They generally have really great linux support for all of their hardware (touchpads, fingerprint readers, etc.), and provide bios updates via fwdup. They are also just nice laptops.
Yeah back when it was IBM before they sold off to Lenovo. Back when their biggest selling point was their priority was keeping you up & running and getting work done. Nowadays nearly all the products are made with the priority “So, how do we design this so the user will have to pay for it multiple times?”
x230 with x220 keyboard also is pretty nice - but unfortunately no longer suitable as main notebook. As nothing useful came out of lenovo after that, others are even worse, nobody has a decent trackpoint and sensible amount of RAM only exist for macs I ended up with one of those for work few months ago.
Give me the OLD CHASSIS and the OLD KEYBOARD and make every other component new. I’d be in heaven. I would totally love an absolutely up-to-date x220. And I don’t mean a razor-thin one. I mean a thick one that I can hold in my hand comfortably.
I don’t know if they still do this but the old chassis would actually survive a drink bring spilled on it because it siphons it around and through the motherboard and out holes in the bottom. They also outperformed pretty much everything else on the market that wasn’t specifically a rugged laptop for durability.
Funny how the ThinkBooks are more upgrade-able than the ThinkPads - as in, they have SODIMM, as opposed to on-board memory. But the touch-pad and keyboard is atrocious, and so is the build quality, with Ideapad-like structure.
The classic keyboard was legendary, I never understood why they ditched it. Nobody hates the new keyboard, but nobody sings its praises like they did the old one either. And they’ve had a decade to fix this by bringing it back.
I could get used to it just for control, but pressing ctrl-shift without fn is very awkward, especially since it’s a shortcut I have to use a lot. And then there’s the fact that I unlearn it everyday with my keyboard at home.
Oh I didn’t know that. But yeah I don’t have BIOS access, even if it was a registry key I couldn’t do it. It’s fine though, for now I always plug in another mouse/keyboard/monitor and forget that laptop exists.
you can’t get a framework for 20€ on ebay tho + old thinkpads (older laptops in general) are just way robuster and have better build quality in general
If you can afford and you want, the only argument I can put forward is less ewaste if you give a second life to the many very decent professional thinkpads that are retired every year. My employer is now going for a 5 year renewal cycle, used to be 3 for a long time. Unfortunately I couldn’t even buy back mine when it expired because it is a lease subcontract. It had an i5 7th gen and 32gb ram, was buttery smooth even running windows and I dreamt of running Linux on these.
Depends on what you call ‘old’ and what your use case is. My T495 was less than 300€ and it does everything I need from a laptop easily. Bigger drive would be nice, but once the summer is over I rarely need to pull 4K video from sd-cards in temporary storage, so I doubt I’ll bother to upgrade it any time soon.
I wouldn’t say that, maybe in the case of the x31 or similarly really old laptops, however newer old laptops like the t60p or t500 aren’t that bad and can still handle every office and internet related workload just fine
ThinkPads are business machines and those are extremely repairable compared to consumer machines. Even my shitty Dell precision has instructions on how to disassemble it etched onto the mainboard. And since business laptops get dumped after a few years of relatively light use (many are de facto stationary), you can get pretty good machines for very cheap.
ThinkPads are just very popular, because they are consistently pretty good and don’t stand in your way softwarewise, which isn’t always true for Dell or HP machines.
I had 4 Dells in the last 4 years. Two different models, each one required one RMA, and both are absolute garbage. Granted, they’re workstations and not ultrabooks, but those things need thrust reversers so the fans don’t blow them off the desk, they run extremely hot and have countless stupid bugs. For example USB devices sometimes not working after suspension. Or randomly turning on and getting hot for no reason.
And these fuckers have more coil whine than anything I’ve ever experienced.
My old ThinkPad (which had almost the same components as the first Dell) didn’t have any of these problems.
Oh yeah I would not buy a Dell anymore. I haven’t since many years ago when they fucked over a client of mine and basically lost me about $100,000. They were absolutely 100% in the wrong. They sent a technician who was a moron and maybe could not read English because one drive needed replacement it was labeled all others were labeled ok working and don’t replace. So of course he replaced one of those and destroyed a RAID array.
I haven’t bought 1¢ worth of Dell merchandise since that day.
I’m new to Linux; what’s with the ThinkPad hype?
They generally have really great linux support for all of their hardware (touchpads, fingerprint readers, etc.), and provide bios updates via fwdup. They are also just nice laptops.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo
Yeah back when it was IBM before they sold off to Lenovo. Back when their biggest selling point was their priority was keeping you up & running and getting work done. Nowadays nearly all the products are made with the priority “So, how do we design this so the user will have to pay for it multiple times?”
Gina bad
They’re reliable, good quality, have amazing keyboards, and work well with Linux (some even support Libreboot).
They screwed everything after 2011. The X220 and the T420 are two really good devices.
I personally disagree, I use a 2013 T440p and it’s an amazing device.
x230 with x220 keyboard also is pretty nice - but unfortunately no longer suitable as main notebook. As nothing useful came out of lenovo after that, others are even worse, nobody has a decent trackpoint and sensible amount of RAM only exist for macs I ended up with one of those for work few months ago.
Give me the OLD CHASSIS and the OLD KEYBOARD and make every other component new. I’d be in heaven. I would totally love an absolutely up-to-date x220. And I don’t mean a razor-thin one. I mean a thick one that I can hold in my hand comfortably.
The closest thing we have is Framework
I don’t know if they still do this but the old chassis would actually survive a drink bring spilled on it because it siphons it around and through the motherboard and out holes in the bottom. They also outperformed pretty much everything else on the market that wasn’t specifically a rugged laptop for durability.
https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/
Idk my T460 is fine on arch. I honestly feel like the ThinkBooks are the nasty ones and even the newer thinkpads are alright.
Funny how the ThinkBooks are more upgrade-able than the ThinkPads - as in, they have SODIMM, as opposed to on-board memory. But the touch-pad and keyboard is atrocious, and so is the build quality, with Ideapad-like structure.
Yeah I almost felt betrayed buying those. Its company money but I have to deal with it.
2013 t430 is good but i want the classic keyboard so much
The classic keyboard was legendary, I never understood why they ditched it. Nobody hates the new keyboard, but nobody sings its praises like they did the old one either. And they’ve had a decade to fix this by bringing it back.
Qubes devs have been using the X1 carbon for years
Years after using one for work, I still cannot get used to having Ctrl not being the leftmost key.
I personally prefer the Thinkpad keyboard
I could get used to it just for control, but pressing ctrl-shift without fn is very awkward, especially since it’s a shortcut I have to use a lot. And then there’s the fact that I unlearn it everyday with my keyboard at home.
There’s a setting in the BIOS to switch these over. You may be able to jump in and do it yourself if the work laptop isn’t too locked down
Oh I didn’t know that. But yeah I don’t have BIOS access, even if it was a registry key I couldn’t do it. It’s fine though, for now I always plug in another mouse/keyboard/monitor and forget that laptop exists.
I’ve owned/used HPs, Dells, and several Thnkpads and the thinkpads by far are always the best machines. They are built to last, support is top notch.
It’s a hype for very old, repairable laptops. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, if you want a repairable laptop go for a Framework
you can’t get a framework for 20€ on ebay tho + old thinkpads (older laptops in general) are just way robuster and have better build quality in general
Old laptops are pure suffering. I’d much rather pay the price for a more recent one
If you can afford and you want, the only argument I can put forward is less ewaste if you give a second life to the many very decent professional thinkpads that are retired every year. My employer is now going for a 5 year renewal cycle, used to be 3 for a long time. Unfortunately I couldn’t even buy back mine when it expired because it is a lease subcontract. It had an i5 7th gen and 32gb ram, was buttery smooth even running windows and I dreamt of running Linux on these.
Depends on what you call ‘old’ and what your use case is. My T495 was less than 300€ and it does everything I need from a laptop easily. Bigger drive would be nice, but once the summer is over I rarely need to pull 4K video from sd-cards in temporary storage, so I doubt I’ll bother to upgrade it any time soon.
I wouldn’t say that, maybe in the case of the x31 or similarly really old laptops, however newer old laptops like the t60p or t500 aren’t that bad and can still handle every office and internet related workload just fine
ThinkPads are business machines and those are extremely repairable compared to consumer machines. Even my shitty Dell precision has instructions on how to disassemble it etched onto the mainboard. And since business laptops get dumped after a few years of relatively light use (many are de facto stationary), you can get pretty good machines for very cheap.
ThinkPads are just very popular, because they are consistently pretty good and don’t stand in your way softwarewise, which isn’t always true for Dell or HP machines.
Dell Latitudes were top. I had numerous.
I had 4 Dells in the last 4 years. Two different models, each one required one RMA, and both are absolute garbage. Granted, they’re workstations and not ultrabooks, but those things need thrust reversers so the fans don’t blow them off the desk, they run extremely hot and have countless stupid bugs. For example USB devices sometimes not working after suspension. Or randomly turning on and getting hot for no reason.
And these fuckers have more coil whine than anything I’ve ever experienced.
My old ThinkPad (which had almost the same components as the first Dell) didn’t have any of these problems.
I don’t like Dell.
Oh yeah I would not buy a Dell anymore. I haven’t since many years ago when they fucked over a client of mine and basically lost me about $100,000. They were absolutely 100% in the wrong. They sent a technician who was a moron and maybe could not read English because one drive needed replacement it was labeled all others were labeled ok working and don’t replace. So of course he replaced one of those and destroyed a RAID array.
I haven’t bought 1¢ worth of Dell merchandise since that day.
I don’t have over 1k to drop on a laptop, I spent $150 on a T440p, it does web browsing and other basic tasks very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQX4FLrm9ac