Long story short, I'm looking for comfy laptop that I can take around with me easily yet still get stuff done on it. Ideally, I'd get something with a 14inch display and a 1920x1080 panel, but you can't have that while being this poor. Main thing I'm looking for is portability, battery life and reliability. I'm aiming to spend 200 GBP or 240 EUR max.
So far, the only thing that fits most of my criteria is the X220 or X230 but the screen size does concern me a little.
I have the X230T. I bought it new in 2012 and its still my daily use laptop. Works well but its been through two fans and two batteries. Gets really hot and lots of the plastic has chipped off because I keep dropping the damned thing. It doesn't have the OG Thinkpad keyboard but its still a comfy-ass keyboard that blows every other laptop keyboard I've tried out of the water.
Isaiah Perry
How long does the battery last on that thing and are the X230T all IPS?
Levi Ortiz
All the tablet models are ips
Ian Gutierrez
Battery only lasts 3 hours or so now, I'm probably going to replace it again soon. the X230T shipped with a choice of screens, one is stylus-only while the other is also capacitive, with the former having better sunlight visibility and viewing angles. Both were IPS and both have shit resolution. I still like my laptop though.
Easton Clark
I have a X220 I use daily. If I were to buy a laptop today, I would probably get a newer model. My only gripe I have with it is the placement of the ethernet port, otherwise it is a fine laptop. The battery life is decent, keyboard is decent and the processor is still fast enough to keep up with most things I do.
As far as screen size goes, it is fine. I came from a 15" laptop, but you will soon realize that either 12.5" is enough (I don't think smaller is good because then you also reduce keyboard size) or nothing is enough.
So my advice would be to get an external screen and an extra charger, then get whatever laptop you want.
Aiden Johnson
Is the battery life on the X230 any better than the X220?
Jack Moore
slightly
230 is all around the better purchase.
Hudson Powell
I love my x220t, the screen resolution is low but it performs well enough, the build quality is quite good too. The battery life is acceptable, 4 hours or so for light tasks. You can supposedly get much more with the battery slice accessory. I have noticed it getting hot but only when I max it out with emulators.
Brandon Morris
I got mine for $40 on ebay, screen is just tinted a little pink. Couldn't flash libreboot onto it with my raspi for some reason so I'll be trying a BBB soon.
Asher Hall
the screen size and resolution are fucking embarrassing, the keyboard is nice but the trackpad is next to useless and that trackpoint isnt that amazing either (drifting).
battery is nice and cpu + ram upgrade + ssd make it usable.
Brayden Cruz
It's the best price/quality ratio you will find. You will probably want 8 GiB RAM, SSD, 9cell battery, and an external monitor for at home or work.
Aaron Evans
I still use an x201 You guys are fags
Jack Morales
This desu.
Tyler Martin
I have an x230 with 16gb ram that I use as my only computer. I have it connected to an 23" monitor and a USB keyboard/mouse. My only complaints are the wifi drivers are pretty shit (half the speed of my work laptop (MBP) on the same network), and if you close the lid, the internet speed goes to like 2 mbps down.
Wyatt Turner
i got made fun of in college by a guy with an asus chromebook for using an x220 because it's "so thick"
Gabriel Price
its good and i get at least 12h battery life on it too. probably not possible with windows.
Grayson Jones
I got the tablet version, I put an SSD in it and a big ass battery. The fan gets annoying and it gets hot, but I'm not giving it up, it still runs pretty great for me.
Hudson Roberts
it's supercomfy, buy one in good condition and add a cheap ips screen (50€) and a cheap 9 cell chinese battery (25€). You'll have the best 12" laptop for the price
Matthew Jenkins
Will I struggle to keep about 10-12 tabs at a time open in chromium with 4GB of RAM? Also, does the battery last longer on windows or linux?
Brayden Cox
i use firefox and it can do many tabs fine. i have over 100 tabs open sometimes.
Alexander Robinson
Use TLP, windows is better for out of box power management, as linux is better at being fast. I use an old X200 with the 4GB max the only thing I _cant't_ do is run the android emulator.
Isaiah Richardson
No. The screen is terrible dogshit in every regard. Useless junk because of that. Sent from my X220 Tablet.
Aiden Russell
power management on windows is shit tho. battery lasts 3h instead of 10
Michael Myers
how do you find good batteries from china? i dont want to get chinked and i cant afford buying twice
Jack Nelson
>over 100 tabs Wtf why?
Andrew Hernandez
Unoffficial chink batteries don't work, only lenovo new or refurb
Daniel Long
Just buy an IPS panel?
William Brown
What's the comfiest distro to run on the x220?
Luke Green
>tfw lenovo chinks will keep ruining thinkpads year after year
Luis Walker
yes. buy one
Jack Walker
That thing can't even play audio properly without cutting out if CPU usage or whatever goes too high
Hunter Wilson
gentoo
Levi Young
If you want a cheap hackintosh laptop as a backup machine, yes. Otherwise, no.
Parker Reyes
I'm only gonna be using it for web browsing, watching korean baking videos and chat
Christopher Turner
Yeah I love my x220t. Only complaint is the cucked aspect ratio and its a heavy fucker.
That being said if you don't care about they God tier keyboard skip it and get something else
Benjamin Roberts
>x220 >heavy are people really this weak now?
Jaxon Roberts
this tqbdesu
Benjamin Hernandez
>That being said if you don't care about they God tier keyboard skip it and get something else what like?
Carson Jenkins
It is pretty heavy when you're carrying a metric fuck load of books on your back user
X220 isn't all that heavy though. Just the tablet version and the fuck huge battery
X230 or x250. Honestly the new think x series think pads are the only "good" ones
Brandon Rogers
Sounds like it really bothered you
John Evans
Ubuntu budgie
Oliver Rogers
Six years is where I draw the line on laptop age. X230 and X240 had different design sins but a 6.5 yr old chipset on modern OS is masochistic.
Ethan Bennett
>tfw god tier keyboard but stuck with shitty display, no USB 3.0, heat issues and lack of H/W decode for newer video codecs
Benjamin Nguyen
The tablet version already has an IPS panel. It's the worst IPS panel in existence, and you can't replace it because it's the tablet version with a special screen. Screen burns in (albeit temporarily) and a resolution of 1366x768 is simply unusable for any sort of serious work. Hell, even web browsing feels like a challenge. I like the build quality and the keyboard (which is unrivaled of course), but the screen really kills it for me. If it had a higher res screen it would've been okay.
Jordan Walker
Linux battery tips?
Thomas Kelly
found the windows 10 user
Landon Cook
Well, I bought one about 3 months ago.
What I can tell you is, it's pretty decent, pretty portable (actually I find it the perfect size) but don't look for amazing performance. If you don't get used to the trackpoint, the touchpad is quite terrible on every OS (macOS/Windows/Linux) and no, it's not that the trackpoint is better, is that the touchpad is genuinely a piece of shit in comparison with the average.
The resolution ain't that bad, but the TN panel is quite shitty to look at. I'm not sure about IPS, I wanted a replacement but apparently the ones that do not have issues like ghosting are 80 fucking euros for something I spent just 240 in (with a 128gb SSD and 8gb of RAM, can't complain just that much).
Also the keyboard might or not flex. Watch out. Mine does and it's kind of shitty. I just don't know how to fix it.
Also the thing wobbles on the mini dock series 3.
Adam Clark
Get an X201 at this point. At least you won't have to tolerate the claustrophobic aspect ratio.
Nathan Torres
I have a T420s so bigger but same generation hardware. Still works great for me. I would upgrade but I honestly have no need.
Charles Ward
Are there any "modern" laptops in a smaller and lighter form factor that are anywhere near as comfy? Anything within the last 3-4 years is fine, don't worry about the price. Tried to pick up a chromebook pixel 2013 but was scared off by the lack of ability to natively install a working OS.
Jackson King
It is quite a shame that I need some specific software from microshit and mostly I use the X220 for that, otherwise I'd use a loonix distro. I heard that TLP fixes battery life being halved on linux distros.
And I never got vsync fully working on everything: desktop, browser and youtube videos. I don't know what to do there, maybe I'm dumb enough to use Xubuntu.
Hunter Evans
use XFCE, maybe
Matthew Ortiz
the DE doesn't affect battery. I ran Xfce, KDE and GNOME and didn't notice any longevity issues on any. GNOME does jump the gun a bit earlier and suspends you at 10% but thats configurable.
Hudson Sullivan
the compositor settings have a tick for intel graphics now that's called sync to vblank. Try checking that. idk I'm on the same boat and plan to give in to the 15 inch memester that are the T430 and the P50
Nathaniel Fisher
battery life is good on linux and it does not need any software. its windows that eats the battery 90% quicker even when no programs are running.
Ryan Hall
You don't want to get chinked? Don't buy the x220t then.
Nathan Turner
man my x220 chassis is broken in the exact same spot from the one in that pic
Carson Reed
all tablet thinkpads have battle scars in their pen storage thing
Jeremiah Lopez
delet this
Aiden Lee
Can I play sum ps2 smt nocturne on it?
Brody Brooks
TLP sounds like magic. How does it work?
Elijah Carter
I have 2 x220s, I use one exclusively for porn (which is dissapointing because the display is less than 1080) and one exclusively for diagnosing my car. The battery life and keyboard are brilliant. The cases feel a bit soft. My porn one has a problem where sometimes it will go into sleep mode if you push in the bottom right corner. Well worth the ~$200 I paid for both of them
Grayson Martinez
I got one last year for 200 usd to compliment my dinosaur windows gaymen laptop. Running fedora. It's really nice, but you obviously can't do anything too crazy with it. Absolutely perfect to bring to class and do light development. There have been so many situations where a class needed a Linux dev environment, so most students had to mess around with VM's while I could just whip it out.
Keyboard is great of course, but screen size limits your productivity. It looks REALLY outdated if you care about aesthetic at all but there's a charm to it. Overall I think it was a great purchase, but I don't plan on using it for more than another year or so (when I have the money for a replacement).
Angel Mitchell
No, just get the X1 carbon 5th gen
Levi Perry
I'm in need of a new X220T battery myself. Where do you buy reliable batteries?
Jose Wright
>using X at all
Christian Long
Only if you're a poorfag. It's a reliable, semi-rugged little workhorse but in 2017 there are much lighter (you can get the X220 lighter by not using the 9 cell battery, but you'll only get like 4 or so hours realistically with even the 6 cell), more temperature stable, better resolution having, and even more durable laptops out there for not much more money. Not to mention that it's touchpad is fucking worthless, and your trackpoint will be worn down to nothing in only two months time because you'll end up using it full time. I bought mine in 2014 and it is still in daily service, but only because I'm broke. I secretly wish that it would die somehow already so that I can justify buying something more modern, but it being a thinkpad it's never going to fucking die.
Gabriel Garcia
Lenovo really fucking dropped the ball on the X220 in terms of relative build quality to the other thinkpads at the time. The area around the expresscard slot is very fragile. I dropped mine's while it was in my padded bag, but that same corner was still badly dented. A piece of the chassis broke off, and the expresscard slot itself was bent. It's also a little creaky. Also, that retarded fucking tab on the lid is such a sissy. It eventually gets wobbly and could easily just fall off from a non-serious drop.
Andrew Jones
x220 if you want the OG keyboard x230 if you want something slightly better overall with the new keyboard (which I think is great but it's up to you)
x240 is shit, x250 and x260 are ok if you are ok with the newer design choices of the x-series. personally I am not, and I think the x-series needs another big refresh. if you want a new thinkpad, the x470 and the latest carbon are actually the better buys.
x230 is a great all-rounder though. keyboard is different but the build overall is like the x220 and has that older thinkpad sturdy feel, it has good ports and it's very user-serviceable. you can get an IPS screen for it (though the TN is surprisingly decent). with an extended 9-cell battery you get 9-12 hours of non-intensive use. the specs are new enough that it can even game decently. it can play older games and games that run well on low-spec machines pretty well. playing csgo without even tanking every setting I get about 50 fps average.
Brayden Jenkins
ps2 emulation is pretty intensive, you probably shouldn't do that on anything but a dedicated gaming laptop.
Alexander Bell
thinkpad carbon
Kevin King
I live in Hong Kong and buy them in Sham Shui Po. Probably not applicable to you, sorry.
Benjamin Hughes
What keyboard is this? Are most of the keys grey, or is it just looking that way? Have you used me_cleaner to remove AMT?
Chase White
Listen, I know that loonix is good but that is just wrong. Windows usually goes crazy reporting on battery, but it does get better battery life when doing the same stuff. When not using anything if you're using an SSD it almost seems like a waste to keep the thing turned on, if it takes maybe 10 seconds to boot.
Colton Young
I still run an x201, only needs a new battery
James Baker
i'm posting from an X230T right now form a bar using my 3G data plan while drinking a cup of coffee and planning some shit on IITC
maximum comffiness achieved
Anthony Fisher
the only thing I hate about my X220T is the battery life, it's so bad I need a battery slice just to even get 4 hours on it
Easton Reyes
Wich cpu do you have? the i5 with multitouch screen or the i7 with onlypen touch?
Christian Hill
>200 gbp >X1 Carbon 5th
Brody Bailey
>Temporary screen burn in Is that what it was? I thought I somehow burnt the screen just leaving it at the login page for 30 minutes
Christian Kelly
You just said you're poor, so you're immediately eligible to be a ThinkPad user. Congrats. Get either X220 or X230.
Jace Myers
>will go into sleep mode if you push in the bottom right corner.
I find that extremely interesting.
Christian Perez
what is swap
Adrian Ward
Where do I get a cheap x230 battery in canada
Asher Howard
yep i use mine nearly everyday, very comfy and more than capable of keeping up with a modern workflow that isnt resource intensive.
Sebastian Lopez
Bullshit, works fine on the X220.
Landon Powell
i7 onlypen.
Brayden Russell
thicc is in now tho
Jordan Lee
t450s is pretty comfy
Connor Myers
>implying I dont use KDE and GNOME for wayland fucking kek
Joshua Hall
this, computers are like women plain and flat is fine and delicious if done right but t h i c c is usually better.