>>107968769Don't buy anything other than IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T, X, and W/P Series if you want the Real Business Experience™Other business laptops are welcome in /tpg/ (Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook)Why ThinkPad?>Used machines are plentiful and cheap>Utilitarian design: e.g. mix of old and new ports, stable keyboard layout>Easy to repair, upgrade (some models) & maintain thanks to readily available service manuals, spare parts easy to obtain>Usable in cramped quarters thanks to the TrackPoint>Excellent Linux & *BSD supportThinkWiki - General infohttps://www.thinkwiki.org/Model generations:>Classic IBM: T40-T42>IBM/Lenovo transition: T43 T60 T61 (T42-T43: significant spec difference; T43-T60: 64-bit arch)>Classic Lenovo: T400-T430 (T61-T400: 4:3 to 16:10; T410-T420: 16:10 to 16:9; T420-T430: 6-row keyboard, USB 3)>Boxy ultrabooks: T440-T480 (T430-T440: eDP, M.2, soldered CPU; T460-T470: NVMe, USB-C)>Thin above all: T490 T14g1 T14g2 (T480-T490: soldered WiFi (Intel), partly soldered RAM, internal battery only)>TrackPoint on a pig: T14g3 T14g4 (T14g2-T14g3: 16:9 to 16:10, fully soldered RAM/WiFi (AMD), end of mechanical docks)>iFixit-approved TrackPoint on pig: T14g5-... (T14g4-T14g5: Ctrl/Fn swap, camera bump, modular RAM returns)FAQ:>Oldest that won't choke on the modern webLight use: x60YouTube, Gmail etc: xx00(s)>Oldest that drives a 4K monitorxx40(p/s)>Oldest that takes 32 GB RAMX260 T460p/s W510>Lasts full day on batteryT550 T560 X260 xx70 Tx80 T16 and any Lunar Lake>Newest with socketed CPUT440p W541BIOS replacement:https://coreboot.org/ | https://libreboot.org/ | https://canoeboot.org/Supports x60 xx00(s)-xx30(s) T440p W54x T470s Tx80(s)Additional resources:https://dankpads.com/tpg/ | https://biosimage.booru.org | https://github.com/n4ru/1vyrainPatches:https://github.com/digmorepaka/thinkpad-firmware-patcheshttps://github.com/hamishcoleman/thinkpad-ecChat:##ibmthinkpad on libera | #/tpg/ on rizon
>>108109695i'm running fedora on a 2010 macbook pro that does web and word processing well enough, although i do inevitably run into a performance wall from time to time even when i was on a lighter DE, and especially when video was involved. would a t480 make sense to pick up or should i gun for something newer still?
to the kind folks that allowed me to consult them regarding a t14g1 with a 4750u in the last thread, the 16gb of ram was in fact soldered and not 8x8 it arrived in great condition and im very satisfied, will probably just get another 16gb ram stick as i think past 32gb is completely unneeded, but i could be wronghavent used windows in a few years and remembered why i hackintosh'd my surface laptop almost immediately :(
>>108109716Typing this from my T480, quad-core without GPU, Debian Xfce, ~70 tabs open in Firefox. The only times I find myself wishing for more performance are when watching unreasonably large videos e.g. 4K or compiling something gigantic like a browser. Watching videos up to FHD isn't a problem, even when doing something on the side, though the fan does spin up. HD video and light web browsing (without monstrosities like TikTok or New Reddit) can be done fanless.
All of these cheap chargers out there, I'm sure some of them are fake, right? They look very legit but are listed as NEW.Would it be bad to get a few used ones from an IT recycle shop instead? You pay the same price, its used, but you can be fairly certain you're getting a genuine lenovo one. Is that the better way to go?
>>108109923thx. ye deb with xfce's pretty damn weightless -- hell, it was the first distro i loaded on here, too -- though it seems we hit the same walls there too yea. ah well, guess i'll put a newer portable in the backburner and relegate the more intensive tasks to my pc in the meantime. perhaps i can buy the e16 i use at work off my company when i leave? hmm...
>>108109695got a t420s with 8gb ram and 128gb ssd for 80 bucks, decent deal or not?
>>108110722The real question is if you're satisfied with it. Laptops >10 years old that are still usable seem to plateau around this price point so you could have gone newer, classic features notwithstanding.
>>108111783i mainly bought it because of the old keyboard design + its european prices so theyre a bit higher than US prices anyways — 80 bucks was pretty much the lowest i could find that wasnt missing an ssd or had some defect haha
>>108109716to give another opinion: T480 i7, technically with Nvidia GPU but I disabled it entirely for battery life. running Artix xfceI don't struggle with performance at all on it and use it a lot more than my more powerful desktop (I like staying in bed with it kek). use it mostly for browsing, playing a few games like Blue Archive or Koikatsu (reminder: I disabled the Nvidia GPU, I do it all on the integrated graphics), image editing on Krita, and other general stuff. sometimes all of that at the same time. works really well for me and with the 72Wh external battery upgrade I get 10+ hours of web browsing on itthe default screen panel isn't very good but it can be modded very easily (the panel I have on mine is really good). I have an A485 on the side too that I like as well
>>108109716Unpopular opinion but the best T480 still gets rekt by a 4 year old Chromebook CPU.
why in the fuck are w530's so much money now. This shit is ewaste, i just want a k2000m motherboard.
>>108114416>the CPU that is 5 years newer is slightly betterlmao
I have a old obscure Thinkpad like a R50 or R52 that's not popular enough to have this 51nb board upgrade but it's dead and id like to make it somewhat useful again. I keep seeing everyone shill this pcbway service where you design your own PCB and they make it for you. How hard would it be to get some kind of pi or other sbc style setup to be a drop in replacement without sacrificing port arrangement, battery, the old keyboard, etc. I'm not hot gluing a bunch of cables to the case I'm talking about making a 1:1 bolt in solution
>>108111783Laptops plateau in price at around 5 years old. 10-12th gen business laptops are obtainable for $200 depending on model and basically anything in decent usable condition is worth $100.
>>108114683jews gotta jew, problem, goy?
>>108115291Yeah I bought a 7710 for my w7 larp rig. 6920hq, 4gb gpu, qhd with 95% Adobe rgb, was $135
Can't seem to get the touchpad working on this T14 G3 (AMD) after I wiped it and installed W10 LTSC on it, any tips? Went into the BIOS, it's enabled and working there, so it's not a hardware failure, but Device Manager doesn't list it. I've already installed the Synaptic Fingerprint Reader and ELAN Trackpoint drivers from Lenovo's website, and Commercial Vantage doesn't have anything for me to install, so I'm at a loss.
>>108115238youre retarded if you think that will be worth the time and money let alone be reasonably possible short of using an sbc and making some boards for status lights keyboard etc, which will be ass work still. Anyway I found you can shoehorn t61p mobo into most of the old gen stuff even the 14" t60 4:3, so you can get a nvidia fx570m and mod a quad2extreme to work in em, i bet that variety isnt much different inside. I had to sacrifice having a working optical drive when i used a widescreen board in a small and 4:3 t60 but i found an sata to ultrabay adapter that i cut down to fit and make use of it still with an msata drive
>>108115565extract drivers from the .exe with 7zip and manually install them.
