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I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

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Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#231

Post by lmilcin »

Mine T440s survived being soaked twice. Once with hot latte, once with mineral water. Both times it was completely soaked.

It has internal battery which means it is not enough to power it down, you actually have to go to BIOS to turn the battery off. But when I spilled latte the keyboard stopped working and I was unable to power it down. I had to turn it around to open it up and in the process the sweet latte reached every single part of the motherboard.

The second time, I had the laptop in my bag. I put the bag on my lap on a bus stop and after some time I felt water on my legs. I yanked the laptop and from inside water started poring. I think there was at least 0.2-0.3L of water in it.

As I just moved I had no tools on my hand. I had to call my boss and tell him I need to take care of my laptop. I then drove to a shopping center to buy IPA, demineralized water and tools.

Water got absolutely everywhere. It was between individual leaves of LCD panel. I had to disassemble the laptop into its constituent parts including the display.

In both cases I have thoroughly washed the laptop (actually submerging it), first in water and then in IPA.

The laptop is still fine and other than a little bit of discoloration of the LCD panel and a small bit of hair from my beard within the panel which I missed when assembling it, you wouldn't say anything bad happened to it.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#232

Post by userbinator »

The Intel CPU-s had throttling issues that made them unusable for basic things like calls over Google Meet as they would throttle to 400 MHz.

That seems to be a common theme with the newer laptops. Look up "Intel DPTF" and power limits. They are severely throttled by firmware/drivers, long before they actually hit their (thermal) limits. There are various tweaks to unlock the full potential of the CPU, the easiest of which is to disable all the manufacturer crapware completely.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#234

Post by gsliepen »

My experience with laptops is that the most usable ones have a low TDP CPU with integrated graphics. This avoids overheating as much as possible, which means you get full CPU power for much longer, as well as having a longer battery life. To make sure it doesn't feel sluggish, get one with a lot of RAM and (NVMe) SSDs.

I dislike the lack of ports nowadays, but USB-C makes up for it. You can get USB-C dongles that provide Ethernet, HDMI/DisplayPort, some more USB ports and USB-PD passthrough all at the same time, so they replace a complete docking station, but they still fit in your hand. That and the fact that I can use the same charger or powerbank for the laptop, phone and the latest Raspberry Pies is great.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#235

Post by wildzzz »

Shakahs wrote: post #136
black_puppydog wrote: post #65

I find it funny how people seem to fixate so much on the fact that the author upgraded various components to say the title is misleading. As someone with apparently similar requirements, the take-away from this should be this: Even though significant work is required to keep these old machines working, some people prefer to do so. Crucially, they prefer it not because they love tinkering, but simply because the value…

The upgrades aren’t even substantial. The CPU, RAM, and fan are all original parts. You could’ve ordered this exact configuration from Lenovo. The only deviation from stock is the AC WiFi upgrade. I daily drive a T530, it was max spec already so I haven’t changed anything. It has more than enough power to do software dev.

I specced my T420 freshman year of college but had a budget from my parents so I skipped out on getting the upgraded LCD panel in exchange for the i7 CPU. That laptop lasted me a couple years until I grabbed a tablet X61 and then a X200 for taking notes towards the end of college. I'm now back to my T420 and have spent a little but of time upgrading things the drives, ram, wlan card, downgrading to a smaller 6 cell battery, and doing the ivyrain bios. I really regret going for the cheaper panel as upgrading to a 1600x900 is not a simple process and the cost is halfway to just buying something modern. My girlfriend was going to give me her old Lenovo Flex 14 when she got MacBook but she loves it more than the MacBook and I'm not really a fan of either laptops. I love my old T420 but I'm stuck between spending money on sentimental hardware or just buying something newer.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#236

Post by sealthedeal »

hahahaha when I saw that picture I immediately realized that this was just that a project but not real world use. Side note, I do love how much flexibility laptops that are not Mac have. Ive been using System76 laptops/desktops for a while, and I LOVE them and the options and upgrades you can make (I do not work for System) lol.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#237

Post by taubek »

kuschku wrote: post #228
taubek wrote: post #2

I have T460. I like the fact that it has two batteries, good casing, great touchpad (unlike the one that I've had on T440s), holes for liquid drainage... When you put SSD into it, and have 16GB of RAM I don't see it lagging behind more modern ThinkPads. In my opinion, new is not always batter :) The only thing that I miss on my T460 is better graphic adapter. I have Intel HD but even with it I can play games up to Fr…

I’ve got the T470 (as it has the old docking + charging port PLUS thunderbolt), modded it with the N140HCG-GQ2 panel (1080p, 100% sRGB, 400 nits, 8bit), with a 2TB NVMe SSD, 32GB of DDR4-2400MHz RAM, etc. I've got two 75Wh batteries I can switch between. Overall I get great performance even for stuff like running IDEA and a spring web app in a docker container, and I get 13h+ of battery life out of it (+10h if I swit…

I have a Ultra dock for a long time now... And I know that if I ever upgrade from T460 to the T470 will be the last model for quite some time. This is the last one that fits onto my existing docking station. I must say that I prefer mechanical docks over USB/TB and other types.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#238

Post by CobaltFire »

Aeolun wrote: post #179
maccard wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, definitely not true for all programmers. I guess with games, if you cannot get real time with instant compiles development experience with 120fps running 8k in debug mode, there is a room for improvement. Day to day that doesn't matter. I work on multiplayer games, and being able to run 8/12/16 clients on one machine at 10 fps at ultra low graphics is far more important than being able to run stupid resolution…

> the 3090 scores twice what the M1 GPU does It helps that you can buy a maxed out macbook pro for the price of a single 3090 though.

A 3090 is $2300 right now, even paying the scalper tax.

How much M1 MacBook Pro is that getting you?

That said, I do wish the M1 GPU could game; my downtime hobby is the only thing stopping me from buying one.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#239

Post by wildzzz »

chj wrote: post #227
jart wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using my Thinkpad T420 since 2011 just fine and I haven't needed to do anything to it.

How's the display going?

If they had the foresight to spend the money on the bigger display, they are probably just fine. It's not Rentina quality but it's good enough for something to use at home for non-work.

Re: I went back to using a ThinkPad from 2012

#240

Post by tristor »

bjarneh wrote: post #143
dotancohen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a dozen ergonomic and mechanical keyboards. The feel of the keyboard is very important to me, just like a good fountain pen. So when my employer was giving to me a new Thinkpad I was excited. Thinkpad was the only laptop whose keyboard I could stand. This T-14 has a keyboard as horrible as any Asus. It looks exactly like the standard Thinkpad keyboard, but the key travel, the bottoming-out, the spring pressu…

The corner cutting seems to have started the moment IBM sold ThinkPad to Lenovo. The fact that ThinkPad used to sell laptop keyboards for desktop use, says it all: http://www.notebookreview.com/picture/?f=48072 It didn't take more than a couple of years before Lenovo discontinued this gem either; in favor of a cheaper alternative (in terms of production cost).

Everyone knew this was going to happen as soon as the sale was announced. Say what you want about IBM, for decades it was a company run by and for engineers, which meant that things like quality and tolerances were important product requirements, and they sold it to an entity essentially created to do acquisitions of IBM IP based out of China so it could be manufactured more cheaply. Lenovo did exactly what every expected, and it's honestly a miracle that modern Thinkpads are as good as they are, because they still stand neck and neck with Dell, where by all expectations they should be scraping the barrel.
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