The keyboard and keyboard layout are really great and primary laptop still is an X220T.
However, the resolution is horrible (1366x768), the CPU is slow, it's heavy, mine has no USB3 and the charger is quite bulky.
The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
51–60 of 148 posts
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#52I have an X220 (and a bunch of other Thinkpads) and they're nice hardware but come on, let's not go overboard. Those CPUs kinda suck now. Slow performance and they run hot. I also think people overstate the "build quality" of old ThinkPads a lot. They have a bunch of really thin plastic parts all over the place that have a tendency to crack easily. Yes, they're repairable, but they show wear a lot more than your aver…
As someone who used the X220 for quite a long time I can agree.
- The chassis has a bunch of weak points so build quality is not overall excellent and that shows after some time. Especially bad is that part above the screen where the antennas are mounted inside. It's made out of plastic and is only flimsily connected to the magnesium back panel at either side, if it breaks you have to replace that whole back panel.
- That Sandy Bridge CPU turned out to be an exceptionally future proof choice but after >10 years it shows its age. Even if it's fast enough for your use case, modern CPUs are just much more power efficient.
- USB 2.0 only, except on the i7 motherboard, not the most popular configuration so harder to source for a good price. Alternatively an express card can be used but did not have that good of an experience with those, also the mounting mechanism on the X220 is not sturdy enough.
- Good luck finding a proper battery pack nowadays. Even if you still find an original one, after years in storage they tend to loose capacity quite fast. Most third party ones are garbage from day one.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#53I have a few X220s and I really love them. I would never say they could be my daily driver or come close to the capabilities of today’s machines. But for me they really have a place. For hobby and random uses they are great. For a machine to hook up to various amateur radio equipment or some arduino gizmo or to try out that random Linux distro or hobby/toy OS… In this kind of role this machine absolutely rocks.
Pretty much the same for me. I have 4 X220s (one i7) all sitting lid closed in a custom rack that I built for them. Two are running Debian, one is running Fedora, and one is running FreeBSD. All four run Plex Media Server. I use them for backups and testing/experimentation on various things.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#54> Resolution: 1366x768 Yeah I'll pass. But for sure you have extremely useful VGA port if you want to burn your eyes with CRTs.
It also has a full size display port.
The primary use case for that VGA port was projectors installed in conference rooms. At its time in many cases the only thing you got was some VGA cable.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#55The trackpad and “nipple” on thinkpads are awful to use. Maybe if you run full screen emacs all day and everything is a keyboard shortcut then this might seem like the best laptop in the world… .. but I’ll die on Apple hill, clutching my 2012 aluminium i7 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, with it’s glorious glassy trackpad, 1000BaseT cable still connected.
Having worked with the nipple for the better part of 15 years, I disagree. Although I do appreciate and have switched to MacBook pro with their incredible touchpad, after the initial switch I had an infected tendon in my underarm.. managed to find an RSI free way of operating it, but the big plus of the nipple is the lack of motion in your wrist and arm. And your hand is very close to typing position as well.
It does take a while to become fast and precise, but when I was, it worked wonderful.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#56Author really needs to try the M2 MacBook Air. It's a masterstroke. And I've used the classic ThinkPads.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#57The trackpad and “nipple” on thinkpads are awful to use. Maybe if you run full screen emacs all day and everything is a keyboard shortcut then this might seem like the best laptop in the world… .. but I’ll die on Apple hill, clutching my 2012 aluminium i7 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, with it’s glorious glassy trackpad, 1000BaseT cable still connected.
The nipple was and is fine but decent trackpads were absent from thinkpads for a very long time.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#58When a technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I tell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad amd rebuild it to fit their desires. Then I explain the differences in the many product lines of ThinkPads.
When a non-technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I pause, and eventually yell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#59>Resolution: 1366x768 glad to see there's not even an attempt to defend this.
The resolution is the least of the problems too - it’s not even IPS (at least on my otherwise-excellent X220). Perhaps one day I’ll do the surgery to change it out though…
Both IPS and non-IPS variants were available. The non-IPS panel is and was garbage.
Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
#60Thinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now. Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
> Thinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now.
I agree with that one, those models had their build quality issues and for today's standards they are simply outdated overall.
> Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
I don't think so for those models. The X230 is more or less just a refresh of the X220, except for the "new" keyboard. The X240 had no physical trackpoint buttons but instead that universally hated "clickpad" (did only last one generation I think). Also X240 onwards switched to those Intel ULV CPUs so you did not really get much more performance and if I remember correctly repairability also diminished a bit.
There were a few thinkpad models in the last decade which stood out and were you could legitimately argue that a newer model is not necessarily better in many aspects. The X220 was one of them. Similarly, in another category, the T440p which offered an insane amount of (after some years low cost) upgrade options.
But as said, last decade, now those are just old laptops.