Thinkpad appreciation thread

bernard

bernard

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I've had a bunch of Thinkpads through my life.

The most recent I had was the S440, but it broke down and I couldn't find a replaceable keyboard with my language.

Now I have a used Thinkpad R61, which I bought because I was broke, but now I am looking at upgrading into another used Thinkpad, maybe something in the $200 range. What would you recommend?
 
X220, X230, T420, T430, T520, T530. All fall into the range you suggested. I own a 220 and 230, my wife owns a 430, and I used to own a 530; they're all excellent machines. I do nearly all my work on the 230, and have at times written up to 70 articles a month with it. I sometimes consider upgrading to a larger screen again and might do so someday, but if I'm honest with myself, I know that the screen's not what's keeping me from producing more content; it's all about focus.
 
I use and am a fanboy of my X220. The X220/X230 are really fantastic for taking with you on the go, but are fully capable of being docked with an external monitor and used as workstations. The X230 gets you slightly better performance at the cost of losing the last of the infamous oldschool Thinkpad keyboards on the X220 (the ambitious have modded X230s to use the X220 keyboard). Another downside of the X220 is it tends to run a little hot and you often hear the fan going when doing anything processor or video intensive. I'm not sure if this was addressed with the X230 or not.

I highly recommend getting an X220/X230 with an IPS panel as the TN panels are not great (I bought an aftermarket panel and swapped it out myself). Then you want to make sure the HD is an SSD (easy enough to upgrade yourself) and you max out the ram (8GB, although I've read conflicting reports that some have been able to go up to 16GB). This should all be doable around the $200 mark.

If you're more stationary then the T series is the way to go. The T420/T430 are the bigger brothers of the X220/X230 and were released at the same time and have the same kind of tradeoffs. I don't know much about the T5 series.
 
I recently got an X200. I quite like the fact that, on those, you were able to get them without any touchpad whatsoever. Hell, on some of them you could even get them with no touchpad and no webcam, for the true minimalist and security paranoid. Never been a fan of touchpads, and the ThinkPad Trackpoint does work quite well, so win/win there.

On the X220 and older models, the full-style keyboard + layout, is really satisfying. The average person won't "get it" I'm sure. For anyone that types a lot, that improved tactile sensation and long term comfort is well worth it.

Another sweet feature on a lot of the older X series is the physical on/off switch for the NIC / WiFi card. Added peace of mind to know you can ensure you WiFi is truly disabled when you need it.

I'm definitely looking at expanding the collection to probably an X220 or X230. Probably also a T430-460, maxed out on ram, and running Qubes OS for fun and paranoia.

@ragnar, I'd recommend looking at the X220 or X230 series. They strike a good balance between average current cost plus still having good specs. Either can be had with i7 CPU's, decent speed, and sub $200 cost. As Bastion mentioned, the X220's have the old-style keyboard, which is a pretty nice change, though I know some people retrofit those keyboards to the X230's.
 
I looked at some recent models and did a big WTF?

Looks like basic specs have completely stagnated for the last 4 years but prices have gone up?
 
Yeah, I wouldn't even buy any of the new ones. They're not the same value or quality for the money IMO.
 
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