/tpg/ - ThinkPad General

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IRC: #/tpg/ on irc.rizon.net

Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).
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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
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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.
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Used ThinkPad buyers guide:
ktgee.net/tpg

xsauc buyers guide:
dankpads.com

Specs lookup tool from type number:
tp.krelay.de/

EPP discount for new ThinkPads (USA & Canada only, usually 15%+ off):
pastebin.com/JVwVGVTW

Helpful links and resources (Wiki, lookup tools and wallpapers):
pastebin.com/DYjEnVq1

Other urls found in this thread:

orlando.craigslist.org/sys/5922013574.html
amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJK2
aliexpress.com/item/32715184749/32715184749.html
aliexpress.com/item/32695763249/32695763249.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Hello, is there a way to configure the trackpoint with i3 and Archlinux (through cli)? I can't use it atm…

T420 screen keeps going black if I move my screen a little.

How do I fix?

JEBpad

Is it worth buying either an R40/R51 for only 100 AUD?
I found someone on eBay selling one of each for 100 per laptop, not sure if I should get one or which one I should get.
All I'll really use it for is lightweight web browsing.

JEBpad 2

I would say that if you plan to do any gaming, get a desktop or a Lenovo Y series laptop. The W520 will handle older shit on medium settings just fine, but don't expect it to run anything from the past 3-4 years particularly well. This is a workstation and the drivers for the graphics card are geared towards professional work, not consumer gaming.

Assuming the Australian Dollar is no less worthleds than the Canadian one, $100 is too much. You could get a T400 for that money, and easily a T60, both of which are better. The R serves was the old budget line before the Edge came along.

I preferably want a Thinkpad with a 4:3 screen, I'll look into the T60 later but from what I saw earlier they were at least another 50-60 bucks. Would there be a big performance difference between an R51 and a T60?

what's the best model for my friend? current laptop's is slowly dying. likes to watch movies and use indesign, nothing much else really except for browsing. t420 or a better model? budget is around 250eu

I'd like to as yet again - what is the general opinion about t430 vs t430s ? I'm most certain i'd like to have a t430 - upgrading from t410. But the t430s also seems a decent option.

Look up T430s disassembly videos. I actually don't know how difficult it is for the T430s, but for the T420s the process looks like a huge pain in the ass.

As I'm seeing a shitton of third party batteries for the x240/x250 : Did they make third party batteries possible on the x40 x50 series again? As in, no more chip that prevents charging?

screen ribbon cable broken. Try to open it up and plug it out and back in, if that doesn't work look if you can replace it, else you need a new screen.

Looking forward to picking this beauty up for $17 next week.

Seller claims it works properly.

My first vintage Thinkpad, yaaay!

Absolutely not, im not sure how bad the walaby tax is out there on consumer electronics, but here in tbe US the regular price for working, in good shape T42, R52, and earlier related models is around 40-50 USD

If theyre in fantastic shape, fully upgraded to 2gb ram, 2ghz pentium m, good gpu models, and come with acessories, and have windows xp still
Then maybe

But you can get much newer machines at the 100$ price point
Try and find a T60/61
Oldschool shit is still plenty for web browsing, i use a T42 as my daily driver, but theyre not supposed to be expensive

Nice user

Welcome to the cool kids club

is that a 770 or 760?

I came across the laptop while scrawling literally the shittiest of the shit online ad sites for a Model M or similar keyboard. It was listed as "2526 think pad" or something like that. I hope other """"collectors"""" won't find it and pick it up before me. I have already hadarranged with the seller (probably an old man) a meeting next week and asked him to reserve it for me.

>tfw my frankenstein w500 with a dead battery and janky keyboard is getting some use while I reinstall windows on my primary machine

380ED
20 years old as of yesterday

Id go get it as soon as possible. These things attract hipsters more than a skinny jeans sale at American Apparel

Anyone know where I can find an E6320 in the UK for cheap? Cheers.

is a T520 something that I could comfortably use on my lap while laying on the couch or is it too huge/heavy for that?

Thinkpad x1...want this bad boy

How unwieldy is the 9-cell battery on the X220 when compared to the 6-cell?

I know I'm making a mistake, but why shouldn't I get this? I want a fucking HUGE laptop, and this fits the bill.
Imagegs suck.
orlando.craigslist.org/sys/5922013574.html

Prepare for a housefire
My glock fowty has a 2.8ghz pentium 4 in it at the moment, hot as fuck

Theyre cool, even just for the "socket 478 in a laptop" factor
Dont expect it to be the most powerful machine though. The integrated graphics are trash, my T42 runs circles around my G40

I'm not looking for fast or anything, mostly just the cool factor, while still being able to be used. Are internals more modern, like SATA compared to IDE?

dude the G40 is from 2003
its still pata inside of there
you're looking at a max of 2gb of 166mhz ram, it can run (stably anyway) up to a 3ghz pentium 4, any higher will cause underclocking

Seller agreed to hold it off for me until I go check it on Tuesday.

Do you have any idea what these accessories might be apart from the charger?

I'll try again.

Yes or no?

Refurb, W10, 240GB SSD

Addendum: I'm buying something this week because I need a new laptop, so if it's not this, it's going to be something else. It's not an impulse buy.

looks like a serial to 3.5" floppy, some kind of foreign power adapter, and some little pcmcia to something adapters
but no cards to go with them, unless the cards are already installed in the machine

thanks

the power adapter is my appropriate to my region (EU)

I do hope there is an ethernet PCMCIA card in it somewhere...

if not theyre cheap as shit
i bought my IBM etherjet card for 5$ or something, downloaded the drivers onto a floppy, installed it on the 380ED

ta-da, shitposting from the late 90's

Do you need a tablet? You should be able to find this a hundred dollars cheaper

Kek wills it; logic doesn't.

>328 USD
is this a bad joke?
go away

Got an E6320 for £104 :D

Good price guys?

i can get an x120e for 135. looking for an ultraportable machine for basic webbrowsing and writing. that's a decent buy right?

Thoughts on the elitebook 2570p?
Vs thinkpad x230?

I like the chassis of the elitebook more, and the design, and I love that it's got great cooling, but the screen and touchpad of the x230 looks nicer.

They're both also very close in price.

Could I upgrade the elitebook to an IPS screen?

If only they made the x230 with a metal chassis and better color scheme ;_;

on the x230, does the whole touchpad click down like macbooks? also, how is the quality of the touchpad in general

pls respond ;_;

put a weight of 2.6kg on your lap that is roughly 15.6 inches wide. theres your fucking thinkpad

BASED ThinkJeb using an IBM thinkpad. I wonder what PCMCIA or express card accessory he's using.

based jeb has a biometric t42
and thats a wifi card

the lucky bastard, i bet he knows too, i bet he watches me from across the street through my window as i search on ebay for the biometric palmrests to put on my own t42

Hi /tpg/ I want to replace a thermal pads in T420 but I don't know what is the thickness of them. Maybe somebody know the thickness and can solve my problem

i'm not sure the t420 uses thermal pads. as far as i know everyone's been using paste

Does anyone know how are quad core 35w TDP i7 temps and battery life on a T430?

I can spend around $1500.
What's a modern, high-spec Thinkpad with good battery, that isn't considered shit?

hotter and less long

more specifically, you'd be looking at about a 5-10c increase under load and about half an hour less battery life on average compared to an i5

define "modern".

Currently being sold by the manufacturer, made in the last couple of years, i.e. not an ebay gamble.

Fairly recent, not secondhand, current specs

T460 is the current gen T series thinkpad
560 if you want a bigger screen
460s if you want a slimmer model at a higher cost

The current "best" stock T460 is around 1480$
>i7 6600U
>14" 1080p IPS screen
>16gb DDR3
>256gb SSD

24gb of ram is 20$ more, a larger ssd is a tad more, or exchangeable with an HDD

Thanks, that's what I was thinking about getting. I don't understand what everyone is saying went to shit with the recent models, though

They need to justify buying a 4 year old thinkpad with their neetbux.

well, when you compare it to some older models, you are losing some really useful features, and things that were unique to the thinkpad brand

dont get me wrong, the t460 is a good laptop, spec wise, build quality wise, and definitely holds its own against other professional laptops in its price range

but, the keyboard is a bit lackluster in a few ways, namely the shortness of the keystroke, the shape and curvature of the keys, and the odd layout
you also lose the thinkpad buttons, the i/o is a bit mediocre and the interal layout is a mess

if youre use to chiclet keyboards, or dont mind them, then you'll have no issues

but if youre like me and alot of other people here, who use alot of the older keyboard designs, ranging from the super oldschool with the shortstroke mechanicals, to the later keyboards in the IBM models, and pre t430 lenovo ones, its like using a cheap chromebooks keyboard

Lenovo at first took the Thinkpad brand and kept with what it meant. The rugged, high quality, noticeably professional laptop that was really worth its expense, and kinda went to compete with other consumer tier laptops while still marketing the laptops to professionals


but its currently the best thinkpad lenovo has to offer, if the thinkpad retro ever comes out then we'll have a true contender, with the older keyboard layout and better keys, and hopefully a 4:3 screen

I've got an ultrabase with a hard disk on it. What's the proper procedure for undocking the laptop? I currently run a quick umount /mnt/ultrabay

I need a laptop that I can take to university everyday, and am torn between the t430 and x230. x230 has excelent battery life ans super lightweight, but the t430 has more screen real estate, especially with the HD+ screen. Is the weight of the t430 too much to haul around on a backpack all day?

So im looking at older ibm mini thinkcenters to use as network storage in my basement, ive found one thats a 2.8ghz pentium 4, lga 775 system with a x16 pci-e riser that supports a full size bracket
Now im thinking, 4gb of ram, some 775 xeon, networking card, raid card and shitloads of 2.5" drives rigged up inside
It has a 350w psu with an actual pcie 6pin on it, so power wont be an issue

What should i limit myself to price wise on this. With shipping its about 50$ as is, comes with XP and looks to be in great cosmetic shape

Took you guys advice and bought a W-Series (W520) to compliment my X220 instead of a T420.
Payed USD 300 for it. It was on sale 10% off. This will be my second and probably last ThinkPad purchased. Unless I buy another X just because they're so portable and fun to dick around on.

Probably I suppose but I'm 99% sure that the T42 has a wifi card in it.

Does anyone else like to look at the bottom of your Thinkpads? I just love how practical it looks . A nice contrast to muh aluminium unibody that is so popular now.

same

the x230 has about as much metal as the elitebook. the palmrest on the 2570p is kind of a cosmetic veneer.

who here x201 masterrace?

What are some fun things to do with a Thinkpad X201 running Xubuntu 16.10?

swear to god I made that last post in this thread before reading yours

i heard there's pornography on the internet you can look at

What distro & tweaks do you all run to maximize battery life?
I was thinking I'd go with Xubuntu, remove all the shit I don't use, and install TLP.

I hear Arch can get great battery life, but I'm a bit intimidated. I'm pretty comfortable with Ubuntu & Debian based distros, but installing from scratch is scary.

Does anybody else have problems undocking ultrabay devices while running Linux 4.8 on Debian testing? I'm not sure if it's a kernel bug or some configuration error. I'm using the ultrabay-scripts package and it was working months ago.

Would this work in an X230?
It says it's for Mac but from what I can tell it should slide in just fine.
Double-checking before I pull the trigger.

>doesn't include link
amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJK2

tbph my first distro was Arch
just follow the wiki, senpai, it's not that difficult.

I'm down for it. It's not like the computer is dead if I fuck up.

Does Arch have better battery life than others? I imagine it's heavily dependant on the choice of DE and how many packages are installed.

are you a massive pussy?
if no, it's not bad and barely noticeable.
if yes, get the x230.

As long as its the same speed and format yeah

It's a DDR3L SODIMM. That's a standard.
There's no reason why it wouldn't work, but you can get the exact same crucial memory without the "For Mac" stamp for $10 less.

I mean
The battery life is just as shitty if you install a billion fucking programs or use really resource-intensive ones
The only reason it would be better is if you intentionally keep as few packages on there as possible, and choose to use the lighter-weight versions of programs you currently use
Lubuntu would give bretty good battery life, as well.

>exact same crucial memory for $10 less
I don't see a PC3-10600 16GB kit without the Mac label, senpai

That, and the fact of the matter is, I don't see why in the hell someone would be over a grand for a laptop. I just... I don't understand WHY.

x220 for $120 or are there better options
keep in mind im poor

an x220 at that price is a pretty good steal.

not a new one, used, any problems with that? theres like 4-6 x220s used for that price and am probably going to get one after christmas

If I buy the elitebook 8570p, could I upgrade it to a 1080p ips panel?

Or at least just regular 1080p?
They ship with a 35w dual core. Can I upgrade to a 45w quad core? Thermals seem really good in reviews, with no throttling of the cpu under torture so it's more of a compatibility issue I think.

Really loving the aesthetics of the elitebooks 2bh.

I'd rather the elitebook 2570p, but the touchpad looks too small to be functional. I was considering an x230, but you can't upgrade the processor and while the keyboard looks great for typing, I'm not a huge fan of the chassis design/aesthetics. Love the way the touchpad has been implemented in the x230 so it's still a potential option.

trying to decide between x230t or x230 and intuos draw wacom tablet. how well does the x230t hold up overall?

I'll be honest. What puts me off from the x230 is the plastic exterior.

what do u think of the x301

X230 has a plastic palmrest on top of a magnesium shell. 2570p has a metallic sticker on top of a plastic palmrest on top of a magnesium shell.

I want to upgrade my 2570p screen to a 1080p ips. Will this work?
aliexpress.com/item/32715184749/32715184749.html

It's for the thinkpad x240 but it's the same 12.5" as my elitebook, isn't it?

Kek says yes

it's probably not going to work. there's been zero talk on the usual laptop dork forums about an FHD panel working in that model of elitebook. i don't think anyones even found a 1366x768 ips for it yet

>he forgot about taobao

If the connector is the same it'll work, right?

On chipset and some other things it use thermalpads

not necessarily. same connectors might still have different pinouts, accept different signalling, different power recs, etc. you gotta go over the specsheets to make sure.

nerds were very proud of themselves for finding the 768p ips from some alienware laptop that'd fit in a t420. still havent found anything higher res that'll work

then there's the custom adapter boards for the t430 those 51nb guys came up with, but that's a whole other can of worms

Would a T420 (or T420s) be a suitable replacement for a 2011 13" MBP (2.7 GHz i7, 16gb ram)?
Was looking at getting a dedicated machine for coding for school so I can use the macbook for photo editing/general shitting around online.
Even though I probably have a budget of $600, I think I want the T420 for the memes n shit. Would it be a wise decision?

why would you even bother?
the t420 has the same or worse specs, and a FAR worse screen.

Well, shit. There goes my dream of a 1080p quad core 12.5 inch elitebook for 500 dollarydoos.

Would that monitor work with the x230?

Holy shit can I use this in a ThinkPad?

14 inch 2K 2560*1440 IPS HDMI DVI DP DisplayPort Driver Board Display LCD Module Screen Monitor for Laptop PC New Original QHD
aliexpress.com/item/32695763249/32695763249.html
(from AliExpress Android)