Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
github.com
Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
1–10 of 105 posts
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#2Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#3Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
The T420 is old, but still has some advantages over laptops currently on the market. Up until 2018 many laptops still had dual core cpus like the i7-7500u which are worse than the i7-3840qm that can be put in a T420, and the few currently available laptops that have 1440p displays and quad core cpus are still pretty expensive. Some other reasons people still use the laptop are being able to use coreboot with it and the upgradability of it. It's really cheap to upgrade the laptop to work with bluetooth 5 and wifi 6 and multiple ssd's can be added using the two 2.5" slots and the one msata slot. Using this, someone could make a large 150wh or even 200wh battery that would let this laptop last longer than most new laptops.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#4Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
Not quite the same model, but I use an X230 (2013 model) as my primary machine at the moment (not counting the company-provided machine I use for work). It’s still a really nice machine, easy to service, and they’re dirt cheap on eBay!
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#5Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
I bought a T420, used, for $200 when I went away to college. I added an SSD to it, making the total around $300.
Six years later, it's still my only personal laptop: it's got all the specs I need[1], and works perfectly with Linux. The only downside to it is finding new batteries; I suppose that's why TFA is building their own ;)
[1]: All I do on it is browse the web, watch videos via MPV, send emails, and program.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#6Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
I'm running a T530 as my everyday rig, with Windows 10. I maxxed out the ram and got a ssd. It's fast, I can have numerous Chrome tabs, Sublime, and pdfs open, and quickly switch between them. Youtube videos play seamlessly. I can have multiple Kicad projects open. I genuinely don't feel the need for a faster computer.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#7Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
The T420 is the last model to feature the traditional ThinkPad keyboard (except for the special 25th anniversary ThinkPad), though it is possible to install the T420 keyboard in a T430. There is still a segment of ThinkPad users who prefer using the traditional keyboard, and some of them are willing to forego the performance and other features of more recent laptops in order to use the traditional keyboard. There is even a market for modded older ThinkPads with newer components, such as the X62 and x210 projects.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#8Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
The keyboard is the appeal; the T420 was the last model with the classic "7-row" keyboard design. The T430 and later have Macbook-style chiclet keys like everything else these days. It's one of the best portable SSH clients you can ask for, so the CPU power of the ThinkPad itself isn't that relevant.
Some people go the opposite route of modding the old keyboard onto newer ThinkPads: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Classic_Keyboard_on_xx...
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#9Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
My current computer is a 2009 MacBook Pro running Ubuntu. Im not poor or anything, it just does what I need- so why spend any money on anything more?
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#10Apparently those Thinkpads are from 2011-2012, that's old. What do people do with such old devices that makes building a battery from scratch worthwhile?
Many of the changes to Intel CPU design over the past decade have been related to power efficiency, not necessarily performance. If you don’t care about trying the get every minute on battery, older machines like this are still perfectly usable.