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Ask HN: Are new ThinkPads still worthy?

55 points by imachine1980_ 5y ago

if not alternatives 1) good for windows Linux and double boot (I have acer and is really painful install linux)

razemio 5y ago
I have a new t14 at work. I use a Dell xps 15 at home. Would always go for the Dell. The t14 is incredible ugly (guess all thinkpads are), wastes a lot of space with those mouse clickers, is bulky and also heavy compared to the Dell. Sound / Display aren't even comparable. Build quality is close but that's it. Both run arch like a champ.
the_only_law 5y ago
I got a new P14sand it managed to die within the year, after a ton of power management issues where it just would not shut down or wake up. As far as I can tell the board is completely dead. Hours of fiddling with the power button and trying anything I found online, but it doesn’t turn on anymore.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  I would presume this would be covered under warranty?
smoldesu 5y ago
It's weird. I own two Thinkpads, a "golden era" model with the 7-row keyboard (x201) as well as a newer Skylake model (T460s). The difference between the two is noticeable, but not as much as people make it out to be. The older model feels like a really solidly built device, and the performance is surprisingly good while running Linux. It idles on the hot side (little less than 40c no matter what you're running), but CPU usage is low even on high-bloat desktop environments like KDE. Without anything running in the background, CPU usage stays below 2%, which kinda blows my mind for a machine pushing a decade old. The newer model I have is much the same way, but it's thinner and idles at a much more reasonable temp (28-30c). Frankly, I think they're both fine. The new keyboards aren't mind-blowing, but I'd still put them leagues beyond Dell and Apple's offerings these days. I'd frankly recommend either of them, as long as you can find one without a TN panel. The other advice I'd give is to not buy directly from Lenovo, since their prices are all over the place and tend to screw you over if you don't do your due diligence.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >high-bloat desktop environments like KDE Which KDE is that and how exactly is it "high bloat"? Definitely not Plasma. Modern KDE is very resource efficient, even giving XFCE a run for its money.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I mean, I use KDE Plasma on many of my devices. I'm pretty familiar with it's resource footprint, and while it's certainly better than it used to be, it's still on the high-end of resource usage when compared with it's contemporaries. It's gotten much better at memory management, but there's a considerable amount of latency and cruft surrounding the menus and dialogues the system uses. On every system I've ever used, krunner takes ~600ms to boot launch, menus have a good 200ms of lead-time and activity switching can be 1500ms+ on the right configuration. XFCE still feels faster to me, but maybe it's a hardware thing.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      How did you measure all these latencies? Anecdotally , KDE on my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is pretty fast on both new Ryzen and very old Intel laptops. Maybe something is wrong/buggy on your setup.
    - WhatIsDukkha 5y ago
      Eh? You have something wrong. 4-5 desktops/laptops with wide variety of profiles and I don't see any of that latency. Turn off animations.
- RankingMember 5y ago
  Curious for your thoughts: Where would you recommend buying from, a retailer like Best Buy?
  - gkop 5y ago
    Lenovo.com will let you customize the machine, and often offers nice discount codes on the order of 10-15% off list.
blindfolded_go 5y ago
I have a T495. Works great for me, very solid laptop for running Linux.
plmpsu 5y ago
I use a first gen T14 running Manjaro. Highly recommended.
patrickbolle 5y ago
While not directly in the Thinkpad name, I have an older X1 Carbon (4th Gen) that has worked really well for me. Extensive travelling, multiple drops, etc. Thing still is solid. Runs Debian really well. I have only ever owned Thinkpads (until the carbon) and I don't see any reason I would personally switch back to Thinkpad version. Carbons are so small and perfect for my usage.
- zokier 5y ago
  X1 series has always been branded as Thinkpads, e.g. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-NWK3QGE-Notebook.73443.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-NWK3...
shams93 5y ago
I use a thinkpad chromebook using chromeos but because this is the high end thinkpad chromebook I run android studio and other linux desktop apps. It has a beautiful keyboard and amazing build quality. But I use linux apps on chrome rather than a desktop linux distro.
12ian34 5y ago
I have an X1 Carbon (6th or 7th gen, I forget) and I love it. I've handled dozens of other laptops and tried out loads at shops and nothing else feels as good to me. It ticks so many boxes for me: - Dual boots Arch and Windows perfectly, never had issues. - Several years old but still faster than I need with the i7, NVMe SSD and 16 GB memory. - Soft plastic non metallic feel, doesn't get too hot or cold, fan only rarely comes on and it's way quieter than pre M1 MacBooks - Feels like the lightest performance laptop I've ever used. - The PERFECT laptop keyboard. Love the travel, love the dim click, love the positioning of every key, love the dedicated home, end, page up, page down, delete keys. Love the physical left, middle and right click buttons and of course the nipple for comedy factor (however the trackpad obviously sucks relative to MacBooks). - Lid opens and closes easily. - Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD. - Matte screen. - Physical camera slider. I understand the latest X1 Carbons have most if not all of these features.
- handrous 5y ago
  > Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD. I miss USB-A ports on MacBooks. Every indication is I'll still miss them in 2025. Perhaps by 2030 it will seem like an OK choice. I don't miss dedicated Thunderbolt ports, whatever those were called. Like they had on 2015 and earlier MacBooks. Replacing those with thunderbolt-capable USB-C ports is absolutely an improvement, and the right call for Thinkpads, too.
  - shmerl 5y ago
    Short USB-C to USB-A converter cables aren't that hard to find. I'd rather see laptops get rid of HDMI ports and put in more USB-C ports instead.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  I also have a 7th gen X1 Carbon, and love it. The keyboard is excellent and the 14" 1440p screen is my ideal setup.
- blakesterz 5y ago
trylfthsk 5y ago
My P15 supports ECC, has great graphics, ok cooling, and in a pinch is heavy enough to be used in self-defense.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  The cooling on the P51 is what sold it to me. I have a maxed out one with the quadro and everything, it's my photo editing and now DAW laptop. It's really nice to be able to work on it for an hour or more and know that I'm not going to loose 50% or my computing power while working on Ableton and have to stop until it cools down because I have too many plugins running. Got it a year ago for 2500 and I'm a bit on the fence about having gotten it, it's a great computer but the new M1 Mac would smoke it and I prefer MacOS to Windows.
Loic 5y ago
I have a T480 as my daily driver, my kids are using my old X220 and I still have an X60s around to experiment. I really like all of them. Interestingly, my son, 14, told me, even after using desktops at school, the Mac we have at home and probably some other computers with friends, that the best keyboard is from the X220. I am never talking about the quality of the keyboards, this was the first time we discussed about it as he just told me that out of the blue.
- herodoturtle 5y ago
  Your son has good taste in keyboards. At risk of sounding overly subjective, I've got an external Thinkpad USB keyboard with Trackpoint - the 2012 SK-8855 model - which is basically the X220 keyboard. It is hands down the best keyboard experience I've ever had (and I've owned plenty, including mechanical boards, most recently the Logitech G915 TKL). Sadly my backspace key is misfiring and it's beginning to show its age. Which really saddens me. I wish I bought several of these when they were still available. Now even second hand models are difficult to come by.
staticautomatic 5y ago
I have a brand new X1 extreme through work. The on-board sounds crackles and the on-board mic was broken for MONTHS awaiting a software fix from Lenovo that only corrected the mic issue. That is to say…no.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  I had the same experience with the onboard speakers.
shmerl 5y ago
Zen 3 APU based ones are really good like T14 Gen 2 AMD. I wish though AMD would have started using RDNA 2 there instead of Vega GPUs. So for example no AV1 hardware decoder yet. For that we'd need to wait until Zen 4 APUs probably. For Linux, make sure to replace the Mediatek WiFi horror with an Intel WiFi card. And also get the correct one, since Lenovo has some fishy blacklists for WiFi cards. You can search for non blacklisted part codes here (narrow it down by your laptop model): https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/parts/search https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netb... Other recent gotcha I had, if you are replacing the NVMe SSD too to something better than the stock one, make sure to buy a 0.5 mm thermal pad for it. Another thing, in the UEFI change the suspend setting from Windows to Linux.
- elabajaba 5y ago
  T14 gen2 is now shipping with a realtek wifi card that won't have mainline linux support until the next kernel (5.16) ships. The main problem with the T14 is that the screens are either bad or horrifically bad, and you don't know what one you get until it arrives. The 400nit low power screens are more like a 30hz panel for the best one (~30ms grey to grey (g2g), and PWM so it causes headaches and eyestrain), or ~14hz for the worst one (74ms g2g! It's feels as slow as an eink screen.) https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-s-Panel-Lottery-continues-with-3-different-14-inch-LowPower-displays.426538.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-s-Panel-Lottery-continu...
  - shmerl 5y ago
    I got one with a Mediatek card and replaced it with Intel one. It works fine after that. I also replaced the SSD with 1 TB SK Hynix Gold P31. I think my screen is 400 nit but I haven't really noticed major issues with it. I didn't do a lot of testing though.
    - elabajaba 5y ago
      Well response time wise they're worse than the new Macbooks, and those are pretty terrible: https://twitter.com/andreif7/status/1452622025550438403 https://twitter.com/andreif7/status/1452622025550438403 They're not actually using the Innolux display this year sadly, only the AUO and BOE panels (which both have awful ghosting). Once you know what to look for (or feel, since bad ghosting gives me headaches and eyestrain :/), it becomes obvious.
kesslern 5y ago
I've been using two Thinkpad Extreme X1's for awhile now. I have a first-gen I use for personal programming projects and gaming and a second gen one that I use for work. In my opinion, they're wonderful. I dual boot both of them. The process was simply shrinking the Windows partition using the built in Windows utility and then installing Linux into the free space. I don't have any issues with the system sleeping or not waking up. I haven't really messed with hibernation though since I haven't been very mobile the past two years or so. The hybrid graphics work fine too, with one caveat. External displays require Nvidia mode, and mode switching can only be done with an X11 server restart. Hybrid mode has much better battery life but doesn't support external displays. My work laptop is generally plugged into 3 external displays so I keep it in Nvidia mode. I haven't tried Wayland, so I have no idea how well it works vs X11.
danieldevries 5y ago
Second hand t480s running Manjaro. No issues with dual boot. Great laptop!
CountSessine 5y ago
I just replaced a thinkpad x1 extreme gen 2 with a dell xps 17 (I wanted a 16:10 screen and shipping estimates for the x1 extreme gen 4 were ridiculous. Also, Lenovo of Canada are a bunch of dirty crooks). The thinkpad was pretty good, and wayland on fedora worked beautifully (I only used integrated graphics in linux, didn't even try to get the discrete gpu working). The one thing that really didn't work in linux was the fingerprint scanner - it would fail about 7/8 times I used it, which is really too bad because fedora has really nice fingerprint integration with sudo. Also, something seemed to be a bit funny about it's displayport implementation - when it was connected to my DP monitor and went to sleep, the monitor would wake it back up again almost instantly and it would get into this weird back-and-forth between sleep mode and waking. That happened in both linux and windows. This doesn't happen with my new xps. Otherwise it was pretty smooth sailing. It was a well-built computer with a nice keyboard. I might get another thinkpad at some point, but I'm loving this super-compact 17" 16:10 display on the xps.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  How well does S3 sleep work on the new XPS 17? Any problems with Nvidia's drivers ?
- flakiness 5y ago
  Tangentially related: How is XPS 17 doing? I've been pondering the idea of getting one, but have been scared away by some internet reputation (like not working sound, unstable wifi, etc.) Would love to hear second opinions like yours.
  - CountSessine 5y ago
    It seems to be pretty solid. Compared to the thinkpad extreme, - The xps 17 "feels" more solid and less creaky. It's probably less survivable, but it feels like a higher-quality machine - The wifi seems great, but lately I've been having problems with the microphone. It just stopped working in Windows a week ago, presumably after an update? - The keyboard isn't quite as good as the thinkpad, but the thinkpad extreme's keyboard isn't nearly as good as the keyboard in my old thinkpad t520. Lenovo are hell-bent on gimping their keyboards until they're no better than anyone else's, and reviews suggest that they've finally succeeded with the x1 extreme gen 4. The xps 17 keyboard is nice, but I notice a squeaking noise from the enter and right shift keys when I type. - The xps 17's battery life is a lot better. My thinkpad's battery life was puzzlingly bad, even under windows.
moonchrome 5y ago
I had a p15 at a job a few years ago. I was onboarding on this large .NET project that had like a day of environment setup just to get it running. After going through the grueling setup I couldn't get the damn thing to start and the errors were coming from some random windows service that I couldn't see referenced anywhere. Fortunately I was on onboarding with another person and they had the exact same problem, so it wasn't just something I was doing wrong. Two days worth of googling and fumbling around I figured out we were the first to get the updated model of the laptop everyone else was using and the dolby surround drivers that came with the new version were killing some windows messaging service used by some database feature. A hard pass on Lenovo stuff after that experience, drivers breaking core OS services is not something I'd call a professional device. Who the hell buys a P15 for Dolby Atmos support anyway ? It could have no speakers included and be equally good for the intended use case.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  At least in this case it's just lazy OEM not writing good drivers, not actively preloading malware like Lenovo did a few years back [0] There's a reason I stay away from these machines. [0] https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/TA15-051A https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/TA15-051A
fmo1973 5y ago
I'm writing this from a P14s Gen1 (AMD) and it works great on Fedora 35 and that includes the fingerprint reader. It obviously works great on Windows but I don't use that.
- jcastro 5y ago
  P14s Gen1 (AMD) here too, love this thing!
dunco 5y ago
They are worse than they used to be, but the bar is so low in the market that they are still among the best. My gripes are entirely with reliability. I have had many issues with mine (Carbon X1 G6, then G7), all due to bad firmware, which lenovo swapped out the mainboard 5 times trying to fix. They also keep making the keyboard shittier on the X1, but then don't let you choose a good display on a larger model (at least in Aus when I was looking, but I know there is some variability in what is available where and when) Have a look at frame.work laptops to see if that might suit you. I have never used them, but they look great. The major manufacturers seem to be on a treadmill, pumping out half-finished unreliable garbage to keep up with industry trends. From the limited surveys etc I could find online, all windows laptops have roughly twice the failure rate of macs. As best I could determine, It seems you have about 1 in 5 chance of major failure from lenovo/dell etc. and about 1/10 chance from apple (from memory, could be 1/10 vs 1/20). Major failure being something that requires the device to be serviced or sent back, not necessarily a show stopping issue. Get on-site servicing when its offered because it doesn't cost much and there is a good chance you will need to use it.
alphabet9000 5y ago
note that on many of the new thinkpads, the exhaust vent is on the right side. if you are right handed and use a mouse, it will blow hot air directly onto your hand.
marto1 5y ago
Thinkpads are generally better than Acer. That said: 1. Modular build is non existent. With new thinkpads you can’t even remove the battery. That sucks. 2. Cooling. A lot of their new models seem to have been modeled to be as thin as possible and then some, so there's no space for cooling. CPU/GPU throttling was unheard of from that brand for a long time and is no longer the case. 3. Warranty. Depending on where you are in the world you'll get very different attitude towards respecting warranty. As some have pointed out it can get pretty bad. 4. Linux support is mostly ok except for NVidia/primus/optirun shenanigans.
- melony 5y ago
  The current generation of ThinkPads are fairly easy to open up to replace ram and battery but the outer shell is much flimsier than Mac’s. There is an over reliance on the ‘roll cage’ for structural integrity and the area near the trackpad is easily deformed and warped by a spudger.
radlad 5y ago
It depends. I'm a Linux user and my recent experiences are with two devices: 1. T470p - Out of the box it had a couple dead pixels, and the right click physical button to match the red nub had a hair trigger - I ended up disabling the nub entirely in BIOS so that I could type without triggering it. I also regularly (daily?) suffered video driver crashes. I don't know if it was faulty hardware or something with the i915 driver, but I think the former since my new device doesn't have this issue and others with the T470p didn't experience it. The battery life wasn't great either, which was surprising since it was one of the chunky-battery models. I hated this machine. 2. X1 Carbon (9th gen) - Works almost perfectly with very little fiddling. I do occasionally still have some brief issues with the Intel graphics causing freezes (both in Firefox and Zoom), but nothing like the crashes I saw before and everything just works. Plus it supports a USB-C dock that allows me to drive two monitors, connect my mouse and keyboard, and charge the laptop all with a single cable. Thin, light, with great battery life too.
thetwentyone 5y ago
I had a terrible experience with Lenovo. In October 2020 I ordered a laptop. In the next couple of months I called and tried to cancel (they would put in a "cancellation request"). Additionally, they sent an email saying the regulation required that since it hadn't shipped, if it still hadn't shipped in 5 days they would have to cancel the order. A few weeks later, it shipped and I had UPS "return to sender" before it even arrived at my apartment. It was returned to the address Lenovo put as the return address. Paypal refunded me the money after reviewing the case, but I'm now fighting a debt collector for the ~1k USD.
xoac 5y ago
I'd get the framework laptop.
boomskats 5y ago
I firmly believe Thinkpads are the best mainstream Linux laptops you can buy. I have a 2nd gen P1 with a 4k OLED screen, 9400H, dual nvme SSDs and 64gb of decent RAM. It is the best laptop I've ever owned. Dual booting Fedora ever since I've owned it, with 95% Fedora / 5% Windows split. Never a hiccup, perfect thermals, extremely servicable, tough as hell, best keyboard ever.
teekert 5y ago
I have an x13 gen 2, it’s just ok. 2 annoyances, I find the led next to the power button too bright and ctrl and fn are swapped and I hate it, I swapped them back in bios but now the labels are wrong. It runs Ubuntu fine and feels sturdy. Keyboard feels good, but I don’t like those two touchpad buttons integrated into the pad, it feels cheap to bend the pad itself.
brink 5y ago
I've had a Lenovo x1 carbon (latest gen) earlier this year for work - hardware compatibility for linux is good, didn't really like the typing experience and the touchpad is imo awful. For my personal laptop, I have Arch (Manjaro) on a 13" xps 9130, and wouldn't trade it for anything. Screen is beautiful, keyboard is the best I've ever used (including new m1 macbooks), touchpad is fantastic - It's the perfect little laptop, imo.
abridgett 5y ago
A friend was looking and in the end decided not to buy a Thinkpad as both his current Thinkpads mis-order keys when typed quickly and it seems unlikely that it's fixed. (And to be honest, they don't deserve the money with such a bad bug). See https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/ekin47/the_x1_extreme_gen_2_critical_keyboard_flaw_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/ekin47/the_x1_ext... for the details.
sakebomb 5y ago
I use a X1 Carbon Gen 9 for my daily driver after switching from Gen 6. I still love both. I have been using Arch primarily which has a great wiki for installing in case you were leaning that way. Ubuntu is also spot on for all drivers. I only had an issue with the battery in the Gen 6 early on, which was fixed within two days by replacing it (under warranty). I have not had any issues with my Gen 9 (though it is only 5 months old). Firmware is incredibly easy to update on it under linux. I also from time to time swap out the M.2 SSD with windows when I need it. The screws are super simple and you won't lose them. I have used a XPS 13 in the past, though it is an okay alternative, I will say, the keyboard is super compact and inconvenient. The battery is iffy (one friend's exploded on him), mine just did not last long. The form factor was nice, but it did not feel nearly as nice as the X1 Carbon.
invernomut0 5y ago
I have a T14s with AMD Ryzen 7 and everything works on linux apart the fingerprint reader. Battery life is very good and you have great linux support (including battery charge customization and other options with TLP) It's light, you have a good choice of ports (USB A, VGA, USB C) I think it's still a safe choice especially in the AMD variant wrt the other linux laptops.
- em-bee 5y ago
  this is exactly the model i got my eyes on. how long have you had it? how much battery life do you get out of it?
int0x2e 5y ago
I've used Lenovo laptops almost exclusively for the past 5 years (coming from a Dell XPS 13). I've had a X1 Carbon, an X1 Yoga, a couple of T4xx, and now a P1 Gen3. All of my lenovos were awesome. None of them had real issue. I love how they're built and their small design decisions. You do have to keep in mind that small devices with great battery lives usually don't have as powerful of a CPU or can't sustain it for long without sounding like a small jet engine, but that's more a question of adjusting ones expectations to what's realistic within a category. This was largely the reason I switched from an ultrabook-y lenovo (X1 Carbon and the Yoga) to a slightly heavier device (P1) when my laptop became my main dev machine during COVID (before that, my laptop was used for hardcore dev work occasionally, but my desktop at the office was my main machine for heavy lifting...)
beached_whale 5y ago
At least with the thinkpad/legion line they have been repairable and upgradable and perform well. I am using a legion 5 for my linux notebook and it works great in windows and ubuntu.
toastercat 5y ago
I used to have an x201 which I loved to death. I upgraded to an x240 a couple years ago and I honestly find it mediocre; it has an awful trackpad, and it gets hot way too easily. I bought my dad an x220 for his birthday a couple years ago and I love that thing to death -- such a great laptop in look and feel (if you dig the retro aesthetic). I'm hoping to pick up an X1 Carbon or a Framework laptop one day, but I frankly have minimal use for laptops in general at the moment.
soco 5y ago
T495 of last year here, an AMD with all(?) extras, love it.
rvense 5y ago
I have a T490s from last year for work. I just had the keyboard (well, entire top assembly) replaced today via the on-site warranty because the touchpad was ghosting and the physical buttons had stopped working, i.e. it was basically impossible to use without an external keyboard. This also meant that the left shift key no longer comes loose all the time, which it started doing soon after I got it. It also has a couple of dead pixels, though I don't care too much about those. Battery life at this point is less than one hour, after which it cuts out with no working. That might be a Linux issue, but the battery reports its charge state at ~25% when it cuts out. I had hoped they would replace it as well, but my work didn't get the extended warranty for the battery, which is a separate thing. That means that the warranty is only one year, and as such Lenovo want 300 EUR or so to do the replacement, and that's if I send it to them (onsite I imagine it'll be even more expensive). All in all, I'm not very happy with the machine. Overall feel is OK (not fantastic), but the random shut-downs and keyboard wonkiness are extremely off-putting, as is the development in the battery life - it barely works as a laptop anymore. My personal laptop is an almost antique X200, I've gone through a couple since 2008, but they always feel dependable in a way that this just doesn't, and I can't see myself getting a new Lenovo now based on this experience. In my personal life I don't need the extra speed at all, and I wish Lenovo would just keep making spares (and new batteries) for the X200 so I could use that for the rest of my life.
rozab 5y ago
It hasn't been mentioned yet how Lenovo preinstalled malware on their machines in 2014-15. There isn't really anything that can redeem that sort of behaviour in my eyes. Also they've used Uyghur forced labour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci... https://theintercept.com/2020/08/21/school-laptops-lenovo-chromebooks-china-uyghur/ https://theintercept.com/2020/08/21/school-laptops-lenovo-ch...
- boomskats 5y ago
  FWIW, and this is a Thinkpad-specific Ask HN - the malware was never preinstalled to Thinkpads, only their budget/consumer line of laptops.
- randomluck040 5y ago
  Shouldn’t have read the article, it’s gut wrenching. How can people be like that, without any empathy and emotional attachment? I understand that there are more brands involved, what I don’t understand is how no one really talks about the situation. It’s ugly.
neverminder 5y ago
Dell Precision 7xxx series. Unlike Lenovo, Dell officially supports linux on their laptops and actually ship them with it preinstalled. Also unlike chinese owned Lenovo, Dell doesn't have a track record of installing spyware.
momofuku 5y ago
I would say be extremely careful with the model that you purchase. I purchased the new E15 Gen 3 AMD model (I know, my mistake) and running Linux on it has been pure hell. I installed Ubuntu 16.04 initially and half of the drivers did not load. Every time I installed a new driver another cog stopped working. It was a mess to get Bluetooth working, WiFi just wouldn't work and my display driver straight up wouldn't work. After a week of getting stuck in this tangled mess, I decided to move to 18.04 assuming that drivers would be available on a later version of an LTS distribution. I was partialy right, I managed to get the WiFi and Bluetooth working but the god damn display drivers just won't load. This means I cannot suspend my PC, adjust brightness or connect to an external monitor. I will sell you this machine but looks like you need linux as well. So I have a decently speced hexa-core PC with a dream keyboard, great screen but cannot run Ubuntu which is what my job as a robotics engineer most need. Everytime I look at it I'm infuriated at my utter lack of due diligence. There's a guide on the Ubuntu website with a list of supported PCs. Refer to that before making a purchase. Its hellish, frustrating and heartbreaking otherwise. /rant
- doubled112 5y ago
  I know it's just a rant, and I'm assuming that you need some specific software for the job, but both of those OSs are ancient in terms of hardware support. Maybe the HWE stack gets it going, but maybe it breaks other things too. The Linux kernel containing the drivers as the distribution model is usually seen as a good thing, but it's also a huge downside when it comes to these problems. There's just no easy way to get a new GPU driver onto an older OS (except Nvidia). Any WiFi card that isn't Intel is probably going to be a fun time. 16.04 is ~ 5 years older than the hardware. 18.04 is still ~ 3 years older than the hardware. For example, the 3500U in my ASUS laptop still had problems in 20.04. That's an older CPU/GPU but much newer OS.
hellcow 5y ago
I love Thinkpads and bought some for myself. I also pushed for them to be adopted across my company's entire engineering department. We're sending them back for a refund and buying XPS Developer Editions for everyone instead, even though it's IMO a much inferior product with no ports and a crappy keyboard. The Realtek wifi cards they're putting into the new Thinkpads are just a damn shame. Even with 3rd party kernel modules that you compile yourself, we couldn't get it to work reliably, and while I'm OK with opening up a laptop with 37 tabs and replacing the wifi card, we can't ask that of everyone. For our team the laptop needs to "just work" and the new Thinkpads don't, which is deeply disappointing to me.
- momofuku 5y ago
  This. I feel this so much. I need a machine that works for work, and not something that I need, as you said, needs 37 open tabs to figure out the WiFi situtaion. I had a Dell 5558 before this, an absolute unit of a machine that worked so well with Ubuntu. The only issue I had with it was on days when I felt daring and tried to hack different versions of CUDA on it. Otherwise, it was a solid machine that I've now turned into a Linux box for my home setup.
davidandgoliath 5y ago
X1 carbon here (admittedly, 9 year old one) and it's amazing. I'd buy an gen 5 to 7 without hesitation. On fedora it has been without flaw.
pengo 5y ago
I have two Dell XPS13s, one five years old, one new. Both took to Linux (Mint, in my case) like ducks to water. They dual boot from rEFInd, but I seldom use Windows (I have just one heritage Win application to support, and that's been stable for five years). However, while these are light, compact and highly specced, they're not user upgradeable and their fans get noisy under load. If I were buying a laptop for Linux only, I'd be considering the Framework (https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/) or System 76 (https://system76.com/laptops/ https://system76.com/laptops/).
ravish0007 5y ago
A week ago I bought a used X1 carbon Gen 8 for 1/4th of its original price, he wanted a macbook. I pity him, I love how light weight it is and the keyboard is so satisfying, my previous laptop was Dell 5559. I'm running Arch and no issues and I just love how productive it has been.
emilsedgh 5y ago
I used to have an X1 Carbon 4th gen. I was super excited to get a 9th gen. I was utterly disappointed. The fan would turn on for no good reason and make noised. My 4th gen never did that. And the performance was not that different from my 4th gen. So, I returned it after a while. Got myself a Macbook Air M1. The hardware is brilliant. But to my taste, Mac OS is nowhere near close to how comfortable I was with my Linux/KDE setup. So now I'm backing marcan's effort to get Linux running on this device, but that doesn't seen to be close. Thus, I'm thinking of giving the Lenovo T14 Gen2 a try. As of now every moment I use the Air is pain.
lostdog 5y ago
No. No they are not. I just bought my 3rd X1 Carbon (gen 9), and then returned it the next week. It made a constant buzz. $$$$ laptops aren't supposed to sound like the cheapest USB charger knockoff. Plus it would never go to sleep (so it just discharged every time I shut the lid). I've never been able to get any X1 to seamless work with a thunderbolt dock either. 3 docks tried, and the Macbook is fine on 2, but the thinkpad always has problems. A firmware upgrade helped a little, but it's never seamless. I wish I could find my next linux laptop. My gen 5 is getting a little long in the tooth.
ElectronBadger 5y ago
T14 (Ryzen 5) running Debian Testing here. Perfect in every aspect.
shivun 5y ago
I previously had T470s, which was a fine machine, except for short lived batteries and one soldered memory slot which, even if one slot was normal, really limited upgrading possibilities. But other than that, the experience was fine. Upgraded to T14 and have had nothing but problems. Battery management is the worst, you can choose quiet and sluggish or fans blasting all the time and ok, but not great performance. Some upgrades fix some issues but break things elsewhere. Based on this experience I can't recommend ,although it just might be this particular model (based on the forums it's not just my machine, but everyone with this model and some of the issues e.g. trackpoint dying seem to be shared with other recent models too). Can't comment on the Linux experience, only W10.
nohope 5y ago
Thinkpads are great, the problem is the price, specially overseas because of the exchange in countries which currency value have lowered in comparison to the dollar. Any Thinkpad was barely affordable and this situation became worse. A X1 Carbon is a dream, but it costs 5-7 times more than a low cost laptop (and low quality as well). A T490 is 3-4 times more expensive than a low cost laptop. I'm typing this comment in my lovely T440, but my next laptop will probably not be a Thinkpad. They are great, but having one doesn't payoff nowadays (YMMV).

55 points by imachine1980_ 5y ago

if not alternatives 1) good for windows Linux and double boot (I have acer and is really painful install linux)

I have a new t14 at work. I use a Dell xps 15 at home. Would always go for the Dell. The t14 is incredible ugly (guess all thinkpads are), wastes a lot of space with those mouse clickers, is bulky and also heavy compared to the Dell. Sound / Display aren't even comparable. Build quality is close but that's it. Both run arch like a champ.

the_only_law 5y ago

I got a new P14sand it managed to die within the year, after a ton of power management issues where it just would not shut down or wake up. As far as I can tell the board is completely dead. Hours of fiddling with the power button and trying anything I found online, but it doesn’t turn on anymore.

tinus_hn 5y ago
I would presume this would be covered under warranty?

smoldesu 5y ago

It's weird. I own two Thinkpads, a "golden era" model with the 7-row keyboard (x201) as well as a newer Skylake model (T460s). The difference between the two is noticeable, but not as much as people make it out to be. The older model feels like a really solidly built device, and the performance is surprisingly good while running Linux. It idles on the hot side (little less than 40c no matter what you're running), but CPU usage is low even on high-bloat desktop environments like KDE. Without anything running in the background, CPU usage stays below 2%, which kinda blows my mind for a machine pushing a decade old. The newer model I have is much the same way, but it's thinner and idles at a much more reasonable temp (28-30c). Frankly, I think they're both fine. The new keyboards aren't mind-blowing, but I'd still put them leagues beyond Dell and Apple's offerings these days. I'd frankly recommend either of them, as long as you can find one without a TN panel. The other advice I'd give is to not buy directly from Lenovo, since their prices are all over the place and tend to screw you over if you don't do your due diligence.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>high-bloat desktop environments like KDE Which KDE is that and how exactly is it "high bloat"? Definitely not Plasma. Modern KDE is very resource efficient, even giving XFCE a run for its money.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I mean, I use KDE Plasma on many of my devices. I'm pretty familiar with it's resource footprint, and while it's certainly better than it used to be, it's still on the high-end of resource usage when compared with it's contemporaries. It's gotten much better at memory management, but there's a considerable amount of latency and cruft surrounding the menus and dialogues the system uses. On every system I've ever used, krunner takes ~600ms to boot launch, menus have a good 200ms of lead-time and activity switching can be 1500ms+ on the right configuration. XFCE still feels faster to me, but maybe it's a hardware thing.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    How did you measure all these latencies? Anecdotally , KDE on my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is pretty fast on both new Ryzen and very old Intel laptops. Maybe something is wrong/buggy on your setup.
  - WhatIsDukkha 5y ago
    Eh? You have something wrong. 4-5 desktops/laptops with wide variety of profiles and I don't see any of that latency. Turn off animations.
RankingMember 5y ago
Curious for your thoughts: Where would you recommend buying from, a retailer like Best Buy?
- gkop 5y ago
  Lenovo.com will let you customize the machine, and often offers nice discount codes on the order of 10-15% off list.

blindfolded_go 5y ago

I have a T495. Works great for me, very solid laptop for running Linux.

plmpsu 5y ago

I use a first gen T14 running Manjaro. Highly recommended.

patrickbolle 5y ago

While not directly in the Thinkpad name, I have an older X1 Carbon (4th Gen) that has worked really well for me. Extensive travelling, multiple drops, etc. Thing still is solid. Runs Debian really well. I have only ever owned Thinkpads (until the carbon) and I don't see any reason I would personally switch back to Thinkpad version. Carbons are so small and perfect for my usage.

zokier 5y ago
X1 series has always been branded as Thinkpads, e.g. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-NWK3QGE-Notebook.73443.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-NWK3...

shams93 5y ago

I use a thinkpad chromebook using chromeos but because this is the high end thinkpad chromebook I run android studio and other linux desktop apps. It has a beautiful keyboard and amazing build quality. But I use linux apps on chrome rather than a desktop linux distro.

12ian34 5y ago

I have an X1 Carbon (6th or 7th gen, I forget) and I love it. I've handled dozens of other laptops and tried out loads at shops and nothing else feels as good to me. It ticks so many boxes for me: - Dual boots Arch and Windows perfectly, never had issues. - Several years old but still faster than I need with the i7, NVMe SSD and 16 GB memory. - Soft plastic non metallic feel, doesn't get too hot or cold, fan only rarely comes on and it's way quieter than pre M1 MacBooks - Feels like the lightest performance laptop I've ever used. - The PERFECT laptop keyboard. Love the travel, love the dim click, love the positioning of every key, love the dedicated home, end, page up, page down, delete keys. Love the physical left, middle and right click buttons and of course the nipple for comedy factor (however the trackpad obviously sucks relative to MacBooks). - Lid opens and closes easily. - Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD. - Matte screen. - Physical camera slider. I understand the latest X1 Carbons have most if not all of these features.

handrous 5y ago
> Perfect connectivity options, two USB C (PD, Thunderbolt, ethernet), 2/3 USB A, HDMI, microSD, SD. I miss USB-A ports on MacBooks. Every indication is I'll still miss them in 2025. Perhaps by 2030 it will seem like an OK choice. I don't miss dedicated Thunderbolt ports, whatever those were called. Like they had on 2015 and earlier MacBooks. Replacing those with thunderbolt-capable USB-C ports is absolutely an improvement, and the right call for Thinkpads, too.
- shmerl 5y ago
  Short USB-C to USB-A converter cables aren't that hard to find. I'd rather see laptops get rid of HDMI ports and put in more USB-C ports instead.
dahfizz 5y ago
I also have a 7th gen X1 Carbon, and love it. The keyboard is excellent and the 14" 1440p screen is my ideal setup.
blakesterz 5y ago

trylfthsk 5y ago

My P15 supports ECC, has great graphics, ok cooling, and in a pinch is heavy enough to be used in self-defense.

pvarangot 5y ago
The cooling on the P51 is what sold it to me. I have a maxed out one with the quadro and everything, it's my photo editing and now DAW laptop. It's really nice to be able to work on it for an hour or more and know that I'm not going to loose 50% or my computing power while working on Ableton and have to stop until it cools down because I have too many plugins running. Got it a year ago for 2500 and I'm a bit on the fence about having gotten it, it's a great computer but the new M1 Mac would smoke it and I prefer MacOS to Windows.

Loic 5y ago

I have a T480 as my daily driver, my kids are using my old X220 and I still have an X60s around to experiment. I really like all of them. Interestingly, my son, 14, told me, even after using desktops at school, the Mac we have at home and probably some other computers with friends, that the best keyboard is from the X220. I am never talking about the quality of the keyboards, this was the first time we discussed about it as he just told me that out of the blue.

herodoturtle 5y ago
Your son has good taste in keyboards. At risk of sounding overly subjective, I've got an external Thinkpad USB keyboard with Trackpoint - the 2012 SK-8855 model - which is basically the X220 keyboard. It is hands down the best keyboard experience I've ever had (and I've owned plenty, including mechanical boards, most recently the Logitech G915 TKL). Sadly my backspace key is misfiring and it's beginning to show its age. Which really saddens me. I wish I bought several of these when they were still available. Now even second hand models are difficult to come by.

staticautomatic 5y ago

I have a brand new X1 extreme through work. The on-board sounds crackles and the on-board mic was broken for MONTHS awaiting a software fix from Lenovo that only corrected the mic issue. That is to say…no.

arrosenberg 5y ago
I had the same experience with the onboard speakers.

shmerl 5y ago

Zen 3 APU based ones are really good like T14 Gen 2 AMD. I wish though AMD would have started using RDNA 2 there instead of Vega GPUs. So for example no AV1 hardware decoder yet. For that we'd need to wait until Zen 4 APUs probably. For Linux, make sure to replace the Mediatek WiFi horror with an Intel WiFi card. And also get the correct one, since Lenovo has some fishy blacklists for WiFi cards. You can search for non blacklisted part codes here (narrow it down by your laptop model): https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/parts/search https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netb... Other recent gotcha I had, if you are replacing the NVMe SSD too to something better than the stock one, make sure to buy a 0.5 mm thermal pad for it. Another thing, in the UEFI change the suspend setting from Windows to Linux.

elabajaba 5y ago
T14 gen2 is now shipping with a realtek wifi card that won't have mainline linux support until the next kernel (5.16) ships. The main problem with the T14 is that the screens are either bad or horrifically bad, and you don't know what one you get until it arrives. The 400nit low power screens are more like a 30hz panel for the best one (~30ms grey to grey (g2g), and PWM so it causes headaches and eyestrain), or ~14hz for the worst one (74ms g2g! It's feels as slow as an eink screen.) https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-s-Panel-Lottery-continues-with-3-different-14-inch-LowPower-displays.426538.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-s-Panel-Lottery-continu...
- shmerl 5y ago
  I got one with a Mediatek card and replaced it with Intel one. It works fine after that. I also replaced the SSD with 1 TB SK Hynix Gold P31. I think my screen is 400 nit but I haven't really noticed major issues with it. I didn't do a lot of testing though.
  - elabajaba 5y ago
    Well response time wise they're worse than the new Macbooks, and those are pretty terrible: https://twitter.com/andreif7/status/1452622025550438403 https://twitter.com/andreif7/status/1452622025550438403 They're not actually using the Innolux display this year sadly, only the AUO and BOE panels (which both have awful ghosting). Once you know what to look for (or feel, since bad ghosting gives me headaches and eyestrain :/), it becomes obvious.

kesslern 5y ago

I've been using two Thinkpad Extreme X1's for awhile now. I have a first-gen I use for personal programming projects and gaming and a second gen one that I use for work. In my opinion, they're wonderful. I dual boot both of them. The process was simply shrinking the Windows partition using the built in Windows utility and then installing Linux into the free space. I don't have any issues with the system sleeping or not waking up. I haven't really messed with hibernation though since I haven't been very mobile the past two years or so. The hybrid graphics work fine too, with one caveat. External displays require Nvidia mode, and mode switching can only be done with an X11 server restart. Hybrid mode has much better battery life but doesn't support external displays. My work laptop is generally plugged into 3 external displays so I keep it in Nvidia mode. I haven't tried Wayland, so I have no idea how well it works vs X11.

danieldevries 5y ago

Second hand t480s running Manjaro. No issues with dual boot. Great laptop!

CountSessine 5y ago

I just replaced a thinkpad x1 extreme gen 2 with a dell xps 17 (I wanted a 16:10 screen and shipping estimates for the x1 extreme gen 4 were ridiculous. Also, Lenovo of Canada are a bunch of dirty crooks). The thinkpad was pretty good, and wayland on fedora worked beautifully (I only used integrated graphics in linux, didn't even try to get the discrete gpu working). The one thing that really didn't work in linux was the fingerprint scanner - it would fail about 7/8 times I used it, which is really too bad because fedora has really nice fingerprint integration with sudo. Also, something seemed to be a bit funny about it's displayport implementation - when it was connected to my DP monitor and went to sleep, the monitor would wake it back up again almost instantly and it would get into this weird back-and-forth between sleep mode and waking. That happened in both linux and windows. This doesn't happen with my new xps. Otherwise it was pretty smooth sailing. It was a well-built computer with a nice keyboard. I might get another thinkpad at some point, but I'm loving this super-compact 17" 16:10 display on the xps.

Dracophoenix 5y ago
How well does S3 sleep work on the new XPS 17? Any problems with Nvidia's drivers ?
flakiness 5y ago
Tangentially related: How is XPS 17 doing? I've been pondering the idea of getting one, but have been scared away by some internet reputation (like not working sound, unstable wifi, etc.) Would love to hear second opinions like yours.
- CountSessine 5y ago
  It seems to be pretty solid. Compared to the thinkpad extreme, - The xps 17 "feels" more solid and less creaky. It's probably less survivable, but it feels like a higher-quality machine - The wifi seems great, but lately I've been having problems with the microphone. It just stopped working in Windows a week ago, presumably after an update? - The keyboard isn't quite as good as the thinkpad, but the thinkpad extreme's keyboard isn't nearly as good as the keyboard in my old thinkpad t520. Lenovo are hell-bent on gimping their keyboards until they're no better than anyone else's, and reviews suggest that they've finally succeeded with the x1 extreme gen 4. The xps 17 keyboard is nice, but I notice a squeaking noise from the enter and right shift keys when I type. - The xps 17's battery life is a lot better. My thinkpad's battery life was puzzlingly bad, even under windows.

moonchrome 5y ago

I had a p15 at a job a few years ago. I was onboarding on this large .NET project that had like a day of environment setup just to get it running. After going through the grueling setup I couldn't get the damn thing to start and the errors were coming from some random windows service that I couldn't see referenced anywhere. Fortunately I was on onboarding with another person and they had the exact same problem, so it wasn't just something I was doing wrong. Two days worth of googling and fumbling around I figured out we were the first to get the updated model of the laptop everyone else was using and the dolby surround drivers that came with the new version were killing some windows messaging service used by some database feature. A hard pass on Lenovo stuff after that experience, drivers breaking core OS services is not something I'd call a professional device. Who the hell buys a P15 for Dolby Atmos support anyway ? It could have no speakers included and be equally good for the intended use case.

908B64B197 5y ago
At least in this case it's just lazy OEM not writing good drivers, not actively preloading malware like Lenovo did a few years back [0] There's a reason I stay away from these machines. [0] https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/TA15-051A https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/TA15-051A

fmo1973 5y ago

I'm writing this from a P14s Gen1 (AMD) and it works great on Fedora 35 and that includes the fingerprint reader. It obviously works great on Windows but I don't use that.

jcastro 5y ago
P14s Gen1 (AMD) here too, love this thing!

dunco 5y ago

They are worse than they used to be, but the bar is so low in the market that they are still among the best. My gripes are entirely with reliability. I have had many issues with mine (Carbon X1 G6, then G7), all due to bad firmware, which lenovo swapped out the mainboard 5 times trying to fix. They also keep making the keyboard shittier on the X1, but then don't let you choose a good display on a larger model (at least in Aus when I was looking, but I know there is some variability in what is available where and when) Have a look at frame.work laptops to see if that might suit you. I have never used them, but they look great. The major manufacturers seem to be on a treadmill, pumping out half-finished unreliable garbage to keep up with industry trends. From the limited surveys etc I could find online, all windows laptops have roughly twice the failure rate of macs. As best I could determine, It seems you have about 1 in 5 chance of major failure from lenovo/dell etc. and about 1/10 chance from apple (from memory, could be 1/10 vs 1/20). Major failure being something that requires the device to be serviced or sent back, not necessarily a show stopping issue. Get on-site servicing when its offered because it doesn't cost much and there is a good chance you will need to use it.

alphabet9000 5y ago

note that on many of the new thinkpads, the exhaust vent is on the right side. if you are right handed and use a mouse, it will blow hot air directly onto your hand.

marto1 5y ago

Thinkpads are generally better than Acer. That said: 1. Modular build is non existent. With new thinkpads you can’t even remove the battery. That sucks. 2. Cooling. A lot of their new models seem to have been modeled to be as thin as possible and then some, so there's no space for cooling. CPU/GPU throttling was unheard of from that brand for a long time and is no longer the case. 3. Warranty. Depending on where you are in the world you'll get very different attitude towards respecting warranty. As some have pointed out it can get pretty bad. 4. Linux support is mostly ok except for NVidia/primus/optirun shenanigans.

melony 5y ago
The current generation of ThinkPads are fairly easy to open up to replace ram and battery but the outer shell is much flimsier than Mac’s. There is an over reliance on the ‘roll cage’ for structural integrity and the area near the trackpad is easily deformed and warped by a spudger.

radlad 5y ago

It depends. I'm a Linux user and my recent experiences are with two devices: 1. T470p - Out of the box it had a couple dead pixels, and the right click physical button to match the red nub had a hair trigger - I ended up disabling the nub entirely in BIOS so that I could type without triggering it. I also regularly (daily?) suffered video driver crashes. I don't know if it was faulty hardware or something with the i915 driver, but I think the former since my new device doesn't have this issue and others with the T470p didn't experience it. The battery life wasn't great either, which was surprising since it was one of the chunky-battery models. I hated this machine. 2. X1 Carbon (9th gen) - Works almost perfectly with very little fiddling. I do occasionally still have some brief issues with the Intel graphics causing freezes (both in Firefox and Zoom), but nothing like the crashes I saw before and everything just works. Plus it supports a USB-C dock that allows me to drive two monitors, connect my mouse and keyboard, and charge the laptop all with a single cable. Thin, light, with great battery life too.

thetwentyone 5y ago

I had a terrible experience with Lenovo. In October 2020 I ordered a laptop. In the next couple of months I called and tried to cancel (they would put in a "cancellation request"). Additionally, they sent an email saying the regulation required that since it hadn't shipped, if it still hadn't shipped in 5 days they would have to cancel the order. A few weeks later, it shipped and I had UPS "return to sender" before it even arrived at my apartment. It was returned to the address Lenovo put as the return address. Paypal refunded me the money after reviewing the case, but I'm now fighting a debt collector for the ~1k USD.

xoac 5y ago

I'd get the framework laptop.

boomskats 5y ago

I firmly believe Thinkpads are the best mainstream Linux laptops you can buy. I have a 2nd gen P1 with a 4k OLED screen, 9400H, dual nvme SSDs and 64gb of decent RAM. It is the best laptop I've ever owned. Dual booting Fedora ever since I've owned it, with 95% Fedora / 5% Windows split. Never a hiccup, perfect thermals, extremely servicable, tough as hell, best keyboard ever.

teekert 5y ago

I have an x13 gen 2, it’s just ok. 2 annoyances, I find the led next to the power button too bright and ctrl and fn are swapped and I hate it, I swapped them back in bios but now the labels are wrong. It runs Ubuntu fine and feels sturdy. Keyboard feels good, but I don’t like those two touchpad buttons integrated into the pad, it feels cheap to bend the pad itself.

brink 5y ago

I've had a Lenovo x1 carbon (latest gen) earlier this year for work - hardware compatibility for linux is good, didn't really like the typing experience and the touchpad is imo awful. For my personal laptop, I have Arch (Manjaro) on a 13" xps 9130, and wouldn't trade it for anything. Screen is beautiful, keyboard is the best I've ever used (including new m1 macbooks), touchpad is fantastic - It's the perfect little laptop, imo.

abridgett 5y ago

A friend was looking and in the end decided not to buy a Thinkpad as both his current Thinkpads mis-order keys when typed quickly and it seems unlikely that it's fixed. (And to be honest, they don't deserve the money with such a bad bug). See https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/ekin47/the_x1_extreme_gen_2_critical_keyboard_flaw_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/ekin47/the_x1_ext... for the details.

sakebomb 5y ago

I use a X1 Carbon Gen 9 for my daily driver after switching from Gen 6. I still love both. I have been using Arch primarily which has a great wiki for installing in case you were leaning that way. Ubuntu is also spot on for all drivers. I only had an issue with the battery in the Gen 6 early on, which was fixed within two days by replacing it (under warranty). I have not had any issues with my Gen 9 (though it is only 5 months old). Firmware is incredibly easy to update on it under linux. I also from time to time swap out the M.2 SSD with windows when I need it. The screws are super simple and you won't lose them. I have used a XPS 13 in the past, though it is an okay alternative, I will say, the keyboard is super compact and inconvenient. The battery is iffy (one friend's exploded on him), mine just did not last long. The form factor was nice, but it did not feel nearly as nice as the X1 Carbon.

invernomut0 5y ago

I have a T14s with AMD Ryzen 7 and everything works on linux apart the fingerprint reader. Battery life is very good and you have great linux support (including battery charge customization and other options with TLP) It's light, you have a good choice of ports (USB A, VGA, USB C) I think it's still a safe choice especially in the AMD variant wrt the other linux laptops.

em-bee 5y ago
this is exactly the model i got my eyes on. how long have you had it? how much battery life do you get out of it?

int0x2e 5y ago

I've used Lenovo laptops almost exclusively for the past 5 years (coming from a Dell XPS 13). I've had a X1 Carbon, an X1 Yoga, a couple of T4xx, and now a P1 Gen3. All of my lenovos were awesome. None of them had real issue. I love how they're built and their small design decisions. You do have to keep in mind that small devices with great battery lives usually don't have as powerful of a CPU or can't sustain it for long without sounding like a small jet engine, but that's more a question of adjusting ones expectations to what's realistic within a category. This was largely the reason I switched from an ultrabook-y lenovo (X1 Carbon and the Yoga) to a slightly heavier device (P1) when my laptop became my main dev machine during COVID (before that, my laptop was used for hardcore dev work occasionally, but my desktop at the office was my main machine for heavy lifting...)

beached_whale 5y ago

At least with the thinkpad/legion line they have been repairable and upgradable and perform well. I am using a legion 5 for my linux notebook and it works great in windows and ubuntu.

toastercat 5y ago

I used to have an x201 which I loved to death. I upgraded to an x240 a couple years ago and I honestly find it mediocre; it has an awful trackpad, and it gets hot way too easily. I bought my dad an x220 for his birthday a couple years ago and I love that thing to death -- such a great laptop in look and feel (if you dig the retro aesthetic). I'm hoping to pick up an X1 Carbon or a Framework laptop one day, but I frankly have minimal use for laptops in general at the moment.

soco 5y ago

T495 of last year here, an AMD with all(?) extras, love it.

rvense 5y ago

I have a T490s from last year for work. I just had the keyboard (well, entire top assembly) replaced today via the on-site warranty because the touchpad was ghosting and the physical buttons had stopped working, i.e. it was basically impossible to use without an external keyboard. This also meant that the left shift key no longer comes loose all the time, which it started doing soon after I got it. It also has a couple of dead pixels, though I don't care too much about those. Battery life at this point is less than one hour, after which it cuts out with no working. That might be a Linux issue, but the battery reports its charge state at ~25% when it cuts out. I had hoped they would replace it as well, but my work didn't get the extended warranty for the battery, which is a separate thing. That means that the warranty is only one year, and as such Lenovo want 300 EUR or so to do the replacement, and that's if I send it to them (onsite I imagine it'll be even more expensive). All in all, I'm not very happy with the machine. Overall feel is OK (not fantastic), but the random shut-downs and keyboard wonkiness are extremely off-putting, as is the development in the battery life - it barely works as a laptop anymore. My personal laptop is an almost antique X200, I've gone through a couple since 2008, but they always feel dependable in a way that this just doesn't, and I can't see myself getting a new Lenovo now based on this experience. In my personal life I don't need the extra speed at all, and I wish Lenovo would just keep making spares (and new batteries) for the X200 so I could use that for the rest of my life.

rozab 5y ago

It hasn't been mentioned yet how Lenovo preinstalled malware on their machines in 2014-15. There isn't really anything that can redeem that sort of behaviour in my eyes. Also they've used Uyghur forced labour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci... https://theintercept.com/2020/08/21/school-laptops-lenovo-chromebooks-china-uyghur/ https://theintercept.com/2020/08/21/school-laptops-lenovo-ch...

boomskats 5y ago
FWIW, and this is a Thinkpad-specific Ask HN - the malware was never preinstalled to Thinkpads, only their budget/consumer line of laptops.
randomluck040 5y ago
Shouldn’t have read the article, it’s gut wrenching. How can people be like that, without any empathy and emotional attachment? I understand that there are more brands involved, what I don’t understand is how no one really talks about the situation. It’s ugly.

neverminder 5y ago

Dell Precision 7xxx series. Unlike Lenovo, Dell officially supports linux on their laptops and actually ship them with it preinstalled. Also unlike chinese owned Lenovo, Dell doesn't have a track record of installing spyware.

momofuku 5y ago

I would say be extremely careful with the model that you purchase. I purchased the new E15 Gen 3 AMD model (I know, my mistake) and running Linux on it has been pure hell. I installed Ubuntu 16.04 initially and half of the drivers did not load. Every time I installed a new driver another cog stopped working. It was a mess to get Bluetooth working, WiFi just wouldn't work and my display driver straight up wouldn't work. After a week of getting stuck in this tangled mess, I decided to move to 18.04 assuming that drivers would be available on a later version of an LTS distribution. I was partialy right, I managed to get the WiFi and Bluetooth working but the god damn display drivers just won't load. This means I cannot suspend my PC, adjust brightness or connect to an external monitor. I will sell you this machine but looks like you need linux as well. So I have a decently speced hexa-core PC with a dream keyboard, great screen but cannot run Ubuntu which is what my job as a robotics engineer most need. Everytime I look at it I'm infuriated at my utter lack of due diligence. There's a guide on the Ubuntu website with a list of supported PCs. Refer to that before making a purchase. Its hellish, frustrating and heartbreaking otherwise. /rant

doubled112 5y ago
I know it's just a rant, and I'm assuming that you need some specific software for the job, but both of those OSs are ancient in terms of hardware support. Maybe the HWE stack gets it going, but maybe it breaks other things too. The Linux kernel containing the drivers as the distribution model is usually seen as a good thing, but it's also a huge downside when it comes to these problems. There's just no easy way to get a new GPU driver onto an older OS (except Nvidia). Any WiFi card that isn't Intel is probably going to be a fun time. 16.04 is ~ 5 years older than the hardware. 18.04 is still ~ 3 years older than the hardware. For example, the 3500U in my ASUS laptop still had problems in 20.04. That's an older CPU/GPU but much newer OS.

hellcow 5y ago

I love Thinkpads and bought some for myself. I also pushed for them to be adopted across my company's entire engineering department. We're sending them back for a refund and buying XPS Developer Editions for everyone instead, even though it's IMO a much inferior product with no ports and a crappy keyboard. The Realtek wifi cards they're putting into the new Thinkpads are just a damn shame. Even with 3rd party kernel modules that you compile yourself, we couldn't get it to work reliably, and while I'm OK with opening up a laptop with 37 tabs and replacing the wifi card, we can't ask that of everyone. For our team the laptop needs to "just work" and the new Thinkpads don't, which is deeply disappointing to me.

momofuku 5y ago
This. I feel this so much. I need a machine that works for work, and not something that I need, as you said, needs 37 open tabs to figure out the WiFi situtaion. I had a Dell 5558 before this, an absolute unit of a machine that worked so well with Ubuntu. The only issue I had with it was on days when I felt daring and tried to hack different versions of CUDA on it. Otherwise, it was a solid machine that I've now turned into a Linux box for my home setup.

davidandgoliath 5y ago

X1 carbon here (admittedly, 9 year old one) and it's amazing. I'd buy an gen 5 to 7 without hesitation. On fedora it has been without flaw.

pengo 5y ago

I have two Dell XPS13s, one five years old, one new. Both took to Linux (Mint, in my case) like ducks to water. They dual boot from rEFInd, but I seldom use Windows (I have just one heritage Win application to support, and that's been stable for five years). However, while these are light, compact and highly specced, they're not user upgradeable and their fans get noisy under load. If I were buying a laptop for Linux only, I'd be considering the Framework (https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/) or System 76 (https://system76.com/laptops/ https://system76.com/laptops/).

ravish0007 5y ago

A week ago I bought a used X1 carbon Gen 8 for 1/4th of its original price, he wanted a macbook. I pity him, I love how light weight it is and the keyboard is so satisfying, my previous laptop was Dell 5559. I'm running Arch and no issues and I just love how productive it has been.

emilsedgh 5y ago

I used to have an X1 Carbon 4th gen. I was super excited to get a 9th gen. I was utterly disappointed. The fan would turn on for no good reason and make noised. My 4th gen never did that. And the performance was not that different from my 4th gen. So, I returned it after a while. Got myself a Macbook Air M1. The hardware is brilliant. But to my taste, Mac OS is nowhere near close to how comfortable I was with my Linux/KDE setup. So now I'm backing marcan's effort to get Linux running on this device, but that doesn't seen to be close. Thus, I'm thinking of giving the Lenovo T14 Gen2 a try. As of now every moment I use the Air is pain.

lostdog 5y ago

No. No they are not. I just bought my 3rd X1 Carbon (gen 9), and then returned it the next week. It made a constant buzz. $$$$ laptops aren't supposed to sound like the cheapest USB charger knockoff. Plus it would never go to sleep (so it just discharged every time I shut the lid). I've never been able to get any X1 to seamless work with a thunderbolt dock either. 3 docks tried, and the Macbook is fine on 2, but the thinkpad always has problems. A firmware upgrade helped a little, but it's never seamless. I wish I could find my next linux laptop. My gen 5 is getting a little long in the tooth.

ElectronBadger 5y ago

T14 (Ryzen 5) running Debian Testing here. Perfect in every aspect.

shivun 5y ago

I previously had T470s, which was a fine machine, except for short lived batteries and one soldered memory slot which, even if one slot was normal, really limited upgrading possibilities. But other than that, the experience was fine. Upgraded to T14 and have had nothing but problems. Battery management is the worst, you can choose quiet and sluggish or fans blasting all the time and ok, but not great performance. Some upgrades fix some issues but break things elsewhere. Based on this experience I can't recommend ,although it just might be this particular model (based on the forums it's not just my machine, but everyone with this model and some of the issues e.g. trackpoint dying seem to be shared with other recent models too). Can't comment on the Linux experience, only W10.

nohope 5y ago

Thinkpads are great, the problem is the price, specially overseas because of the exchange in countries which currency value have lowered in comparison to the dollar. Any Thinkpad was barely affordable and this situation became worse. A X1 Carbon is a dream, but it costs 5-7 times more than a low cost laptop (and low quality as well). A T490 is 3-4 times more expensive than a low cost laptop. I'm typing this comment in my lovely T440, but my next laptop will probably not be a Thinkpad. They are great, but having one doesn't payoff nowadays (YMMV).