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The X220 ThinkPad is the best laptop
- phyalow 3y agoWait until you try a M processor series Macbook.
- rawland 3y agoAs a *nix defender of the past 20 years, I must admit: Yepp.
- asystole 3y agoWell, they run a *nix out of the box :)
- baz00 3y agoActually you can use the U there. It is Unix! https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3700.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3700.htm
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- formerly_proven 3y agoThinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now. Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
- nxobject 3y agoThe only problem with that eventual comparison is... you have to start comparing things to the early unibody MacBook Pros.
- djtango 3y agoI have an X240, I don't think I'll ever be able to love it as a true ThinkPad when Lenovo came up with that abominable trackpoint without physical buttons. My current gen P14s has awful keyboard keys. There's barely any travel whatsoever so while I agree with your premise, things really did used to be better... Hot swappable batteries on the X240 was quite the rush
- catdog 3y ago> Thinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now. I agree with that one, those models had their build quality issues and for today's standards they are simply outdated overall. > Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks". I don't think so for those models. The X230 is more or less just a refresh of the X220, except for the "new" keyboard. The X240 had no physical trackpoint buttons but instead that universally hated "clickpad" (did only last one generation I think). Also X240 onwards switched to those Intel ULV CPUs so you did not really get much more performance and if I remember correctly repairability also diminished a bit. There were a few thinkpad models in the last decade which stood out and were you could legitimately argue that a newer model is not necessarily better in many aspects. The X220 was one of them. Similarly, in another category, the T440p which offered an insane amount of (after some years low cost) upgrade options. But as said, last decade, now those are just old laptops.
- notatoad 3y ago>Resolution: 1366x768 glad to see there's not even an attempt to defend this.
- jen20 3y agoThe resolution is the least of the problems too - it’s not even IPS (at least on my otherwise-excellent X220). Perhaps one day I’ll do the surgery to change it out though…
- j4yav 3y agoAssuming heavy weight and Super VGA-ish resolution are some of your key selling points, anyway.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago> Resolution: 1366x768 Yeah I'll pass. But for sure you have extremely useful VGA port if you want to burn your eyes with CRTs.
- ghaff 3y agoA lot of the old Thinkpads were great in the context of their time. But I actually had to look for the date on this article. It’s hard to take an argument seriously that this laptop is actually the laptop of choice today for the vast majority of use cases. (I still have an x270 at home I think with Linux loaded but I rarely use it.)
- skywal_l 3y agoAt the bottom of the article: "Created September 26, 2023".
- ghaff 3y agoYes. As I said I looked for it. So this is someone writing from the perspective of today.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoOh I do agree. They _were_ great.
- tinco 3y agoYeah the 2010 Macbook Pro is clearly superior in every regard. It had 32 more pixels heightwise, so that's at least 2 lines more code on your screen too.
- gsich 3y agoThere is the Nitrocaster mod for that.
- catdog 3y agoIt also has a full size display port. The primary use case for that VGA port was projectors installed in conference rooms. At its time in many cases the only thing you got was some VGA cable.
- baz00 3y agoWas. Despite owning one, I'd rather use my 14" M1 MBP thanks. Hell if I had to have a PC I've got a much much nicer Lenovo T14 gen 3 here! For the MBP in comparison: Better screen, performance, battery life, OS that actually mostly works, connectivity, sound. The keyboard isn't that bad either... As for ports, I don't need 'em. Last thing I want to do is drag a fucking drunken octopus around with me. Even as a ThinkPad fanboy this ancient ThinkPad love is getting into self-flaggelating religious drivel territory.
- asystole 3y agoCall it Stockholm syndrome but IMO modern MacBooks have some of the nicest laptop keyboards around. And I'm the kind of guy who uses a custom mechanical keyboard at his desk and turns his nose up at Cherry MX switches.
- baz00 3y agoPre-post edit: excuse the keyboard rant. They're not bad. Definitely better than the soggy ass Dell and Lenovo keyboards at least. But I would still rather have a proper keyboard with some travel. But the whole laptop experience is a compromise generally so I'm willing to live with it. My daily driver keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard on my Mac mini and that's fine as well. I only use it so I don't have switch back and forth between a different keyboard and the MBP when I need to. As for the Cherry MX, not a fan either. I tried a few over the years of different switch variants (at great cost) and they actually hurt you if you have to do some serious work on them after a while. When I say serious, a lot of my existence these days is hacking out large quantities of LaTeX and switching between that and paper. The MX boards are just too high, too noisy and too expensive. Got to say the best keyboard I've used in recent years though is a Cherry Stream TKL. That's actually surprisingly good and very cheap (£25). It'll annoy the purists here because it's a rubber dome SX switch.
- eunice 3y agowent from mx brown to topre and can never go back
- asystole 3y agoI have an X220 (and a bunch of other Thinkpads) and they're nice hardware but come on, let's not go overboard. Those CPUs kinda suck now. Slow performance and they run hot. I also think people overstate the "build quality" of old ThinkPads a lot. They have a bunch of really thin plastic parts all over the place that have a tendency to crack easily. Yes, they're repairable, but they show wear a lot more than your average modern aluminium unibody machines.
- catdog 3y agoAs someone who used the X220 for quite a long time I can agree. - The chassis has a bunch of weak points so build quality is not overall excellent and that shows after some time. Especially bad is that part above the screen where the antennas are mounted inside. It's made out of plastic and is only flimsily connected to the magnesium back panel at either side, if it breaks you have to replace that whole back panel. - That Sandy Bridge CPU turned out to be an exceptionally future proof choice but after >10 years it shows its age. Even if it's fast enough for your use case, modern CPUs are just much more power efficient. - USB 2.0 only, except on the i7 motherboard, not the most popular configuration so harder to source for a good price. Alternatively an express card can be used but did not have that good of an experience with those, also the mounting mechanism on the X220 is not sturdy enough. - Good luck finding a proper battery pack nowadays. Even if you still find an original one, after years in storage they tend to loose capacity quite fast. Most third party ones are garbage from day one.
- uxp8u61q 3y agoIs this an advertisement for thinkpads?
- Aardwolf 3y agoAll very nice, but not with such dated CPU and memory. I also have a thinkpad with archlinux, but a 10 year newer model (T14). The CPU is fine. But it also has 16GB of RAM, and I wish there was more, it doesn't even take that many firefox+chrome tabs to fill it all up.
- samrolken 3y agoI have a few X220s and I really love them. I would never say they could be my daily driver or come close to the capabilities of today’s machines. But for me they really have a place. For hobby and random uses they are great. For a machine to hook up to various amateur radio equipment or some arduino gizmo or to try out that random Linux distro or hobby/toy OS… In this kind of role this machine absolutely rocks.
- neverartful 3y agoPretty much the same for me. I have 4 X220s (one i7) all sitting lid closed in a custom rack that I built for them. Two are running Debian, one is running Fedora, and one is running FreeBSD. All four run Plex Media Server. I use them for backups and testing/experimentation on various things.
- wslh 3y agoAt that time I enjoyed my X220. To be sincere, the form-factor and practicality moving from home to work and having the dock. Then the XPS 13 was more perfect for me because I could attach three external monitors and have power just via a single Thunderbolt cable (no more custom docks). The crux for all of these was the battery daily duration and replacement after a few years. In that context the MacBook Airs excel at a point that more expensive and powerful Apple notebooks such as the MacBook Pro cannot sustain a "marathon" without a charger. The issue with the Airs is that you cannot currently connect three external monitors (without doing very hacky things), but this is just a question of time. Also, this obsession from Apple about not having touch screens in notebooks because they also sell iPads is disturbing. Finally, an XPS 13 with good battery support (assuming ARM) and good Linux power handling will, probably, be the best notebook available. (would love if they remove the XPS 13 fan and there are more non-moving part notebooks)
- vsnf 3y agoNothing will ever beat the experience of my old IBM T43. The keyboard, the hardware kill switches for various things, the ports, the removal battery. Most of all I miss the keyboard, I miss it every day.
- itomato 3y agoHold on, let me turn on my Thinklight... Team Ultrabay, represent.
- RadiozRadioz 3y agoLike the author, I've found the perfect old ThinkPad for me and it works brilliantly. I have a nice efficient GNU/Linux install, all my local software runs smoothly and I've used it for my day job for 9 years. But the damn worldwide web keeps marching on their mission to make the most bloated software in the universe. I should be able to keep using the machine forever with unchanged software, but the web demands more and more, it's running away from me. The day we fix that issue will be great. So much less e waste. Computers were fast enough for most reasonable tasks years ago.
- baz00 3y agoI blame JavaScript and the deficient culture of insanity around it. The only things that are slow on any of my computers are honking great stacks of shit built on top of browsers with JavaScript. Sometimes I have three different fucking browser engines running these stacks of shit.
- chpatrick 3y agoYou can complain but if the inefficient sites work fine on 95% of modern computers it doesn't make business sense to optimize them. You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.
- baz00 3y agoPeople really need to actually ask the users about this. I hear lots of frustration all the time and see end users with stacks of shit that barely work but it never gets upstream because the users think that's the status quo or are so burned out that they don't care any more. Of course various client telemetry frameworks say it sucks but if no one is complaining then of course it doesn't make business sense to optimise them and carry on making it slightly worse until someone finally does moan about it. But everything being crap is not an excuse to keep delivering more crap.
- alpaca128 3y agoThe sites may work fine on modern computers but many don't have a modern computer. Not to mention it affects battery life either way. > You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either. I wouldn't bet on that after seeing what some people have done with Gentoo. And you only need to go back 5-10 years to find devices failing to run many websites and electron apps smoothly. My old laptop has an i7 CPU from 2016 and couldn't keep up anymore. And even on my new hardware from 2022 many things feel a bit sluggish.
- candyman 3y agoAs my eyes get older I need a brighter and higher resolution display. I use external monitors but like to be able to work while traveling or sitting in an easy chair sometimes. To make matters worse I like a lot of memory and a numpad. That makes it hard to find a good machine at a decent price. The high end Samsung seems to check all the boxes but it's expensive ($3K) and I've never owned one so wonder if I'd like the keyboard, etc. The Thinkpads are good but the mix of light/high resolution/numpad is not that easy to find.
- bananapub 3y agoman are articles like this tedious, even scrolling by them on the front page of HN annoys me and reminds me how irritating and loudmouthed so many people in this industry are.
- krona 3y agoBut you don't disagree with the central claim that the X200 is the best laptop in the world, just that the idea invokes a peevish internal emotional state?
- LanzVonL 3y agoImagine there is some company making laptops and half the power nerds out there would rather run something 10+ years old. And then, further imagine that you could capture this entire market, if you simply slapped some ports, a good keyboard, and a Trackpoint onto your laptop line, but instead you hire people to moan and bellyache when Thinkpads come up. Go look at the Thinkpad Reddit - literally half the comments are people recommending some new piece of shit craptop with a chicklet keyboard. That's not organic.
- buro9 3y agoI still love mine, and I love the replaceable battery and the fact that you can still get batteries. but best laptop in the World? I do use mine, occasionally, it's a great work horse around the house for network things as it has an ethernet port. but TBH I use my X1 laptops more, the ability to USB-C charge is near critical now, and the X220 lack of USB-C as well as low res screen really does mean it's not a machine of this age, it was probably the best laptop of the non-USB-C age... but now it's dated, and only has niche use.
- njaguardsheep 3y agoI replaced the charging port in my X230 with this mod[1], which allows charging using USB-PD chargers. https://www.tindie.com/products/mikepdiy/lenovo-charging-port-type-c-pd-x220-x230/ https://www.tindie.com/products/mikepdiy/lenovo-charging-por...
- buro9 3y agoOMG, thank you!
- accrual 3y agoI wanted to go this route but they were always out of stock when I went to order one a year or two ago. Instead, I bought a pigtail-style adapter from Amazon that converts the barrel jack to female USB-C PD. I like it a lot, and I can still use the stock adapter if needed. I also put a little USB-C power monitor inline with the cable, it's neat to "watch" the power going into the laptop.
- chpatrick 3y agoYou can get a USB-C to classic laptop adapter for a few dollars on AliExpress.
- josephcsible 3y agoSuch adapters are a dangerous violation of the USB spec.
- boomskats 3y agoThe work by the LCDFans community, specifically the X2100 mod motherboard [0], was one of those moments that made me do the nodding guy meme IRL the fist time I saw it. Both the level of enthusiast engineering, and electronics manufacturing services available to enthusiast communities, totally blew my mind. I love mine - I have 64gb of ddr4, a 10th gen intel i7, NVMe SSD, an incredible keyboard, a nice screen, and three interchangeable 6 hour batteries. It was my daily driver for a long time, up until very recently. If they can make a Ryzen-based one I'll be all over it. [0]: https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/ https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/
- KennyBlanken 3y agoUS$1400 plus ram, plus ssd, plus battery for... ...a bulky, heavy 13" laptop with a horrendously noisy fan, an outdated processor, no bluetooth, no camera when everything is done over video, shitty speakers, shitty 18080p 13" TN 4:3 screen, 6 hours of battery life vs 12-18 in current laptops, and so on. Fool, money, etc.
- ghaff 3y agoI don’t think your last line is called for. That said, I would hope no one would read this article and think an x220 is actually a good computer for most modern uses.
- rijoja 3y agoI agree, what it is for me is partly a wish for computer manufacturers to create new computers like them! I.e. computers that are up-gradable, sturdy, has multiple batteries, and so forth! Saying that if you mostly live in a terminal with a ssh connection to another machine, they'll do very well! Thanks for sharing the link to them anyway, I at least appropriate it!
- jll29 3y agoThat's the point of repeating what we customers like: hopefully someone out there builds us what we will like, again.
- Kaibeezy 3y agoI stuck stubbornly to X220, mainly for travel, until a few months ago. I just could no longer tolerate the dim/low-res screen and sluggish processor. It seemed like every time I used it, it struggled with network connections and got stuck downloading a bunch of updates. I replaced it with a Surface Pro 8, which is slim, bright and perky. But how to replace the X220 keyboard? I tried a Nuphy Air60, which has great mechanical action, but weird cheap feet that peel off and get lost, and weighs a relative ton in a backpack. Replaced that with a flimsy $10, 100g bluetooth keyboard to replicate the MacBook/XPS typing experience instead, and it’s… good enough. Literally weighs nothing, I like that.
- danw1979 3y agoThe trackpad and “nipple” on thinkpads are awful to use. Maybe if you run full screen emacs all day and everything is a keyboard shortcut then this might seem like the best laptop in the world… .. but I’ll die on Apple hill, clutching my 2012 aluminium i7 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, with it’s glorious glassy trackpad, 1000BaseT cable still connected.
- mvdwoord 3y agoHaving worked with the nipple for the better part of 15 years, I disagree. Although I do appreciate and have switched to MacBook pro with their incredible touchpad, after the initial switch I had an infected tendon in my underarm.. managed to find an RSI free way of operating it, but the big plus of the nipple is the lack of motion in your wrist and arm. And your hand is very close to typing position as well. It does take a while to become fast and precise, but when I was, it worked wonderful.
- catdog 3y agoThe nipple was and is fine but decent trackpads were absent from thinkpads for a very long time.
- somat 3y agoThe thing that really sold me on the utility of the nipple was trying to use a laptop while riding in a car on a rough road. Up till then I mostly ignored it, mainly because I was used to trackpads. but that stupid red wart on my keyboard turned the experience from massively frustrating to actually usable. So a niche use case to be sure. but it is definitely a feature I look for now. See also: trying to use a touch screen in a moving vehicle.
- LanzVonL 3y agoTrackpoint is brilliant, you can leave your fingers on the home row. I don't see how anybody could use a trackpad after using a trackpoint for a couple days, which is all it takes to get used to one.
- Moldoteck 3y agostill waiting for apple to release a 11-12 inch macbook with an M processor, nice screen,keyboard and touchpad. I mean something the size of a surface go. It's not for everyday use for sure (maybe only if you use a bigger display). But too often I want to bring a laptop with me and even the M1 MBA feels too heavy compared to my Surface Go 2. Even with a slower processor, I would take the surface just because it's so light, eventually I can take a dongle/hub from anker/other brands to have both a lite 'laptop' and a ton of ports
- bronikowski 3y agoI sit here, using X61s, compiling stuff, listening to music, writing code and articles, no care in the world, comfy as a kitten. I think being comfortable with less is my superpower.
- jll29 3y agoOh, how I loved that keyboard and form factor - only the 2 GB RAM limit was a little too tight for technical work, but a great office laptop at the time!
- bronikowski 3y agoI think it goes up to for (two 2GiB sticks), I have 3 in mine. ~: free -m total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 2946 1736 101 271 1575 1210
- sneed_chucker 3y agoSimilar experience with a librebooted T400. Core2 Duo and 8 gigs of RAM is still plenty for a lot of use cases.
- OMGWTF 3y agoThe keyboard and keyboard layout are really great and primary laptop still is an X220T. However, the resolution is horrible (1366x768), the CPU is slow, it's heavy, mine has no USB3 and the charger is quite bulky.
- catdog 3y ago> the charger is quite bulky That's easily fixable nowadays for laptops needing up to 100W, you can buy some USB-C adapter and use a modern GaN charger.
- dizhn 3y agoDon't most laptops need a branded power adapter nowadays? I know my Lenovo can just take any pd charger and I use a tiny 65 w one but my friend can't use anything like that on his Dell.
- nunez 3y agoAuthor really needs to try the M2 MacBook Air. It's a masterstroke. And I've used the classic ThinkPads.
- RecycledEle 3y agoWhen a technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I tell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad amd rebuild it to fit their desires. Then I explain the differences in the many product lines of ThinkPads. When a non-technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I pause, and eventually yell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad.
- ryzvonusef 3y agooh good heavens, would you look at the time, it's time for the monthly thinkpad circletrek. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38257284#38262457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38257284#38262457 I feel that any laptop that doesn't have at least a thunderbolt port is obsolete in this day and age. It's not the port itself, it's just a handy way for me to determine a cut-off for when a laptop is too old, green m&m style. If it doesn't have a thunderbolt port, it's probably missing other necessary features I might require too. my current laptop (X230T) doesn't have one and it works fine, I love the little thing, but my next laptop will definitely have one. I feel you need to have at least one foot in the current world.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ahartmetz 3y agoAMD based laptops usually don't have Thunderbolt. If you don't really need the port, it would be a mistake to avoid these laptops.
- Grazester 3y agoYou could get them though now with USB 4 ports.
- ryzvonusef 3y agoAh, good point, I guess I need a better metric to quickly judge 2nd hand laptops. Maybe 1080p screens? if it has a 1366x768 panel, it needs to burn in a fire.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- capl 3y ago> The battery life on my own X220 is fantastic. I have a brand-new 9-cell that lasts for roughly 5-6 hours of daily work. Obviously these numbers don't come close to the incredible battery life of Apple's M1/M2 chip devices, but it's still quite competitive against other "newer" laptops on the market. Oh okay, so it’s the best sub-tier laptop on the market. MacBooks still on top, got it.
- kyriakos 3y agoOnly considering battery life based on the post.
- csdvrx 3y ago> MacBooks still on top, got it. What I care about: - OLED screenshortcut - ECC RAM (min 32G, ideally 128G) - having a touchscreen - having a trackpoint - having physical page up and page down keys An internal 4G LTE module is nice to have, but not required. The ability to remove the M2 storage to quickly transplant it into something else if needed is nice too, but if there's a switch to turn the laptop into a giant thumbdrive even if the OS/screen/keyboard is dead, that'd be ok too On every single metric, the MacBook is bottom tier for me: it's only offering battery life, which I don't care about.
- hnbear 3y agoI assumed this was satire (especially the VGA port), making fun of the number of “X laptop is the best” posts which then use incredibly cherry picked and specific criteria. But it really reads like it’s genuine. Maybe a solid article that’s just 10 years (at minimum) too late.
- jules22 3y agoNo. It's the fact that it is a great 12 year old machine that makes it notable. I would not be surprised if it was usable as a 20 year old machine. These things are comfortable and they last.
- jll29 3y ago> The X220 (like most of Lenovo's older X/T models) is built like a tank. Although the inner pieces are sourced from mostly plastic, the device is still better equipped to handle drops and mishandling compared to that of more fragile devices (such as the MacBook Air or Framework). The poster is right, I dropped both an X220 and a MacBookAir (from similarly high desks), and the ThinkPad had no scratch despite being plastic, whereas the MacBookAir now has a dent. (I would not mind repeating the involuntary experiment with rugged (military versions) of DELL laptops when the occasion comes.)
- phil21 3y agoI was a 100% Thinkpad fanboy up until the T410S finally pissed me off enough with battery life and keyboard changes to move to Apple. The T series was built like a tank - a WWII era tank that could take a beating, have bits and pieces crack and break, but chug along until you could get the (cheap!) replacement part shipped. I have a stack of T60 series laptops I think I could keep going for another 50 years just by robbing parts from donor laptops as needed. The repairability just was second to none. Both in parts availability and design of the laptop itself. A cracked bezel happened, but was a 10 minute and $20 repair. I started my first real "professional" job in tech, and while packing/moving for said job I somehow had an entire gallon of windshield wiper fluid spill directly into the (running) fan port of my work-issued T42 I had left on the floor of my minivan. I pulled the battery in a panic, but after taking everything apart and drying it all out - it worked fine for at least a decade. I was hooked on the series ever since.
- znpy 3y agoHad a second hand thinkpad t42 in high school, loved that machine with that cool 1400x1050
- AstroJetson 3y agoI also have a stack of T60's around. I find what happens the most is the right hinge point breaks. Good luck with yours!
- jules22 3y agoI got mine for $100, about 4-5 years ago. Only 1 USB port seems to work. Great keyboard, only 720p screen, did not upgrade the HDD. Works great as a secondary machine. I expect to use it for at least another 5 years, likely more. I love old machines and how repairable they were. I wish they would not make the new laptops that tight and thin. I like low weight, but would not mind a little thickness, if I can open it and clean it easily, change the paste, upgrade easily, have external battery, more room for venting and so on. These are very practical features. On a related note, I just don't understand the madness of having battery inside the laptop in gaming laptops these days. The heat kills them. These are mostly portable desktops and I can't find any new gaming laptops that have external batteries anymore so that I can use them on just external power. In the rare occasion, it ends up as a very premium feature. These things were basic features in the past.
- jpgvm 3y agoWhat I really want is a modern laptop with the old style Thinkpad aesthetics and pragmatisms. i.e ports, replaceable components, magnesium alloy chassis with plastic and rubber armor (i.e tanky AF), good keyboard with real travel, hot swap batteries, 3.5mm jack, card readers, OOTB Linux support, hw kill switches for radios, webcams and mic. Then for modernisation: 4k OLED, USB-C charging + docking, actually decent webcam and mic. Ideally in X220 and T400-esq form-factors to choose from. Instead I have a MBP M2 because Thinkpad just ain't Thinkpad anymore and that is sad.
- rwbaskette 3y agoI’ve managed to upgrade an i7 T480 with a new display, glass trackpad, WiFi 6e, 2xNVME SSD and 64GB ram. It has 2 USB-C ports, on of which is thunderbolt. I also have an actual dock for it and batteries for hot-swap. If they made anything close to the expandability of these, I’d be buying that as well.
- mattpallissard 3y agoOh, I dunno. I've been using think pads for a many years. I've had a few work issued dell xps's along the way too. I'm currently running a P14s, and while I have a few minor gripes around the fan and thermals overall I'm pretty pleased. * 2xTB4, HDMI, 2xusb3, 3.5mm jack, I could have opted for a card reader if I still used PIV/CAC for Kerberos but I carry a yubikey these days * I prefer the newer Thinkpad keyboards, they have less play (as in wiggle) in the keys * Linux support out of box is great * Display and scaling work well with Wayland (sway) * Linux power consumption is great, <4W idle with minor TLP tweaks and blacklisting the proprietary Nvidia driver * The touchpad has improved over the years, specifically around the texture of the material and the sensitivity of tap to click * The i7 processor is honestly overkill in a laptop I couldn't switch to an M2, well because Linux is a hard requirement for me.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoThe P series is pretty great if you prioritize connectivity and other specs over size. I loved my P50 until I broke it. BTW, I strongly recommend getting as many years of Premier Care as one can afford. While the quality of Thinkpads has deteriorated over the years, their Premier Care is still very good.
- accrual 3y agoI'd argue the X230 (basically an X220 refresh) is slightly better. * One generation newer CPU (3rd gen, Ivy Bridge, die shrink) * Additional USB 3.0 port * Optional backlit keyboard Both are solid laptops. I bought my X230 in 2016 for about $400USD and with how much I've used it, it has paid for itself. Nearly 8 years of solid service. I "upgraded" mine slightly: * USB-C pigtail adapter with tiny 65W GaN charger * USB 3.0 ExpressCard for total of 4 USB 3.0 ports * Passive microSD adapter that lives in the SD slot * mSATA SSD for simple dual booting One can also Coreboot the machine to support newer Intel AC wireless adapters, but I don't do anything that would benefit from it.
- NullPrefix 3y agox230 is decent only if you do the x220 keyboard upgrade
- accrual 3y agoIndeed, the classic keyboards rock! I have a T43 and T60 and both are lovely to type on. I've never tried the X220 keyboard but I imagine it's similar. However, despite the flak island keyboards received, I really like the X230 keyboard. It feels fast, accurate, and responsive. Plenty of travel, and I enjoy the backlight.
- znpy 3y agoThe x220 had the usb3 port, just only on models with the i7 processor
- nerdile 3y agoAnecdotal, but my X220 Tablet suffered a complete system board failure within five years. Shortest usable life out of all the ThinkPads I've owned and repaired. Loved the form factor but just didn't last very long.
- MCUmaster 3y agoT520 but, agreed.
- znpy 3y agoThe X220 was so easily repairable that when i had one in university i would routinely take out the keyboard and wash it with dish soap in the kitchen sink. The ThinkPad X220 will always have a dear place in my heart.
- cyanydeez 3y agoX230T IS GOAT. whoever decided flip hinges were what everyone wants is the devil. also, please rethink tablet and phone sizes. 7inch tablets are handheld.
- nullc 3y agox60(t) is superior to X220 IMO.
- stonecharioteer 3y agoYou lost me at Intel. The best laptop is the laptop you feel like using. Use whatever it takes to get the job done and have fun. I used to be a Linux laptop purist. But I'm going to move to an M3 MacBook Air soonish. Just use whatever gets the job done.