
Used ThinkPad Buyer's Guide - brudgers
http://ktgee.net/post/49423737148/thinkpad-guide#intel
======
rubbingalcohol
I lost all trust and respect for Lenovo after the Superfish debacle. I'm a PC
user and wouldn't buy one of their machines on principle. But I wouldn't have
said that 6 months ago. Lenovo's user-serviceable and utilitarian design are
pretty awesome, and their keyboards are among the best.

Lenovo's batteries really suck. They lose life a __lot __quicker than Apple 's
batteries and are very expensive to replace, especially since the primary and
optibay batteries tend to die around the same time. At least they're user
replaceable.

I'm a fan of Dell's laptops lately. Many newer Dell laptops have good Linux
support. Oddly, I think Dell Alienware laptops are great as portable
workstation laptops because they're powerful and can stay cool, but YMMV.

~~~
vvpan
I lost all respect for them when I tried using the trackpad on their newer
laptops. After a year of use it still took me multiple attempts to right-click
on something. My brother just disabled his and learned to use the nipple. I
can't imagine how an established company could make an essential part of a
laptop that unusable.

~~~
MichaelGG
Basically everyone wants to mimic Apple superficially. Apparently Lenovo
thinks people are buying W540s because they look like MacBooks[1]. It wasn't
enough to ship the X1 all weirded out, they had to go fuck up the rest of the
line, too.

Lenovo even had a blogpost where they claimed "most users adapt" in a short
amount of time. Not that there was any benefit, just that they needed to
modernize the design and it wasn't that harmful. Idiots.

The X201t is like the pinnacle of their design. 16:10 screen (important if you
use Windows, especially inside a RDP app - 1366x786 just doesn't have enough
vertical pixels).

The X201 also had a FULL keyboard. They used every cm of the laptop to fit all
the keys in. The newer X series 12", they remove keys, and _added blank space
around the keyboard_. Here they are trynna cram stuff in, and they literally
throw away 2-3 keys worth of space.

Lenovo is just beyond incompetent in designing things at this point. I don't
know about the sales side, but since everyone else in this space is just as
bad, it probably doesn't harm them. But if Dell ever wakes up and says "oh,
hey, maybe we should make real laptops", they'd steal away ThinkPad's
marketshare pretty quickly.

Oh and just to insult us on top of all these bad changes, they ship utterly
crap panels with some of the laptops. I bought a T440p last year, and I
absolutely hate it. It has a viewing angle of 0 - there's no point at which
you can view it and get anything remotely decent.

1: I've tried MacBooks... the ergonomics are terrible, as is the heat.
Beautiful displays though.

~~~
quanticle
I've posted this on another thread, but it looks like Dell _is_ trying to make
real laptops. The newest XPS ultrabooks have received rave reviews, and some
of them even ship with Linux preinstalled [1]. That said, my personal laptop
is a Lenovo T440s, because IMHO Lenovo still wins on upgradeability. I was
able to buy a base model, and in short order had the RAM upgraded to 12GB (the
max this model supports) and swapped out the hard drive with a SSD from
Amazon. I'm not sure how feasible that is with any of the other laptops being
discussed here.

[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd)

~~~
MichaelGG
I just bought an X250 after searching around for an alternative. The XPS 13
looked pretty good and I was about to buy it ... but no physical nipplepoint
buttons. Maybe next time I'll be willing to risk it. (Yeah, the X250 looks
like it has plenty of downgrades from the X201, but it's better than a T440p,
and at least it's a known quantity whereas Dell has an even worse rep...)

~~~
csirac2
I'm typing this on an X230, with 16GiB RAM. I busted the screen recently and
considered an X250... it's such a shame that "ultrabook" means "one DIMM slot"
these days, i.e. they max out at 8GiB RAM - same as I was using in '2009 on my
old X61s!

Luckily replacement screen parts are quite affordable these days. And before
anyone complains, I do use all this memory, currently dom0 has 4GB free.

~~~
MichaelGG
Good news! There are 16GB SODIMMs from "I'M Intelligent Memory". You'll have
to look around to figure out what model exactly, but people have put them in
new X series and they work.

~~~
csirac2
Really? Last I checked there was no BIOS support to recognize them and Intel
was only giving support for embedded CPUs. Ta, I'll have a look

------
sigil
This is a nice guide!

Used Thinkpads have been very, very good to me over the years. For most of the
last decade I bought used Thinkpad T42's for $100-$200 (see the empirical
depreciation curve here [1]), beat them up for a year or two, then swapped the
hard drive into a fresh machine when I finally and inevitably killed the old
one. No downtime, no waiting for repairs, no tears shed over the death of a
fancy laptop.

If you're on a budget, or in situations where repair downtime is unacceptable
(eg travelling and working internationally) it looks from this guide like a
master + spare from the T4xx-T5xx series is your ticket.

[1] [http://alangrow.com/projects/laptop-
prices/#T42](http://alangrow.com/projects/laptop-prices/#T42)

~~~
threedaymonk
I follow a similar philosophy. At the moment, I have two near-identical
factory-refurbished x220's, each of which I've upgraded with an IPS screen, 16
GB RAM, and an SSD. One stays at home, and I use the other at the client site.

Even with the upgrades, they still cost me little enough that I wouldn't mind
too much if one died, and I've always got at least one spare and ready to go.

------
nickysielicki
If you're interested in running a fully libre system, any GM45 thinkpad (x200,
t400) can be made to run libreboot by following some very thorough guides. If
you're willing to go even older than gm45, the T60 and X60 can be made to run
libreboot without even opening them up.

In the past few months I built myself an x200 with a brand new 9 cell battery,
128gb SSD, new keyboard, and 8gb ram for less than $200.

Knowing that you're running a fully free system is priceless.

~~~
aagha
What does it mean to run a "libre system"? Why would I want to do it? What are
the benefits (other than cost) and what are the down-sides?

~~~
kqr2
A "libre" system is a truly free system which the FSF and Richard Stallman
endorses:

[https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html)

~~~
thrownaway2424
Then the answer is "no" because there has not yet been a system made that RMS
will not nitpick in some way or another. The microcontroller that runs the LED
on the back of the screen will not come with source code and so forth.

~~~
kqr2
Actually Richard Stallman's view is a little more nuanced. From
[http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/14/05/05/2012218/richar...](http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/14/05/05/2012218/richard-
stallman-answers-your-questions) :

    
    
      The case of the toaster is very clear: we can't tell, 
      except by taking it apart, whether it has a processor and 
      software or a special-purpose chip. Since that we can't 
      tell the difference, it makes no difference: therefore, a 
      program that will never be changed is equivalent to a 
      circuit. I don't care whether a toaster or microwave oven 
      contains software.
    

In your example, unless the microcontroller which controls the LED can be
upgraded, then for all intents and purposes, RMS considers it a circuit which
cannot be modified.

~~~
CamperBob2
So it would be OK to use GPL3 software in an embedded device whose
programmability is deliberately and permanently disabled at the factory?

Where does a device's toaster-nature stop and its TiVo-nature begin?

~~~
belorn
One need to look at it from the perspective of property ownership rather than
inherent ability of the device. If someone has bought a device, at that point
they should be in control of the property. If the manufacturer can exert
control which you don't have, then they are de facto owners of the device
after sale.

Its the difference between me selling you a computer you own and control, and
giving you a user account while retaining root control for myself. The first
is a sale and transfer of ownership, and the other is me renting out cloud
access. From a perspective of rights, liberty, autonomy, control, and privacy,
a toaster and a TiVo is two completely different kind of devices. One is your
property which you control, and the other is someones else device which you
have bought permission to use.

Last, let me clarify with an example. Let say I rent you a coffee machine on
indefinite period of time, on the condition that you pay me $1 per cup. Simple
concept, common practices in many offices, and it is easy to understand who
the property owner of the device. Now lets change the setup by actually
selling the device to you, but where DRM restricts the device so only my
coffee is permitted, which just happens to add an extra cost of 1$ per cup
compared to other brands. Has anything actually changed?

------
aortega
Thinkpads do not break, they accumulate. At any time I have 3 on the house,
use them as media centers, donate them to mom, etc.

Currently on a W540. Not very happy, but after some configuration is passable,
cool and fast. Quality should be on par with others, maybe better.

~~~
freehunter
I killed a Thinkpad by dripping some water on it, just a couple drops of
condensation from the outside of a glass of water. F1 key stopped working, the
trackpoint mouse buttons started clicking constantly so I had to rip them off.
The A key needs to be hit hard to work. The wifi constantly drops now. The
only thing that happened was dripping some water on it.

Granted, it still works, just not well. However I have a pre-iPad Lenovo
IdeaPad S10-3t that has seen pretty constant use as my daily driver Xubuntu
laptop for almost five years now. I've probably put thousands of running hours
on it and it still works like a (slow and ancient netbook) dream.

They're tough, but certainly not completely indestructible. I thought they
were until the water incident.

~~~
fencepost
You may have gotten water into the circuitry of the keyboard, but that's its
own replacable unit and has a tray (with the elsewhere-mentioned water holes)
to protect the interior of the laptop. Particularly for intermediate models it
may be worth picking up a replacement keyboard and dropping it in - not so
sure if it's an old T60 or the like.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah I'm comparing the cost of replacing the keyboard and the wifi card versus
just donating it and getting a new laptop that doesn't have the Nvidia Optimus
and some other features I'm not fond of (and a less power-intensive
processor).

The keyboard and the wifi card together would only be like $60 though, which
is really nice.

------
bluedino
Lenovo crippled their best form factor, the T4x0, by giving the most terrible
panel they could find. Even looking dead on at the thing, the colors wash out
and shift. Why couldn't they have used the 13" MacBook Air panel?

Getting the 1600x900 screen gives you a usable resolution but the panel is
still terrible. Dim, headache inducing.... Other than that those machines are
great. Light, small (if not really that thin), lots of slots and bays, huge
used market, spare parts galore, lots of battery options, incredible keyboard
and the track point, great Linux compatibility.... The only other bad aspect
is the touchpad is mediocre.

~~~
fest
I recently got T440p with 1920x1080 screen and I quite like it (at least,
compared to my T430s with 1600x900 screen).

I'm inclined to believe that colors look dim because it's a matte panel- don't
Mac's come with glossy panels only?

~~~
bluedino
The T440 has a greatly improved screen. Too late to edit my original post.

------
nextos
It's sad no manufacturer steps in and fills in the relatively big niche
ThinkPads used to occupy:

* Utilitarian but beautiful designs: [http://www.geocities.jp/kenjin_keyboard/butterfly_p07.jpg](http://www.geocities.jp/kenjin_keyboard/butterfly_p07.jpg)

* Great input devices (mouse and keyboard)

* High density square screens

* Upgradeable Linux/BSD friendly hardware

With the advent of great, cheap ARM processors and Coreboot getting ported to
ARM, the barries of entry should be a bit lower. Frankly, while Apple tends to
produce great hardware, they are far too optimised for consumers vs
developers. E.g., brittle aluminium + glass vs Thinkpad's magnesium + carbon
fiber.

~~~
enupten
They also seem to have killed off the awesome Thinkpad X-tablets :(

I wish it was also a bit less plasticky; something like Macbook Air + Nub +
Old Thinkpad keyboard + Black Rubberized body + WACOM would be a dream come
true. Hardware upgradeability on top of that would be epic.

~~~
fencepost
No nub, but aren't some of the high end Yoga convertibles WACOM?

~~~
eropple
The Thinkpad Yoga 12 has a Wacom model. I highly recommend it as a drawing
tablet, with the caveat that I sent mine back because it wasn't getting enough
use rather than I didn't like it. (I use an X200 Tablet instead, because for
my use case I couldn't rationalize $1300.)

------
ggreer
I've tried various ThinkPads, but I keep coming back to macs. Linux on
ThinkPads (or any laptop) is hit-and-miss. Sometimes, things work perfectly.
Sometimes, they don't. I really don't like spending time messing with drivers
or config files to get my wifi, bluetooth, hibernate, power saving, etc
working. I don't want to carefully research hardware to ensure it's supported.
I just want to use my computer, and I'm willing to throw money at the problem
instead of time.

And over the past decade, Apple's hardware has gotten really good. Their
trackpads have always been nice, but the new force touch version is the
indisputable best. Current Apple laptops contain many clever design decisions
that most of us don't explicitly notice, but together make the machine feel
first-rate.

This is unlike my ThinkPad x140e, which has idiotic design galore. The
microphone is placed in the palm rest, making it nearly useless. Typing makes
speech inaudible. The keyboard lacks an LED for caps lock, yet there are
annoying always-on LEDs in in the palm rest and lid. Instead of gradually
ramping fan speeds up and down, it switches between discrete levels, causing
unnecessary distraction. And while it's one of Lenovo's smallest laptops, it's
comically huge and heavy compared to my MacBook.[1]

Obviously, these two machines are apples and oranges. They target different
users and price ranges. It is unfair to compare them. Still, it's frustrating
to see so many bone-headed design choices in the ThinkPad. Just a little more
thought and testing could have made it a much better machine. Sadly, this is
true even for Lenovo's most expensive models. The X1 Carbon comes with useless
stickers on the palm rest, and peeling them off leaves a residue that requires
solvents to remove. These annoyances may be small, but they add-up to give an
impression of tackiness.

1\.
[http://geoff.greer.fm/photos/pics/DSC_0460.jpg](http://geoff.greer.fm/photos/pics/DSC_0460.jpg)

~~~
frik
You simply never experiences a _real_ ThinkPad - meaning the ThinkPad
T4xx/X2xx/W4xx business notebook series that originated from the IBM ThinkPad
T40/T60 series.

Your older notebook is just a low budget consumer device with the ThinkPad
brand name attached. Sad, but true, Lenovo recently transformed also their
business notebook series to low quality consumer style form factors. The last
good devices are the T420/X220 series.

~~~
ggreer
I've also used the X1 Carbon and the X230. Both had many small issues (and a
few big ones) that made them feel like alpha-quality prototypes. Even simple
things like trackpad gestures and scrolling were borderline-unusable. Instead
of scrolling proportionally to my finger movement, their trackpads just
triggered a "scroll mouse wheel" event, moving up/down by 3 lines. Options
like smooth scrolling did nothing but add an animation in the 3 line movement.
It's ridiculous. An iBook from 2005 has better trackpad scrolling.

I'm surprised by the "no true ThinkPad" responses. How am I supposed to know
which ThinkPads are _real_ ones? Apparently the X220 is, but not the X230? The
only differences seem to be some keyboard tweaks, the trackpad, and newer
CPUs.

~~~
tokenrove
They went downhill way before that, and just kept going downhill.

------
UnoriginalGuy
I got a T400, shoved 8 GB of RAM in there and a 128 GB SSD. Cost me Under $250
including upgrades. The thing is built like a tank, and while the CPU is a
tiny bit old it holds up well on Windows 8, and really the only "problem" with
that machine is the lack of dedicated GPU (even for non-games).

I will say, all used laptops have badly aged batteries. I get about three half
to four hours from a 9(!) cell battery on the T400. That's bad by most metrics
but good for the age of this thing.

PS - The matte display and keyboard feel makes it all worth while.

------
arh68
I bought 4 Thinkpads and broke 2:

\- X60s that I sat on. 1024x768 really sucks. ~$70

\- X61 still running strong on ubuntu, 32G ssd too small for anything else.
1024x768. ~$75

\- X200s that I loved. 1440x900. Windows and Crunchbang Linux. Rare but
routine video/display issues & blue screens. :( 128G SSD went into the T61p.
~$220

\- T61p too heavy to pick up. 1920x1200. With 8GB and an SSD, it's not slow at
all. Display hinge has half an inch of play. Still running windows. ~$250

I won't buy another Thinkpad. I would buy a Dell Precision M4800 (to replace
the T61p) and I still like 11" MacBooks (to replace the x200s). Needless to
say old Thinkpad batteries are shot, though 1440x900 and 1920x1200 look(ed)
great.

~~~
nathanaldensr
I recommend strongly against buying a Dell, specifically the M4800.

I ordered two for my business recently. I chose the Intel AC 7260 network
adapter, which turns out to have all kinds of problems connecting reliably to
802.11n networks (the vast majority). On my laptop specifically, the
motherboard and/or video card had major problems resulting in failure to shut
down, an endless cycle of video adapter driver crashes and re-initializations
resulting in system lockup, problems waking up from sleep, etc. I returned
mine for a replacement, only to find the keyboard was absolutely horrendous--
keys would double-press (bounce) almost every other key when typing fast and
with moderate to heavy pressure. Upgrading the BIOS did not help as it
apparently did with other Dell models.

Also, Dell refuses to refund my money on the now _two_ defective laptops
because I'm outside of the 30 day refund window. They wouldn't make an
exception. I told them I was never purchasing a Dell again. I can (and did)
buy a 2014 MacBook Pro with better specs for the same price and now I'm
running Windows in Boot Camp (for .NET development) with flawless performance.
Combined with a 3-year Apple Care agreement, I never have to worry about being
nickeled-and-dimed over way-too-short refund periods.

In short, avoid Dell. They are shipping substandard hardware and are even
getting things that _should_ be commoditized to perfection (the keyboard)
wrong.

~~~
arh68
Thank you for sharing, I will definitely factor that in. It's harder to find a
solid upgradeable workstation than I thought.

~~~
nathanaldensr
This has been my life's torment over the past several weeks. There really
didn't seem to be a reasonably-priced option that "just worked" except the
MacBook Pro. Combined with Apple Care, it means I won't have to go through
what I just went through again. And just to be clear, I vastly prefer Windows
8.1 over OS X. My primary tasks are .NET and iOS development, so this isn't a
biased decision. I /wanted/ to find a PC manufacturer that made great laptops,
but I read too many horror stories for all the top models, and experienced
some of my own with the M4800.

------
ekianjo
I bought a used X220 not too long ago and I am very satisfied with it (using
it with Linux Mint at the moment). The keyboard is excellent and much better
than most laptops out there. Almost everything can be replaced in this laptop
(I changed the LCD screen for an IPS one, I added a lot more RAM that it had
in the first place, the battery is removable) and it runs very fast overall
for most uses (except gaming for obvious reasons). It's quite light and
portable as well, and it had enough extensions ports to be useful (not like a
Mac).

Compared to what you get nowadays for about the same specs (or worse) but a
more expensive price tag, I think it's a very good deal.

------
chdir
I've been religiously buying & accumulating all T-series (T500, T510, T520..).
They are good machines & well built but I wouldn't call them maintenance free.
Often I've had to replace parts that required medium to high skill. Also the
older siblings get very hot and are only fit to be used with an external
keyboard.

------
maerek
Having used three generations of ThinkPads at work over the past five years
(T60, T410, T440), I've been pleasantly surprised (with the notable exception
of the trackpad on the T440 - dear god, what a terrible experience) with the
build quality and reliability of each of them.

I recently snagged a used T420 on eBay for ~ $180. After selling the memory
and screen that came with it and adding _more_ memory, a higher resolution
screen and a SSD I had lying around, I've now got a fairly beefy box that runs
Hyper-V like a champ and can chew through video encodes for ~$250. Oh, did I
mention it runs for 5 hours on the 6-cell battery it came with?

Certainly doesn't hurt that you can't go more than 100 yards in my town (near
Washington, DC) without running in to a closet stuffed full of them.

For a reliable workhorse, hard to go wrong with a used T410-430.

------
frik
I loved IBM ThinkPad and early Lenovo ThinkPad for their high build quality
and their robustness.

But the T430 and later models got worse and worse. The also changed the
traditional good keyboard with trackpoint to a cheap slim keyboard you can
find in every other notebook.

I would buy a new T4xx notebook if the focus again on high quality business
notebooks and not lower quality fashionable stylish notebooks.

------
jamesondh
Thinkpads for life! Typing out this comment on a T420 right now, and a couple
of weeks ago I bought an IBM-era vintage A20M from eBay to tinker around with.
Couldn't imagine not having a trackpoint on my laptop.

------
frou_dh
Love the ThinkPads that have the 7-row keyboard and are devoid of trackpads
(TrackPoint only), such as the X200. Those and the unibody MBP are the yin &
yang of desirable laptops as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
thrownaway2424
I think the X201 was the last one you could have ordered without a trackpad at
all, and I believe it was also among the last ones you could order with the
tricolor IBM logo instead of the lenovo brand. I have one here that hasn't
booted in a while because I usually use my X220, but I think the X201s is a
rather handsome machine.

For all other models you can disable the trackpad in the BIOS, rendering it
harmless.

~~~
aortega
The last one with the IBM logo was the X60.

~~~
thrownaway2424
-Series I guess? I have an X61T right here that's IBM.

------
geoka9
Pro tip: if you mostly use your laptop in plugged in mode, set your charging
thresholds to 40-50% and your battery will be usable for many years.

~~~
chdir
Great feature but probably limited to T-series only.

~~~
pierrec
Actually, the feature is present on a lot of Lenovos (even non-thinkpads). My
anecdotal experience it that it works quite well.

However it's only accessible from their energy management tray program on
Windows, so if you do a clean Linux install right away, you won't even know
about it. You need to try the kernel module pointed out in the sibling
comment.

------
dewarrn1
Looks like FreeBSD runs relatively well on many ThinkPad models:
[https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops](https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops)

------
cookrn
Really great to read through this. I'm a first-time Thinkpad owner and
purchased an X230T [0]. I immediately installed Ubuntu 14.10 and moved all
development into virtual machines and things have been fairly smooth. Owning a
less svelte machine really doesn't affect me, but the bumps in the road
running Ubuntu can get tiresome. Random setting changes after "security"
updates e.g. enabling slow keys under accessibility (confusing!). Taking three
hours to finally configure a printer and even then, the prints look like they
were run through an antique Instagram filter. All in all, hanging out in
Firefox and Terminal all day is mostly solid though.

[0]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NJ7OAXE/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NJ7OAXE/)

~~~
csirac2
I'm pretty sure that's Ubuntu's fault :)

~~~
cookrn
Totally true -- I reread the comment just now and it definitely feels OT in
retrospect. The moral of the story? I like my Thinkpad :D

------
SamReidHughes
I think it should note that the X200s (and X200 or X201s?) can be found in
1440x900.

~~~
mng2
That particular screen has horrible viewing angles though, move your head a
little bit and the colors shift.

~~~
vacri
x200s have an IPS screen, I think. It's the x201 with the crappy screen (which
I'm writing this on...). You can switch out for a nicer panel if you're
willing to put the effort in, but if you're looking to buy, may as well look
for other models.

~~~
MichaelGG
There's no other model that surpasses an X201 though :(. I'd pay a lot of
money to get an X201 with a Broadwell chip and a 1920x1200 screen. That's all
I ask.

~~~
dTal
I have an X61T with the SVGA+ AFFS-IPS screen (1400x1050). The colors are the
best I've ever seen on a screen, and at 12 inches the PPI is the same as my
smartphone. Laypeople are genuinely impressed by it and will comment. The
"retina" displays on Apple tablets are better, but people aren't used to
seeing that kind of quality on a 2007-era laptop.

------
atesti
I wish there was someone who figured out how to use the old 7 (8 if you count
cursor keys) row keyboard with the newer thinkpads. I can't adjust to another
layout than the one with the 6 keys pos1/end/inesrt/delete/pgup/pgdown in the
upper right corner.

------
sampo
The default Realtek wifi card in t440/t440s (maybe also some other models)
does not yet have a stable Linux driver, wifi keeps dropping. (The most recent
driver from github is a bit better, it only drops a couple of times per hour,
the default driver in Ubuntu 14.10 drops in like 5-10 minutes.)

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1239578](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1239578)

An Intel card is only about $20 off ebay, but you need to open the laptop in
order to replace it.

~~~
fencepost
If you're replacing WiFi cards in ThinkPads, check into which cards are
supported by the unit - there's a whitelist that varies by each model. I
learned the hard way trying to get someone with one of the cheaper models onto
802.11a with a replacement card - the new card was used in other models, but
the laptops he had only shipped with one type of card and a correspondingly
short whitelist.

You can find hacked firmwares to remove the whitelist functionality, but that
depends on your willingness to run hacked firmware.

~~~
monksy
> whitelist

Jesus that should be made illegal on laptops. MSI did that with the wireless
card. (Won't buy a product from them again) There is no reason that I
shouldn't be able to switch out what's in the mini-pci slot.

~~~
fencepost
Debatable but understandable. They whitelist cards that they tested and
certified the laptops with, which may actually be significant / required for
some devices. The problem device for me was a ThinkPad Edge something, I
believe the lists for the better systems are significantly larger.

Still annoying though.

~~~
monksy
If they don't support the 3rd party card you put in there: Who cares? I'm not
going to expect them to support the wireless functionality if I subsitute out
the wireless card. What do they need to whitelist cards for?

~~~
fencepost
Compliance, particularly the section and additional info for Electromagnetic
Compatibility Compliance
[http://www.lenovo.com/lenovo/us/en/compliance.html](http://www.lenovo.com/lenovo/us/en/compliance.html)

------
seryoiupfurds
I do my hobby programming daily on a ~10 year old T42 that I got for free.
It's blazing fast for my purposes, and with a 4:3 screen, a real keyboard and
a nipple mouse it's a pleasure to use.

~~~
cgag
I have a t60 I play around on and the 4:3 is awesome, but man those displays
are such painfully low quality compared to an IPS screen.

~~~
mindslight
The screen contrast is what finally convinced me to switch from a T61 to an
X230, even though it was giving up 1.5 inches of screen height. I can't wait
for this shortscreen fad to be over.

Still, build quality wise, it feels like I haven't seen the end of the T61
(when this thing inevitably falls apart).

------
mintplant
Somewhat tangential: any recommendations for an Arch Linux install? My old
IdeaPad V570 is wearing down and I'm thinking of replacing it in the near
future. Either used or new.

~~~
nsm
I use the x230 and all the hardware works right out of the box. Pretty much
the only manual setup i did was for laptop power management and a xsessionrc
to disable the touchpad since I always use the red dot.

~~~
evandev
I'm running arch on my x230. Make sure you don't get a x230 with Realtek. If
you do, quickly replace it with a Intel card[1].

[1]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008V7AAJU/ref=oh_aui_detai...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008V7AAJU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

------
Tyguy7
I bought this from Microcenter tonight, and installed Ubuntu 15.04. Works
perfectly straight away. Love it. So deal. Much adequate.

[http://www.microcenter.com/product/438199/X551MAV-
EB01-B_156...](http://www.microcenter.com/product/438199/X551MAV-
EB01-B_156_Laptop_Computer_-_Black)

------
batbomb
I've still got my x61s. I don't use it a whole lot, but I'm continually
impressed how well it still works (running ubuntu 14.04 now). It's nice to
keep around when traveling on vacation when I don't want to lug around my
macbook pro, and, should it break or be stolen, I wouldn't worry about it so
much.

------
caine
Ooh, I always see this link being posted on 4chan's ThinkPad general. Great
resource

------
vernie
Used ThinkPads were more compelling when they were the only laptops with IPS
displays.

~~~
thrownaway2424
That was a looong time ago, like T40p long time ago. Then they went through a
period of offering AFFS displays that were kinda weird -- good measurable
specs but made my eyes hurt for some reason. Then a period of claiming that
nobody was willing to make IPS panels at an economical price which Apple
proceeded to prove to be a lie.

~~~
Stratoscope
> Then a period of claiming that nobody was willing to make IPS panels at an
> economical price which Apple proceeded to prove to be a lie.

Here's Lenovo's blog post about that from 2007:

[http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/ips-
displays](http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/ips-displays)

------
PebblesHD
Lucky enough to have a late model nVidia T61, running perfectly since the day
I bought it. It's had a few upgrades since then, more RAM and an SSD but it's
still an amazing laptop.

------
Kluny
Wow, this is some of the best nerd shit I've seen in a while!

------
dfgray
i still miss the butterfly keyboard that my 701 had. :-(

------
widowlark
Good to see 4chan slowly filter into hacker news

