I like used Thinkpads. I bought a T430s off eBay and used it for several years. Recently I got a T570 from work. It had a screen issue, so I bought a new screen. That didn’t fix it so I bought a new mobo, but it has a loose drive connector so won’t boot. Just now I killed it for good by putting an nvme in a sata slot lol.
Anyway, I need another laptop and I don’t want to buy something new. The t570 did everything I needed it to, but I’m concerned about the design/build quality. What Thinkpads are people running these days that aren’t very old but still solid?
@electric_nan I run a fleet of ThinkPads for the family (except my wife, who gets a Ryzen Framework 13).
Kids run X250s and a T470s. Great little systems if you make sure to get the 1080p displays. The 470s has a touch-screen which, weirdly, even works out of the box in FreeBSD. Recommend both models, especially if you want to run FreeBSD as well as Linux.
I run a W540 as my daily driver. Do *not* recommend purely because of the trackpad, which is awful; lack of separate buttons makes the Trackpoint useless too. By all accounts the W541 has a “proper” trackpad and is good. The battery life on the W-series is bad, because of their design (CAD desktop replacements). Otherwise fast for what they are.
@electric_nan Following up on this: my favourite _ever_ ThinkPad was my old X220. Robust, easy to work on, fantastic non-island keyboard, ThinkLight (!), … just great. I used it as a daily driver for years while consulting.
However it just got too slow, and the 768p display became a liability for Web development, even by ~2018 when I retired it for the W540.
If you don’t need a fast system, and are willing to do some hardware-hacking to upgrade the display, an X220 might still be worth looking at.
Thanks for the recs. I am looking pretty hard at a T580 refurb on eBay right now. I am looking for a bit more modern processor than most of what you have suggested, I think.
@electric_nan Yeah ours are all a bit long in the tooth. Given the kids’ proclivity for destroying equipment though they’re on the cheap stuff :)
Not Thinkpad related, but: my next laptop will almost certainly be an AMD Framework. They’re just so good. _Better_ design and construction than even older ThinkPads, fast, powerful, and with great matte 4:3 screens. My only gripe is the lack of a Trackpoint.
Right on. If I was buying new, I’d be looking at Framework or Tuxedo.
@electric_nan Issue for me is the cost. Frameworks are actually cheap for what they are (compare with a MacBook!) but we could replace our entire family (second-hand, elderly) ThinkPad fleet for the price of one Framework.
Yeah I can’t really justify the coat right now either. If I was more patient, I could just wait until we retire another Thinkpad at work :p
I’m on a T580, great machine, basically a P52. Dual batteries. No TN screens (I think, make sure). I put the discrete graphics card cooler in my (integrated graphics) coz I live in a hot place and some TPN7950 on the CPU, and it never cracks 70C and usually stays silent. Upgraded the SSD to a 2TB nvme, and it’s basically been flawless for 2+ yrs, touch wood.