Old thread: If you're looking for purchase advice, state your budget and requirements (e.g. size and performance). Don't buy anything OTHER THAN IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T, X, and W/P Series if you want the Real Business Experience™
>>Other business laptops are welcome in /tpg/ (Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).
Recommended freedom models: >>T60, X60; X200, T400/500 Recommended modern models: >>X220/X230 - 12", 768p, cheap and light >>T420/T430 - 14", 900p, widely available, socketed CPU, Ivy Bridge installable w/ Coreboot on T420; Classic keyboard swap on *30 series >>W520/530 - 15", 1080p, Desktop Replacement, 32GB RAM on quadcore models, USB 3.0 >>T440p/540p; W540 - Last Thinkpads with socketed processors, easily replaceable trackpad >>P-Series - 15'' and 17'', up to 4K displays, 64gb of RAM, Xeon processors.
Why ThinkPad? >>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 (most models), upgrade & maintain thanks to readily available service manuals for every model, spare parts easy & cheap to obtain >>The best TrackPoint, great for those who type a lot or hate swiping their fingers all over a touchpad >>Excellent GNU/Linux & *BSD support
Where do you guys buy battery cells to replace the dead ones on your ten year old laptops?
Dominic Hill
Yeah i need new battery cells for my T430 and a new battery for it as a backup, any Sup Forums approved third party batteries and cells?
Brayden Moore
Guys, I have terrible DPC latency issues on my T420, up to 20ms on high network load. They occur because of WiFi card, I'm certain. Though, I didnt found a solution. There was some threads on lenovo forums that claimed they fixed it, but that was about LAN driver. My problem is in WiFi. Anybody knows how to fix it? Tested on LTSB and 8.1.
>inb4 install gentoo
Sebastian Howard
Cant replace the cells only, sorry user. either buy chink or legit batteries.
Camden Edwards
Is the IPS screen on the x220 worth it or should I go for an elitebook 2570p?
How usable is an X61 nowadays? Is the s model somehow worse?
Lucas Harris
Looking for a "new" laptop and was thinking about an x220. I currently have a t540p which is too large for what I require. I require something small, light weight and hardy. Does this sound like the x220 to any owners? The other thing I require would be portable charging. Does anyone know if it is possible to charge the laptop from any sort of USB power bank with any convertors? The reason I ask is I will be doing a lot of wild camping and my only way of charging would be through some sort of power bank. I could charge the power bank from my bike as it would fit in my tank bag, but a laptop will not.
David Brooks
Libreboot X200 and W500 reporting in!
I got five spares for my W500 from the battery recall. My W500 I just had to hunt for a decent deal, and I only have one extra for it that's pretty close to dead! Fortunately it tends to stay at home.
Rule of thumb when buying batteries is that knock-off's suck, but they will keep a charge long enough to keep the device semi-portable. You best bet is always genuine ones. If you can snag up a good deal on ebay or something, go for it!
Evan Scott
Where can I find genuine ThinkPad T450 trackpads?
All the ones I can find are about £200
Grayson Cooper
eBay is your best bet.
Connor Peterson
the x220 IPS screen is nothing special, but the base-model TN panel is so awful that upgrading makes you feel like you had a cataract removed.
Thomas Moore
But they're either £20 or £200.
I don't think the £20 ones are genuine, and I don't want to spend more than I spent on the laptop on just a trackpad.
William Lopez
Why not?
Thomas Stewart
Have T430s Want to hook it up to TVs in the cheap Asian hotelrooms I stay in. The ports on the lappie are mini displayport and VGA. The ports on the TVs are unknown. Usually quite cheap and 3-6 year old TVs (LG, Toshiba and so on) What kind of cable should I buy to have a decent chance of hooking up with most TVs? Any adapters just in case? Basic question, I know, but I do not know much about tellies.
>quite cheap and 3-6 year old TVs They should have HDMI, so in that case get a miniDP to HDMI adapter. Else, DVI.
Jackson Anderson
K. Thanks gentlemen/ladies. I will get the miniDP to HDMI. If that does not suffice, I will score an adapter.
Landon Ortiz
Haha wat
Just get the £20 one from the UK seller. Mine was an ALPS one rather than a Synaptics one, but that doesn't bother me too much (only bought it to replace the absolute trash click pad on my t440p). Came in two days.
Aaron Edwards
And if I have a shitty 3rd party chinese battery I can't change the cells? It's not a Dell controller.
Jaxon Ortiz
I really have no idea. If it's cheap to begin with I'd say it's worth it to try.
Ryder Mitchell
is it normal for Thinkpad to silently install finger print software and intell ime on windows7?
Brody White
My thinkpad's having issues. I have a blue screen, and little red dots. It's a used t430, I've only had it since january.
Wyatt Walker
also if I open the scren and shut it sometimes it works for a while
Jeremiah Gomez
I just fixed my t440p the trackpad was 13 euro on aliexpress(it is a genuine synaptics trackpad)
Carter Robinson
Are there any active used Thinkpad market in Australia or do I really have to resort to getting one from international sellers?
Is this what peak performance of a Thinkpad sounds like?
William Diaz
I just found this thinkpad on ebay hella cheap (I think) I know it’s one of those evil modernish thinkpads, but I love the design and backlighting. Is it good for the price?
I am planning on upgrading my display on x250 to ips 1080p. Anything I should look out for?
Bentley Miller
i know its not a T500, but its cheaper than a T500 for the specs
Colton Barnes
and i asked, by administrator password they mean windows, not a bios lock got it for cheaper than the average t500, its in pretty good shape and i think it has the fancy high res wxsga screen
Christopher White
SL's use nvidia instead of ATI gpu's, at the cost of not having a rollcage. Still, it is a sick deal for 24 trumpbucks. Congrats.
Jaxson Lewis
very nice for 24 bucks
Justin Peterson
this may not be a hardware related issue, but i'm having trouble establishing a wireless connection on my x220 running arch. is it possible that the wifi module is missing? has anyone else run into this issue?
Blake Taylor
i think just based off the model number its a GMA4500 one which isnt bad, i dont really intend to game on it, and the nvidia 9300gs version isnt really too much better anyway I thought they were kinda neat machines when i found out about them, not much talk of them here, they have glossy black lids and the i in the thinkpad logo is a red led, so thats cool i guess Otherwise they seem to be kinda like the old R series, more consumer than the T series, but not complete garbage (cough L series cough)
Eli Clark
Besides screen size difference, is there anything else different of the hardware from the T420 and 520?
Grayson Jackson
I have a HP Probook 6560b that consistently fails to see my HDD/SSD after installing Linux Mint on it. I have tried it in UEFI and BIOS mode. If I boot into a Linux Mint USB I can install it and sometimes even reboot fine, but after a day or so I have to repeat the process. Does anyone have an idea?
Dominic Phillips
T520's came with quad-core cpu's out of the box, and bigger heatsinks iirc.
Nathan Brooks
Just purchased a P50 with an 6820HQ, 32gb ram, fhd, m2000m for under 1k, how fucked am I? How shit is it to carry around one of these laptops? I'm upgrading from an x220
Noah Peterson
hows the t440? I found one on ebay for about $250 on ebay in great shape
Gabriel Bennett
the newer gen ThinkPads aren't even what /tpg/ is about.
Aaron Gonzalez
How about a X230? You can change the keyboard. Yes, it's possible, there are powerbanks for laptops (eg Dell Companion or whatever it's called) or you can make your own, normally they are 11.1 V or 14.7 V, get some 186500 cells and build one, 3 in series and several in parallel depending how much capacity you want. Don't forget the BMS protection circuit and that's it
Dylan Baker
unfortunately the older hardware has it's limits
William Rodriguez
any of these things ok for gaming? nothing crazy, just some cozy stuff.
Leo Green
Any model with dGPU should do just fine. You can do external GPU if you want.
Christopher Price
Looking to get an x220 with minimal specs and a 120gb or so SSD. What would be a reasonable price for such a unit? Ebay has some nice used/refurbished deals ~$150 but I imagine the battery would be fucked. Amazon has some with SSDs in the $200-250 range.
Eli Butler
I got a i5 2540 x220 with no ram or hdd for $75 a couple years ago, had a broken display port too but I never use it.
Jace Wood
Greetings fellow nerds. Took apart my T60 and greased the rattly fan with canola oil. Works a treat. I'm never going to stop using this thing. Why can't modern laptops have 16:10 screens?
Easton Brooks
For further info refer to this thread >
Hudson Kelly
are there any cheap thinkpad-esque computers out there that run for ~$100? i'm looking for something similar to the x220/x230s but i'm wondering if there are alternatives that run for cheaper/around the same price
James Nelson
I'd imagine not very, you're going to want to carry it around in a backpack though
Brayden Stewart
x201
Blake Green
Can I fit an X230 motherboard into an X220 case? (Assuming I do the mods necessary to use the X220 keyboard on an X230 board)
Anthony Nelson
any non-thinkpad options?
Mason Ortiz
It may be best to get the T440P if possible.
Jordan Parker
Guys i'm torn between the x200 and x220. The x200 is a good freedom model, but I don't know how well it holds ups. The x220 looks promising with guides on how to install Coreboot and Me_cleaner, but isn't free.
Jacob Ward
>parents ask for a new laptop >google a place which sells old corporate laptops close to them with good reviews >check their inventory and tell parents that a W530 seems to fit their needs the best >they go buy it the next day and seem to like it very much They brought it to me last night with their old laptop so I can backup everything and set the new one up. Writing this on it.
Seems very good, mint condition and the battery isn't completely dead, even has a 6 month warranty so if anything is wrong with it, it should act up before that. Thank god they asked for my opinion first and didn't go get a similarly priced new Acer or similar from a generic electronics store which would have melted internals before autumn.
I was planning on upgrading the screen anyways. I only have about $300 to spend on a laptop so I'm trying to get the most out of my money.
Nathaniel Peterson
Well then go buy it, you probably already know if it's a good deal or not and upgrading the screen, ram and ssd will probably keep you under 300. With "Unit pictured may not be the exact same unit you receive." it's definitely best to go see for yourself if you're getting one in good condition.
Adam Smith
This is gonna be the first ThinkPad I've bought, but I've heard good things about the T430 and this seems to be a pretty good deal. I shouldn't have any problems installing Windows with the COA should I?
Adam Watson
Sure, but one thing I didn't notice is if they ever activated w10 on it, since w7 -> w10 upgrades are no longer free. But they say they can do it for 'only' 75 dollars so it probably has its w10 license.
Henry Myers
What about the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen?
Zachary Parker
What about it?
Sebastian Edwards
Is it a better model than previous gens? Any notable flaws that people have found?
Jackson Taylor
Better than the previous gens? Not really The quad core is pretty neat And thunderbolt 3
Nathaniel Brown
How so? Isn't it faster and lighter?
Juan Kelly
Faster? Yeah if you need the extra physical cores if not, not really Certainly not lighter than gen 5
Luis King
Also the screen improvements make for better computing
Brandon Gonzalez
Uhh what?
Noah Phillips
Post pics of your Asian girlfriends using your ThinkPads
Samuel Rogers
> sarcastic reply about thinkpads not being compatible with girlfriends
Juan Nguyen
I already posted yesterday, why do you keep asking?
Ryan Gonzalez
obvious samefag
Grayson Bell
I don't even deny that at this point
Ryan Butler
Man that trackpad is crap, if you get it be sure to change it to the T450 trackpad
Nathan Walker
UK lads, which laptop did you get and how much did you pay? trying to work out if what i'm finding on ebay right now are good deals or i should wait out for better
Robert Myers
Got me X230 for £160 with an i5 and some other stuff, upgraded it over time to an i7 and IPS screen. I spotted a T430 for £125 the other day.
Sebastian Howard
Where do I find Windows XP tablet edition for X41t? I have license key for it. Can't find original version on torrents.
Dylan Howard
guys, just bought a X270 from eBay.
Right now it has a TN 1336x768 panel, and it's not that bad, but I want an IPS panel.
Which one should I buy? Model number, I mean.
Also, I have the 45Wh 6-cell battery, but no internal one. I wanted to buy the internal 3-cell and external 3-cell. Which one should I buy? I'm afraid to buy fake batteries.
Noah Moore
What mSATA SSD should i buy to use with a X220T? Im a poorfag btw
Hunter Cruz
Price is good because it already has SSD and backlit keyboard. 1600x900 is ok. I agree that the T440 touchpad is pretty lame. No buttons makes it tough to use the trackpoint accurately, I ended up just disabling the trackpoint on mine.
Charles Davis
God bless your parents. Not just for asking you opinion but also for acting accordingly.
Alexander Jones
I don't see why not. Enjoy!
Anthony Jones
Post her feet
Gavin Ortiz
X220 - £150 T440P - £150
East mids btw
James Miller
can i replace the touchpad on my x230 somehow or apply a sticker of some kind to make it usable?
Charles White
Elitebook 2540/2570p No idea about Dell/Toshiba alternatives though
Carter Collins
About to buy a used x260 (with i7, 8GB RAM, SSD and LTE) for €600. Anything I should be aware of regarding that model?
Oliver Torres
Can't, she went home and comes back on Thursday
Josiah Flores
Nahh it's been pretty solid for me so far and if you aren't used to small laptops the portability is great. Be warned though if you want to upgrade to 16gb of ram it only has one sodimm slot so it can be expensive and please get the IPS panel if you can.
