My IBM ThinkPad T41 is about 20 years old and just won't stop.
When it does, maybe I'll think about a Lenovo.
ThinkPad T420
21–30 of 50 posts
Re: ThinkPad T420
#22As nice as some of old-ish business and workstation laptops like Thinkpads, Latitudes, and Precisions are in some ways, one aspect that’s looking increasingly aged is battery life and brick size. I don’t necessarily need my laptops to be powerhouses, but it’s nice to not need to carry the charger brick most of the time, and on the odd occasion I do it’s better if it’s not literally a brick. I have a circa 2008 15.4”…
You can use a modern USB-C charger with old laptops, you just need a cable. I was successfully charging my T420 for years using a Baseus GaN 65W charger.
Re: ThinkPad T420
#23I do not agree. ThinkPad W520 is so much better while having all features of T420 and more. Things in W520 is better: - FullHD (1920x1080) screen instead of only 1600x900 - USB 3.0 ports instead of only USB 2.0 ports - powerful GPU instead of limited one - will have 4 cores and 8 threats instead of 2 cores and 4 threads - has 4 RAM slots so 32 GB RAM is possible In case you really need smaller size - the T420s is bet…
I like the X220 but it runs hot
Re: ThinkPad T420
#24What is this post? Are we just posting a spec sheet and making claims in the title now? Why is the last one?
I don’t think so. I have some thinkpads, I have the revered x220, it was great until I used a good current laptop. Newer ones are just better. It’s ok if you want to use older hardware, no one is saying you shouldn’t, but go out in the world and be honest. New one Doesn’t get as hot, battery actually lasts like 3 times longer without having to add 8lbs of lithium, and the touchpad is actually usable (I don’t get along with the nipple in the middle of the keyboard). Same can be said about the t420. I have an x1 too, the screen is ok, much lighter, touchpad is much better, but it’s plasticky and the speakers are as good as not having any.
Compare these with a MacBook Air and idk man, I rather have the much nicer screen, speakers and touchpad. The keyboard is not that much worse, I may even prefer it. No heat, you can use it on your lap, lighter, longer battery life. If I want more ports I have a desktop.
Re: ThinkPad T420
#25I do not agree. ThinkPad W520 is so much better while having all features of T420 and more. Things in W520 is better: - FullHD (1920x1080) screen instead of only 1600x900 - USB 3.0 ports instead of only USB 2.0 ports - powerful GPU instead of limited one - will have 4 cores and 8 threats instead of 2 cores and 4 threads - has 4 RAM slots so 32 GB RAM is possible In case you really need smaller size - the T420s is bet…
The w520 is bigger and heavier (it’s in the name) are you confusing models?
Re: ThinkPad T420
#26I just bought a second hand T480 last week and installed Fedora in it. I'm loving it but the resolution 1336x768 is underwhelming.
I ended up going with a second hand T580 last year myself. It was a hard choice between the T480 or the T580, but I've been extremely happy with my decision. It's now maxed out with 64GB ram, and a second SSD in the WWAN slot. I'm running Debian Sid with ZFS root on it.
Re: ThinkPad T420
#27What is this post? Are we just posting a spec sheet and making claims in the title now? Why is the last one? I don’t think so. I have some thinkpads, I have the revered x220, it was great until I used a good current laptop. Newer ones are just better. It’s ok if you want to use older hardware, no one is saying you shouldn’t, but go out in the world and be honest. New one Doesn’t get as hot, battery actually lasts lik…
When the first Lenovo Thinkpads came out people trashed the new keyboard in particular as being a weight cutting compromise which was inferior to a true IBM keyboard. Although people seem to have forgotten this scandal and now wax poetic over the superior T420 7 row keyboard.
Nowadays? It's a computers which has the sole strength of having a good keyboard while simultaneously having a 1600x900 230 nit screen that can't render text all that well, it's bulky and heavy, it runs out of battery fast, it can't do large swathes of modern internet activities (like high-resolution video), and it burns through battery cells relatively fast compared to a new laptop so it's not even as low maintenance as it's chocked up to be.
I've noticed quite a few people who are taken with this idea of late aughts/early 10's tech in general, not only these Thinkpads but they buy old smartphones with replaceable batteries and desktop computers and wired headphones. I got rid of my old tech and became less sedentary and healthier because something common to all of it is the requirement to be tethered to something more often compared to modern tech. In the case of the Thinkpad, I always used my laptop next to a power outlet, and now I just don't care where I use my laptop because I moved on.
Re: ThinkPad T420
#28I do not agree. ThinkPad W520 is so much better while having all features of T420 and more. Things in W520 is better: - FullHD (1920x1080) screen instead of only 1600x900 - USB 3.0 ports instead of only USB 2.0 ports - powerful GPU instead of limited one - will have 4 cores and 8 threats instead of 2 cores and 4 threads - has 4 RAM slots so 32 GB RAM is possible In case you really need smaller size - the T420s is bet…
T420 can be modded easily to have 1080p full hd IPS screen, 4C8T ivy bridge CPU and 16GB ram. The only thing it's missing is usb3 which can be solved with a cardbus extension card. W520's full hd screen is not IPS (and can't be modded) so viewing angle is somewhat limited (but still ok for a laptop of its age). The discrete GPU on w520 is indeed better than the integrated GPU in ivy bridge but still hopelessly outdat…
> The discrete GPU on w520 is indeed better than the integrated GPU in ivy bridge but still hopelessly outdated for pretty much any graphics intensive task today... Btw X220 can be modded to have a 2K 16:10 display
I just replaced my long suffering w520 for the daily driver... with an HP z840. Yes, I intentionally stick with old business-class hardware. I rarely used it as a laptop though - it lived on the docking station and the displayport happily pumped out 4k at 29.xxx hz. No, it couldn't handle modern-ish FPS at that resolution - but it could handle the strategy/rpg games I occasionally play and I never felt constrained with the hardware video decoder. As far as mods - you can definitely hotrod a w520. The CPU is socketed, and my memory is hazy - but I remember it being very easy to exceed the stock thermals with a non-stock CPU. RAM is socketed, and exceeding the spec capacity/clock is pretty common. Various bios mods are out there. For the really adventurous, undervolting isn't that hard - because the board schematics and logic diagrams have been floating around forever.
Re: ThinkPad T420
#29I just bought a second hand T480 last week and installed Fedora in it. I'm loving it but the resolution 1336x768 is underwhelming.
You can get a much brighter 1080p panel for it for not a lot of money. Do a search on reddit for T480 display upgrades.
The install itself is pretty easy, and it is so much better than the shitty 768 panels that most of these secondhand 480s came with.
Edit: typo
Re: ThinkPad T420
#30I do not agree. ThinkPad W520 is so much better while having all features of T420 and more. Things in W520 is better: - FullHD (1920x1080) screen instead of only 1600x900 - USB 3.0 ports instead of only USB 2.0 ports - powerful GPU instead of limited one - will have 4 cores and 8 threats instead of 2 cores and 4 threads - has 4 RAM slots so 32 GB RAM is possible In case you really need smaller size - the T420s is bet…
T420 can be modded easily to have 1080p full hd IPS screen, 4C8T ivy bridge CPU and 16GB ram. The only thing it's missing is usb3 which can be solved with a cardbus extension card. W520's full hd screen is not IPS (and can't be modded) so viewing angle is somewhat limited (but still ok for a laptop of its age). The discrete GPU on w520 is indeed better than the integrated GPU in ivy bridge but still hopelessly outdat…
The W520 screen is actually decent though. At least the one in my unit. I had the 1600x900 T430 (which I think is the same panel option as T420) and it was awful with horrible viewing angles for anything not directly head on.