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ThinkNext Design

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111–120 of 141 posts

Re: ThinkNext Design

#111

Post by Fwirt »

michaelsshaw wrote: post #2

I don't think I'd consider getting any laptop that isn't a used thinkpad at this point. I use my old ones as servers, which I affectionately refer to as the ThinkStack.

I had a Thinkpad X200T with a Core 2 Duo serving as my home router for a while, eventually I upgraded to a Dell Optiplex that my work was throwing away. Laptop as a router is great because they blow SBCs out of the water while preserving a modicum of energy efficiency. I do miss just being able to pop the lid open when I needed to troubleshoot something instead of having to lug the Optiplex into the office to attach a monitor and keyboard.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#112

Post by inatreecrown2 »

On the topic of old thinkpads, how are you all doing with the old batteries? I have 2 thinkpads, x220 and x230, both with removable batteries. When I leave home for longer I move these batteries to a place in the house where a battery fire would cause the least damage. Am I overthinking this?

Re: ThinkNext Design

#113

Post by acherion »

arianvanp wrote: post #36

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who…

I loved my T430s. I swapped the keyboard out for a backlit one, and took out the DVD drive and replaced it with a hot swappable second battery. I was running Ubuntu MATE on it, it worked very well for me. The ThinkLight was also great.

I now have a second hand T480s which is also a wonderful machine, but not as amazing as that T430s. I gave my T430s to my mother who uses it to run software (albeit via Windows now) for her sewing machine.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#114

Post by koyote »

arianvanp wrote: post #36

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who…

I had the T431s for over a decade as well.

Replaced the keyboard (orange juice spillage), screen (upgraded to a higher resolution panel), hdd (to an SSD of course), RAM, Wifi adapter (Wifi 6) as well as the battery.

I now use an X1 Nano and while it's nice (and very light!) I am sad that the upgradability is nowhere near as good.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#116

Post by rozhok »

teknopaul wrote: post #37
captain_coffee wrote: post #24

Has any of the newer ThinkPad models been upgraded to use a metal case or they are still made out of plastic? Asking as that is the main deal-breaker for me

I read somewhere that in Shenzhen you can get metal thinkpad clones with any modern hardware you like, made to order, one at a time for a resonable price. Not sure if it still exists

51NB. There was a blog post about it: https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/

Re: ThinkNext Design

#117

Post by brikym »

I don't get the love for ThinkPads. They must be the most overrated product I've used. I've had several ThinkPads (always corporate T series) and MacBooks in the house over the last decade or so. Every time I find the Macbook far superior in terms of just about everything. Battery, display touchpad, speakers, thermals, aesthetics. I could never get used to the nipple-mouse but using my thumb on a MacBook trackpad is very easy. The ThinkPads have slightly deeper keyboard travel that's about the only good thing I can say.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#118

Post by winrid »

brikym wrote: post #117

I don't get the love for ThinkPads. They must be the most overrated product I've used. I've had several ThinkPads (always corporate T series) and MacBooks in the house over the last decade or so. Every time I find the Macbook far superior in terms of just about everything. Battery, display touchpad, speakers, thermals, aesthetics. I could never get used to the nipple-mouse but using my thumb on a MacBook trackpad is…

This topic has been beaten to death but, they're much more durable and serviceable, and you can get them with nice IPS touchscreens (the MacBook oled PWM drivers make my eyes water, sadly)

Re: ThinkNext Design

#119

Post by winrid »

inatreecrown2 wrote: post #112

On the topic of old thinkpads, how are you all doing with the old batteries? I have 2 thinkpads, x220 and x230, both with removable batteries. When I leave home for longer I move these batteries to a place in the house where a battery fire would cause the least damage. Am I overthinking this?

If you're really concerned get a metal ammo box (they're like $15 at harbor freight in the US last I checked). I put my 40v ryobi tool batteries in these as they're known for going full firework.

Re: ThinkNext Design

#120

Post by Spivak »

worldsavior wrote: post #58

Kind of on topic, but how is Thinkpad with Linux compares to macOS? Battery life, driver support, performance, security, etc.

I use a ThinkPad with Linux as my daily driver and a MBP at work. I love my ThinkPad dearly-but it goes 0/4 up against the MBP.

The best thing I've done for my in practice battery life on Linux is enable aggressive suspend to hibernate, but it still doesn't compare to the all day use I get out of the MBP.

Driver support is really good, everything works, but it obviously can't compete with the 'perfect' driver support you get with macOS.

Performance is again really good but it's not M* performance, nothing is, but I'm happy with it. The OS is perfectly snappy and responsive.

Security is also quite good, Linux has fantastic TPM support now so you get passwordless full disk encryption. Fingerprint reader works and is well integrated into popular DEs. But it's not TouchID or Apple's secure coprocessor, SIP level extra. And just in general the Linux security model without SELinux or Flatpak sandboxing is user-based so you don't get protection against software you run behaving naughtily. The antivirus story is also not as good / nonexistent, but I've never really cared about those so nothing lost for me.

The advantage of the Thinkpad is you get to run Linux, it's about half the cost of the MBP, it's more than good enough as a daily driver, and you get all the full sized ports with no adapter.

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