My lappy has bitten the dust, and I’m in the market for a laptop. I’m thinking about going Thinkpad.
I only plan on this being for web browsing, text editing, coding, etc. Any gaming is done on my desktop.
What would be a good Thinkpad model? I do t mind getting an older/refurbished one. Haven’t been on the laptop market in nearly 8 years, so I don’t know what to look for anymore
got a t470 refurb for $150 last year and have been very happy with it.
I went away for a few hours, wow, all the replies! Thanks all!
I ended up going with a refurbished T480s. Wanted something I could upgrade memory/storage on. The form factor and the metal case also sounded appealing. Should have it in a week.
I find my T480s really fits my lightweight usecase. Hope you enjoy yours.
Where did you buy it? Looking for something similar for myself.
Found one refurbished on eBay. I’ll report when I get it as to the quality
T or P series refurb from eBay.
Get a framework laptop. They’re the new thinkpad
FWIW ThinkPad is not IBM anymore. I assume it’s obvious but just in case it’s not 100% clear, a Chinese company (Lenovo) bought the brand 2 decades ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad
I’m not arguing that the quality or Linux support changed since then, just make it explicit in case somebody might ride on the nostalgia of once great hardware devices.
PS: I rocked an X31 with ratpoison a while ago, before the times of MacBook Air and I was convinced I was pretty cool.
And there is nothing wrong with “Chinese”. China is the world’s manufacturing hub and its economy has surpassed that of USA.
I got a used ThinkPad T480s and installed 40 GB of RAM in it for Qubes OS. It’s modern enough to charge over USB-C, so one plug for everything. I also have a MacBook I use for school and both are solid.
Second for this. Got one myself. 1080p, USB C, upgradable ram, I replaced the internal and external batteries no problem. I stuck a second SSD inside last weekend and replaced the thermal paste in about 20 mins. If you like tinkering and being able to repair and maintain yourself it’s really great.
Got win 11 on one SSD and Debian on the second and all running well.
Wow I just learned I could put a second SSD in the WWAN slot! Sounds awesome for a dual boot setup.
Yeah, was easy peasy. Bought the sad off eBay. Be careful which SSD you pick up only specific ones fit, I think there’s a thread on Lemmy somewhere. I used a western digital sn520 2242 m.2. A 256 one. I think 512 exist but harder to source.
I don’t recommend thinkpads. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, they don’t allow you to replace your own wifi card. Latitudes have great Linux support, and as a business class machine they’re as reliable and easy to work on as thinkpads
I’m replacing a dead Latitude currently, it was a fun ride, but I’d like to replace it with something else
If you want to support Linux devs and continued development, I would buy from System76, Tuxedo Computers, or even Framework.
If you’re going to buy used then yeah the Thinkpad is fine.
Framework laptops are op buy it once use it for ever
They’re also significantly more expensive than ThinkPads and might be a bit much for what OP plans to do
But it’ll arrive with Linux and it’ll work. You also don’t have to spend a week googling wifi chips to see if they’ll work.
Just throw in a $20 Intel Wi-Fi card if necessary, and don’t buy the first models of the latest CPU, as with any manufacturer, and Thinkpads are some of the another for Linux.
Thinkpads are locked down, the bios will refuse to boot if you install a non-Lenovo wifi card.
None I’ve ever used have been. I have a card I dropped in working right now on a 2 yr old Thinkpad.
I hear this a lot but in my experience the Framework is often in the same range and sometimes slightly cheaper. Right now a framework with i7-1360P and 16GB Ram is $1469. An X1 carbon with a (slightly slower) cpu is $400 more. Ryzen is similar. Not hating on Thinkpads but the Framework is a lot more competitive than you’ll often hear and the upgradeability is obviously a massive financial incentive too.
I think normally when people are referring to buying a ThinkPad they aren’t talking about a modern model. Usually not even the X1 Carbon series; especially past the 6th gen. They’re referring to models in the X,P, or T series before the T490. Models that can be bought relatively cheap and upgraded however the user wants.
The T480 can be bought for around $200. The CPU is going to be a fair amount weaker but for $1,200 some people are willing to make the sacrifice for a casual personal use machine.
This is definitely the biggest concern. Somewhat short battery life is also significant.
For ThinkPads?
No, Framework. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Oh it’s fine. Do Framework laptops have a lower battery life than ThinkPads?
Than Thinkpads? I don’t know, but probably lower. My Framework only gets 8 hours of use, and 30 hours sleeping if I’m lucky. Definitely not the best, but being plugged in isn’t too bad, and the adapter is nice and small.
T480 is the last good Thinkpad. Even T490 is a huge downgrade.
T430 or X230 if you’re into modding. The opportunities for modding them are endless. Keyboard from xx20-series (best ever made for laptops), FHD IPS panel, re-celling the battery with 18650-cells, second storage drive with mstata mod… If I remember right, T430 cd bay can be replaced with secondary battery too.
The old models are compatible with FreeBSD too.
My T480 does everything I need. Picked it up for $200 and spent another $100-$150 to get brand new batteries, a pretty good screen, much faster storage, and upped it to 24GB of RAM. Pretty awesome. Pop!_OS runs like a charm.
Framework
This will be high on my list when I upgrade next. If you know your OS will be Linux I say it’s a waste of time and energy to get a laptop that doesn’t come loaded with it. I’m sure 90% of my laptop woes are due to poor support and optimization for Linux.
ThinkPad never has had problems with Linux compatibility. You will get better (best) aftersales and better (best) third party parts availability, since it is “mainstream” and a business user brand.
Boutique Linux laptop shops just cannot compete on that.
I’ve actually had a few issues with Linux on my ThinkPad, have struggled endlessly with the fingerprint reader and Nvidia on Wayland is a bit of a pain still
Is the FP reader Synaptic? It has no issues. I have not yet heard of a different FP reader on ThinkPads.
It rings a bell
I managed to get it working on Ubuntu once and then never again
I think I might’ve screwed it up by trying to get it working dual booted
Maybe check added repositories for needing to add a separate one, or try using YAST?
Framework
Framework
Your use-case says “ARM laptop” to me.
Pros: Get some kind of SoC laptop, and never worry about battery charge again. They’re also lighter-weight and better at thermal management. Right now, Linux on ARM is still kind of fledgling so there’s not as many apps made to run on ARM natively; the upside is that since there’s not as many possible combinations of hardware, there aren’t nearly as many edge case bugs and issues.
Cons: If you want youtube in 1080p+ and 60 fps or if you want to use Visual Studio (instead of something lighter-weight), you’ll either want the most powerful SoC laptop on the market (probably something by Apple), or not SoC at all. Same goes if you want to have like 5+ programs opened at once and 10+ tabs open on firefox. If you’re on the opposite side with me and don’t mind if the video is 30 fps or the resolution is 720i and using vim as an IDE, you can get away with something dirt cheap. The other downside of course being the inability to upgrade hardware, which goes hand-in-hand with the reduced hardware combinations aforementioned. Also, since it’s not as widely adopted/developed, there are more standard case bugs/issues.
It does force a more minimal approach to computing—it’s not powerful, and it’s on the lower-end of ARM laptops—but my Pinebook has only done well by me. The security/privacy factor of Pine was also a big plus.
I picked up a yoga 6 on sale from Lenovo three years ago for about $800. SSD + ryzen. Works perfect on linux, the only problem was a faulty fan replaced under warranty, since then been great, could probably find a used one for pretty cheap
It doesn’t matter, every one of them will spy on you
Isn’t that why a lot of people recommend ThinkPads? So they can run libreboot
It came out at some point they had hardware spyware I thought
Personally just got a T15 gen 2. AMD version, and very happy with mine. Especially since it has the numpad included. Been running nixOS without any issues so far!
T480 or Framework
I hear a lot about the t480, how does it hold up compared to a p50?
I have no personal experience from any P-series, but my friend has a P50 or P52 as his work machine and he has daily drive that for years in CAD and he loves it everyday. The chsssis is same qaulity as T-series.
