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
Yes but get the ExpressCard version so you don't have to open your laptop each time.
Andrew Martinez
Anything in special i should look for when buying RAM for a T400? Will any 1333MHz SO-DIMM RAM will work on it? just that it will downclock to 1066MHz?
Oliver Edwards
yes
Blake Anderson
Delicious Flat Chest
Joshua Powell
If i want a laptop to just use Office and to code the T400 will be enough right?
Me on the middle.
Sebastian Phillips
what are some nice thinkpad themed accessories to keep a look out for on ebay? So far I'm liking the wireless mouse and laptop bag
Adrian Brown
Should be. I've used weaker computers to do more intensive shit
Julian Green
Old IBM external HDD's theyre rare as shit but the enclosure can hold any 2.5" sata drive and they look absolutely amazing
Christopher Phillips
Refurbished X230 for $275 Y/N
Angel Jones
What are some common stuff i wont be able to do with it?
Im going to school to study, not to play games so the IGPU wont be a problem meanwhile i can play my chinese cartoons, but will it be able to play 1080BDs?
Andrew Ramirez
>but will it be able to play 1080BDs Not him but the i5 2520m on the t420 can play 10bit 1080bdrip cartoons, it's not going to be 100% accurate but try looking for a benchmark comparison between that and your cpu.
Aiden Bell
K guys, fell for the thinkpad meme, and also for the freedom meme.
Just got myself a Thinkpad x200 with a P8600 for 93€. (That's a yes, according to the buying guide) I want to see if I can slap libreboot in there.
Now I have to chose a libre distro and change the DE to something that doesn't look like shit (maybe gnome).
Also got the 9-cell battery. Gotta see if it can keep alive during the train travel home. (6h)
Nathaniel Collins
Has anyone ever bought from ITrenewdirect on eBay or in general? I'm haggling with offers over one of their Thinkpads, and I think I could get it for a good price, but I've heard mixed things about them, and that even though they have MAR products they've misrepresented product condition or specs in the past. If there's any bullshit I'm protected by eBay buyer protection, right?
Juan Bennett
Also, gonna put a SSD in it.
I have one in my bigger laptop, which has 4gb ram, and even with full memory you can't notice because page swapping is fast.
Brayden Russell
Should i upgrade from 2GB to 8GB RAM first or get a SSD first?
Juan Price
Ram.
Grayson Clark
I'd say RAM honestly, 2GB is pretty small
Lincoln Harris
So be it, thanks.
Cameron Miller
Ram first. Then when you're able yo boot, ssd
Christopher Young
Managed to get a used T450 for £250.
256 SSD, 8GB RAM, beautiful little machine.
I'm a software dev so might do the screen replacement, but man this thing is so sleek compared to the T61 that got me through Uni.
Gavin Rivera
If the item you receive is not what they say, I'm pretty sure you're protected. I'd be careful, and check ebays policy though.
Gabriel Bennett
my t420 lid sensor is fucked, it will register sometimes when the lid is open, or when I move it slightly.
wat do?
Joseph Watson
I'm strongly considering an X220, but I'm wondering... How loud are these machines? Are the fans always whirring because that's always been something that embarrassed me in class. I've only ever owned shit laptops and the fans would always be loud and almost always be going. So what's the deal with these?
Hunter Stewart
I have an t420 so dunno if it applies to the x220 but in my experience it's pretty silent, even more with an SSD.
The fan can get loud though but it only happens when Turbo Boost kicks in during constant load so for note taking or shitposting it won't be an issue.
Ethan Ross
an upgraded t420*
Camden Mitchell
The C2D might not like going that far up in res. Might be better off at a slightly lower one. But give it a shot.
Common stuff is web browsing (no shit), basic UNIX use, Windows 7 should run fine with extra RAM. Bascially, it can computer
Jacob Anderson
i need a Thinkpad for college, but i recently bought a Xioami Redmi note 3 pro. Is hard to live in Chile
Daniel Ramirez
>i need a Thinkpad for college you don't
>i recently bought a Xioami Redmi note 3 pro you don't need this either if you're on a budget, a moto e would've done the same job + having spare money for a thinkpad
weón.
Lucas Thomas
My motherboard on my main rig decided to die just a couple of days after I bought a new 1060, I also decided to order an eGPU adapter.
Will post results, and compare to main rig once it's back up.
x230
Sebastian Reyes
Well exactly what im looking one for, im upgrading it from 2GB to 8GB. Im sure it can play 720p stuff.
I can only find T400 with T8600 around but atleast they have a 1440x900 screen.
Who makes the best batteries? I only can find chink/noname batteries where i live.
Gabriel Jackson
2GB to 8? What thinkpad do you have?
John Reed
I'm using a T420, it has a 1440x900 screen and the nVidia dGPU. Pretty fucking good for all sorts of media shit. Why don't you just get a blazeit and be happy?
Nicholas King
Because after 2 weeks of searching i wasn't able to find a 900p T420 that could ship where i live.
Carson Lewis
Where the fuck do you live man?
Jeremiah Bell
The problem was i only could find 768p T420.
Im looking for a screen with a good resolution over anything else.
Parker Kelly
>1440x900 wat
Get a cheap 1366x768 t420 and then get the hd+ cable with a 1600x900 screen, you can resell the 768p screen in Craigslist or the like since it's mainstream as fuck.
Nolan Richardson
>1440x900 I'm a faggot and meant 1600x900
Fucking get one anyways
Jackson Myers
Tell me why I should buy a used T420 when I could buy a new Ideapad 100s or Inspiron for the same price
Colton Hughes
Because real laptop with G2 I5>Atom with 32GB storage made out of plastic
Ethan Scott
the x230 (refurbished) i ordered just arrived, but it won't seem to boot. it says it's charging, but it won't turn on at all. is it fucked or do i just need to let it charge? i've only had it for about 15 minutes
Jayden Wood
Those laptops are designed to be $150 pieces of shit. The T420 is a laptop that was designed to be a $1500 flagship and is now being sold for $150. Quality matters far more than age.
Justin Adams
got a t420s which I immediately updated to 8GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD. Everything's working great, but what's the ThinkVantage button supposed to do? There are a few other function keys that don't work either. I'm running dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 10.
Easton Peterson
The fan gets loud when playing games or HD video but just for web browsing it's usually pretty silent.
The HDD in mine was a noisy 320gb Toshiba. I replaced it with a SSD and that made it a lot quieter.
Camden Lewis
>what's the ThinkVantage button supposed to do? It's programmable, i use it to open foobar.
>There are a few other function keys that don't work either Running W7 here and everything works, dunno about Linux and W10 is a pile of shit so i wouldn't be surprised.
David Bennett
oh alright. How do you program it? Do I have to go into registry edit or is there a program that assigns it for me or something?
Robert Harris
Is it just me, or is the little moon and the thinklight not the cutest little features ever put on a laptop?
Levi Hill
Go to pic related and make that entry with the program you want to open.
Ayden Taylor
My thinkpad's mic is shit. It picks up audio, but it's pretty bad. Tried recording my instrument, and it barely picked it up. Recorded my voice on vocaroo and it sounded bad as well. Is it because it's a bad mic or is it because I don't have the drivers installed yet? I recently reinstalled windows 7 so there aren't many drivers downloaded yet. Where can I find these drivers? I have a W520
Bentley Garcia
alright thanks man. Really appreciate it.
Thomas Ward
What are the average temperatures of a T400 at idle and under load?
Thomas Watson
unplug ac adapter, take battery off, press on button for 30 secs, plug everything back again, and try to turn it on again.
Noah Howard
Let me see if I can explain this:
On my T430 the mute volume led works as expected on linux, but on Win7, if I mess with the volume control in the task bar, the led doesn't pickup on the change. Example: if sound is muted (led on) and I change the volume in the task bar (not using the keyboard volume buttons), the led will remain lit. At this point, if I press the mute key, the led will turn off, but the sound will be muted, and it will remain in a "reversed" state until I do the same thing again (changing the state in the task bar).
Is there anything I can do to get the correct behaviour?
Owen Lee
that didn't work
Leo Collins
Are thinkpad screens still dogshit?
Wyatt Campbell
15" Thinkpads always had good screens. It's just the manlets that get eye cancer.
Jace Russell
Did you install the Thinkpad Hotkey driver from Lenovo's site?
Oliver Davis
Lmao you guys try so hard to be different than your peers by getting some heavy ugly piece of crap. Just buy a macbook like everyone else and put away that fedora while you're at it cause no, it doesn't look good on you.
William Flores
(You)
Luke Watson
Good call, I didn't think of searching for that as everything was working well, but will do.
Aaron White
is it possible to find a good sandy/ivy bridge era laptop for $100 or less? i don't care about battery or screen quality, just need a new shitposting machine to use when i'm laying in bed or away from home.
>Is this good? Newegg and manufacture refurb for $200
It's decent. Could do better though
Zachary Lewis
ok Sup Forums im new to think pads what is the best one to get?
Michael Murphy
X1 carbon
Oliver Roberts
t60
Carter Sullivan
you should be able to find T420's for
Nathan Brooks
Macbook Air
Gavin Robinson
Just got my thinkpad and it's true what they say. once you go black, you never go back.
Benjamin Anderson
is the i7 x220 worth 200 british dollars? can get the i5 for nearly half that, but the i7 has the IPS screen and usb3 right?
Kevin Sanders
Both i5 and i7 can have the IPS screen. usb3 is only on i7
Isaac Sanchez
I'm not lugging around a 15" machine. X series and ultraportables all the way, desktop for some of the things I can't do on my laptop.
The screen on my macbook air was leagues better than my T420. Made sure to get an IPS panel on the X230 I'm ordering.
Gabriel Barnes
>the screen on my macbook air was leagues better How could you tell without being able to look at anything other than BLOOM FILTER
Noah Ward
>2016 >being a manlet Your loss, fuccboi. Enjoy your shitty thermals and always having to compromise on either resolution or panel quality.
To be fair, it is nearly impossible for any other laptop screen to be worse than the T420's. Its sole redeeming trait is that there are 1600x900 panels. Quality-wise, they aren't any better, but at least you aren't stuck with 1366x768.
Jaxon Evans
stick with the xx20 series if you want something fairly modern, but still muh thinkpad experience ootb. Personally I'd say go for the t420 wtih dgpu great battery life with the 9 cell (even with the 4 cell i get 3-4 hours lightly browsing) great cpu performance acceptable gpu performance plus you can throw an ssd and 16 gigs of ram and for pretty much every task but gaming, video rendering and cad it will perform just as well as any modern system. the screens on the TN macbooks aren't that bad. the one in my 2012 15" is leagues better than my t420's screen, and pretty much any macbook air has at least a halfway decent screen (even the 11" that's stuck at 1366x768)
Asher Anderson
Is coreboot supported for the T430? I'm considering buying one and I can't find a source that confirms.
i know people shit on newer thinkpads here, but why shouldn't i get a yoga 12? i'm not trying to start anything, i actually want to know what makes it bad compared to the old ones. i can get one for $500 through a friend and i want to know if that is worth it over sticking with my x200
Angel Mitchell
not a real thinkpad™ the only reason it has the thinkpad name is because of the keyboard nipple other than that it's just another standard consumer grade laptop that's going to break in 3 years.
It's not >does coreboot support x It's >how much of x does coreboot support
Justin Edwards
Right, my b
Are the T430 and the T430s the same in this regard? Should I look for a T430s instead?
Cameron Mitchell
T430s(note the ending 's') is as powerful as the regular T430 but it weighs less and it's slimmer, but you lose battery life due to the height and weight reductions.
If you have enough money, try to get hee i7 variants since they have a Thunderbolt port.
Ryder Ramirez
I have an X220. If I do something wrong like, for instance, being in a terminal emulator and pressing backspace at the prompt, it outputs a beep. I've already disabled "error" and other beeps in the BIOS, but it persists.
How do I disable the beeps?
Brody Martin
Ya I was planning to get one with an i7, battery life isn't as much of a concern to me as I will be docked or plugged in the majority of the time.
What I meant to ask: is the BIOS chip in the T430 and T430s the same?
