I’m thinking of picking up a used ThinkPad on eBay for cheap to serve as my daily driver. I’ll likely run LMDE, and primarily use it for web browsing, office programs, coding, and FreeCAD. Any recommendations on which model would best hit the sweet spot of capability vs price?

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    4·
    2 months ago

    T480 can be had on eBay for 200-300 bucks and will perform very well in modern applications. I’ve seen a few that are banged up pretty bad for under $200, if you’re cool with a well loved laptop.

  • Cwilliams@beehaw.org
    2·
    2 months ago

    T480 is generally a good bet. I (naively) got an X1C6, thinking that all thinkpads were nice and repairable. The X1 series, at least, is not

  • Topas@feddit.de
    2·
    2 months ago

    For me, the X270 ist the sweet spot: it is small and portable and has a acceptable battery( in fact 2 of them). The display is usable and comes in full HD. 720p is a little bit too low for my tastes. You can upgrade the RAM and put an m.2 ssd inside(although only with 2x PCIe bandwidth). You can also charge it with USB-C. With an i5 it goes for around 200€ in Germany. US prices are usually lower.

  • Mint_Raccoon@kbin.social
    2·
    2 months ago

    I have a T480 that I’m very happy with. With shipping I paid a little under $250. It came with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (which I replaced with a larger one).

  • MXX53@programming.dev
    1·
    2 months ago

    I have seen a ton of P52 laptops used in the architecture and engineering industry. I would lean that way or a more modern option depending on budget. P1 laptops are also pretty cool. Not as powerful but more portable and slimmer.

    • tranxuanthang@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      I’ve just done some quick check on P52, I saw that it only has Nvidia GPU version in my region (which is generally a bad idea if OP want to run any Linux distros)

      • MXX53@programming.dev
        1·
        2 months ago

        That is a fair point. But for CAD work I am unsure of a better option with used ThinkPads. Currently I am running an x11 DE with proprietary drivers on mine and it is acceptable even though it isn’t perfect.

  • 3w0@lemmy.sdf.org
    1·
    2 months ago

    Had quite a few of the X and T series, X200, X201, X220, X230, T430 mainly, x230 would be my pick, you can quad-core mod it with the classic keyboard and use ivyra1n to flash the bios easily. I haven’t bothered with the Full-HD mod because the 720p IPS is fine to me, you can get them from Taobao or similar (Check sources!)

    They’re all socketed CPUs, or you could get the chonky T530/W530 instead, or a P series. Old Thinkpads last a long time (although I have a bad habit of testing them :)

    EDIT: MY T430 was also a fucking tank, it survived being thrown across a room in San Franciso with a tiny dent on the lid, no damage. They’re easier to Full-HD mod than the X series.

  • Beaver @lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Also I heard the thinkpad golden age was around pre-2005 when ibm was in charge.

    • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 months ago

      You may get top-notch casing and chassis quality, but all the computing stuff would literally be two decades behind.

    • monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
      1·
      2 months ago

      I have a T580 and a T15g2 and the T580 is 100% a more rugged build–not even close.

      The T15 is way lighter, so maybe that feels like stiffness?

      G1s do not just “have brighter screens” than Gen 2. Those are spec-able options.

      G1 had three screens, 250nit, 300nit, 500nit (4k only)

      G2 had three screens, 300nit, 300nit, 600nit (4k only)

      Both have the same 57wh battery. Not sure what you’re talking about there.

    • notthebees@reddthat.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      My sister has a T580 with the 7th gen i5-7200u. Full tilt it runs at 60C after a repaste. My own pavilion x360 with the same i5 runs close to 90C. Let’s not talk about the 8th gen i7 version of said x360.

      The 8th gen i5 and i7 CPUs just run really hot.

      As for build quality, it’s fine. It’s no r500, but it’s built pretty well. Her laptop has been dropped a few times and the only issue it has is a fucked USB c power port (my only gripe is hard to replace USB ports).

        • notthebees@reddthat.com
          1·
          2 months ago

          The keyboard doesn’t really flex on my sister’s laptop but good God it’s awful to type on. It’s weirdly mushy. Idk if her laptop is defective or if it’s something else. The keyboard is clean but compared to both of my pavilion laptops, it feels like my old dell multimedia keyboard in terms of mush. And yeah they trackpad is awful. My friend had a w530 and it was about the same honestly. But that was a then 6 year old laptop.

          Fwiw the 11th gen i5 is actually garbage. Cpu is strong and the igpu has no business being as good as it is, but it is not power efficient at all at lower tdp. I cannot for the life of me get my old 11th gen i5 laptop to run any lower than like 1.8 GHz or something ridiculous. Just babying a laptop that’s less than a year old gets me maybe 3 hrs of battery life. It’s had really bad degradation, with 80% capacity left on a 40 wh battery but swapping in a Ryzen motherboard got me another hour of battery life. Also weird ass stutters, holy shit it’s bad. If I typed too fast, my computer would lock up entirely. It’s just a thing that it did.

          This is me on monkeytype when it locked up one day.