7 ms·

Thinkpads last insanely long, too. I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong except for, as in your case, a degraded battery.

Thinkpads last insanely long, too. I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong except for, as in your case, a degraded battery. My grandparents used to play Freecell on a very early IBM Thinkpad (manufactured in 1993, I think) that I picked up for free in a garage sale in 2001. This machine lasted well into 2005, and probably still works today. Highly recommend trying them out. These days you can get equivalent performance to Macbook Pros for maybe 60% of the cost.

dmd 6y ago
I have a mid-90s Compaq laptop that still works.
- timbit42 6y ago
  But do you use it daily as your primary system?
ryukafalz 6y ago
>I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong except for, as in your case, a degraded battery. Fortunately most ThinkPads of this era had removable batteries, so this isn't as big of a deal as it would be for most laptops today. I'm currently using an X230 that I bought off eBay as my main personal laptop; it needed a new battery when I got it, but otherwise works great.
- soperj 6y ago
  I'm using a x230 as well, where'd you purchase your battery? mine's nearly done I feel.
  - bestnameever 6y ago
    I find it pretty difficult to buy a reliable laptop battery unless I can get it from the mfg.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    eBay, honestly. Got an unopened Lenovo-branded one.
cannam 6y ago
> I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong Indeed an early 2014 Thinkpad is my main work development box. It's a T540p with the excellent 3K matte screen. Admittedly I use it like a desktop computer, plugging in a keyboard and mouse (and, now, camera), so there's very little wear and tear, but in my mind it's basically still a new computer.
- barrkel 6y ago
  I'm stuck with a T540p and it's no good thermally IMO. It was slower than the desktop it replaced and throttles when asked to work, which is pretty frequently with a few browser instances, a few ides and few databases all running with a build. Add a concurrent video conference - all too frequent these days - and it practically freezes every so often. Only 16G really doesn't help. Am looking forward to something bigger, soon...
  - cannam 6y ago
    Does yours have the discrete GPU option? Mine doesn't, and I imagine that could make a big difference thermally.
encom 6y ago
Thinkpad brigade checking in. Still using my X220 running Gentoo. The last ThinkPad with the good keyboard. From my cold dead hands.
minerjoe 6y ago
This. My main development machine is a Thinkpad T60, manufactured in 2006. Still running strong. For me, it is still a supercomputer. 2x1.8GHz. 4G ram. 1400x1050. Everything I develop on it screams on anything modern. When it breaks I'm planning on moving backward in time to see if there is an older model that I can adapt to, probably without spending a single dollar, just acquiring a thrown away computer. Limitatations can enable innovation.
- cannam 6y ago
  The T60 with that wonderful 1400x1050 screen is fab, I agree. (I wrote a sibling comment about using a 2014 Thinkpad as my main box, but I also have some older ones.) The main problem with it from a modern perspective is that it's strictly 32-bit, so can't address more than 4G RAM or run many contemporary Linux distros. I also have a T40p, from 2003-ish, with the same 1400x1050 display. This is an even nicer computer to use in many ways - the keyboard in particular is even better than that in my T60 - but the difference in performance between 2003 and 2006 is striking. It's almost as much as the difference between 2006 and now. The T6x used Intel Core CPUs, but the T4x was still Pentium M days - single core and quite substantially slower. The T4x still has a PATA drive, so it's harder to put in a modern SSD. It's limited to 2G RAM for reasons I can't remember. It's also much less robust - the T60 series has a completely rigid chassis (and my T60 still looks like new) but the earlier T40 would bend if picked up from the front, which would cause both the case and the tracks on the motherboard to crack (the USB sockets stop working first, then everything else). The T40p is a lovely, lovely computer - in some ways the best one I own - but it's for occasional document-writing only, not really for development any more.
  - minerjoe 6y ago
    This T60 is 64 bit. Core 2 T5600. My cutoff for referbishing a computer for someone is that it must be 64 bit and it must have at least two cores. Seems like anything Core 2 duo and later is good enough for almost anything most people do (except games).
    - cannam 6y ago

dmd 6y ago

I have a mid-90s Compaq laptop that still works.

timbit42 6y ago
But do you use it daily as your primary system?

ryukafalz 6y ago

>I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong except for, as in your case, a degraded battery. Fortunately most ThinkPads of this era had removable batteries, so this isn't as big of a deal as it would be for most laptops today. I'm currently using an X230 that I bought off eBay as my main personal laptop; it needed a new battery when I got it, but otherwise works great.

soperj 6y ago
I'm using a x230 as well, where'd you purchase your battery? mine's nearly done I feel.
- bestnameever 6y ago
  I find it pretty difficult to buy a reliable laptop battery unless I can get it from the mfg.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  eBay, honestly. Got an unopened Lenovo-branded one.

cannam 6y ago

> I have a Thinkpad that I purchased in early 2014 that is still going strong Indeed an early 2014 Thinkpad is my main work development box. It's a T540p with the excellent 3K matte screen. Admittedly I use it like a desktop computer, plugging in a keyboard and mouse (and, now, camera), so there's very little wear and tear, but in my mind it's basically still a new computer.

barrkel 6y ago
I'm stuck with a T540p and it's no good thermally IMO. It was slower than the desktop it replaced and throttles when asked to work, which is pretty frequently with a few browser instances, a few ides and few databases all running with a build. Add a concurrent video conference - all too frequent these days - and it practically freezes every so often. Only 16G really doesn't help. Am looking forward to something bigger, soon...
- cannam 6y ago
  Does yours have the discrete GPU option? Mine doesn't, and I imagine that could make a big difference thermally.

encom 6y ago

Thinkpad brigade checking in. Still using my X220 running Gentoo. The last ThinkPad with the good keyboard. From my cold dead hands.

minerjoe 6y ago

This. My main development machine is a Thinkpad T60, manufactured in 2006. Still running strong. For me, it is still a supercomputer. 2x1.8GHz. 4G ram. 1400x1050. Everything I develop on it screams on anything modern. When it breaks I'm planning on moving backward in time to see if there is an older model that I can adapt to, probably without spending a single dollar, just acquiring a thrown away computer. Limitatations can enable innovation.

cannam 6y ago
The T60 with that wonderful 1400x1050 screen is fab, I agree. (I wrote a sibling comment about using a 2014 Thinkpad as my main box, but I also have some older ones.) The main problem with it from a modern perspective is that it's strictly 32-bit, so can't address more than 4G RAM or run many contemporary Linux distros. I also have a T40p, from 2003-ish, with the same 1400x1050 display. This is an even nicer computer to use in many ways - the keyboard in particular is even better than that in my T60 - but the difference in performance between 2003 and 2006 is striking. It's almost as much as the difference between 2006 and now. The T6x used Intel Core CPUs, but the T4x was still Pentium M days - single core and quite substantially slower. The T4x still has a PATA drive, so it's harder to put in a modern SSD. It's limited to 2G RAM for reasons I can't remember. It's also much less robust - the T60 series has a completely rigid chassis (and my T60 still looks like new) but the earlier T40 would bend if picked up from the front, which would cause both the case and the tracks on the motherboard to crack (the USB sockets stop working first, then everything else). The T40p is a lovely, lovely computer - in some ways the best one I own - but it's for occasional document-writing only, not really for development any more.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  This T60 is 64 bit. Core 2 T5600. My cutoff for referbishing a computer for someone is that it must be 64 bit and it must have at least two cores. Seems like anything Core 2 duo and later is good enough for almost anything most people do (except games).
  - cannam 6y ago