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I am running webrender under xwayland, and it is super smooth. This system is damn near the best laptop I have ever had. I have replaced the bios with core boot

I am running webrender under xwayland, and it is super smooth. This system is damn near the best laptop I have ever had. I have replaced the bios with core boot and have a fully encrypted luks disk. I get near 15 hours battery life. All that for the price of $150 + plus a few premium upgrades (ssd, and ips panel). My T450s cost me ~$2700 new, and it is faster in some cases, but the cost/performance ratio just does not pay off to have such a expensive system these days. Should also note, that because the x220 has a higher TDP than newer ultrabooks I can get a few things done faster. The last time I tried emacs compiles near 20 seconds faster on the x220 than a T450s. I also found a neat hack, not related to the x220, but any laptop really. When I am waiting on long compiles I take a compressed air can and turn it upside down and jet the cool liquid into the heat sink. The temp drops and you can shave a bit of time off a compile or what not if you have the wherewithal to continue to deliver small shots of cool fluid. I mostly feel okay doing it because it is only a $150 laptop...

lotyrin 8y ago
Man, I want an X220 with newer gen chip in it. The new usb-c side dock solution, worse keyboards, and the ultrabook form factor's thermal properties...
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  Well, then you might look into this guy who modifies x200/x201's with 8th gen Intel chip sets. I think this is a good starting point to find more information about it. Its called the x210. http://www.cnmod.cn/x210 http://www.cnmod.cn/x210
  - byproxy 8y ago
    Wow, that looks really cool. Do you happen to know how much they cost?
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      If I recall -- I was reading the board + CPU was around $450, and you can pick up a x200 for ~$100 and do the mod your self. The price goes up on the x200/x220s the nicer they look, and if they work, but you are looking at a max price of $250 if you don't wait for the good deals.
      - byproxy 8y ago
        Ah, that's actually pretty reasonable. I've been looking for an x220 as a cheap laptop to throw a BSD on and tinker, but was always a bit hesitant due to the old architecture. This would definitely solve that! (I also like that the person in your link is offering a nice display upgrade.)
fyfy18 8y ago
Do you not feel limited by the CPU? I had a Macbook Air with a 4th gen Core i5 and at times it was really slow just for day to day browsing. Maybe that was just thermal throttling though. Now I've switched to a T470s which seems a good trade off between size, connectivity and performance. It's roughly the same size as my Macbook Air (13", 2014) but a little lighter, and has ports for HDMI, Ethernet, USB 3.0 x3, audio, USB-C/TB3 and dock connector. I only get maybe 6 hours on the battery which is a bit disappointing though...
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  I use an X220i, which has a Sandy Bridge i3-2310M CPU, with 8GB RAM and an SSD. I have no slowness issues in Firefox at all.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  No not at all. I do everything on this system -- except gaming, which is a waste of time mostly -- I already clocked in what 3 or 4 years of real time on WoW? The needle is out, and I am going to stay clean this time :p But DK solo tanking was amazing while it lasted. World PvP prot pally was also fun. The S series starting in the T460 I think is crap. Having the big honking external battery is a must. The non S series are as big as the T450s were and you get all your ports too. My T450s gets over 20hours battery life with the extended battery. That being said I wonder if you could get more life out of your T460s. Check with powertop how many watts you use in idle. You should be able to get it to 3w (I can get mine t450s to 2.5w) idle. Use the turntables in powertop -- set them to "GOOD", you can write a systems service to enable them on boot. For me the key to saving battery life is to optimize how much you use when you are not using your laptop.
hddherman 8y ago
Shooting liquid propane/butane into your laptop is absolutely insane. How does it even help lower the compile times if the CPU probably doesn't even thermal throttle? An X230 that I have can handle a high load without thermal throttling and yours should not be much different, unless the CPU thermals exceed 100C, at which it does start throttling. Please check your cooling setup and replace the thermal paste with something high quality if needed as what you are doing right now is dangerous.
- driverdan 8y ago
  I downvoted you because canned air is not propane or butane.

lotyrin 8y ago

Man, I want an X220 with newer gen chip in it. The new usb-c side dock solution, worse keyboards, and the ultrabook form factor's thermal properties...

mbrumlow 8y ago
Well, then you might look into this guy who modifies x200/x201's with 8th gen Intel chip sets. I think this is a good starting point to find more information about it. Its called the x210. http://www.cnmod.cn/x210 http://www.cnmod.cn/x210
- byproxy 8y ago
  Wow, that looks really cool. Do you happen to know how much they cost?
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    If I recall -- I was reading the board + CPU was around $450, and you can pick up a x200 for ~$100 and do the mod your self. The price goes up on the x200/x220s the nicer they look, and if they work, but you are looking at a max price of $250 if you don't wait for the good deals.
    - byproxy 8y ago
      Ah, that's actually pretty reasonable. I've been looking for an x220 as a cheap laptop to throw a BSD on and tinker, but was always a bit hesitant due to the old architecture. This would definitely solve that! (I also like that the person in your link is offering a nice display upgrade.)

fyfy18 8y ago

Do you not feel limited by the CPU? I had a Macbook Air with a 4th gen Core i5 and at times it was really slow just for day to day browsing. Maybe that was just thermal throttling though. Now I've switched to a T470s which seems a good trade off between size, connectivity and performance. It's roughly the same size as my Macbook Air (13", 2014) but a little lighter, and has ports for HDMI, Ethernet, USB 3.0 x3, audio, USB-C/TB3 and dock connector. I only get maybe 6 hours on the battery which is a bit disappointing though...

KozmoNau7 8y ago
I use an X220i, which has a Sandy Bridge i3-2310M CPU, with 8GB RAM and an SSD. I have no slowness issues in Firefox at all.
mbrumlow 8y ago
No not at all. I do everything on this system -- except gaming, which is a waste of time mostly -- I already clocked in what 3 or 4 years of real time on WoW? The needle is out, and I am going to stay clean this time :p But DK solo tanking was amazing while it lasted. World PvP prot pally was also fun. The S series starting in the T460 I think is crap. Having the big honking external battery is a must. The non S series are as big as the T450s were and you get all your ports too. My T450s gets over 20hours battery life with the extended battery. That being said I wonder if you could get more life out of your T460s. Check with powertop how many watts you use in idle. You should be able to get it to 3w (I can get mine t450s to 2.5w) idle. Use the turntables in powertop -- set them to "GOOD", you can write a systems service to enable them on boot. For me the key to saving battery life is to optimize how much you use when you are not using your laptop.

hddherman 8y ago

Shooting liquid propane/butane into your laptop is absolutely insane. How does it even help lower the compile times if the CPU probably doesn't even thermal throttle? An X230 that I have can handle a high load without thermal throttling and yours should not be much different, unless the CPU thermals exceed 100C, at which it does start throttling. Please check your cooling setup and replace the thermal paste with something high quality if needed as what you are doing right now is dangerous.

driverdan 8y ago
I downvoted you because canned air is not propane or butane.