/tpg/ - ThinkPad General

Previous thread: 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:

tp.krelay.de/
ebay.com/itm/131572390201
ktgee.net/post/49423737148/thinkpad-guide
ebay.com/itm/371821305151
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Why is life in Italy so shit? Literally no one sells Thinkpads, and the ones that are around on bidding sites are extremely overpriced.

Don't let me get started on those overpriced B-Ware German Cuckpads floating around eBay. Holy shit I'm triggered. I just want a comfy x230 for Xmas. Fuck being Yuropoor.

Ti capisco amico..

can someone give me an idea what to expect from these unmarked batteries? ebay is full of them, but they all claim to be certified so it should be safe, right?

i don't want a housefire

Is the screen in the x230 good or should I replace it with something else?

Hey guys.

My current laptop got fubared and I'm looking for a new one.

My needs are:
•~8 hour battery life (can include slice/ultrabay batterys and such)
•Can run Photoshop well with 2~3 open images of around 5mb's each
•Will last a minimum of 4 years with light maintenance (no total event collapse)
•Can maybe run Counterstrike on low acceptably without getting about 70°c.

I've had a whip around and I've considering either a 440p/s/standard.
What would be the best for my needs?
Would a 440p last long enough, would a 440s be quick enough?


Sorry for all the questions, I'd like to be well informed. Thanks guys. Ily

x420 vs x220
Any majour differences between the two?

I'm in Australia and we get jewed hard here.

I bought a t430 for myself for christmas and ended up getting 8gb ram, high res screen and 180gb SSD for $300 AUD (~200 euro)

ONLY A FEW WEEKS.

Get one with a 6 month or 3 year warranty.

Free battery replacement after housefire

I tend to buy batteries from sellers who only sell batteries.

What is your budget?
I would shoot for a T450s, better gfx & no clickpad.

There is no X420
Are you saying T420?
T420 has better cooling & the option to install a higher pixel density display. Plus you can upgrade to quadcore without much of a hassle#

X220 is the 12" version of a T420, no dGPU option and removed the DVD drive unless you get the ultrabase with it. Both typically have the same processors & ports.

Yes I meant the t420
I plan on getting the x220 for casual shit such as coding netflix/youtube and studying material.

My dad wants a Chromebook for business to replace his shitty Vios

Is there a Thinkpad I should get instead for under 200? What are pros/cons between the two?

Sound choice.
You can always eGPU the bastard as well

He probably wants battery life & something light, which no ThinkPad under $200 can offer that.
In general, ThinkPad are built to last & easy serviceability. There are some ThinkPads that are Chromebooks too. I had used a Yoga 11e with windows 8 and it was a pleasant experience.

He just has to know, M$ office & some printers will not work with a chromebook

Should I use xfce on my x220? What distro?

Oh, one other thing, average battery life on the x220? I plan on getting an extended 9 cell so I'll have two around. Dunno if the ones on amazon are any good either, can you link one?

Doesn't really matter. Use whichever distro or De you want. You seem new, so I recommend Manjaro and the DE that looks the most nice.

Looking at a few T520's.

One with i5-2520M, 4GB RAM, 320gb HDD with 12 months of "warranty" for ~250€.
Another one, same stuff but 250gb HDD and I'd either have to fuck with stickers or replace the keyboard, 200€, 3 months of "warranty".
The last one is pretty much the same as the first one but with 3 months of "warranty", 180€.
I was going to ask which one should I roll with but I think I answered myself when I found that third one.

Or maybe I should keep looking for better deals? I mean, all I'm going to do on this thing is some backend webdev and watching movies/videos.

I plan on getting AUO B156HW01 V4 and a new a battery+additional 4GB RAM anyway, probably even an SSD later down the line.

While at it, any chink battery recommendations?

Budget is £500, maybe a bit over

Is a x230 (i5 3320, 320gb HDD, 4gb ram, IPS display) with a case, some other bullshit accessory and 6 months warranty for 250€ a cuck deal? Keep in mind Europe prices. Thank you.

res is shit but it's hard to upgrade

quite

Thanks friend.
Gonna try it out.

US EPP is shit right now. Earlier in December it was 40% off. Now it's back down to 28%...

Wait a sec, it's actually 235 euros.

Just bought a cheapish x220. How'd I do?
www.ebay.com/itm/252690187401

How do you guys clean your ThinkPads?

wash under faucet

i usually take the battery out and rub my diarreah over the surface thats usually covered by the battery.
then i put the battery back in, you cant see it or stain yourself on it but it smells of shit and i dig that

Just put it in the dishwasher like everyone else.
If it's clean enough to eat off, it's clean enough to type on.

how can I tell which of the screen options a Thinkpad has when I don't know the machine type to be looked up at tp.krelay.de/ ?
(no type sticker left on the machine || too much hassle to ask the seller etc)

in particular, I mean a T400, which has a 1440x900 screen. there are CCFL and LED backlight options for that resolution.
it has a P8400, in case there could be any correlation, but I guess there isn't much, since I've seen P8600 1280x768 T400's.

baby wipes.

>buying a core2duo
>in december 2016
Why tho?
You could pick up an i5 just as cheap, if not cheaper.

Disassemble, clean with iso alcohol and q tips. Don't use alcohol on the screen though

because cheap, and still perfectly daily driveable for my needs. can't find anything newer as cheap here. and I do like 16:10 screens ∨ screens which are at least 900px vertical. yeah, T410's have 900x1440, too, but as I said are not as cheap.

So ive found a great way to clean up the scratched surfaces of "coated" metal thinkpads like my X41t
The stuff that coats it is a scuff magnet, regular alcohol obviously wont cut it because the scuffs are physical imperfections

I used it on my 380ED and it worked great but its even better on my x41t

>70% alcohol 30% acetone mix
Got it for a dollar at walgreens

Its stong enough that with a scrubby sponge it wears down the surface of the coating, but not so strong its acting as straight up paint thinner
Ive thought about bathing the bottom of this tablet in 100% acetone to have smooth metal to buff out, but not the top

It also made the scuffs on the screen less noticable

Is the original IPS screen on the x230 different from the one they sell on eBay?

>x230t arrived today
>it's missing the pen

wew lad

How do I control fan speeds on an x201 running Elementary?

>too much hassle to ask the seller
>being this aurismo

Thinkfan.

Just jizz into a sock instead of all over the screen.

Post pics of YOUR Thinkpad(s) !

where's yours then?

Soon™

Trying to decide between a X220 or a X220T.

I got my T420 for 100$ and I love it

Compressed air and disinfected wipes followed by ffiber cloth

If you're his tech support, get whatever is easiest for you to deal with. If you don't see him all the time, I'd get him the mostly idiot proof chromebook. Plus it'll be shinier and seem newer and better.

Got pic related.
How'd I do?

I just got a T420 off ebay in pretty good condition with an i5, 4 gigs ram. I replaced the drive with my own and ordered a new 9 cell battery of ebay. Where do I go from here? This is my first laptop ever.

after take this pic
i fucked up all disk management and reinstall every shit

W10 mint dual boot

Add a msata SSD and install gentoo (or whatever). A dock is nice if you plan on using it at a desk a lot.

...

Fucking cool but the price is ridiculous. I'll be buying one of these in 10 years for sure.

got it refurb on ebay for $1100, i'll clean up the outside and make a nice expresscard desktop gpu adapter for it

Using Solus, trying to use gparted to create a new partition to install Windows on. Gparted shows that I have no unused memory, so I can't shrink the primary partition. What do?

Dual-booting is dumb on a laptop, partly due to the lack of storage, partly because it's mostly useless for anything.

>new Thinkpad 13
>newb to laptops (been using desktops for decades)
>going to university in two months

What are some basic common-sense things I should know about using laptops in public/shared areas? Especially re: theft.

I've heard about "never leave your laptop lying around", is this easily solved by putting it in a backpack and carrying it when not in use?

get a laptop bag, an over the shoulder one is most comfy, and easiest to access while wearing
just carry it around

I typically buy from ebay only, not so sure about amazon sellers, I don't use amazon other than buying supplies or consumer crap.

>ebay.com/itm/131572390201
one year warranty

Fug, you're in britain? I don't know UK prices... typically they are 30% higher though than american ones.

you should be able to get a T450 for that price. I want to say you can

If they are nice enough to post a photo of the BIOS, look at the serial number, the first 7 characters are the MTM for the lookup.

Wow thats beautiful, will have to try it...
Who are you so I can give you props for it? :P
>i will shamelessly make a youtube video of it

You could buy a kensington lock, but those just require a very good yank or a kick at the base of it.

better than nothing
lol if ppl steal your trackpoint

You can add USB 3.0 via expresscard
as stated, mSATA SSDs are great, used ones are starting to go for the same price as common 2.5" ones.

Some like to get the Ultrabay Hard Drive carrier or put in a quadcore i7 into it too.

Thinkpads are niggerproof by design, you don't have anything to worry about.

For the most part, do you buy Thinkpads from a specific place?

some call me, tim
on 8/tech/ im called the Chrome Jew
because i look like a jew and ironically shilled ChromeOS so hard that i got 10 other people to shitpost in my place
it still happens there

anyone else have serious fucking problems with the captcha by the way?
picking obviously correct images and it says try again

is this because of the fags purposely picking wrong answers?

>old thinkpad
>Pentium II Xeon sticker
nigga what the fuck

ebay/craigslist

I was looking on Newegg and found a cheap refurbished T520 for like $300. Though I have no clue if I am getting a decent deal or not.

newegg is fine
you can find stuff cheaper on other sites, but it usually takes longer and is more risky since it's all just random people
my first thinkpad was actually from newegg and i was really happy with it

Yeah I live in the asshole part of Georgia so all we have are dindus trying to sell shitty bootleg phones on craigslist

ebay mainly
overpriced by a bit, unless it comes with good specs and is fully refurbed, cosmetically too, thats high af

ktgee.net/post/49423737148/thinkpad-guide

you're looking at a 250$ laptop if you dont hunt
but on ebay rn you have this
ebay.com/itm/371821305151

great cosmetic shape, decent specs, free shipping and at 195$

if you dont mind installing a new OS, theres another with 8gb of ram with a small crack for 171$ total with shipping
ebay.com/itm/371821305151

id consider both of these good deals to buy outright
but you can find better ones on ebay or locally on sites like craigslist if you wait and search alot

Who's hyped for CES '17?
also, I know the new thinkpad meme
but how is the x260?
Does it still have the bento box styling that the t460 seems to have abandoned?

>poorope plug
>linux mint
are you a Bulgarian by any chance?

What's up with your right alt key?

holy shit.. how much?? whats the specs? whats the battery life like?

Euro prices are only outdone by Japanese prices.

Akiba is scamzone for thinkpads

When she was brand "New"

What's the reverse of a weeb called?

>ebay.com/itm/371821305151
westaboo

That's pretty fucking huge looking

Is the classic thinkpad thing going anywhere at all or did they abandon it?

t. guy still annoyed at the way they handled the screen aspect ratio survey

...

Its a T4x I think too, quite funny.

Thanks tim

A rumor is that ThinkPad Retro will be shown!

...

>verry fast thinkpad computing at incredibly hihg speed

Potato camera

DELETE THIS

Hinges on t430 are utter crap. This is weak point.

>drill a couple of holes below the fan on my t420
>instant 3 to 5c temp drop at all times
what the fuck

Speed holes.

Thats my T42
Stuck the sticker from my p2 xeon on it
Got the thing brand new still in plastic, opening it up was erotic

Remove the entire panel below the fan for best temp drops

A reminder to check your local Craigslist or mom-and-pop PC repair shops for deals on Thinkpads. You might have to search by "Lenovo" instead of "Thinkpad"

Some examples of what I'm seeing:

T530 for $160
several T420s for $110
T520 for $125
X220 for $150
X300 for $100

> X300 for $100
wow when it were new it was expensive as fuck model

Yes, I believe the X300 was rocking an SSD in early 2008. Over 2 grand iirc

And thinnest optical drive. Some toshiba subnotebooks had the same.
And quite good screen.
Too bad it only supports 4gb ram and cpu is old.

It's right here I hadn't noticed that it wasn't in correctly. I popped it back in, thanks man.

>BIOS, look at the serial number, the first 7 characters are the MTM for the lookup

thanks! quality knowledge!

T470s when

t470
t480
t490
what happens next

A very thinkpad Christmas to all of you!

It's almost the same in Austria
>€400 for a i7 X220 with no IPS
>tfw no X220 shitposting on christmas

; _ ; oposite problem "tons" of them for sale no money