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The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

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Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#81

Post by betaby »

OskarS wrote: post #45
baz00 wrote: post #10

Was. Despite owning one, I'd rather use my 14" M1 MBP thanks. Hell if I had to have a PC I've got a much much nicer Lenovo T14 gen 3 here! For the MBP in comparison: Better screen, performance, battery life, OS that actually mostly works, connectivity, sound. The keyboard isn't that bad either... As for ports, I don't need 'em. Last thing I want to do is drag a fucking drunken octopus around with me. Even as a ThinkP…

Not to mention the best touchpad in existence. One of my friends loathes everything Apple does (on principle, basically) and has tried several times to convince me that the ThinkPad X-series is just as good (or better) than an M-series MacBook Pro. Testing it out for a bit, there’s just no comparison. Even leaving the software aside, the hardware is just leaps and bounds better from Apple.

Most laptop in category over 1K$ have decent track-pads nowadays.

> hardware is just leaps and bounds better from Apple.

Dollar for dollar comparison? Not my experience.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#82

Post by baz00 »

chpatrick wrote: post #68
baz00 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame JavaScript and the deficient culture of insanity around it. The only things that are slow on any of my computers are honking great stacks of shit built on top of browsers with JavaScript. Sometimes I have three different fucking browser engines running these stacks of shit.

You can complain but if the inefficient sites work fine on 95% of modern computers it doesn't make business sense to optimize them. You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.

People really need to actually ask the users about this. I hear lots of frustration all the time and see end users with stacks of shit that barely work but it never gets upstream because the users think that's the status quo or are so burned out that they don't care any more.

Of course various client telemetry frameworks say it sucks but if no one is complaining then of course it doesn't make business sense to optimise them and carry on making it slightly worse until someone finally does moan about it.

But everything being crap is not an excuse to keep delivering more crap.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#83

Post by baz00 »

BSDobelix wrote: post #49
baz00 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-post edit: excuse the keyboard rant. They're not bad. Definitely better than the soggy ass Dell and Lenovo keyboards at least. But I would still rather have a proper keyboard with some travel. But the whole laptop experience is a compromise generally so I'm willing to live with it. My daily driver keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard on my Mac mini and that's fine as well. I only use it so I don't have switch back…

You should never go into politics's, now you made two main-group's mad, the Thinkpad lover's AND the Cherry "lovers", you now have only one minor group left who is not salty and that is the Plan9-Front who exclusively works with a 3-buttom mouse and drawterm ;)

You're right. If I got into politics the world would be ash in 30 minutes.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#84

Post by baz00 »

betaby wrote: post #80
baz00 wrote: post #10

Was. Despite owning one, I'd rather use my 14" M1 MBP thanks. Hell if I had to have a PC I've got a much much nicer Lenovo T14 gen 3 here! For the MBP in comparison: Better screen, performance, battery life, OS that actually mostly works, connectivity, sound. The keyboard isn't that bad either... As for ports, I don't need 'em. Last thing I want to do is drag a fucking drunken octopus around with me. Even as a ThinkP…

> Better screen I disagree. I own two M2 MB pros: 14" and 16" and a T14 gen2 with a 4K display. T4 display is definitely better, for starter it's matte. Only place where MB shines is battery life. Even track-pads on newer Lenovos are decent.

I think you need to get your eyes checked.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#85

Post by alpaca128 »

chpatrick wrote: post #68
baz00 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame JavaScript and the deficient culture of insanity around it. The only things that are slow on any of my computers are honking great stacks of shit built on top of browsers with JavaScript. Sometimes I have three different fucking browser engines running these stacks of shit.

You can complain but if the inefficient sites work fine on 95% of modern computers it doesn't make business sense to optimize them. You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.

The sites may work fine on modern computers but many don't have a modern computer. Not to mention it affects battery life either way.

> You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.

I wouldn't bet on that after seeing what some people have done with Gentoo.

And you only need to go back 5-10 years to find devices failing to run many websites and electron apps smoothly. My old laptop has an i7 CPU from 2016 and couldn't keep up anymore. And even on my new hardware from 2022 many things feel a bit sluggish.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#86

Post by baz00 »

ofrzeta wrote: post #61
baz00 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes not those classical-era legendary hybrid creatures that GNU provide on other platforms! (Edit: old commercial Unix person. I never liked GNU stuff. Sorry!)

Yeah, why use convenient tools when you can use commands like BSD 'find' that has a mandatory path. Trips me up every time I am using it on the Mac.

I didn't even know it wasn't mandatory on other platforms...

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#87

Post by jll29 »

> The X220 (like most of Lenovo's older X/T models) is built like a tank. Although the inner pieces are sourced from mostly plastic, the device is still better equipped to handle drops and mishandling compared to that of more fragile devices (such as the MacBook Air or Framework).

The poster is right, I dropped both an X220 and a MacBookAir (from similarly high desks), and the ThinkPad had no scratch despite being plastic, whereas the MacBookAir now has a dent. (I would not mind repeating the involuntary experiment with rugged (military versions) of DELL laptops when the occasion comes.)

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#88

Post by jll29 »

rijoja wrote: post #73
ghaff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think your last line is called for. That said, I would hope no one would read this article and think an x220 is actually a good computer for most modern uses.

I agree, what it is for me is partly a wish for computer manufacturers to create new computers like them! I.e. computers that are up-gradable, sturdy, has multiple batteries, and so forth! Saying that if you mostly live in a terminal with a ssh connection to another machine, they'll do very well! Thanks for sharing the link to them anyway, I at least appropriate it!

That's the point of repeating what we customers like: hopefully someone out there builds us what we will like, again.

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#89

Post by jll29 »

bronikowski wrote: post #50

I sit here, using X61s, compiling stuff, listening to music, writing code and articles, no care in the world, comfy as a kitten. I think being comfortable with less is my superpower.

Oh, how I loved that keyboard and form factor - only the 2 GB RAM limit was a little too tight for technical work, but a great office laptop at the time!

Re: The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop

#90

Post by somat »

danw1979 wrote: post #43

The 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 thing that really sold me on the utility of the nipple was trying to use a laptop while riding in a car on a rough road.

Up till then I mostly ignored it, mainly because I was used to trackpads. but that stupid red wart on my keyboard turned the experience from massively frustrating to actually usable.

So a niche use case to be sure. but it is definitely a feature I look for now.

See also: trying to use a touch screen in a moving vehicle.

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