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Thinkpad X210

geoff.greer.fm

141–150 of 490 posts

Re: Thinkpad X210

#141

This reminds me of just how much I hate whoever came up with chiclet keyboards and ruined laptops forever.

Didn't the Timex Sinclair and IBM PC Jr have that way in the dawn of the PC era? The PC Jr was especially egregious because normal IBM keyboards were pretty great in my memory.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#142

This reminds me of just how much I hate whoever came up with chiclet keyboards and ruined laptops forever.

Of course, with opinionated things like keyboards there will be people who love the exact thing you hate. Me, for example.

Which brings us back to standard forms, in which you could buy a different brands keyboard to suit you.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#143

This is a good time to bring up the fact there was never an industry-wide standardization effort for laptops. A standard form-factor means components would be re-usable between upgrades: the laptop case, power supply, monitor, keyboard, touchpad could all be re-used without any additional effort. This improves repairability, is much better for the environment, and means higher-end components can be selected with the…

Maybe we could try and write an open letter to companies and promise support even for less value at first. Chances are slim, but at least we would have done our part.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#144
post #25

Please, allow me to hijack this thread. What's the best Thinkpad I could get in Europe for ~200€ right now? (Off eBay of course). I don't care whether it's 13" or 15". Edit: thanks for all the replies.

I’ve got a T410 and a T430s. Keyboard on the 410 is way better, but I upgraded because I needed more memory and a stouter processor to do webpack compiles.

They’re kind of a pain to disassemble, but it’s doable.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#145

> Battery life is a little over 4 hours with the flush battery (55Wh) and 6-7 hours with the extended battery (80Wh). Not going to lie, that’s pretty horrible. > Battery life would increase by 50% if I got PC6 or PC8 idle states. The fan only turns on if I’m doing something intensive like compiling go or scrolling in Slack. lol. One of the things that really drives me nuts is my computer’s fan turning on when I know…

Sigh...

I got a Thinkpad E485 ( wanted to try AMD Ryzen mobile) and with Ubuntu installed, I get about 2.5-3 hours on the battery, which is... I forget now. I think it's 48Wh.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#146
post #134

What about the GPU? I wanted a ThinkPad but while they were overall good laptops none of them offered a decent GPU except for the very expensive and massive "workstation" models with Quadros on the level of a mid range GTX. I get that these aren't gaming laptops but why not give us the option of doing at least some gaming. And GPUs aren't just for gaming we did some projects at work that involved 3D rendering, plus t…

It'd be neat if this had thunderbolt (or wait for USB4) so you could use an external GPU. I've heard that it works for some people.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#148

I wonder why Lenovo doesn't lean into this. Clearly there is a market for people wanting this kind of machine to the extent they are jumping through hoops for it. I have a maxed out T470P (stock) and it's a cracking little machine and while the keyboard is by modern standards excellent that's because the bar shifted, it's still not as nice as the one on my old R50 was.

I suspect that their primary market is corporations, who have the resources to repair Lenovo's newest models or else have contracts for replacement.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#149

> Battery life is a little over 4 hours with the flush battery (55Wh) and 6-7 hours with the extended battery (80Wh). Not going to lie, that’s pretty horrible. > Battery life would increase by 50% if I got PC6 or PC8 idle states. The fan only turns on if I’m doing something intensive like compiling go or scrolling in Slack. lol. One of the things that really drives me nuts is my computer’s fan turning on when I know…

You say that's horrible, but I have never gotten more than around 5 hours from my MacBook Pros (my own and my work's). Maybe I could if the only thing I ran was Safari and iCal, but that's not my use case. If their number is from normal use, I'd consider it normal. :shrug:

iStat Menus (macOS app) gives you a HUD in the global top bar for things like network and CPU usage. It will quickly show you how many random apps and browser tabs will explode with resource usage over the course of the day. Or why your internet seems slow -- some app is saturating your bandwidth somehow.

Spotify, Slack, and Discord are major culprits, like if someone posts a single gif (are they animated manually by React?). But even some recipe website on a browser tab might go into 100% CPU usage because part of its ad-serving kit was blocked by ublock.

I consider it (or any app like it) essential for maxing your battery lifespan. Really wish it was built into macOS.

Re: Thinkpad X210

#150
post #25

Please, allow me to hijack this thread. What's the best Thinkpad I could get in Europe for ~200€ right now? (Off eBay of course). I don't care whether it's 13" or 15". Edit: thanks for all the replies.

I'm not sure what the price differences are in Europe but I snagged a X230 for ~that amount in the US and am fairly happy. My only regret is the TN panel screen; this can be avoided by getting an X230T or going out of your way to find one with an IPS panel (a lot of resellers won't state what kind of panel it has, though). I got mine from a company that only refurbishes Thinkpads and was pretty happy about it, so I'd suggest looking off eBay as well and seeing if there's any companies like that where you are.

As the article suggests, you can also upgrade it along the way if your budget increases.

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