8 ms·

After all these years, it seems like no one can beat the undefeated champion in this price range: a used ThinkPad with a Linux on it. Even today, for $140, I ca

After all these years, it seems like no one can beat the undefeated champion in this price range: a used ThinkPad with a Linux on it. Even today, for $140, I can find you laptop after laptop meeting that description that would crush this. Maybe in 10 years, we'll finally see new laptops winning at this. But it's been a long wait, and we'll have to wait longer, still.

tuesday20 6y ago
Where do you buy? eBay? Is there some other reputable place to buy used ones for a first time buyer?
- kawsper 6y ago
  I've bought a x230 on eBay for my partner, I installed Fedora on it and that has been fine, printers are working and most of the workflow is in a browser nowadays. I've had to upgrade the keyboard once (2-3 keys fell off), but spare parts are available on eBay, and parts are very easily replaceable with an electronics screwdriver and a YouTube video, or by acquiring the Thinkpad service manual for more advanced procedures such as upgrading or replacing your screen (Which I've done to my Thinkpad X200 running Libreboot). We are also considering a battery upgrade, which is still available on eBay even for older models.
  - spapas82 6y ago
    I'm running windows 10 on my x230 (8GB ram / 240GB SSD) and I am more than happy with it :)
    - kawsper 6y ago
      It's a great little machine.
    - lozaning 6y ago
      Throw the classic keyboard from the X220 on there and you're really in the butter zone.
      - berbec 6y ago
        Just stay away from the x240. No buttons on the TouchPad. I replaced mine and it worked great with a x250 TouchPad, but took two hours to do the swap.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    My 9 cell battery is dead (30 mins runtime) but I can’t figure out what battery to buy. Original Lenovo are either too old to be good because they were made 5 years ago and sat on the shelf for years and the cells have degraded even if it’s technically new, or they’re just fake. I have zero trust in the safety, performance, and durability of the third party batteries sold on eBay or amazon. What’s your plan?
- julianeon 6y ago
  eBay. Just wait for good listings. It's true that there is a non-negligible chance of getting burned, based on the general used laptop purchasing experience - but I've bought several and they've all worked as expected, pretty much. This isn't due to any good qualities of the sellers. It's because ThinkPad makes damn good, sturdy laptops that are quite idiot-proof. I mean if you sit on your balcony and drop your laptop off the edge - that might destroy it. But it's going to take something on that level, and most people aren't that careless with electronics. So you can be reasonably confident that anything ThinkPad you buy, if it isn't visibly damaged in the picture, will work as expected, in my (anecdotal) experience.
  - tuesday20 6y ago
    Thank you for responding. Is there any particular model that is better off than others, used? My usecase is programming - I don’t game, but I edit videos
    - julianeon 6y ago
      I think the main thing you're looking for is 1) RAM - as much as you can get for your buck (might be worth lurking for a week to find out how much that is) 2) SSD. If you get a high number on 1 and a checkmark on 2, it's almost guaranteed to be good for programming - realistically, for allowing you to run your browsers and something like GIMP and/or video editing. I have a ThinkPad with 32 GB RAM and it takes a really heavy workload to pause my computer. I frequently have several browsers & several browser windows open (say 6 windows total, mix of Chrome Brave and Firefox), and GIMP. No slowdowns noticeable (EDIT: some things do take a few seconds, like filters & exporting images from GIMP). Most importantly, using my window manager, I can switch from a full-screen browser to Emacs to GIMP instantaneously - not even a millisecond of noticeable delay. Even many new computers purchased today can't beat that.
    - pantalaimon 6y ago
      Stick to the T-Series, avoid the budget E-Series. Also check for the screen. For quite a long time there was an Option for an abysmal 1366x768 screen. The same notebooks can be had with a proper HD screen, so get one with those.
- bdz 6y ago
  eBay. I'm in Europe but there are some really good refurb sellers in UK and Germany. Got multiple x230 for ~100 GBP (~130 USD). i5, 8 GB RAM, pop in an SSD and you are good to go. Much better than anything else you would find in that price range.
- 1MachineElf 6y ago
  In my case - and I've purchased 10 of these over the years - it's exclusively eBay. I check the description and photos carefully to see if there are any issues or defects. Only one time did I receive a laptop that was basically a dud - an X61 from many years ago. I've also bought a couple old 32-bit models from e-waste recyclers who were open to me just grabbing them from out of a pile of to-be-disposed-of equipment. Not sure where you're located, but if there is a MicroCenter nearby, the I recommend them as well. Sometimes they stock these in refurbished condition, and from my inspections of the laptops, they're in good shape. Only buy if you can look at first-hand at the store. Sites like NewEgg, TigerDirect, and Amazon also have these, but the reviews generally don't seem favorable. One major difference is that with eBay, you can view multiple pictures of the exact laptop you will be buying. With those other sites, it's just a stock photo, and it seems like there's less quality control over what's grabbed from their warehouses. Also it's worth mentioning that refurbished Dell Latitude and HP EliteBook laptops are comparable. There seems to be less demand for these than Lenovo ThinkPads, so often you can get better specs for the same price. In my experience, the Dell Latitude laptops have maintained greater backwards-compatibility with older docking stations. If you're into embedded development or ever want to connect to a headless server directly, then only Dell will give you that docking station with a serial port. The drawbacks is the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad is always guaranteed to be there, while it's an optional feature with Latitude and EliteBook, and even when it is there, it isn't as good as what IBM/Lenovo has engineered. Another drawback is refurbished Latitude laptops often have dedicated GPUs, which is great for Windows, but often a pain for Linux.
  - Tijdreiziger 6y ago
    > The drawbacks is the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad is always guaranteed to be there, while it's an optional feature with Latitude and EliteBook, and even when it is there, it isn't as good as what IBM/Lenovo has engineered. My 5-year-old HP ZBook's trackpoint is abysmal. I stopped trying to use it about 2 months in, and after 2 years its top surface fell off and got lost. I didn't bother ordering a replacement.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Fully agree to alternatives like Lattitudes and EliteBooks. While the "ecosystems" aren't as large as those of ThinkPads, i.e. no Wikis and such, the hardware manuals are available and of the same quality/usefulness. I think there is a certain inertness in perception of available choices, quality-wise. While ThinkPads were great for a time, that Nimbus should have faded by now, but it mostly didn't, although it makes no sense. The really good ones are so old by now, that they are almost useless, except for terminal use. The newer ones are only so, so, and the really good ones make no sense economically imo. Then there are the mentioned alternatives. But it depends on geographic availability, time, i.e. when a large batch of refurbs enters the market, and so on. It has something of looking for flotsam on the beach :-) Anyways, if you know hardware/what to do, then you can get great value with better options for periphery like docking stations, displays (ratio/resolution), simply more bang for the buck with about the same build quality as the ThinkPads of yore once had. Prime expamples are small adaptors from the µSata for the 1.8" HDD to something more modern, for under 10USD a piece. Oh, and compressed air for really cleaning, new thermal grease or pads. If you do this more often you can save insane amounts of money by getting a small compressor instead buying canned air. Just saying...
- bluedino 6y ago
  The work at home shift this spring basically tripled used laptop prices :(
- kolanos 6y ago
  Check out www.macofalltrades.com, have had good experiences there.
- deng 6y ago
  I'm in Germany and the last four times I bought via thinkpad-forum.de. As the name says, it's a board for Thinkpads which includes a marketplace. From my experience, it's considerably cheaper than buying in shops or on Ebay, and the machines are usually described very well. People on the forum are mostly very knowledgeable and include information like battery cycles and stuff like that, so you know very well what you can expect. I would think similar forums exists for other countries as well.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  Sometimes Microcenter will have some decent refurbs, but they tend to pricier than you'll find elsewhere.
- Xelbair 6y ago
  To add to your request: i would love to get some sites that deliver to Europe.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  I've bought around ten used thinkpads from Ebay over the years. Mostly, they arrived exactly as advertised. I only had to ship one back, which was annoying but I got a full refund. Two of them had minor issues that were resolved to my satisfaction when the seller offered a partial refund of $5 or $20 (and me keeping the laptop). All of them are still working perfectly today, including the T420 I bought for $100 in 2013 and the T400 I bought for $25 (with free shipping). tl;dr: Ebay is a perfectly good place to buy used thinkpads. reddit.com/r/thinkpadsforsale is also good, especially if you want to buy an older one that some enthusiast already meticulously restored.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
Are there any that have good (8-10 hours) battery life?
- julianeon 6y ago
  Battery life isn't their strong suit; for that, I can see newer laptops having the advantage. My experience is closer to 3-4 hours, but then this isn't something I've much tested - even that's mostly an estimate. It's possible some can do much better, but unfortunately I wouldn't know.
  - markvdb 6y ago
    My 9 years old X220 has been running for 2 hours of light use. Its battery status indicates about 3:45 hours left. This admittedly is with the 9 cell battery, but still rather good for a second hand laptop I bought four years ago...
- httpsterio 6y ago
  Well, if you grab a new battery, then yeah. 8 hours of active use on any laptop is pushing it and Linux is generally a bit less optimized with the power usage so your mileage may wary. My old HP elitebook I bought for a 100 dollars (plus a new battery for about 40) managed around 6 hours on Ubuntu with no special config.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I have a T580 that is a couple years old (so not an older ThinkPad) that has the big second battery in it, and if I'm just coding and only keep one browser open and limit it to 7 or 8 tabs at a time, I can easily get 12 hours out of it (compiles take 2 minutes and run all 8 cores at 100%). I left it running once unplugged (forgot to suspend it) and when sitting idle the batter was still around 18% after about 24 hours, but of course that's far from typical use levels). I just use Fedora and tuned profiles (which I adjust based on needs), but I've also heard testimonies of TLP[2] [1] https://tuned-project.org/ https://tuned-project.org/ [2] Example: https://www.fosslinux.com/2304/how-to-increase-laptops-battery-life-in-fedora-all-versions.htm https://www.fosslinux.com/2304/how-to-increase-laptops-batte...
shams93 6y ago
Yeah you can upgrade the ram on those so its not limited to a certain soldered on amount like these cheap laptops. I did convert a lenovo e300 to an ubuntu tablet but with 4 gigs of ram and a 64 gig mmc its double the spec of the useless walmart laptop.
ww520 6y ago
Yes, with all the startups going out of business, there're some nice laptops coming to the auction market. I picked up a two year old fully speced T470s for about $200. No OS though. Installed Mint and it ran like new. Also picked up an one year old MacBook Pro A1989 for 1/3 of the price. Good thing Apple honors the purchase of the OS with the laptop and allows a full reinstallation.
- spurdoman77 6y ago
  Hooray for recession.
  - ww520 6y ago
    Ha. Also picked up two designer brand height-adjusted desks for the cheap. Looks barely used. Still looking for an Aereon chair.
    - bdcravens 6y ago
      Aeron's are easy to find for 300-400 at a local used office furniture store. (I live in Houston, so your availability may vary) I have one I bought new at home, and used ones at the office. Can't really tell the difference.
    - akudha 6y ago
      Where? eBay?
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  How does one go about finding deals like this? I wouldn't mind a MBP for a third of retail price.
  - ww520 6y ago
    I asked before in HN and someone pointed me to hibid.com, that's where I looked. The auctions come in wave. Sometimes there's no companies need liquidation. Sometimes lot of companies need to sell. Just wait a bit for the upcoming auctions. Edit: Here're some MacBook auctions currently. https://hibid.com/lots/?q=macbook https://hibid.com/lots/?q=macbook. You might need to wait for an auction local to you to come up.
petepete 6y ago
I'd second (and third) this. If eBay sounds risky, in the UK there are companies that sell refurb Thinkpads with a year's warranty for in the region of £300 at the cheap end. I'm sure the situation is similar abroad. Add an SSD and maybe a RAM upgrade and you've got a very capable machine for £350.
- hef19898 6y ago
  I got one from a local shop that also caters to SMEs. Paid around 400 Euro, if memory serves well. Still serves as my back up, does everything I want it to do. Even came with the large battery pack and Windows 10 Pro.
hkt 6y ago
I just got my pinebook pro and it does the trick. Recommended. It is $200 and I have it ready and waiting for if my XPS ever dies. Fine as a daily driver running Debian Buster with Gnome3.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
I bought a Lenovo Ideapad 100S 4 years ago for $160. It is similarly crippled by 2GB RAM but the board has footprints for an additional 2GB and an undocumented M.2 slot for storage. It's low end but has one of the nicer keyboards with usable edit keys which was my primary motivation for choosing it. I don't get why we still have to put up with crappy keyboard layouts on widescreen laptops.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  The drawback of getting a full-sized keyboard on a laptop is that the main section of the keyboard won't be centered wrt. the screen. Reduced keyboards are popular for this reason.
  - toyg 6y ago
    Indeed - I hate off-center keyboards with a passion.
  - Anthony-G 6y ago
    I’ve always owned laptops with 17” monitors and don’t remember having issues with the off-centre keyboard. It’s only since I got a laptop from my employer for working from home that I noticed it: I had no problems using the reduced keyboard on the work laptop but I found that when I move from it to my personal computer, I have to consciously shift my hands slightly to the left.
strathmeyer 6y ago
Don't go to Best Buy and ask for a ThinkPad they won't know what you're talking about.
jankotek 6y ago
Old thinkpads have usually bad display and bad battery life. Maybe if you replace half components it is decent machine, but I would rather use something like this.
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  The battery is trivial to replace and there are models with proper screens. They are still not as vibrant as those on multi media notebooks, but if you don’t do image editing they are good enough.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  You would rather use the Walmart machine? Its battery life is worse and it doesn't actually work. The real question is what's better for the price point (and a used thinkpad is orders of magnitude better), not whether things that are better exist.
  - jankotek 6y ago
    I had really bad luck with Thinkpad motherboards, I dont think quality matches the hype. I would consider this machine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMdQAjy43A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMdQAjy43A
ericol 6y ago
I bought a used ThinkPad T430 more than a year ago. I can't tell you exactly how much I paid for it because I don't recall the price in dollars (I paid it in Argentinian pesos). It's a little battered (The case is broken in couple of places, the track pad is worn out). The only complain I have about it is (2, actually, so "are") that you can't pump the memory that much (16 GB max) and the low resolution of the screen. Besides that, I think it's an incredible piece of hardware. Right now, I'm running Debian 10 with 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB SSD. I think it's very likely that I'll extract at least another 5 years of work of this one. It comes with Bluetooth (Works with Debian), and I managed to make even the fingerprint reader work with this OS.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Just making sure you're aware of https://1vyra.in/ https://1vyra.in/ It allows you to (soft)flash a custom bios, mainly to kill the stupid wlan whitelist.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I'm starting to think low resolution is an advantage if you want to run Linux. Out of the three major OS choices Linux comes in last in terms of high-dpi support.
- grafporno 6y ago
  Have the same one, get the docking station for it, it's dirt cheap on ebay (~10€) and you can hook up 3 monitors to it, if two of same have the same resolution (2x DisplayPort + 1x VGA).
eigenvector 6y ago
Our propensity as a society to buy garbage quality new stuff rather than good quality used stuff is frustrating. Tech savvy folks know they can find a fully competent, user-serviceable used computer for basic use on eBay for under $200, but Joe Blow goes to Walmart or Best Buy and only has the choice of a crappy $300 computer or a good $1000 computer, both new. The impact on the environment alone of trashing or recycling things that can be refurbished and reused is staggering.
- Ghjklov 6y ago
  Buying used can be quite a shitshow though. If there was an alternative to ebay, where the used stuff I'm buying can be certified that they have been properly cleaned, repaired as needed, and have whatever defects transparently labeled, I would love it. Oh, and they won't scam me hopefully. That's the biggest thing. I don't want to get scammed by someone trying to offload their garbage.
  - dmonitor 6y ago
    I’ve had good experiences with swappa, but I don’t think it’s quite as thorough as what you’re looking for.
    - gowld 6y ago
      Until swappa mails your purchase to where you lived 3 years ago because their integration with PayPal is broken, and then they won't help you hunt down your purchase. Backmarket.com is much better.

tuesday20 6y ago

Where do you buy? eBay? Is there some other reputable place to buy used ones for a first time buyer?

kawsper 6y ago
I've bought a x230 on eBay for my partner, I installed Fedora on it and that has been fine, printers are working and most of the workflow is in a browser nowadays. I've had to upgrade the keyboard once (2-3 keys fell off), but spare parts are available on eBay, and parts are very easily replaceable with an electronics screwdriver and a YouTube video, or by acquiring the Thinkpad service manual for more advanced procedures such as upgrading or replacing your screen (Which I've done to my Thinkpad X200 running Libreboot). We are also considering a battery upgrade, which is still available on eBay even for older models.
- spapas82 6y ago
  I'm running windows 10 on my x230 (8GB ram / 240GB SSD) and I am more than happy with it :)
  - kawsper 6y ago
    It's a great little machine.
  - lozaning 6y ago
    Throw the classic keyboard from the X220 on there and you're really in the butter zone.
    - berbec 6y ago
      Just stay away from the x240. No buttons on the TouchPad. I replaced mine and it worked great with a x250 TouchPad, but took two hours to do the swap.
- ornornor 6y ago
  My 9 cell battery is dead (30 mins runtime) but I can’t figure out what battery to buy. Original Lenovo are either too old to be good because they were made 5 years ago and sat on the shelf for years and the cells have degraded even if it’s technically new, or they’re just fake. I have zero trust in the safety, performance, and durability of the third party batteries sold on eBay or amazon. What’s your plan?
julianeon 6y ago
eBay. Just wait for good listings. It's true that there is a non-negligible chance of getting burned, based on the general used laptop purchasing experience - but I've bought several and they've all worked as expected, pretty much. This isn't due to any good qualities of the sellers. It's because ThinkPad makes damn good, sturdy laptops that are quite idiot-proof. I mean if you sit on your balcony and drop your laptop off the edge - that might destroy it. But it's going to take something on that level, and most people aren't that careless with electronics. So you can be reasonably confident that anything ThinkPad you buy, if it isn't visibly damaged in the picture, will work as expected, in my (anecdotal) experience.
- tuesday20 6y ago
  Thank you for responding. Is there any particular model that is better off than others, used? My usecase is programming - I don’t game, but I edit videos
  - julianeon 6y ago
    I think the main thing you're looking for is 1) RAM - as much as you can get for your buck (might be worth lurking for a week to find out how much that is) 2) SSD. If you get a high number on 1 and a checkmark on 2, it's almost guaranteed to be good for programming - realistically, for allowing you to run your browsers and something like GIMP and/or video editing. I have a ThinkPad with 32 GB RAM and it takes a really heavy workload to pause my computer. I frequently have several browsers & several browser windows open (say 6 windows total, mix of Chrome Brave and Firefox), and GIMP. No slowdowns noticeable (EDIT: some things do take a few seconds, like filters & exporting images from GIMP). Most importantly, using my window manager, I can switch from a full-screen browser to Emacs to GIMP instantaneously - not even a millisecond of noticeable delay. Even many new computers purchased today can't beat that.
  - pantalaimon 6y ago
    Stick to the T-Series, avoid the budget E-Series. Also check for the screen. For quite a long time there was an Option for an abysmal 1366x768 screen. The same notebooks can be had with a proper HD screen, so get one with those.
bdz 6y ago
eBay. I'm in Europe but there are some really good refurb sellers in UK and Germany. Got multiple x230 for ~100 GBP (~130 USD). i5, 8 GB RAM, pop in an SSD and you are good to go. Much better than anything else you would find in that price range.
1MachineElf 6y ago
In my case - and I've purchased 10 of these over the years - it's exclusively eBay. I check the description and photos carefully to see if there are any issues or defects. Only one time did I receive a laptop that was basically a dud - an X61 from many years ago. I've also bought a couple old 32-bit models from e-waste recyclers who were open to me just grabbing them from out of a pile of to-be-disposed-of equipment. Not sure where you're located, but if there is a MicroCenter nearby, the I recommend them as well. Sometimes they stock these in refurbished condition, and from my inspections of the laptops, they're in good shape. Only buy if you can look at first-hand at the store. Sites like NewEgg, TigerDirect, and Amazon also have these, but the reviews generally don't seem favorable. One major difference is that with eBay, you can view multiple pictures of the exact laptop you will be buying. With those other sites, it's just a stock photo, and it seems like there's less quality control over what's grabbed from their warehouses. Also it's worth mentioning that refurbished Dell Latitude and HP EliteBook laptops are comparable. There seems to be less demand for these than Lenovo ThinkPads, so often you can get better specs for the same price. In my experience, the Dell Latitude laptops have maintained greater backwards-compatibility with older docking stations. If you're into embedded development or ever want to connect to a headless server directly, then only Dell will give you that docking station with a serial port. The drawbacks is the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad is always guaranteed to be there, while it's an optional feature with Latitude and EliteBook, and even when it is there, it isn't as good as what IBM/Lenovo has engineered. Another drawback is refurbished Latitude laptops often have dedicated GPUs, which is great for Windows, but often a pain for Linux.
- Tijdreiziger 6y ago
  > The drawbacks is the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad is always guaranteed to be there, while it's an optional feature with Latitude and EliteBook, and even when it is there, it isn't as good as what IBM/Lenovo has engineered. My 5-year-old HP ZBook's trackpoint is abysmal. I stopped trying to use it about 2 months in, and after 2 years its top surface fell off and got lost. I didn't bother ordering a replacement.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Fully agree to alternatives like Lattitudes and EliteBooks. While the "ecosystems" aren't as large as those of ThinkPads, i.e. no Wikis and such, the hardware manuals are available and of the same quality/usefulness. I think there is a certain inertness in perception of available choices, quality-wise. While ThinkPads were great for a time, that Nimbus should have faded by now, but it mostly didn't, although it makes no sense. The really good ones are so old by now, that they are almost useless, except for terminal use. The newer ones are only so, so, and the really good ones make no sense economically imo. Then there are the mentioned alternatives. But it depends on geographic availability, time, i.e. when a large batch of refurbs enters the market, and so on. It has something of looking for flotsam on the beach :-) Anyways, if you know hardware/what to do, then you can get great value with better options for periphery like docking stations, displays (ratio/resolution), simply more bang for the buck with about the same build quality as the ThinkPads of yore once had. Prime expamples are small adaptors from the µSata for the 1.8" HDD to something more modern, for under 10USD a piece. Oh, and compressed air for really cleaning, new thermal grease or pads. If you do this more often you can save insane amounts of money by getting a small compressor instead buying canned air. Just saying...
bluedino 6y ago
The work at home shift this spring basically tripled used laptop prices :(
kolanos 6y ago
Check out www.macofalltrades.com, have had good experiences there.
deng 6y ago
I'm in Germany and the last four times I bought via thinkpad-forum.de. As the name says, it's a board for Thinkpads which includes a marketplace. From my experience, it's considerably cheaper than buying in shops or on Ebay, and the machines are usually described very well. People on the forum are mostly very knowledgeable and include information like battery cycles and stuff like that, so you know very well what you can expect. I would think similar forums exists for other countries as well.
bdcravens 6y ago
Sometimes Microcenter will have some decent refurbs, but they tend to pricier than you'll find elsewhere.
Xelbair 6y ago
To add to your request: i would love to get some sites that deliver to Europe.
boring_twenties 6y ago
I've bought around ten used thinkpads from Ebay over the years. Mostly, they arrived exactly as advertised. I only had to ship one back, which was annoying but I got a full refund. Two of them had minor issues that were resolved to my satisfaction when the seller offered a partial refund of $5 or $20 (and me keeping the laptop). All of them are still working perfectly today, including the T420 I bought for $100 in 2013 and the T400 I bought for $25 (with free shipping). tl;dr: Ebay is a perfectly good place to buy used thinkpads. reddit.com/r/thinkpadsforsale is also good, especially if you want to buy an older one that some enthusiast already meticulously restored.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

Are there any that have good (8-10 hours) battery life?

julianeon 6y ago
Battery life isn't their strong suit; for that, I can see newer laptops having the advantage. My experience is closer to 3-4 hours, but then this isn't something I've much tested - even that's mostly an estimate. It's possible some can do much better, but unfortunately I wouldn't know.
- markvdb 6y ago
  My 9 years old X220 has been running for 2 hours of light use. Its battery status indicates about 3:45 hours left. This admittedly is with the 9 cell battery, but still rather good for a second hand laptop I bought four years ago...
httpsterio 6y ago
Well, if you grab a new battery, then yeah. 8 hours of active use on any laptop is pushing it and Linux is generally a bit less optimized with the power usage so your mileage may wary. My old HP elitebook I bought for a 100 dollars (plus a new battery for about 40) managed around 6 hours on Ubuntu with no special config.
freedomben 6y ago
I have a T580 that is a couple years old (so not an older ThinkPad) that has the big second battery in it, and if I'm just coding and only keep one browser open and limit it to 7 or 8 tabs at a time, I can easily get 12 hours out of it (compiles take 2 minutes and run all 8 cores at 100%). I left it running once unplugged (forgot to suspend it) and when sitting idle the batter was still around 18% after about 24 hours, but of course that's far from typical use levels). I just use Fedora and tuned profiles (which I adjust based on needs), but I've also heard testimonies of TLP[2] [1] https://tuned-project.org/ https://tuned-project.org/ [2] Example: https://www.fosslinux.com/2304/how-to-increase-laptops-battery-life-in-fedora-all-versions.htm https://www.fosslinux.com/2304/how-to-increase-laptops-batte...

shams93 6y ago

Yeah you can upgrade the ram on those so its not limited to a certain soldered on amount like these cheap laptops. I did convert a lenovo e300 to an ubuntu tablet but with 4 gigs of ram and a 64 gig mmc its double the spec of the useless walmart laptop.

ww520 6y ago

Yes, with all the startups going out of business, there're some nice laptops coming to the auction market. I picked up a two year old fully speced T470s for about $200. No OS though. Installed Mint and it ran like new. Also picked up an one year old MacBook Pro A1989 for 1/3 of the price. Good thing Apple honors the purchase of the OS with the laptop and allows a full reinstallation.

spurdoman77 6y ago
Hooray for recession.
- ww520 6y ago
  Ha. Also picked up two designer brand height-adjusted desks for the cheap. Looks barely used. Still looking for an Aereon chair.
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    Aeron's are easy to find for 300-400 at a local used office furniture store. (I live in Houston, so your availability may vary) I have one I bought new at home, and used ones at the office. Can't really tell the difference.
  - akudha 6y ago
    Where? eBay?
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
How does one go about finding deals like this? I wouldn't mind a MBP for a third of retail price.
- ww520 6y ago
  I asked before in HN and someone pointed me to hibid.com, that's where I looked. The auctions come in wave. Sometimes there's no companies need liquidation. Sometimes lot of companies need to sell. Just wait a bit for the upcoming auctions. Edit: Here're some MacBook auctions currently. https://hibid.com/lots/?q=macbook https://hibid.com/lots/?q=macbook. You might need to wait for an auction local to you to come up.

petepete 6y ago

I'd second (and third) this. If eBay sounds risky, in the UK there are companies that sell refurb Thinkpads with a year's warranty for in the region of £300 at the cheap end. I'm sure the situation is similar abroad. Add an SSD and maybe a RAM upgrade and you've got a very capable machine for £350.

hef19898 6y ago
I got one from a local shop that also caters to SMEs. Paid around 400 Euro, if memory serves well. Still serves as my back up, does everything I want it to do. Even came with the large battery pack and Windows 10 Pro.

hkt 6y ago

I just got my pinebook pro and it does the trick. Recommended. It is $200 and I have it ready and waiting for if my XPS ever dies. Fine as a daily driver running Debian Buster with Gnome3.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

I bought a Lenovo Ideapad 100S 4 years ago for $160. It is similarly crippled by 2GB RAM but the board has footprints for an additional 2GB and an undocumented M.2 slot for storage. It's low end but has one of the nicer keyboards with usable edit keys which was my primary motivation for choosing it. I don't get why we still have to put up with crappy keyboard layouts on widescreen laptops.

zozbot234 6y ago
The drawback of getting a full-sized keyboard on a laptop is that the main section of the keyboard won't be centered wrt. the screen. Reduced keyboards are popular for this reason.
- toyg 6y ago
  Indeed - I hate off-center keyboards with a passion.
- Anthony-G 6y ago
  I’ve always owned laptops with 17” monitors and don’t remember having issues with the off-centre keyboard. It’s only since I got a laptop from my employer for working from home that I noticed it: I had no problems using the reduced keyboard on the work laptop but I found that when I move from it to my personal computer, I have to consciously shift my hands slightly to the left.

strathmeyer 6y ago

Don't go to Best Buy and ask for a ThinkPad they won't know what you're talking about.

jankotek 6y ago

Old thinkpads have usually bad display and bad battery life. Maybe if you replace half components it is decent machine, but I would rather use something like this.

pantalaimon 6y ago
The battery is trivial to replace and there are models with proper screens. They are still not as vibrant as those on multi media notebooks, but if you don’t do image editing they are good enough.
pessimizer 6y ago
You would rather use the Walmart machine? Its battery life is worse and it doesn't actually work. The real question is what's better for the price point (and a used thinkpad is orders of magnitude better), not whether things that are better exist.
- jankotek 6y ago
  I had really bad luck with Thinkpad motherboards, I dont think quality matches the hype. I would consider this machine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMdQAjy43A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMdQAjy43A

ericol 6y ago

I bought a used ThinkPad T430 more than a year ago. I can't tell you exactly how much I paid for it because I don't recall the price in dollars (I paid it in Argentinian pesos). It's a little battered (The case is broken in couple of places, the track pad is worn out). The only complain I have about it is (2, actually, so "are") that you can't pump the memory that much (16 GB max) and the low resolution of the screen. Besides that, I think it's an incredible piece of hardware. Right now, I'm running Debian 10 with 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB SSD. I think it's very likely that I'll extract at least another 5 years of work of this one. It comes with Bluetooth (Works with Debian), and I managed to make even the fingerprint reader work with this OS.

pessimizer 6y ago
Just making sure you're aware of https://1vyra.in/ https://1vyra.in/ It allows you to (soft)flash a custom bios, mainly to kill the stupid wlan whitelist.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I'm starting to think low resolution is an advantage if you want to run Linux. Out of the three major OS choices Linux comes in last in terms of high-dpi support.
grafporno 6y ago
Have the same one, get the docking station for it, it's dirt cheap on ebay (~10€) and you can hook up 3 monitors to it, if two of same have the same resolution (2x DisplayPort + 1x VGA).

eigenvector 6y ago

Our propensity as a society to buy garbage quality new stuff rather than good quality used stuff is frustrating. Tech savvy folks know they can find a fully competent, user-serviceable used computer for basic use on eBay for under $200, but Joe Blow goes to Walmart or Best Buy and only has the choice of a crappy $300 computer or a good $1000 computer, both new. The impact on the environment alone of trashing or recycling things that can be refurbished and reused is staggering.

Ghjklov 6y ago
Buying used can be quite a shitshow though. If there was an alternative to ebay, where the used stuff I'm buying can be certified that they have been properly cleaned, repaired as needed, and have whatever defects transparently labeled, I would love it. Oh, and they won't scam me hopefully. That's the biggest thing. I don't want to get scammed by someone trying to offload their garbage.
- dmonitor 6y ago
  I’ve had good experiences with swappa, but I don’t think it’s quite as thorough as what you’re looking for.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Until swappa mails your purchase to where you lived 3 years ago because their integration with PayPal is broken, and then they won't help you hunt down your purchase. Backmarket.com is much better.