Is this still needed if coreboot is installed? Will this work to make a slice (bottom) battery too?
It is needed as an alternative to crap noname bottom dollar Chinese replacement batteries manufactured with no quality control.
Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
21–30 of 105 posts
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#22The T420 has been one of the best Linux laptops I've ever owned.
Pretty much recommend this over System76 any day.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#23Apparently 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!
Any recommendations for a new battery for the X230?
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#24It really speaks to how badly innovation has slowed in chip design that a 10+ year old budget laptop is still comptitive hardware
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#25Apparently 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 still using an X60 which is several years before that. It turns out that if you avoid the bloated "modern" software (which unfortunately includes much of the web stuff these days), it's perfectly usable. I use it for native development, browsing lightweight sites like HN, and the usual "office" stuff like email, IM (IRC), taking notes, etc. Likewise, my desktop is a first-gen i7 from roughly 10 years ago, only slightly newer than that, and also feels more than adequate.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#26Apparently 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…
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Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#27It really speaks to how badly innovation has slowed in chip design that a 10+ year old budget laptop is still comptitive hardware
I wouldn't consider the ThinkPad line "budget" in any way --- that would be the IdeaPads.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#28Apparently 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 t…
The display quality is so far behind more modern laptops like the macbook pro though.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
The display quality is so far behind more modern laptops like the macbook pro though.
One of the mods that can be done is adding 1440p 14" ips display, like the LP140QH1-SPB1 from the carbon x1 gen 2. It's not as good as a new macbook pro display, but it's very nice to use.
Re: Open Source Thinkpad T420 Battery Design
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
The display quality is so far behind more modern laptops like the macbook pro though.
Note that ThinkPads’ display quality always had been far behind competitors across the industry, at times of launch of each models, not against future laptops.