck off. I can run fucking civ V on my X220. Most new games require much more than any laptop reasonably has.

Sounds like you want a W520 then. Or at least step it up to a T430 with its dedicated GPU, both of these will perform a lot better than a T420 in your gaymes.

naturally, but i wanted a thinkpad for the linux compatibility

Is the X1 carbon superior to the dell xps 13?

Congratulations? I can run Civ V on my tablet.

New ThinkPads lack this, unfortunately. T460 and X260 in particular have awful Linux support.

>T460 and X260 in particular have awful Linux support.

that looks so sexy

what part of it defines it as having bad linux support?

Assorted hardware doesn't work when using Linux. Namely the webcam, mic, 2 of the 3 USB 3.0 ports, the DisplayPort port, and the smart card reader. Also vastly worse battery life. Speaking from experience with an X260 and Mint.

>Mint.
no fucking shit. Use a distro with an up to date kernel before you spout bullshit.

Well maybe Google 't460 ubuntu' and read about all the people bitching about similar issues mister "I like to pretend to be smart on Sup Forums".

New hardware, especially new CPUs, work terribly on old kernels.
If you knew anything about either of the products you're talking about, you would know that.
Ubuntu, mint, fedora, etc will of course run terribly.
People bitch about rolling release ditros, but they're the only way to actually use new hardware.
Fuck off.

What possible benefit is there to this

A fair bit of devices are 100% unsupported (i.e. fingerprint reader), setting up the WWAN card is a complete pita, WPA2 enterprise is a bitch, general lack of support. The xeon processor only just got support. And these are issues with Ubuntu, which is pretty damn forgiving. Fedora and CentOS are straight nightmares.

I love it. With W10 everything works like a charm. The fingerprint reader is damn near instant, the WWAN card is great when the college's internet goes down (which is often). My only gripes are that I'd rather have another windows, options, or fn key where the print scrn key is (between right alt and ctrl), that it had a battery in the back that could be extended, and that the backlite keyboard stayed on.

I've got an old T42 that I tried installing Xubuntu on, but the whole system operated pretty poorly. Has anyone else tried reviving one of these things? What distro did you use?

there are distros aimed at that sort, debian being a better bet.
The DE matters quite a bit, however. You might want to look into i3 or the like.

X260

This sounds very shilly but I love my t450s. Though it's a bitch to open, it feels like a self servicable ultrabook, and has RMS wet dream Linux support. That's really all I need/care about. Some people don't like the new keyboards, or the materials, but I've found everything to be at least adequate. Definitely better than anything else you can buy new.

>RMS wet dream
Can't libreboot.

I have a T420, it's the last real Thinkpad.

Everything Lenovo touches dies, just look at what they did to the Moto _ phones.