HN Reader

Personally I think beyond T450 generation, i.e. over 10 years old systems, you are starting to make pretty severe compromises. T440 generation had really bad Trackpoint setup, and older hardware starts to lose features. Random stuff that T450 has that T400 doesn't

* USB3

* Up to 32 GB of RAM (vs max 8 GB for T400)

* M.2 slot (for SSD), 6 Gb/s SATA (vs 1.5 Gb/s on T400)

* x86-64-v3 (AVX2 etc) and OpenGL 4.6

* Dual-band AC wifi and BT4.0 (optional 4G LTE WWAN)

* DisplayPort with 4k@60Hz output

* Slightly larger screen estate (1600x900 vs 1440x900), with FHD 1080p display option

* Dramatically better battery life

* Backlit keyboard

Many of these are not merely nice to have but also ensure longevity by being compatible with lot of other modern stuff. On the other hand I do believe that T450 generation device might remain viable daily driver for a long while still. From the specs the biggest obvious shortcoming to me is the lack of USB-C, especially USB-C charging. But besides that, it seems pretty usable system.

For reference, I have old X240 that I still occasionally use.

Having run some hardware for about 20 years (recently deceased), the problem that eventually happens is that newer OSes drop support for old hardware. If you hit some weird bug on your setup on a new OS release, there won't be anyone to help you fix it[1]. So then you're stuck on an old OS. In time, that means you can't run the latest userland software either, which relies on more modern OS features (eg: your Firefox will get increasingly out-of-date). That means the set of things you can do will eventually narrow and narrow.

If you're only running programs that you have full control of, and can compile/fix locally, or where receiving security fixes &etc. don't matter, then you're good. But things are a bit more interconnected, these days.

I do still enjoy running my hardware into the ground rather than tossing out perfectly good components every few years though (:

[1] In my case, the boot loader stopped working for my hardware on FreeBSD 11.4

I run NixOS on a coreboot-ed T420 and I absolutely love everything on the outside, but it really shows its age when compared to the display on my Macbook or it comes to running heavier software ie. rust-analyzer, Chrome, or Nix builds.

If Lenovo were to release a modern T420-like, with identical chassis, battery system and similar IO port variety, but a modern display, modern internals (replaceable SSD! soldered RAM at least has a case for performance) and a modern camera, cash would evaporate out of my wallet.

I remember there was a person [1] modding T60/T61s into "T700"s with 11th gen Intel chips. Unfortunately it looks like the project's been quiet since 2022. Hopefully there'll be more who try.

[1] https://www.xyte.ch/t700-crowdfunding/

I love these old ThinkPads. I refurbish and sell them all the time. Just moments before writing this, I finished fixing up a T580; earlier today I did a heatsink replacement on a W510 which is going strong with an SSD and 20GB RAM.

The older they are, the better they are, but even the modern ones are still pretty good. Like the OP mentions, the market for parts is strong and it's easy to get what you need. Then when you go to sell them, they sell for a good amount. That W510 is worth at least $100 in its current condition.

I still use my T470S as a Ubuntu 22.04 development machine. I bought it from my pre-pre-company as a used one back in 2022 and it is a fantastic laptop for personal projects. The only update I did was a 16GB RAM to up the memory to 20GB. I also bought a new battery as one of the two was dead.

I wish the graphic driver could be better as playing Youtube videos constantly crashes Firefox on Ubuntu. Other than that I have nothing to complain. I have been using it for 3+ years with zero maintenance (I didn't even bother to clean the fan) and it never failed me.

I have a second "new" Dell workstation laptop standing by just in case it breaks down. But it is a Windows machine with 32GB of memory, so I'll probably use WSL2 instead.

I have an IBM T42, but I have the supervisor password set that I have long forgotten. I know about ways to clear the password (if they indeed work) but I have not gotten around it. If anyone knows a solution that does work, feel free to share.

It is in a mint condition, not a single scratch, and I don't want to throw it out for sure. I have an old OpenBSD on it, it is perfect for some light C coding using mg. :)

I replaced my 2019 Macbook Pro 13" i5 16gb/256gb, with an M4 Pro 48gb/1TB 16". It just wasn't worth it anymore, it would stall opening some large files, the fans would spin up for inexplicable reasons, the screen was mid... it was just barely serviceable for my needs and wasn't worth being so frugal about anymore. Yes technically I could use something from the 80s to write text files if I wanted to most of the time, and I'm somewhat anxious about the possibility that some component soldered to the MB will short one day and kill my SSD, but it's still quite a worthwhile upgrade.

I'm running a Lenovo Thinkpad, X1 Carbon from a year or so ago and it is, by far, the best Linux Laptop I've ever owned.

Unlike the 4 or so Dell (and Asus) laptops (that came with Linux preinstalled) that preceded this one, it can simultaneously support:

* Bluetooth. Yay!

* Wifi. Yay!

* Sleeps when the lid closes. Yay!

* Stays asleep when in my bag. Yay!

It's also reasonably fast and decently capable, but the not-trying-to-commit-heat-death-suicide-in-my-bag and supporting BOTH Wifi AND Bluetooth at the same time are really the biggest features.

In September of 2012, I bought a T430 from Lenovo. I loved that thing! Covered it with stickers, even upgraded it as the years went on.

Eventually, it had a Core i7-3820QM with 16GB RAM, 1080p screen (with an adapter), SSDs (plural, I put one in the UltraBay)... I installed Coreboot with Tianocore, upgraded the WiFi card... I even modded in the keyboard from a T420.

In June of 2022, 10 years later, I bought an X270 off eBay. I could still use the T430, it was just starting to feel sluggish... I just felt like I needed a new laptop. I'm very happy with the X270 and I hope to use it as long as possible.

It was also fun to start covering it with stickers all over again!

I still have the T430, it's just not being used and it's sitting in a storage locker (with my vintage computer collection).

There’s nothing out there that matches the bold business look and feel of old thinkpads, my personal favorite being the x61. These machines are so well-built and beautiful, and I respect and understand the decision to try and keep them running. But I would respect a restomod more =)

I’m currently coding a Flutter app on a 15-year-old Dell desktop, running Linux. The experience is great. I’m running latest versions of VS Code, Flutter, you name it. It’s nice and snappy and a joy to use. I’ve upgraded RAM, SSDs, GPU over the years to keep it somewhat up to date. Eventually I’m going to have to cave in and buy a Mac so that I can publish my app for iOS. I’ve been loathe to do it though and I’ve been putting it off. This article is a great explanation of why I’ve been so loathe. It articulates reasons that were semi-subconscious for me.

I just finished completely rebuilding a 2008 and 2010 macbook pro. The older ones are quite serviceable. This round, the speaker surrounds had cracked causing buzzing audio or no audio. I managed to ebay brand new speaker replacements and got them installed. I cleaned everything and re-pasted the CPU/GPU while I was in there as well. They are on El Capitan and High Sierra, but can be patched to be upgraded to Mojave if I wish. Currently running a LTS version of Firefox as my browser.

I've been on a non stop thinkpad streak since 2005 or so. T42 (IBM), X200, X230 and now X1 carbon.

I used a thinkpad X200 back in 2014 or so and it got completely destroyed due to a spill. I replaced the memory, keyboard etc. but was unable to get it to work again. Also, the monitor had developed a few dead scanlines so I decided to buy another one. This was my primary work machine so I needed something quickly. I got another x230 off ebay. It was a piece used for demos at shows so it was refurbished. Threw Debian onto it and started work 2014. I used it straight till 2022 or so. It was my primary machine. I replaced the battery, added RAM. Then the fan got damaged and the front plastic plating got cracked so it was no longer presentable. I bought an X1 carbon but gave the laptop to my son. We bought a fan, thermal paste and some plastic parts for the casing, a new battery etc., watched a few youtube videos and fixed it up. It's still running and they play casual games on it. It's now atleast 10 years old and still going strong.

It's a very strong machine with great longevity. Though I feel that the newer ones are not as good as the old and the X1 is definitely less repairable than its older cousins.

I still primarily use Thinkpads for all these reasons. One incident with fluids and a $3k Apple machine is e-waste. I had young kids, it was inevitable.

Instead, refurbished Thinkpads are still coming off leases. Available for a 250-700 refurbished. Bench repairable. I keep good backups. If something incredible happens and I can’t fix it I can get a new one same day and be back on my feet.

And I like the aesthetic. They’re built to be durable. The chassis has fluid channels. The parts are replaceable. They’re black, unassuming, and utilitarian.

It is getting harder to keep the latest versions of some distros running on them. Software continues to expand like a gas and developers don’t seem to run their stuff on anything but the latest spec hardware. But there are distros out there where folks take care to keep things minimal and fast.

These are still powerful machines. Not editing 4K video on them. But they’re dang useful for coding, writing, and day to day things I do.

(Joke)

What do you mean a Thinkpad is repairable? If a chip dies, you have to go out and buy a new chip!

Whatever happened to the days where you could just wire in a new transistor yourself?

(/Joke)

Jokes aside, my point is that this article is splitting hairs about where repairability and integration lies. It's not worth opening up a failing RAM module to find the microscopic broken transistor. For many of us, it's not worth repairing an old laptop, but instead we'd rather have the advantages of everything soldered to the mainboard.

(Although I will admit to repairing an old Mac laptop. The fans started to squeak, so I changed them.)

I've been pondering the same thought recently but applied to analog cameras. Analog cameras have evolved over time, approximately according to the following:

- fully mechanical

- mechanical shutter with light meter

- electronic control of shutter, mechanical advance

- fully electronic shutter and advance

Broadly, what I'm finding after digging in to restoring some cameras is that most of the cameras from the first stage can still be fixed and made to perform close to when they were new. The second still work, but the light meter can die (simpler light meters may be repairable, later ones not so much). The third and fourth stages - once they die, there's no repairing them. And when you look at digital cameras, there'll be very, very few of these that last long into the future.

This bears out the 'Lindy Effect' mentioned in the article.

I bought a x220 about 10 years ago, and then a x230 a couple years ago. I also have a M1 Pro 16 inch but sometimes I enjoy working with the Thinkpads more than that. I really wish we could get a modern system that was build like the old Thinkpads. Especially regarding overall Size, repairability, connectivity and Keyboard.

Want a real solution to electronic waste?

The EU should mandate 10-year warranties for higher-end consumer electronics and durable goods.

This could work on a sliding scale: less expensive items get shorter warranties (but never below the current 2-year minimum), while pricier products require longer coverage periods.

Such legislation would:

1. End the exploitation of workers in sweatshops producing deliberately short-lived products

2. Discourage planned obsolescence and reduce manufacturing waste

3. Significantly decrease the climate impact of consumer electronics

4. Create genuine incentives for a Circular Economy where durable products like quality ThinkPads become standard rather than exceptions

By requiring products to last, we'd not only protect consumers and the Environment, but also the vulnerable workers currently trapped and exploited in sweatshops designed to produce disposable goods.

I can't match that, but I regularly use a 2012 11" MacBook Air, as a Zoom terminal.

Works great. Stuck on Catalina, but can handle the software I need.

> One of the main reasons that old Thinkpads stand out is their design philosophy. They are made with swappable components with the intention of user upgradeability.

On a fixed PC everything is swappable by definition. I don't quite understand why people love laptops so much. If you're using your PC in only one place a tower PC is cheaper and can be upgraded indefinitely with only a screwdriver (if that).

From what I know the entire purpose of the Macbook "Pro" line is literally that they're made to be modular. They were at least. I maintain a 2011 Pro. The build quality is noticeably nicer than the cheaper chassis they produce today. The experience itself is actually much nicer too, smoother, feels better. Added, modern displays have great resolution. But the aged units carry an interesting and rich in depth projection ability you don't find today.

Pretty much the same trajectory. I started at my T420 around 2010 and that time I just main laptop, computer. Then, as I have a more powerful desktop, this T420 becomes my secondary computer and I started to experience Linux with it. After almost 15 years I end up converted it into a PVE host and run just one or two virtual machines on it and it's quite durable I can still do functional work on it, quite remarkable how a computer can last so long.

T42, T60, T62, T420, T520 (multiples of some around the house) here, ending at the point they changed the keyboard. All running linux, the T420 and T520 (with SSD's) are fine with modern browsers while the older ones can be slow on bloated sites. I imagine the RAM might be an issue with multiple electron apps though.

Only real maintenance is to use quality battery replacements (T420 lasts particularly well on batteries).

I would love to get a ThinkPad as my next computer. My 2018 MacBook Pro is still working amazingly well, but I think I won't get a new one.

I’ve never been a fan on ThinkPad looks, until I get a second hand one, in 2014. It had 4GB or RAM and starts to have hard time with browsing, so few month ago, I bought 16GB for 20€. I’m almost sure It could live for 5 or 10 years.

My only complain is Ctrl cap sensor having some inconsistencies, I have to push strong on it.

For the rest I consider ThinkPad as the way to go for second hand.

I love old Thinkpads for single purpose computers. Install Debian, boot it once a day, or once a week, or once a month. One for all the flacs I had the energy to rip in my 20s, one for wine and dosbox, one for messing around with programming languages, one for household stuff. It prevents distractions.

If you run an X220 or X230 and do embedded development, build in an ARM debugger (a thing I made some years ago)! [1]

[1] https://hackaday.io/project/27272-tp-bmp

I still use my t420 all the time for one reason and that's the keyboard. I can't stand chiclet keys and that's all there is now

My T480 just doesn't want to die. I dropped it a lot, in my staircase, on concrete floor, accidentally emptied my whole mug of coffee on it (had to change the keyboard that time some keys were stuck). At some point I felt so confident I tried stepping on it when it was closed. So yeah this thing is pretty tough.

I currently have an M1 MacBook that I needed for some development (iOS) but now use it for notes and presentations and back up any data on my Nextcloud and homelab. Before that, I had a 210 EUR Polish laptop (I think whitelabel Chinese stuff) that would run Linux distros but would struggle with Wi-Fi.

Frankly, that’s why I quite enjoy desktop PCs. Most of the hardware works as you’d expect and is both repairable (though to be honest I’ve just thrown away mobos in the past when they start misbehaving, possibly due to OC or daily use) and upgradable (I’ve gone from a Ryzen 3 1200 to Ryzen 7 5800X, even had an Intel CPU ages back; as well as from an RX 570 to B580, with a few more CPUs and GPUs in the middle). Different RAM, more drives etc., honestly it’s really pleasant, even if there’s this big box in my room that makes some noise.

I have a PowerBook titanium G4 from 2003 that I can boot but never bother because it's not worth the power consumption.

Off-topic about the Nassim Nicholas Taleb opening: Does anybody else feel like he just restates obvious things in a more formalized and somewhat pompous way? I do not mind formalization but I feel like I am supposed to swoon over it as if some profound truth, that was not already implied in our every day thinking, was being revealed.

These are very well built machines.

To keep them running for decades Linux or other open source operating systems are pretty much the only choice. Not only for performance (which is better) but also because Windows will phase old hardware support out, it's just what they've always done, and will always continue doing.

I still use my t440s all the time to this day. it is durable, versatile, does exactly what it does and does it well. not tied down to its firmware, software - i can't think of the analogy off the bat but its like several other things that "just work" (maybe indoor plumbing or something) so well you forget about them

I have a 14 year old T420, I upgraded the processor, ram, hard drive, battery, and wifi chip several years ago which really sped it up and gave it more usable life. Still runs great for most things.

X220 owner here. You will have to pry it from my dead cold hands. I don't use anything that can't run on it well, my workflow is mostly shell based. Even Firefox don't do that bad when JS is disabled.

I still drive a Dell Precision M6600 from 2011, and liken the build quality, robustness and modularity of that era of the product line to the Thinkpads being discussed here.

I'm overdue to upgrade, but know I won't love its replacement anywhere near as much.

Respect! I still run x230 with Linux for fun and so my kids can smash the keys on the keyboard (btw imho the keyboard feeling is better than in any laptop I used since then) and they feel good about themselves that they do the same thing as dad

My primary computer, the one I'm typing on right now, is a 13-year old 2012 Mac Mini.

It couldn't be more fine. It does everything I need it to do.

This is a fantastic breakdown, and it nails something I think a lot of people feel but don’t always articulate: modern hardware is often objectively better, but not necessarily more resilient

I have an ASUS laptop that is borderline unusable in three years, the only saving grace is the RTX 3060 which I use for gaming and occasionally ollama.

On a T480 secondhand with a wonky keyboard. Where are you guys sourcing keyboards from?

If everything is modelar and can be replaced is the think pad just a box?

I still have my T61 thinkpad from 2007. Other than the dead battery, it works great.

I have an x31 from 2003/4 I'd love to rescue but the bios won't boot.

ThinkPad x230T owner here. I believe mine is 12 years old.

By contrast, my son is 9 this year. Still, the kids are good to one another.

Something about the font on this blog is not friendly to my eyes.

Reading this from my t420s, it's only 11yrs old.

Same, but just because I'm lazy and cheap.

You can run an LLM on a Mac laptop?

Side note, but I noticed now practically all Thinkpads are available with Linux as an option. That's a big improvement from when Windows tax was practically unavoidable with them.

What is the point of a reparable upgradable machine if the components are all ancient and a used m1 MacBook with just as much ram as the maximum on a x220 costs 500 dollars?

I have both a brand new M4 Macbook and a ThinkPad P16s. I run Arch with Hyprland on my P16s.

They are both fantastic laptops but have clearly different use cases.

My Macook is my browsing/YouTube/music/research/photo editing machine. It's fantastic at those things. It also integrates into FaceTime and iMessage which means I don't have to pull out my phone all the time.

My P16s is my work laptop. I can disappear into it for 5 hours straight writing code. I'm either in Cursor or the terminal most of that time with a little browser use. And hyprland is freaking gorgeous, fast, and incredibly stable. I don't get nearly as good a development experience on my Macbook, mostly because so much of its navigation is based upon the trackpad vs. the keyboard in Hyprland.

So, I enjoy both and each has their place. I think my only complaint about the P16s is while it has an extremely high res OLED display, it's not as bright as I'd prefer.

One of the finest laptops I ever had -- in my 30 year history with the form factor -- was an IBM Thinkpad 560Z. It was insanely compact, but powerful enough for my purposes at the time. It had a radical design for the time b/c it had NO removable media on board at all. It shipped with an outboard CD-ROM that I used often enough that it lived on my desk, and an outboard floppy drive that I don't think I used at all.

The shame of it was that a PC of that era had a super short useful life. Now we think nothing of keeping computers for 5 years or more; they're just so powerful that for most regular human tasks, there's no need for the kind of upgrade treadmill that dominated computing 25 years ago. After 3 years, though, the 560Z was almost unusable -- it had a TINY hard drive, and limited RAM. Windows was getting fatter and slower. But the physical computer itself was in GREAT shape -- even after years of heavy travel, it bore none of the crappy wear and tear I'd associate with colleagues' Dells (e.g.) later. I kept it on a shelf for a long time because it was so solid and pleasing that I couldn't bear to part with it despite its basic uselessness.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the 560Z was also my last Windows laptop. Because my job back then was mostly Office docs, and because Win98 was so awful, I shifted to a Mac when the 560 was done, and I've been there ever since.

It’s just a different layer of abstraction. The chips on your SSD in your thinkpad are also soldered without any easy way to replace them save for replacing the whole SSD. Same for your RAM.

Now in a modern laptop it’s the top case or bottom case or board; the robot-made factory parts are bigger integrated components of the system. All you care about is your data anyway, the repairability of the system as a whole by swapping out components at home (admittedly a large culture in the PC world, as silly as it is these days when all you’re doing is connecting a robot factory gpu to a robot factory cpu and choosing a PSU and RAM (also made in robot factories)) isn’t that important.

I hope one day that computing gets so small and light and dense and integrated that I can’t replace any single components without a robot factory and/or microscope. I want a solid microscopically integrated slab (which is what my iPad Pro is basically approaching).

My coworkers understand and envy my Lenovo e570, they just wish Apple or Dell sold one like I have new at a reasonable price.

I can not fault them. I wish GM still sold the S10 pickup.

Of course he does. Because of the robustness but also the keyboard. It's so annoying that they don't make decently build laptops, at all, these days.

I'm hanging on to my X201. I bought it after I left my workplace where I had an X230; and I choose an earlier model because I wanted to upgrade rather than downgrade my computer. I am _much_ more satisfied with the X201 - because of the keyboard of course. IIANM, X220 is the best one of the X series.

I replaced the HDD with an SSD about 8 years ago and expanded the RAM to 8 GB, and performance is tolerable. At the moment I'm running Lubuntu on it, but I'm thinking of switching to Q4OS.

Now, sure, it's old; and yes, it's a bit rickety plastics-wise after having survived a fall from 3m at some point; and yes, the battery life is limited even after replacing it.

But - I would take it over a modern piece-of-@#$%-keyboard machine any day of the week.

I have a ~2009 MacBook. It has a swappable battery (replaced once, dead again), and it was overall easily upgradable : it received a 4GB RAM stick to replace its original 2GB (unfortunately it can't manage more than 3.5GB), an SSD to replace its hard drive, and a new DVD drive as its superdrive failed. However its core2 Duo is really too slow for the modern web (either running MacOS or Linux), it takes almost a full minute to open a youtube link. I should probably downgrade to 32 bits Linux to get back some speed, but it won't become exactly snappy anyway :)

Writing this on my 16GB RAM i7 X230... but I really miss my X61s w/SXGA+ LED mod, perfect keyboard for my sized hands.

I'm surprised they didn't mention how many of the Thinkpad models encase heatsink fan power cord in kapton tape and run that cord along and above the CPU/GPU shared heatsink. The modular assembly fails reliably and consistently roughly every 3 years.

Sure I can get parts, but I don't think it actually shows what they are trying to say.

This is why I've always preferred full size PCs. But if I were to get a laptop it sounds like it would be a 17 year old ThinkPad. Are the newer ones the same? This wasn't clear in the article.

My PC is ten years old now. It's always run GNU/Linux and feels noticeably snappier than more recent machines with their bloated software. I've maxed out the CPU and RAM on it, overclocked it, added a nice AMD workstation GPU so I could run two 4k screens. I guess the thing is it really feels like I own it. I don't feel the same about phones and tablets.

I have one of these that was a tablet and touchscreen from my mba program in 2008. I still have it and put some version of Linux command line only (peppermint maybe) and it still works. Haven’t touched it in a few years.

Honestly was never that impressed by it and have had to replace the fans on it multiple times but it’s still kicking while other laptops are not.

Back in the day, I heard all sorts of great things about how durable Thinkpads were, I bought one with my hard earned money in ~2004 when doing contact web development work. It was my least reliable laptop I've ever had.

My Vaio notebooks always lasted quite a bit longer. Eventually got a macbook and haven't gone back, but yeah, the one Thinkpad I owned was the least reliable computing device I've bought in the ~40 years of my lifetime.

Sorry but rifling through your weblog there is a ton of freak shit posted dog

ha! I have one of those at home. I think it still works too.

I wish that Framework could attain the same lofty levels of "second hand market success" that ThinkPads enjoy. A lot of the "Thinkpad fans" I've talked to genuinely want them, or respect them for similar reasons they enjoy the ThinkPad legacy.

ThinkPads are durable but every day they get older, slower and more difficult to source parts for as collectors entrench themselves and the requirements of operating systems (and the "modern web") worsen

Framework laptops are wonderful, modern and (arguably?) cheaper to own in the long-term thanks to being able to replace components, particularly the entire mainboard as time progresses.

*But* they're a tiny boutique manufacturer. Their barrier to entry is that of a pretty hefty modern laptop, versus buying a T420 for practically pennies and performing all kinds of aftermarket "mods" to it. 51nb's "FrankenPads" especially breathe incredible new life into old IBM and Lenovo stock.

Combine this with the fact that being the "defacto business laptop" for nearly three decades (along with perhaps Dell) means there's enough Thinkpads on Earth to probably stretch end-to-end around the moon and back

The tightness of hardware integration isn't a bug, it's genuinely a feature; In fact, it's the defining feature that makes Apple hardware great. Socketed RAM, CPU, and Storage just weren't worth the tradeoffs, namely size, weight, cost, and performance. Including those modular interfaces just wasn't worth it when the internal interfaces would be obsolete within 5 years, and the average user was replacing sub-components 0 times over the life of the device.

The user being able to swap parts easily is _neat_ but it's just not an required feature, any more than the user of a car being able to easily hot-swap the engine. The right level of integration provides a tradeoff the maximizes reliability, cost, performance, and repair. A professional can still replace almost any component of a modern laptop, with a few thousand $ of specialized tools, and the battery, the only component with a fixed lifetime, can be easily replaced at home.

I really hope Framework can continue to develop hardware with documented repairability, without falling for the myth that tight integration and quality are mutually exclusive.

> A [macbook] battery replacement involves carefully prying out a glued component.

Can't speak to every model, but it's not always like this. I just swapped the battery on my 2020 M1 Macbook Air, and it's much easier now. The battery is glued to a metal tray that unscrews and lifts out of the laptop. It is discarded with the old battery. The tray is also held down with pull-tab adhesive strips, but they are trivial to remove - similar to what "command hooks" have.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Late+2020+B...

I've also done a battery swap on a 2015 Macbook Pro 15" - much harder. Each individual battery cell is glued directly to the chassis, and removing each one involves a lot of prying and praying it doesn't puncture or decide to detonate.

Back to the macbook air, I've also replaced the screen and USB-C ports. It's not that bad.

It's not a classic thinkpad, but my thinkpad from 7 years ago is still going strong.

Recently I decided to do a service on it for the first time, and I was absolutely stunned by how little dust had built up in the CPU fan and the interior in general, after 7 years of usage, often sitting on top of a couch or bed, near my long-haired Norwegian forest cat Rufus. All it needed was a litle puff of computer duster and it was good as new. That's very good design of the air intakes and is a huge factor in the machine's longevity.

I did computer repair professionally for a while, and one of the most common causes of irreparable death I saw in laptops was massive dust buildup in cpu fans and consequent heat damage to surrounding components. I'd sometimes see this in 2-3 year old laptops even.

Funny to think that something as simple as the shape of an air intake opening can have such a profound impact on the lifetime of a device.

The other thing that Thinkpads are unrivaled at is protection for the display. People like to say macbooks are sturdy, but they are quite prone to cracked displays because of Apple's obsession with smaller bezels. The thinkpad ofc has t34 style angled armor for its display. Can't remember ever seeing a Thinkpad with a cracked display. And I carry my Thinkpad around in just a backpack with no sleeve, often the Thinkpad is the only thing in there, and it regularly impacts the floor when the(thin-bottomed) backpack is put down while sitting down on the bus or getting home.

My x220 has traveled around the world multiple times. It's been through dozens of airport scanners, dropped multiple times, and shared a few cups of coffee with me by accident. It just keeps on kicking. My x220 running Debian is actually quicker and more responsive than my friend's modern Lenovo running Windows. I'd be tempted to upgrade to a lighter and thinner laptop, but I'm too attached to the keyboard.

I booted up my Thinkpad 760 XL from 1997 recently and let it run for a couple days. My WinZip was more than 9000 days past expiration, and it counted up one by one, the number just spinning ever upward for the better part of half an hour. 2 of the 3 batteries I had for it still charged to above 90% and drained at the normal rate, so I could still run it unplugged for around 6 hours. The batteries were modular, so you could have a cdrom, floppy, or battery in the first bay and a battery in the second bay. I normally ran it with 2 batteries and an external pcmcia cdrom that ran on double-a's. For a 28 year old laptop, it was still incredibly usable.

My old ThinkPad X220 is the laptop I miss the most. My employer at the time replaced laptops after 4 years and sent the old ones to be destroyed for compliance reasons. I begged them to just destroy the SSD and let me keep the laptop, but "company policy..." In a sensible world I would still have that machine.

Where does one find a replacement battery for a thinkpad that doesn't die after 6 months?

I spent $100 on what I thought was a legit and reputable local middleman for laptop batteries (of course they just buy from China), but even then first battery was half dead on arrival, and second free replacement was dead in around just under a year with rapid capacity decline after 6 months.

Well, next to a x220 from 2012, sits my eee-pc 701, from 2008. With no-moving-parts-inside, and "huge" soldered 4Gb ssdisk with arch-32bit. Been around the world (literally), a few times. The touchpad buttons started falling few years ago. i keep putting them back. Rarely used nowadays - but battery still holds about hour+ .. Well made tiny machine.

i guess i am a hoarder? Hate to throw away useful working things..

T480 (non-s)

- Love the dual batteries (one swappable) unavailable on Apple-design infested T490

- Retrofitted with magnesium top case and bezel mod

- 5 extended 72 Whr batteries with a third-party external charger from some dude in the UK

- Upgraded to fastest processor and discrete GPU (slow on its own but I use a Razer Core X eGPU with an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti, and can run basically any game on Steam.)

- 32 GiB of RAM

- WiFi 6e Intel AX210 (looking at WiFi 7 using the AMD-compatible Broadcom FastConnect 7800 / QCNCM865 that I run on my AMD 7900 Asrock DeskMini X600 electronic lab Windows-only things box that I'm typing on right now).

- Bought OE replacement most likely to fail: keyboards, pointing stick (and tips), trackpad assembly, and fans (I think I bought 6). Any loose USB, etc. connectors I can resolder myself.

- I might have a slight mainboard problem because I'm constantly running ThrottleStop to get higher, sustained Tdp with SpeedFan sending fans manually to full blast or otherwise the max freq randomly drops to painfully-slow 900 MHz max non-deterministically.

There's a fallacy often repeated for computers: "It's lasted a long time so it's going to keep lasting a long time." The thing is, failure of computer hardware is often due to manufacturing flaws. There's many that could have flaws, and they're subject to (varying) environmental stresses (both at build time at run time), so there's many failure modes.

It's difficult to know exactly when a server might fail. It might be within 1 month of its build, it might be 50 years. But what's clear is that failure isn't less likely as the machine gets older, it's more likely. There are outliers, but they;re rare. The failure modes for these things are well recorded, and the whole thing is designed to fail within a certain number of hours (if it's not the hard drive, it's the fan, the cpu, the memory, the capacitors, the solder joints, etc). It doesn't get better as it ages.

But environmental stress is often a predictor of how long it lives. If the machine is cooled properly, in a low-humidity environment, is jostled less, run at low-capacity (fans not running as hard, temperature not as high, disks not written to as much, etc), then it lives longer. So you can decrease the probability of failure, and it may live longer. But it also might drop dead tomorrow, because again there may be manufacturing flaws.

If given the choice, I wouldn't buy an old machine, because I don't know what kind of stress it's had, and the math is stacked against it.

Another x220 club member reporting in. My employer was getting rid of old machines a few years back, I got it for £20. The only work it needed was to resolder the left speaker, I think it already had an SSD in it.

It weighs less than 2kg and is perfect for light duties.

Bought an X220 years back and it unintentionally became my main laptop for a few years. Sold it on in much worse condition (I kept the keyboard) at a profit and got an i7 X230T instead, which has also somehow gone up in price since.

the X230 didn't last as long, the efficiencies of the M1 macbooks were too good to ignore. Gave it to my mother since because she wanted "an old laptop that just works"

I appreciate the author going over the "strategic value" of both, but it seems like a desktop would fulfill the same purpose (modularity, repairability, linux) as the ThinkPad? Or, considering he obviously requires a more powerful machine than the T400 for LLMs and video editing: the MacBook? What is the point of two laptops in this case?

I have a T450 with a issue that I haven’t been able to figure out for years: When I shut the lid, the screen will shut off, and when I open the lid again, I can hear the fans spinning and I know the laptop is on, but the screen WILL NOT TURN BACK ON. I have to hold the power button to force power off and then start it up again.

Issue happens in Windows and Linux. I tried disabling the sleep enhancement feature in the BIOS (can’t remember what it’s called).

So it’s just sitting on my bookshelf. Sad because it works great, but you just can’t close the lid.

My cupboard server at home is 2007 vintage ThinkPad I inherited from my father's discarded machines. The battery is gone and the CPU fan is shot so the processor sits at about 80 degrees C and gets thermally throttled very aggressively indeed should any work come its way (little does, and Debian doesn't ask much of it either). I didn't hold out much hope for its longevity but the damn thing just keeps running.

I wouldn't be surprised if its DVD drive is also okay and if you gave me a disc I could read the stuff off of it for you. Now there's something not everyone can do these days.

> MacBooks are not modular, completely proprietary, and have a perishability built into them.

I'm ok with this... maybe I'm odd? I view my laptops like I view my cars: I expect them to be replaced after a period of time. I'm NOT trying to maintain my old 2002 Honda Civic, and I'm NOT trying to maintain my older Macbooks. Once they leave Apple Care, I expect maybe another 12 to 18 months out of them, and then I move on.

I’ve been using my 10-year-old ThinkPad X250 and a decade-old workstation without feeling any need to upgrade. However, the possibility of running powerful local LLMs that require a lot of GPU or unified memory has finally increased my interest. It's my impression that laptops likely won’t see the major leap required in that area to run truely large LLMs for another 5–10 years, but I expect workstation capabilities to advance more rapidly, meaning I may upgrade in the next 1–3 years.

My current workstation setup includes 22cores/44threads decade old xeon plus four decade old Titan X GPUs with a total of 48GB VRAM, which is enough to run a decent local AI model, but I’m finally wanting more capacity. I haven’t been this interested to upgrade in a decade. NVIDIA’s new DGX-class offerings might convince me, depending on pricing and supply, although waiting a few more years to let things stabilize could be what I do. Still, it’s an exciting time for hardware, especially now that there’s a tangible reason to invest in more power for local AI.

I too maintain an older thinkpad! i want to say T430 so probably not as old, maybe got in 2012 or so? In any case, I have replaced: the screen, the battery, the power button (3D printed), the hard drive, the RAM, and the entire internal fan /cooling structure, and probably some more things I've forgotten. Why? Well it's all been over the years. But 1) because you can! like this post describes. Also: it's been nice to have a windows system around that I can remote into for certain tasks that are difficult or impossible on linux, like using the adobe suite. The last time something broke (the fan) I looked up how much a used T430 costs on ebay (~$40-$50) and buying a new fan was still cheaper. So I fixed it. It's been like that every time and it's still here.

I got an x220 jumping onto the hype but it was too small and too slow to use. Even though I'd maxed out the RAM, replaced the solder paste and was running a lightweight i3 environment.

I've only ever personally owned second hand Thinkpads and they're so great. But you should get the newest, reasonably priced one you can. There are so many affordable T480s/T470s out there or even the newer T14 models. They're still very serviceable and many still allow expansion with unsoldered RAM.

I am daily driving ThinkPad T14s Gen3 AMD that I bought off Ebay a year ago. It was opened but new with warranty until 2026 and I only paid for 600 British pounds for it. It is not as repairable as their other models but it has a premium quality build, a modern CPU and full Linux compatibility. It is also the first generation of T14 when they returned 16:10 screens, this aspect ratio is a must for coding. ThinkPads are seriously underrated.

So if I was looking for an older Thinkpad to throw something XFCE flavored onto, what are some model numbers to look for? I'm basically just looking to do word processing/browsing, but I assume I'll have to jack up the ram, maybe replace the main drive with an SSD...

A 17 year old ThinkPad is going to have extremely limited utility for today's applications. You can browse the web****, sure. You can replace parts, yes. But it still performs like dogshit for today's applications.

That said, I maintain a G4 Cube running an outdated OS to play Sim City and Sim Tower. And it's "upgraded" as much as possible.

****JavaScript not included

My T420 has a couple of upgrades: Memory (16GB) and SSD (250GB). That's it. It's bone stock otherwise. When my buddy's laptop screen cracked, we had a hard time finding a new one. He took my T420 to work every day for a few months, and it came back to me more banged up than when it left. It's fine. And it did the job admirably.

I need to do some automotive tuning/testing and guess what, the T420 is where its at for that, too. It's no longer good as a daily driver, but it'll do everything else just fine.

Having used old thinkpads I just don't really understand the appeal, especially with how poor old LCDs look. The trackpads are tiny, the battery life is abysmal, they're heavy and like an inch thick.

I daily use FreeBSD on 2011 (14 years old now) legendary ThinkPad W520.

Details here:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/freebsd-13-1-on-th...

Article is about FreeBSD 13.1 - but as time passed I followed all new versions and its at 14.2 now.

Config did not changed - still running strong.

Have a near 10 year old Librem (original 13"), works fine. But if it breaks I'm getting an old Thinkpad and putting coreboot on it.

Perhaps my usage is too light, no IDEs, no electron anything, no streaming, and few tabs because I shutdown the laptop instead of suspend it -- but I don't see what all the fuss is about needing to upgrade anything. 16gb of ram and an i5 is fine, even for the modern web, disable JavaScript and/or run ublock origin.

The new fangled ARM stuff ;) strikes me as essentially similar in character to smartphones: future e-waste with no possibility of repair. Choose wisely, choose x86 and modularity

Heh, I've got a T440 [T420i, see edit] I'm running FreeBSD on. Definitely tank status. It is even one of the 'rare' HD ones.

EDIT: I just turned it over to check and its a T420i Type 4177-X07 pretty much solid as a rock. I also discovered it would run with 16GB of RAM so there's that.

I too had a Thinkpad T400, in about 2013. Compiling my undergrad university course code made the music I was listening to skip. Modern software sucks, I can not imagine using a core2duo to do any task other than ssh/word processing

I have a T43, slowly working on a VESA driver for NeXTSTEP 3.3 (Yes there is a driver for OpenStep 4.2).

Using Ghidra and the source that Apple released. Final set up will be, NeXTSTEP3.3, DOS6.22 (AutoCAD R12, Matlab), WinXP (For Encarta 95 and Mindmaze) and NetBSD.

I have a 2nd generation iPad and its amazing how well it still runs.

Of course I can't do anything with it because you can't update the OS and without having a new OS you can't actually download or run anything from the shop.

My school recently (about 1.5 years ago) upgraded all their machines to ThinkPads(laptops & desktops)(11 gen Intel CPUs, desktops with A2000 GPUs), i seen other Thinkpad machines which try to copy Apple's design choices but these don't, they're big, thick, and have a lot of newer features, but also dropped some things which caused issues, for example: VGA port, there are quite few USB ports, if you know school environment you may know it's very rash environment we have HDMI to VGA adapters they constantly go bad because the cable is heavy & adapter too

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 that I absolutely LOVE! It is running the latest Xubuntu (24.04) with no problems. I have maxed out the RAM, installed an SSD, and even upgraded the CPU. I like it even more than my Dell E5440. No, I cannot play Minecraft on it that well, but it is a SOLID laptop and it feels good to hold and type on.

I just replaced the seat back on my 2005 Aeron chair as well. Feels good to take an old thing and make it feel new. These kinds of opportunities need to be designed into products, but maybe even more importantly, people need to value those design choices so much that they'll pay more for these types of things.

Lindy effect, as the author said, is for non-perishable items. ThinkPad as a brand could be included in this categoty, but an individual ThinkPad is not.

Good article, though.

I have a x220 with an adjustable screen. I broke the screen and the battery can't hold a charge. The power button cover is messed up. No hard drive cover. Last I looked up the screen install was complicated and expensive. Probably take over $200 I paid on eBay for it. It has an unlocked bios though which I've read is rare.

My daily driver is an x200 upgraded to 4gb of RAM. It runs as well as it ever did except the web has become slower and slower in that everything became an app. Things like GMail and YouTube are slow but honestly still fine, and in the worst case scenario I can jump onto my phone.

My main use these days is recording and mixing music through an interface from 2014. With Reaper the experience is even better than when I picked the laptop up back around 2010.

Still have a T420 I keep in my toolbox in the garage. Use it to watch videos when I'm working on my bike or car. It's covered in grease and oil. Sits out there through summer/winter, high humidity, etc yet always boots up when I plug it in.

ThinkPads back when were certainly good, sturdy machines, though I could never get along with the nipple. Another great older machine for me was the purple Sony Vaio - magnesium alloy, came with Win2K installed. I bought one, and then immediately bought another - the first I repurposed as a Linux server and I carried them both (easily) around for demoing this and that.

My latest, which I think is going to be in the ThinkPad and Vaio class is my new Asus Zenbook - brilliant light chassis and great performance.

I have bought laptop in 2013 asus rog gaming one i suppose before it as well. Still rocking with i7. But it can still work with windows 11 but tpm makes it useless. So I have tried windows 11 but it hangs a bit linux runs smoothly.

I'm really bummed to see how newer ThinkPads have given up that modularity. Some components are necessarily more integrated, and I was never going to be too sad if it was easier to buy a new laptop than to replace the CPU. But the fact that you could, for instance, trivially replace the hard drive made it ludicrously easy to get a lot of extra mileage out of old ThinkPads.

I used my T420 up till 2021.

I upgraded the screen to a 1920x1080 IPS panel.

SSD.

I have a full-fledged workstation for anything that needs heavy lifting and I primarily used the laptop as a device to remote into my workstation.

It was perfectly fine for standard web browsing and youtube.

Man, I knew it was going to be a T-series machine. I used to own T400s and T430. Just hardcore pieces of hardware. I fine-tuned my T430 so that it boots Archlinux in about 3-4 seconds. Loved tinkering with Linux, Xfce and coding on that machine. As I grew older I switched to a MacBook, like many others but I miss that machine.

I have an X201 (15 years old) and X220 (14 years) that I regularly use, running different flavors of linux. they've both been repaired and upgraded a few times. I'm spoiled by having an M2 Macbook as a daily driver - they can't match it for speed - but I love the ruggedness and resilience and I always will.

Mine's about 13. I just upgraded from Ubuntu 22 to 24 and I'm regretting it a bit. on 22 I could watch downloaded films on an external monitor but not stream video. I could live with that. But now it seems 24 uses just a little more memory and watching a downloaded video on the monitor makes it shudder... :(

As an E15 Gen 2 owner, I'm in awe of you wizards keeping these ancient ThinkPads alive - my modern entry-level machine suddenly feels inadequate despite having 4x the processing power!

My 2012 macbook pro would have still been working today had an unfortunate water damage incident not happen a couple years ago. It was theseuses macbook in a way. Trackpad had been replaced. Microphone replaced. Battery replace. RAM upgraded to 16gb. SSD upgrade. Disk drive swapped out and replaced with hard drive caddy making use of that extra SATAIII. It was no slouch. Sure it was only a dual core but 2.5ghz is plenty for a lot of things and most software doesn’t even make much use of multithreading anyhow. Not anything I’d try and run on that computer at least. It could handle creative suite and that was enough. Older games like TF2 worked great too like 80 or 100fps with a little config wonking. I can’t even get my replacement m3 pro running TF2 that well albeit over wine because valve doesn’t like arm.

My R60 which I got around in c. 2005 still works with Linux mint. I replaced the HDD and battery, but rest of the stuff including the orange light (to be used as night light) on top of screen frame still works! The hinges are a bit loose, so they need some support at times.

I have a stack of T40 and T60 series in my shed. All 32bit processors, but man what beautiful machines. I kinda feel like the guy with the classic Thunderbird in his garage.

> I continue to use my MacBook because I like using proprietary software like ... Alfred

Is this like saying you still boot Windows occasionally to use the Start menu?

My W530 is 13-ish years old and it's still my daily driver. It doesn't travel anymore (now wired into my desk) but still works great running Win 10. I code on this thing all day and so far have only had to replace a fan and give it an SSD upgrade.

Same but with my desktop computer. Its going on 16 years and still runs like new.

I always have a Carbon x1 lying around (old one) just because it's a great design to me being slim and nice keyboard

My X201t still works fine, only replaced it because I found newer desktops in a dumpster. Still no laptops in dumpsters though.

My last laptop, dell 14r i3 2nd gen, retired after 12 years.

It still works fine but the processor was slowing me down. New one's i3 12gen cost me $300

Hm, I find that comparison a bit off. As a lover of both, Thinkpads (original IBM and Lenovo followups) AND macbooks, I would like to say that it IS possible to maintain macbooks, at least the older ones. My 2012'er MacBook Pro is holding up, parts like the sata-cable and worn out fan were replaced and the ram was upgraded. My Powerbook 530 hat replacable parts, even the G3 Pismo(?) one and an white ibook g3 is also serviceable if you're patient. Same happend for the thinkpads 360, 570, 600, X41t, X61s, T60, T61... hell. We even had chinese colleagues ordering for motherboards for us from china with changed firmware to run 201'er boards in X200 tablets. I became frustrated on thinkpads when Lenovo tried to mimick Apples lightweight AIO design and their first chicklet keyboard frustrated me. I changed all to apple then, because if both do weird things, why not using the more power efficent M1 (imho, maybe that has changed.)

Do you remember the old thinkpad bios? Where the pointer was a flying duck? Do you remember opening a thinkpad and everything was labelled with colors and had small handles to change components quickly? Do remember changing ram on a powerbook? And do you remember how hard it was to find a new scsi disc drive for them?

Recently, I got an nearly mint T420 at work as I needed something for a mobile job and I just felt my love for the black boxes again. Damn, I miss those days but I also would miss my retina (apple) or 4k screen (Lenovo) if I had to decide between either an old machine or a new one. Luckily, I can keep a few

Wish there was a company that would build upgrades to old ThinkPads. A new main oard that would fit snugly in my x230 for example.

I can still run my X60 from 2006. Still, I am not sure about the premise here. My Macbook Air from 2013 also runs very solidly.

Meanwhile an old pentium processor still operates nuclear plant in india ..

the most annoying thing about new laptops is how difficult is to find replacement batteries that can be trusted and work well. The battery situation is a downgrade compared to the previous pluggable ones.

My computer is about that age as well, didn't know that was abnormal or special.

Mine is 12 years old, battery is dead but I use it as a server.

Got a 2005 Asus EEPC netbook hanging around that is still part of the family and does useful work. Battery still good (replaced twice) and a few scratches on the screen and a broken key. Took it on the train with me recently as I just needed to read some PDF files and so scpd them to it and threw it in a bag.

Looking after electronics, repairing stuff and treating it with respect is just part of my way. That one has an old Puppy Linux on it. Works fine.

The original sense of the word "materialism" is a respect for material things - it's a very positive word. But it changed in the 80s (probably after Madonna's "Material Girl" :) to mean something negative and shallow.)

Here's what happened to the thinkpads I've owned... R51 - sold R50p - died (bad VRAM) X201 - Ethernet chip died, speakers died, bad keyboard - sold X230 - died X230 - sold in relatively good health X1 carbon gen 4 - best laptop I've owned out of all of the previous thinkpads by far

People go on about thinkpad reliability, but I've had two straight up die on me...

To be frank, I don't get the hype for the older models. They're slow and clunky. The newer chiclet keyboards are fine once you get used to them.

WALL OF TEXT WARNING - SORRY! :-D

Recently pulled out a fairly modern Dell XPS that had a great OLED screen to read this thread and it was having some type of software or hardware issue.

Booted up my old reliable Thinkpad T420 (bought it from a Russian kid in SF years ago who upgraded it with an SSD and 12gb of ram when it was close-ish to new - it even has Cyrillic on the keyboard since he bought it in Russia originally!!). Besides a few windows updates and requiring a new battery (25$ aftermarket) the thing works great.

Forgot how damn nice those old Thinkpad scissor switch (I think that's the term) keyboards were - it truly feels almost mechanical keyboard like with a lot of travel. Did anyone ever sell a thin compact desktop keyboard with these style switches ? I could actually see it being very popular with people who like very low profile keyboards (like Apple desktops come with) but want something with more feedback.

I considered briefly upgrading the mainboard and internals to something more modern (there's an aftermarket Chinese company that sells replacements) as I think the T420 is the last Thinkpad to have the nice keyboards and key layout. Then again it was handling everything I threw at it without issues (even plays 4K YouTube fine!) probably because it has a decent i5 CPU from when they still had hyper threading and dedicated Nvidia graphics (the old semi "Quadro" NVS line 4200m). So many little features on these that are unique - instead of a complicated backlit keyboard for example it has a little downward facing LED light on the screen that can be activated by a hot key and illuminates the keyboard nicely at night. It's not as pretty or fancy but I love the simplicity and the fact you can also use it to illuminate a paper notebook or anything else.

One thing that does worry me is that Nvidia hasn't released updated drivers for this ancient chip since 2021 and I suspect eventually compatability will be an issue. I did have to disable hardware acceleration in the latest version of Libre Office (on Windows 10) to get it to work at all. I noticed in the BIOS it has options for Nvidia Optimus (meaning it also technically has an integrated intel GPU - currently disabled) so maybe worst case I will have to one day rely on that.

Thing is a real brick and battery life sucks but I also forgot how nice it is to have so many ports - it has dedicated eSATA (still super useful with an external SNES cartridge like enclosure to quickly read internal 2.5" and 3.5" drives) and a slim card slot where I had added two USB 3 ports. CD player wont see much use these days but a dedicated full size Ethernet port is great and an empty (I think they called it Ultrabay?) slot means I could theoretically throw in another battery or some random accessory. Also has full size display port for modern TVs and displays and oldschool VGA for legacy stuff. There's a fingerprint read I've never used (wonder if this even works with modern Windows?). Forgot I had even upgraded the WiFi chip in this thing (no soldering!) so it was getting great internet speeds as well.

I will say the cooling and fan situation though really suck - I forgot how damn loud the thing is with the fan even at 2/3 speed. I remember re-pasting the heat sink years ago thinking it might improve the situation and it didn't do much. Laptop was hitting 95C under load at first but after a little tweaking in the BIOS and the 99% trick to disable Turbo Boost it idles around 45-50C and hits about 85C briefly for high loads.

Would love a modern version of the T420 with a nice 16:10 OLED, the exceptional keyboard, tons of ports and expansion and repair-ability, a modern cooling solution, and less power hungry CPU. I really don't care if my laptop is thicker or a little heavier - the screen size is what restricts what bags I can put it in and the 14" diagonal format is pretty ideal. 13" I find too small and 16"-17" is getting way too big. I kind of even have grown to like the thicker bezels in a world that seems obsessed with minimising them - they really don't add too much overall size and I suspect it must contribute to the durability of the laptop and screen in general.

And of course gotta love a good track point mouse! With the mousepad disabled and my thumbs on the track point buttons you can transition from typing to moving the cursor around without ever needing to remove your hands from then keyboard - always loved the efficiency. I've had Dell and HP business class laptops with track points that also worked well but Thinkpad always had the best feeling thumb buttons.

Seriously though - why are there no slim scissor switch external keyboards out there ?! A compact 87 key format one would be the perfect travel keyboard (bonus if it had a track point and thumb buttons)!

Here is someone using the same T400 as daily driver:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1hakly7/the_think...

I used to do this, I have "retro modded" Thinkpads. I keep one still running (X61p) to use as a car computer. I've since switched everything I do that isn't on my Macbook to a Framework 13 AMD. The Framework 13, other than the case design being flimsier plastic vs magnesium alloy, is better at everything a new Thinkpad does than a new Thinkpad, and is roughly equivalent to an old with modern specs. As much as I wish that Lenovo would make a modern equivalent to the X60/X61, that's never happening, so Framework 13 is the best choice right now.

I still use my X1 carbon gen 1. 8gb ram is getting a little bit tight these days though. Sadly not upgradable.

>Despite their age, these business-class laptop are still serviceable and useful for web browsing, ‘office work’, and light coding.

In the world of Javascript frameworks where you download and execute 100 MB for a web application?

In the world of desktop applications written in Javascript?

hell same

This article compares two deliberately-different platforms.

One is vertically integrated and designed for thermal performance, lightness, thinness and attractiveness.

One is modular, and sacrifices thermal performance, lightness, thinness and attractiveness in order that the user can replace their own battery / RAM / etc

IMO the latter is a false economy. Yes, you can upgrade your RAM, but what about the bus speed, and limitations of the motherboard and CPU? You end up with a Frankenstein's monster of new and old parts, which are constrained by the lowest common denominator, and only useful for basic tasks.

Apple devices have high resale value. Far better, IMO, to sell your laptop after a few years, as a cohesive, intact package that retains some residual value, and then buy a new one with wholly modern parts that make sense together.

I mean sure, being able to keep a 17 year old laptop is alive, is awesome...

but why?

I get special hardware needs to live for a long time, like, an arcade machine, specialized equipment or something. but some random laptop?

what can it do, that a modern computer cant, apart from being repaired easily (lets ignore framework laptops for the sake of argument)

if his point is he just wants a framework laptop, it already exists.

About 14 months after purchase, screen bezel of my MacBook cracked. Apparently there was a tiny food crumb jammed between the screen bezel and the keyboard bezel. It was then that I found out that the screen bezel is made of glass. And that Apple recommends to wipe the keyboard before closing the lid.

I mean I know people who are still using 2010 MacBook Pro's with modern macOS versions. Just about any problem is fixable, it just depends on your skill level or how much money you wanna put into it. Another reminder to use whatever computer you want. All it has to be is the best for you.