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. ----
X220 gets super fucking hot when playing videos these days
Michael Gray
W520, 45/75 with i7-2720qm
that fan is a monster, i can push the idle temp down to mid-30s if i run it manually at full speed
Andrew Moore
yes 15 inch I can't remember the exact model, some guy had it at work. I think it might have been a W550s or a T540p.
don't get me wrong I love thinkpads but I'd never pay $2k for a brand new P50 display that's worse than certain 2012 macbooks.
used 1/3 price and get to replace it? sure.
Noah Rivera
Here's a tip for Sandy/Ivy Bridge laptops, YouTube can push out VP9 encoded videos which turn ThinkPads in to space heaters due to inefficient software decoding.
Use H264ify to force H264 videos which can use hardware decoding.
Chase Sullivan
So, no good 14 inch T series screen in the past what... decade?
Ian Jones
Google are annoying with these new standards. You can download an image and it's a .webp, what even is that
Jason Butler
actually, drop all those temps by 5C
running prime95 and this thing won't budge past 70C, and it was at 40 before I started
Eli Murphy
T420. Laptop won't turn on. If battery is in then power button does nothing. If only cord then light comes on and stays on. I replaced the motherboard and the same thing is happening.
Liam Watson
>battery that came with my x230 has 700 cycles Is this the average today? Besides that the laptop is in good condition.
Gavin Davis
T430 55/90 Core i5 3320
Julian Howard
wear %? Mine has 629 and already 43% wear because I fucked up and treated it badly I think
Angel Collins
>no good 14 inch T series screen in the past what... decade?
idk, many people get used to them or hook them up to an external monitor and so on.
average display quality I guess, but you still can't beat the (durability+serviceability/price) ratio of a thinkpad.
I mean really, display wise the alternative is a Macbook or some $3k gaymen laptop or some flimsy whatever chink shit with horrendous maintainability that literally falls apart in two years.
Chase Taylor
65% capacity when I checked it. Lasts about 3 hours browsing.
Jason Bell
>tfw kept my new thinkpad plugged in on my desk with the battery at 40/60 thresholds for three years and now I'm gonna carry it around and was thinking of buying a new battery but this one has like 5% wear
who /comfybattery/ here?
Thomas Cruz
H265 is technically better than VP9 but patent jews make it too expensive.
Ironically VP9 is being succeeded by AV-1 but this time around AV-1 has broad industry support.
Landon Mitchell
hell yeah >tfw not a manlet >quad core + dgpu with zero housefires
Juan Clark
140 dollar for a T420 or 180 dollar for a T430? I'm on a tight budget so is 40 dollar really worth the extra?
Eli King
same specs? same screen size? any info on battery life?
Liam Adams
Outside of GPU performance there's no massive improvements, if $40 extra is a significant difference to you and all you need is something that justwerks then a T420 is fine.
Blake Adams
>is 40 dollar really worth the extra?
you get a better gpu for older gay men and usb 3.0
How did you make the date disappear in the taskbar? As you can see my taskbar has a small space below because the date didn't disappear
Ryder Wright
Also chicklet keyboard vs regular keyboard, if you're used to typing a lot on an older thinkpad then it's gonna take a while before you get used to it.
also T430 runs slightly warmer.
True, I got a pea sized 128GB USB 3.0 thumbdrive for free, installed linux on it, and it's slow as fuck.
Turn off the battery gauge.
James Gomez
T240 Intel Core i5 2520M 2.5ghz 4GB DDR3 Intel HD3000 250gb 7200rpm 14" led 1366x768 anti glare coating.
T430 Intel Core i5 - 3320M 2,60GHz 8GB 300 GB SATA 14 inch Intel HD Graphics
That being said, the guy selling the T420 seems more reliable. Any thoughts?
Liam Ramirez
>True, I got a pea sized 128GB USB 3.0 thumbdrive for free, installed linux on it, and it's slow as fuck.
I mean, on a T420.
Jordan Hughes
His screenshot he also has the battery gauge yet no date
Nicholas Evans
Turn off the battery gauge, change the theme to aero, unlock the taskbar, resize the taskbar -drag it up and down a couple fo times- , lock it, turn on classic theme, turn on battery gauge. Come on, it's fucking windows not a cli bsd install.
Ian Butler
Why do you guys think buying used laptops and installing Linux protects you from the botnet? The NSA probably knows that buying used thinkpads is a meme, so they probably bought a ton of them, installed a botnet in the hardware, and sell them on eBay for cheap to catch pedophiles like you guys.
Jonathan Ortiz
What do you mean by >plugged in at 40/60 threshholds You would go to 60, disconnect charger, drop to 40, connect charger and so on?
Ethan Reed
+1 insightful
Jordan Bailey
no, Thinkpad Battery Controllers can be set by software to allow charge to a certain levels, and to start recharging also at a certain level.
these are usually set on windows using the Thinkpad Power Manager, or on Linux using TP-smapi (thinkpad-acpi on IvyBridge and newer)
Anthony Ward
Thanks user. I am a retard I thought the date was the problem.
Mason Nguyen
Yes but for example, I have at 20% and 80% but now it's full at 80% and it isn't discharging. You had yours set to discharge?
Mason Lewis
-chicklet vs nonchicklet -2x4 ram vs 2x2 -better gpu
it all comes down to the physical shape of the laptop, the battery life, and if you plan on gayming.
>You would go to 60, disconnect charger, drop to 40, connect charger and so on?
no, in Lenovo Power manager I've set the battery so that it charges to a maximum of 60%, then when it hits 40% it starts charging again until 60% and so on over and over.
this is a known way to protect your battery.
you have to take into account that the laptop was plugged in all the time, and a 40-60-40 cycle generally takes weeks.
Jonathan Peterson
Are there any ChromeBook ThinkPads with a trackpoint?
After switching to a ThinkPad and finally needing to shop for a new laptop, I've realized that I absolutely cannot live without a TrackPoint, my trackpad gets zero use.
Josiah Perez
>so that it charges to a maximum of 60%, then when it hits 40% it starts charging again until 60% and so on over and over. How do you set it to go over and over and over? Mine for example is right now at maximum 80% and it just stays there.
Austin Ortiz
He thinks your software is charging and discharging between 40 and 60 even when it's plugged in, that's the confusion. You're saying that only happens when you're on battery anyway right, you've just limited the part you use.
Jeremiah Perez
nnah, theres no need for them to install anything on the hardware. all thinkpads are already backdoored , same as the consumer laptops.
thinkpads, as most Intel based laptops carry something called Intel Management Engine, which is a fully "shadow os", with its own CPU (ARC) connected to everything, it can turn off the computer, turning on, taking screenshots, display images on screen, recording audio, perform any administrative task on hardware, even with the computer turned off, and can connect to internet via its own mac address.
if you are that paranoid you can more or less cripple it , using a SPI Flasher.
Colton Sanders
>2x4 ram vs 2x2 wat
Colton Johnson
btw, this only works during current session? I logged out and logged in and the date appeared again...
Isaac Sanchez
These threads are not 'generals' they are purely tech support for your forever broken TwinkPads.
Please take this newfag cancer back to Plebbit.
Kayden Bailey
X230 55/89 W520 58/85
Nicholas Diaz
>it just stays there.
It doesnt just stay there, keep it plugged in for a week and it will drop at least 1%. Like I said, it's a slow cycle when plugged in.
in this state the battery is slowly discharging to 40 and slowly charging to 60, I can't explain exactly how and why the circuitry works like that, I just take advantage of this and use it as a UPS in case I have to take the laptop out for a few hours or there's a couple of mins power outage (happens once a month where I live).
Jordan Harris
Oooh okay I get it. That is why it's now at 79% instead of 80% I thought it was just a bug or something
Ryan Sanchez
Hey just so /tpg/ knows goodwill does online auctioning there are tons of laptops that are pretty shitty, but there are a lot of good projects that you can do.
They sell all kinds of shit, of course, but there are a lot of business laptops
Hunter Fisher
I think there was a version of the x140e that was a Chromebook
Luke Gomez
You're doing it a bit wrong tho, you should raise the minimum to at least 40.
See pic related
Luis Rogers
Why not 70%-80%? Is it because of heat?
Gabriel Carter
>Why not 70%-80%?
because the cycles are more frequent and you're constantly hitting full charge.
Daniel Bennett
>I logged out and logged in and the date appeared again...
some icon is stretching your shit, are you sure it's not the gauge (you can disable it forever) or the fact that you have the classic theme enabled?
Ryder Nguyen
well I want to have both the gauge and the classic theme are you the user from W520 screenshot?
Jackson Nelson
I am, it just worked for me across all my Thinkpads I've put W7 on. I dunno what to tell you, but I don't think the battery gauge is the cause. I've never seen the clock display like that.
Andrew Brooks
Forget it I'm a complete retard. I just noticed that I was using Power Manager 3 ... from 2011... I just updated that and a few other drivers and it's fine now. sorry for wasting your time user
Alexander Ward
...
Juan Reyes
What's the cheapest model with Sandy Bridge or above and an IPS screen?
Colton Lopez
X220T
W520 has a better screen though, even if it isn't IPS.
Jace Green
Why is there no sub $200 mini PC capable of performing as well as my T420? Jesus fuck, $200 should buy more processing power than a 6 year old laptop.
Landon Miller
ty user
Elijah Miller
I'm a fucking idiot, it was the x131e
Mason Phillips
Your T420 was mass-produced and is now considered obsolete by the vast majority of original owners. The only other things that will have bargain binned as hard are desktops for similar large-scale enterprise setups, though even those are similar prices to complete thinkpads of the same time and the only advantage is that they don't use mobile processors.
New shit especially isn't going to be a real step up because intel expects you to pay the same as you did five years ago for a few percent in IPC improvements. You're better off just clustering T420's if you actually want processing power.
Gabriel Rogers
define mini pc
Hunter Hernandez
I wanted to get a NUC just for basic computing but I was surprised how expensive they are. Happy with the x230 I found instead.
Oliver Hill
THIS. Especially when you really dont even get "low" power consumption for the computing power.
I just want a cool, low power pc that is well built, has intel 4k equiv graphics and 2520 power
y is that too much to ask for in 2017?
Jace Edwards
Is this the same with every other laptop manufactured on an Intel platform?
Kevin Wilson
the closest one I got was an optiplex with an ivy bridge i3, 8 gigs of ram and a 180gb ssd. replaced the psu and now it's a cool comfy machine.
every other new mini pc is a fucking scam, with ulv cpus and soldered ram and shit.
Camden Barnes
This. Find a reseller that flips Dells and HPs that they bought from corporations that either liquidated or did a fleet upgrade.
Grayson Wright
>buy an elite book g1 840 from an old guy for cheap >i5 4300u, 8gb ram, 240gb secure ssd, battery health good, 900p HD+ display, under warranty, backlit KB, 3g module That's not too bad right? Getting about 6-8 hours on W10 on bal mode. Added extra RAM. Future upgrades: m2 SSD, replace Intel N with AC wifi, possibly new battery via warranty and a 1080p IPS matte display. Scared to spend too much as I'm still chasing a bargain Dell E7230 or even a X240 but that's hard to find dirt cheap. Elite folio 13" would have been nice too but beggars can't be choosers. Happy with it so far though.
James Price
Speaking of sucking off old guys, what's a good wifi AC card for a thinkpad?
is the current intel one so shit?
thanks.
Ryder Richardson
Sounds like a pretty comfy buy. >m2 SSD I'd make sure that this is going to give you proper improvements in speed of the current one, unless you just need storage space. >AC wifi Be wary of BIOS whitelisting.
Hudson Cox
all intel processors from Core2Duo have some sort of this technology, some probably have it disabled as its features are mostly intended for corporate use. but because its a closed sourced blob and we cannot audit it whether is active or not on a particular device is unknown.
we know its active on Thinkpads because of their enterprise use and because of the efforts of the Coreboot devteam
Daniel Rodriguez
Ok, like a year ago or so I hated all you /tpg/ fags...recently needed a laptop for school (capable of video editing/light After Effects work), and ended up getting the Thinkpad Yoga 14.
Hudson Wright
X220 45/60 out of dock 60/80 in dock
Nathan Taylor
Thanx for the explanation.
Ryder Clark
X230 45C Idle up to 80C load
Gonna put on new thermal paste soon.
John Jenkins
Kinda normal for a xx30 tho
Connor Lewis
Any tips for increased battery life on Linux? Running an X220 on Ubuntu, is there any ThinkPad software I can run on Linux toO?
Zachary Gonzalez
still I can only achieve this with manual fan control. 45C idle is with fan at 4500RPM
Wyatt Hill
TLP
Nolan Rivera
>Any tips for increased battery life on Linux?
install Windows7
Ethan Butler
Not him, but I will never be a nonfree cuck again.
Gabriel Barnes
Damn the T60 is comfy. Much better than the T61.
Jacob Gray
If I'm just looking for something for miscellaneous tasks, in bed or otherwise, and perhaps some light gaming/actual work, would something like a T420 or X220 be a decent buy at ~$130? There's a seller on ebay offering them with decent-ish sized SSDs in them and everything, and I'm trying to decide if I should jump on one.
Currently have an r60 kicking around, tied to a base, and I'm debating whether to buy a new battery for it or just upgrade all together. The fact that they don't seem to be the easiest to actually lock down a quality battery for doesn't help matters.
That said, I also cannot decide whether to go for an X-Series or the T. The X looks nice, but I'm worried that I'll regret not going for the larger screen of the T-Series. I'm open to suggestions for other similarly sized, powered, and priced models as well, but thoughts?
I also see a lot of talk on replacing displays on these. If I were to pick one of these up, what would be some decent quality of life modifications I could make to them?
Andrew Harris
Anyone with an X220 re-applied their thermal paste? About to do it now but the GPU has a thermal pad, should I keep it or use paste for that too? My worry is that the GPU chip will come into direct contact with the copper heatsink pipe
Tyler Parker
i highly recommend you to read this if you want further details on Intel ME, and what can you do to neuter it if you feel it compromises your privacy
hd4k for games 200 form factor ips tablet mode for beddy time/media
At least this is my impression i'm currently trying to get a good price on the x230t after having owned a t420 for about a year or two.
the bigger screen is nice i guess, but it still is only big enough for one window even using a tiling window manger. that's my ultimate reasoning for wanting a 200 series
Samuel Rogers
Whats the name of that software that gives you an accurate reading of your battery and lets you set thresholds?
Lucas Collins
I've looked at the tablets before, and while they definitely look nice, buying an actual drawing tablet last year sort of took away one of the reasons I might get one.
IPS and better iGPU is definitely nice, but how much of a jump in price is that going to bring? One benefit is built in USB3.0, I suppose.
It did just occur to me that neither of the two X-Series would have disc drives, which still feels weird to me, but I could deal.
Hudson Roberts
what's the idle temp with no fan?
can't be higher than ~50, I've seen these things wihth absolutely no thermal paste, just the heatsink barely touching the cpu and they stayed at 53 or so. load is another thing.
in your case something's not right tho, seems like the C states are disabled somehow (mainly C6) or you got some sort of malware/bg process running non stop on both cores. try updating the bios and reinstalling the Lenovo drivers.
the point is, this isn't an 15 year old Athlon, the temps shouldn't shoot up at idle when the fan is turned off.
Charles Ortiz
Lenovo Power Manager
Brandon Cooper
But what about under cpu and gpu load? Because my w520 throttles on the gpu, and my t430 throttles badly on the cpu. Those two machines make my 2012 15" macbook pro look like its running cool under load (95 cpu and 85 gpu)
Jace Watson
question about these convertibles: does the screen wiggle/bend/twist at all while not in tablet mode?
I really like them but I'll use it as a laptop more and maybe 1/5 of the time as tablets.
thanks.
Liam Gray
2170p for 310 aud or 2570p for 260 aud? And why?
Isaiah Roberts
Fan at 0RPM results in ~60C. It's absolutely impossible that there's any malware whatsover because this is the same for a freshly installed Windows and a freshly installed Ubuntu MATE. BIOS is at the newest available version.
Lucas Price
X230 for like $200.
Anthony White
>2170p >literally cooler >runs more silent >small
You kangaroo molesters are getting jacked over there with those prices tho.
Dylan Martin
Not a huge fan of the x230/20 to be honest. I prefer the design of the elitebooks much more.
Isaac Rivera
Thanks mate. You think it's worth the extra 50 though?
It's going to be replacing my Asus t100ta, how bad is the screen going to be? I'm going to be watching movies on it.
