Are Classic ThinkPads Really Better Than New Ones?

On this segment of Retro Reverie, we take an in depth look at IBM's classic line of laptops and examine how Lenovo has handled them in the last 20 years.
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Research Resources:
www.notebookcheck.net/THINK-A...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Thi...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/...
www.popularmechanics.com/tech...
• Why IBM GAVE UP on Mak...
www.pcmag.com/opinions/10-yea...
/ why_did_ibm_sell_the_b...

[@Bob-bs9ok]

I prefer the design philosophy of older ThinkPads but for all my gripes my L570 is vastly better in servicability to other modern laptops

[@byte.raccoon]

Actually the best is Framework laptop now As for Thinkpads, they are much worse than they used to be

[@ssu7653]

​@@byte.raccoon wait 2-3 years and see of framework is still upgradable to current gen. If that answer is no, then it have very little benefits over sleeker+cheaper "non upgradable" machines

[@Eugensson]

My wife has XPS15, and I have W541, i have to admit the XPS is quite good at serviceability.

[@devaraft]

@@ssu7653 I mean, framework whole selling point is it's easy to take apart. without it the company doesn't have any competitive advantage

[@snowthearcticfox1]

i have an e470 i got as a gift back in 2018, took me about an hour to completely strip it down and change the thermal paste and it was shocking how easy it was. not to mention it outlasted my legion gaming laptop made in 2022 lmao. new lenovo products suck imo. the display died while i had it plugged into an external monitor and when i rebooted it wouldn't post

[@milescarter7803]

The thing to remember is that the old T and X class were bolted down to a $$$,$$$ server as the licensing and management co-processor. So they could afford to make a run of magnesium frames or shells because it was basically a line item for a much more expensive product. And the X was for reaally high up jet setters. If you ever have the chance run one on a flight (I used a T430), it fits and is comfortably usable on a seat back tray. That trackpoint is AMAZE ing. Also the X230/T430/T530 were the very last in the design philosophy (or technically the X220,T420,T520, because they still had the 7 row keyboard). Source: I've fixed up a dozen of xx30 class and xx40 xx50 xx60, xx80, even P50, P70,P71. The E and L class are completely different beasts, much closer to low end Dell and HP/Acer/ASUS.

[@Grimhood]

I am not really sure what you mean. Yes, the older T models especially from IBM were expensive, but not "bolted down" to anything. I still use T-Modells (T40p, T41p, T42p, T43p, T60p) and even older ones like the A30p, or really vintage models like the 600 and 755C. T400 to T430 are also very long lasting models from Lenovo. All run fine on Windows XP and sometimes up to Windows 7, Windows 10 or your choice of Linux. I mainly repaired IBM Thinkpads and today they are fine for retro gaming and collecting or doing some specific tech tasks involving parallel/serial ports or software that depends hard on Win 9x or DOS. At the moment I mainly use several W541 and P51. I like that they are still very old fashioned in terms of service and upgrading possibilities.

[@akkudakkupl]

@@Grimhood They used those laptops as a "dongles" in mainframes.

[@serverdll]

i use a x220 with i5 proccesor as a heavy duty diagnostic service, handle oil, grass, dirt without a blink and battery fully charge can play for 2 hours straight... panasonics heavy duty laptops are slower and clunky to use. long live to my beloved x220

[@thomasculkin349]

I've owned numerous Thinkpads and now own several Chromebooks, as well as a Thinkpad T460S. I have to admit that every time I switch from any Chromebook to the T460S, the keyboard is good that I feel a physical relief, like donning an old pair of shoes.

[@UNK_0]

Why is it so hard for other laptop manufactures to replicate such a nice keyboard?

[@BilisNegra]

12:44 The T60 did have a widescreen version, and as for the T61, not only that but also widescreen was indeed the most common form factor. A simple eBay search shows that.

[@michaelscottcutler3627]

Yes. I enjoyed the history segment. I have several models dating back to 1995. Love these machines!

[@ethanosterhout8204]

I know my Thinkpad isn't the oldest, but I absolutely love my T440P. I'm hoping I'll be able to make it work all through college!

[@milescarter7803]

It's not about being the oldest, it's about not being IBM anymore, it was spun off to Lenovo by that point, all the old design philosophy was gone.

[@BilisNegra]

@@milescarter7803 To be fair, the design language was absolutely not gone for the first 5 years or so, to the point that the T60, T61, T400...looked almost identical to the T4x lineup that came right before the brand change. Nobody would have noticed any difference if the aforementioned models had sported an IBM icon on them!

[@jamesmillerjo]

@@milescarter7803 Simply, No. You are the one kept spaced in this video, who is nonproductive and irrational.

[@reoencarcelado5904]

@ethanosterhout8204: don’t you *DARE* sell that thing! it’s the very-LAST Thinkpad that was manufactured with-a-socketed-processor (not soldered onto the motherboard), which means it can be upgraded (let-alone replaced. (if for whatever-reason the processor stops working)). *AND* the laptop-itself has TONS of modular-components: • *ONLY* a EXTERNALLY-ACCESSIBLE battery (no difficult-to-access/not-that-quick-to-access/when-the-battery_heats-up_all-that-heat-goes-to-the-components-next-to-it internal rechargeable-battery), • 2 RAM-modules that are in 2 RAM-module slots and are *NOT* soldered-onto-the-motherboard, • 2.5-inch-platter-internal-storage-drive bay, • etc etc.

[@mjetektman9313]

same for my T420, bought used, did modding on it and now it is faster and better than it already was when I bought, now I just need to slap more RAM in it, change the DP socket, buy a battery, and for last get an mSATA SSD to have both Windows and Linux on an SSD

[@1ftk]

Great job for the video man, continue the good work.

[@OShackHennessy]

OK so first of all this video was far more than I expected it to be you did a phenomenal job. Secondly I typically despise music in videos but your choice and volume of music complemented the video perfectly. I’m really impressed overall with this presentation!

[@tiberiustchaikovsky6369]

I always have been an IBM/Lenovo worshiper, and I still cry for my IBM A31P, may she rest in peace.

[@Grimhood]

A great notebook indeed. Too bad it was released during times of the Pentium 4, the Capacitor Plague and introduction of lead free soldering. Most A31 and A31p died. I still have the Pentium 3 based A30p, which is also a 3-drive system and it runs great.

[@techyboy227]

Hello Retro Reverie. My name is Christopher, from Los Angeles. Just came across your channel. It appeared on my home screen through KZbin, since I like watching a lot of retro computer history stuff. Thank you so much for sharing this video, love to learn about older technology, and what things and tech were like back in the day. I would like to share, I am someone with a visual impairment to a certain degree. I’m sure there are many questions popping through your head about how I use my computer and smart phone without being able to see, which I am more than willing to answer and share. Before the 1980s, blind and low vision individuals could not use computers like we can today. Anyway, I don’t wanna make this comment, too too long, if there’s an email address on your channel, I’m sure we can collaborate through emails, and wouldn’t mind sharing more through there. Anyways, just wanted to say keep up the good work, looking forward to listening to more historic and retro tech videos. Take care of yourself.

[@roman.4110]

as a bystander i liked reading your story. glad that you were able to enjoy his video! technology is more accessible nowadays for sure...

[@brents2500]

Great upload, really enjoyed this video and how you went into the history of Lenovo’s acquisition of ThinkPad. You’re right, a lot of enthusiasts are still upset about the keyboard changes, especially since they reduced the key travel yet again with their last couple generations.

[@corecombat26]

What I love about ThinkPad is not about the performance, but the user experience. I downgraded from an Asus machine with a Ryzen 5 3500U to a more modest T470s on a 6th gen i7 but, but it felt like I'm using an overall more polished device p/s get the t470s over t460s if you can, thunderbolt and the windows precision touchpad is worth it.

[@zNoah]

I've been using a T480 for a year already, spent 250usd on it at the time. The only issues I got was the battery which is normal for a 3-5 year old device and the keyboard which was very easy to replace, otherwise it's been a solid laptop, very happy with it. When buying one you should watch out for Windows Autopilot, also for BIOS passwords and making sure it doesn't have Computrace or similar services set up.

[@nathmorris1]

T480 and t480s are the best laptops I’ve ever used.

[@cheeseman498]

running my t480 i5-8350u with the 72wh battery+internal 24 and fedora linux with i3wm gets me 12+ hours of battery life, its great

[@MrMosoani]

​@@nathmorris1your comment makes me excited to unbox my T480s arriving this week. I know nothing about the thunderbolt though. what's great about it?

[@nathmorris1]

@@MrMosoani Much faster transfer speed and can use an external GPU. I used to use my T480s as a gaming PC with an external GPU hooked up the the thunderbolt port.

[@enilenis]

I loved seeing Thinkpads in mid 90's. Top prestige. IBM was king, but only business people could afford them. The iconic red knob, the design consistency generation to generation. I never owned one, but I got to try them. They still show up in thrift stores sometimes, but always with parts missing. I've got plenty of other retro laptops to not be desperate for a Thinkpad, but I'd love to get one at some point, for the collection. Especially anything from 1024x768 generation. Those are most precious. 800x600 prevailed for years and it was so odd to use for scaling. Games were still, predominantly 640x480, and 1.5x scaling produced some mighty ugly pixels.

[@Retro.Reverie]

I’ve seen great deals from local listings on Facebook, definitely a good time to find one for a good price

[@mahmoudradwan574]

Great channel and content, glad to be one of the first 100 subs 👍

[@Retro.Reverie]

Welcome aboard! Glad you’re here.

[@k.b.tidwell]

Hi, subbed for your presentation style, and thanks for this video. Having run primarily Acer laptops for many years, I've always wanted a Thinkpad. I recently bought a lot of 3 T430's (not T430S's) from Ebay, and even though they are older units than my newest Acer, I have fallen in love. Much higher quality and serviceability. The only real quality-of-life upgrade I will need to do is a display upgrade to full HD. I LOVE THESE LAPTOPS.

[@RERM001]

Personally, I think that Lenovo did try out to make the best thinkpads they could while the overall chinese culture was at its modern peak (pre-2018). Nowadays however, the current climate in both the USA and PRC is quite dreadful, which in turn makes some of these sino-american ventures to suffer the most. I mean, just look at the other few successful ventures such as SAIC-GM. They used to make good or at least decent cars using the branding image and tech from GM, but as time has gone, both have started to go their own ways, sometimes for the best, but a lot of times it just become a crowd pleasing experience. And that is not even mentioning the worst effects of the Sino-US split, as ARM pretty much got fvcked hard by the Chinese as they blatantly stole their division in the biggest ARM producing region in the world.

[@iamdmc]

lenovo has been absolute garbage since at least 2020

[@cryptophrenik6500]

Great breakdown of an amazing laptop. New sub :)

[@antonhei2443]

During my time at the office I had 4 different Dell laptops in the span of 11 years, and while fine, each model had a different issue which (wifi twice, keyboard, mouse pad twice, overheating, noise, etc). Now I am in a different point of my carreer and just got a new basic Thinkpad, and love the clean classic design, the long battery life, low heat, the keyboard and multiple options for the mouse. Hope it lasts for years.

[@ReneFabre]

I enjoyed the history, I wasn't all that familiar with the IBM versions. I had a Lenovo Thinkpad t460 at work. I didn't think I'd like it but I did and it proved to be a real work horse. I later bought a refurbished t470 because I loved the keyboard. I now run Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon, 16 gigs of ram, 256 GB SSD drive, and have a docking station with external drives, webcam, and sound system. I love it and use it everyday to write, online meetings, surf the web, and watch videos etc. If I head out the door, I just pop it off the dock and go. I love this laptop and it still serves me well.

[@freedom_7341]

thinkpads are great, haven't had too much experience with them though, i'd like to see the dell latitudes and precisions covered, especially the precision series is interesting as a competitor to the thinkpad as a business laptop

[@mjetektman9313]

The first time I've ever touched a Thinkpad was on university, they had some X thinkpads for borrow and use on classes, I really loved the construction, keyboard, and how it looked amazing and since then I wanted to get a Thinkpad, and then months ago I got a used Thinkpad T420 only issues it had were the DVD drive randomly opening and the broken DisplayPort, corebooted it (EFI payload, no Legacy payload since I really like EFI), saved some money, got a i7-3612QM, new thermal grease, an SSD, managed to get 2x4Gb DDR3 sticks and gutted the DVD drive and by using some solder and glue, managed to put a 500 Gb HDD in it, it's one of the best laptops I've ever touched, now I just need to save money for a 9 cell battery and a mSATA SSD to put Linux in it, it is one of the best used things I've bought till today

[@ernestoditerribile]

Almost 500 subscribers, I've subscribed now too. Nice info

[@21EpicFail]

You deserve more subscribers! Keep it up you will be at 300k subs in no time. Quality content man

[@Retro.Reverie]

Thanks for the kind words :) more is on the way.

[@raginald7mars408]

A Samaritan donated me a T61 with Docking Station - the original Battery has 40 % Wear - lasts for 1 hour - the Engineering is superbe and I instantly loved the machine. Works like new - with 8Gb RAM ok. I bought a T410 with Docking for 80 Euros. Amazing wonderful machine Thank YOU!

[@Hartzware]

Great Video 👍

[@lagunagfx]

Really enjoyable video! Glad you didn't fell onto the "A is better than B because of reasons" and simply love your machines :). Extra props for the Celeste ingame footage!!! I personally use mainly various Thinkpads (r60, x220, x230, t430, t460 and x270) running mainly Linux and some sporadic Windows. I also have some IBM classic ones just used for media forensics, due to still having internal floppy drives and the like. I also use two Macbook Pro (2012) and a Macbook Air (2014). I do love all my machines. I work on several locations so I can have "the luxury" of leaving a complete setup ready in every place, considering some of those laptops costed me 100-150 euros at most. I'm sure it would be a really different story just running brand new X1 Carbons and Mac M2's :). The Macbook Pro 2012 and the x270 (and maybe the x230) are my daily drivers, jumping from one to the other almost in the same day (I make most of my job on the Linux terminal, be it local or remote). I do "feel" for the nostalgia of writing on an offline machine (though I sadly don't do much creative writing nowdays). Enjoy what you have. Laptops could be a cheap and fun hobby, indeed, if you don't constantly chase the cutting edge Greetings from Spain !!!

[@Retro.Reverie]

Thanks for writing! Cool to see this video reaching across the pond :) I am also a big fan of the 2012 MacBook Pro, it was the subject of my first video on this channel. Currently I need to fix the solder joints on the ram headers, after that I might turn it into a PFSense router.

[@zerocal76]

Another Thinkpad fan here! Got these in perfect working condition: 755ACX, R51, x201, X220, X230T, S230U, X1 Yoga G1 and my prized possession: a mint-condition X300 😁 Appreciate these machines while we have them, while they're running. Laptops as we know them will be a thing in the past; almost everything will run thru the cloud or w/ a lot less hware bc of AI. Whic is your fav of yours btw? @lagunagfx

[@Racecar564]

Great video! I enjoyed watching. Between what IBM & the PC market were going thru, and what Lenovo did for the ThinkPad & themselves, you bring up a lot of great points. That, and also about the upgradability towards the end - indeed, as long as you're buying a good laptop to begin with, you shouldn't be looking into doing big upgrades so soon. And even when that time comes in a few years, is taking off the bottom cover really that big a deal? A recent realization I had when when working on some older computers is that, to do a teardown, it actually tends to be a lot simpler on newer laptops. On oldies, to get to the motherboard, it tends to be a lot of parts that must be removed! While on newer laptops, although it's annoying, in comparison it's generally a lot more straightforward. I don't miss taking apart mid-2000s laptops all the time! Heavens, can those be complicated!

[@bakedveal2624]

I will agree with this. Just serviced up a lot of old Latitude e6250's. About the third one in i was thinking, they sure don't build em "like this" anymore. Having to take the entire case apart to just get to the mouse buttons.

[@Retro.Reverie]

I am definitely interested in seeing how a full tear down fares on my 560z when I get around to making the upgrade video. The initial stuff is obviously simple but I have not yet tried to take it all apart yet.

[@Racecar564]

Do take care when disassembling - many vintage laptops suffer from brittle plastic! I'm dealing with a huge pain in the ass HP Pavilion about the same age as your unit. Hopefully your unit was stored well, it looks nice but without having it in hand I have no idea. Get yourself a good quality spudger set, and a magnetic screwdriver if you don't already have one. And most importantly, be very gentle with the parts - don't let them bend as much as you can help it. I wish you the best of luck!

[@jamesbuckwas6575]

Well having to remove the bottom cover isn't annoying, but when it uses plastic or metal clips that will bend or break, instead of only 10 or so screws, that's when it becomes annoying to upgrade. My T480 is not painful to upgrade, but fearing parts of the laptop casing breaking is not pleasant, when it's only for RAM or storage upgrades, not even a heatsink or motherboard replacement.

[@tomc101]

As a long time software developer that often travels to customer sites, when I started developing for PCs in the 90s, I bought my first PC laptop. The amazing, at the time, 701c. One time it developed an intermittent problem. I sent it to IBM on Friday, and it was fixed and returned to me the following Tuesday. Since then, other than a brief foray with a Toshiba, it has been all ThinkPads: A21p, T42p, T61p, W550s, P51. There was a gap when Lenovo dropped the buttons in favor of the "ClackPad". When they came to their senses and brought the buttons back, I upgraded again. The software that I develop deals with computer vision using multiple cameras and realtime processing. So as cameras have increased in resolution and machines have got faster, memory requirements have kept increasing. The P51 has the resources needed for what I do, with a Xeon, 64 GB memory, 1 TB M.2, 2 TB M.2, and room for a SATA 2.5" SSD.

[@cbecht]

13:50 "The X1 hit the market in 2011 as a response to the MacBook Air." It's more accurate to say that the MacBook Air was an Apple version of the ThinkPad X Series, which was itself a continuation of the earlier lightweight thinkpads going back to the 560 from 1996.

[@scottcampbell2707]

I had a 560 and loved it. It was do convenient and fit in my briefcase.

[@smorrow]

Actually, the X300 was the response to the MBA - kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZnRgHaLoMecrpI

[@awesomeferret]

How does a laptop with a 720p screen even come close to competing with the X series? Did you make a typo or something? The MacBook Air was a low end device, and it was sold as such! The difference was the SSD, and at the time, it made the Air feel faster. I'm amazed that the uploader favorited such easily debunkable misinformation (there's no way they actually agree with your comment). Edit: maybe I figured it out. I was thinking of X1 Carbon, but you didn't say Carbon. My bad, potentially.

[@janusu]

Thanks for a great presentation. I love my T60p. I've got Ubuntu on it now. I've been thinking about switching to another distro, but had a bit of a challenge getting the graphics card driver installed, so I'm worried about going through that again. There was a lot of screen artifacting, and it would often be blank on boot up before I got that sorted out. I'm planning to get a larger drive so I can partition it for a bare-metal linux distro and Windows for retro-gaming. I'd like to get a newer Lenovo model that can handle more modern Windows, but is still in the spirit of the earlier IBM models. I need to do a bit more research to decide which fits my needs.

[@jamesyoung151]

My first laptop was a Thinkpad. I went on to own 3 of them. A good friend of mine works for IBM and I was able to access the discount pages in IBM's store. I miss the old Thinkpads.

[@FreudRulz]

I used to have an old 1997 model ThinkPad (I don't recall the exact model, sorry), which I absolutely adored, and I've *yearned* for one of the newer ones for years specifically because of that experience. This year I got lucky enough to be able to upgrade my very worn out HP laptop to a T495 (2018, so not super new) and I gotta say that for all the griping I've read online about how the 480 was the "last true Thinkpad," this thing truly lives up to everything I loved about that old '97 model I used well into the 2010s from the late aughts. The keyboard just feels RIGHT, the track pad is very above average for a laptop, and it is, of course, extremely serviceable. I do regret some of the changes Lenovo made with that generation (M.2 storage only? Come on.) but overall it is a wonderful machine, and it's definitely cemented for me that I'd rather go without a laptop entirely than get something other than another Thinkpad.

[@stage666]

framework has 3:2 display, so does microsoft surface devices. These days 3:2 is the best you can get. If some company release a laptop with the good old 4:3 display, it would be an instant buy for me.

[@kazriko]

My first laptop was a 755CE with OS/2. The 755CE didn't need any tools to upgrade or swap components. Just pull the screen latch releases further, and the keyboard pulled up. The floppy was modular, the battery was modular, and the hard drive was modular, all of them pulled straight up from under the keyboard. I had a TV card that would slot in where the floppy was, and I know you could get CD drives for it as well. I'm currently using a Panasonic instead of a Thinkpad now. I still miss the trackpoint a little, but the Panasonic has a decent amount of repair-ability and swappable parts. It was like your 90's thinkpad, one screw to swap the memory, one screw to swap the wifi card, the hard drive, battery, and cd drive needed no screws at all. It's getting old now, being almost 12 years outdated. If I were buying a laptop now, I'd go with a Framework. I've seen how they continue to release new motherboards for their original first model, so I'm confident that they'll keep doing that as long as they exist. The old motherboards that get swapped out have been going around as components for all kinds of new devices.

[@Gepedrglass]

Beautiful video

[@KurtisRader]

I was working as an expat in the Asia-Pacific region for 19 months from 1977 to 1999. I bought an IBM ThinkPad with my own money because the company issued Dell was crap. Compared to my MacBook Pro bought just a couple of years ago that ThinkPad was merely okay. But at the time no other laptop came close to the ThinkPad.

[@abunk8691]

This is the first video of yours I've watched as it got recommended to me and the stuff you've said lines up with the things I've read online. I agree with the ThinkPad following some of the modern design of laptops now like getting thinner, but they're still mote servicable than a lot of laptops now. I got a T450 myself and I find it servicable (apart from the times I need a beefier cpu) and I like typing on it. I've tried some older ThinkPad models like the R61, T400, and X220 and interestingly I found their keyboard mushy compared to the one on my T450 and ThinkPad USB Compact Keyboard. The modern ThinkPad keyboard is still far better from the terrible thing that is the HP x360 of someone I knew and the keyboard on that thing felt like tapping on chromed plastic and nothing else. It was so shallow that I felt nothing when I typed and had to look down on that keyboard to be sure I'm typing something. The T450 is my first ThinkPad and I hope to get something more modern like the T480 in the future when I have some cash for that as the i5 5300U is lacking in processing power for my needs. Though with the T480 I'll have to deal with a screen upgrade as I can't find any 1080p screen units in my country so I might aim for a newer model with a better screen if they are financially feasible in the future.

[@Retro.Reverie]

I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Hopefully you can find something that works for you. I made some sacrifices with my own P14s which has an 11th gen i5 and a 1080p screen (I would have preferred higher resolution and a slightly better chip), but for the price I that I snagged it it definitely fills my needs as a writer and a student perfectly. It seems to me that the best thing is to aim at a higher chip with lower memory and storage, make sure those things are upgradable and then upgrade them when you’re ready. My model also only had 16gb RAM and 256 pcie3 m.2 which I upgraded to 24gb and 2tb respectively. Good luck on your search!

[@Turborider]

The T400 was not the first widescreen ThinkPad, bith the T60 and T61 were also available with 16:10 widescreen displays. Some of the workstation ThinkPad Laptops have physical touchpad buttons, like the P53 for example. With the new T14 Gen 5, Lenovo partnered with iFixit to make their laptops more upgradable and repairable again. So they brought the second RAM slot back and made the battery easier to replace

[@CoasterMan13Official]

A lot of older Dell laptops are like that too. I have a Latitude D630 running Debian that is lovely for writing my personal notes in.

[@leosmithonbass]

at 1:27 your charger plug is PERFECT

[@GoodGirlPeruru]

In my opinion modern Thinkpads are some of the best _modern_ laptops you can get second to almost none, but to say that the philosophy of the Thinkpad line has changed is a serious understatement. I think above all else what i see complimented about Thinkpads is their build quality and durability, something that at some point _has_ to take a hit when you're making compromises for lower weight and smaller dimensions. Which, although a bit of a scattered segue here, makes me realise- the Think lineup has a very, very different place in the market now. Once upon a time they were zero-compromise machines, with socketed CPUs, near to top of the line graphics used in some of the most intensive tasks at the time, often in place of a typical desktop PC. These were _the_ machines, and now they're just not. One of the reasons this came to mind is that among the smaller port selection, lost from newer models is the concept of the Thinkpad Dock or Ultrabay. And i feel like this definitely represents a change in mindset in that these aren't machines you use at your desk anymore. And of the Think lineup, the ones you _do_ use at the desk, the Thinkstations, often are incredibly weak machines you'll see most frequently run at doctors offices and the like- probably bought solely for Lenovo's well-known extended warranty programs and the ability to buy them in bulk at discount. That is to say, the Think lineup simply doesn't represent the same things anymore. And i mean, that's fine- at the end of the day, there are increasingly fewer applications of consumer hardware that a laptop can serve, that aren't simply the baseline. Most consumer or even work applications can be accomplished on increasingly cheap and increasingly simple hardware, and the kinds of applications Thinkpads were once applied to are so far beyond its paradigm now, with massive server-level computing being the minimum for scientific and mathematic applications, and a desktop GPU being a no-brainer for CAD stuff. It had to adapt, or it wouldn't have lasted, but frankly, there's something just so timeless about a machine that punches so far above its weight class in its time, even if we're so far past that time. It's always going to be a laptop that did everything, it's always going to have been designed with field applications and durability in mind, something designed for years of long-term heavy use, and that's something you'll always feel in your hands. Once a laptop like that leaves its era, it doesn't stop being incredible design physically. I'm a very recent owner of an X220, and while it's certainly pushing the age where the Thinkpads stopped being that, especially in the face of the... ahem, somewhat unfair mobile computing landscape of the early Intel i-Series' time- against its desktop contemporaries, it was just so not capable the same way- the important thing is that it retains that timeless design of the decades before it, and was one of the last ones to do it. If i bought a Thinkpad from even just a year after, or hell- a new-design Thinkpad from its own year, it would be an incredibly different story. A 2000, 3000, 4000$ machine designed to last a massive life of heavy workloads is always going to be that- it may not handle a 2024 heavy workload, but it was always meant for a capacity far beyond what modern laptops typically are. That's always going to be real, and it's always going to impact the experience massively, no matter how far removed we are from its own era.

[@your_boy_lamine]

My first laptop was a ThinkPad and I have been in love ever since

[@JuanPabloRojasW]

I used to work in a company where once, they tossed away a bunch of Lenovo's T430. They got into my hands... memory upgrades, new keyboard for one, SSD with bigger capacity and Fedora Linux running in one of them... I love the easiness to open, change, disconnect, reconnect, plug and make it work. The concept of "planned obsolescence" vanished in front of me with high Usability. They are like 3rd generation Intel I7 upgradable up to 16GB Ram. (old but still very functional)

[@OShackHennessy]

I never got into the Thinkpads but I feel a strong call to start buying them. I use an awesome ThinkStation P520 as my home server which hosts my 16TB NAS, media server, and VM’s. I love the modularity of the ThinkStation and it has a monster 900w power supply. I got the P520 for under $200 delivered and it came with a Xeon W2135 and 32Gb emmc RAM. I upgraded to NVME SSD, 96Gb RAM, Xeon W2145 and replaced the front bays with a 3 bay hot swappable HDD insert for the NAS. Running Unraid for OS.

[@RetosSpace]

I currently have the T500, T520, T430, X201, all in good condition, all running various Linux distros and yes, i use Arch BTW!!! Good video!!

[@smorrow]

install 9front

[@littlewillie65]

I've got a T60, 2 T61a, an X200 (precursor to the Yoga machines), and a T510 (which has a full complement of mouse buttons). I also have an Ideapad, which isn't quite as rugged as the Thinkpads were - but since it's a lot newer, it's what I use.

[@HydrantTV]

I really like ThinkPad laptops, even though my current daily driver is a Dell XPS 9520. I'd love to have T430 with T420 keyboard in my collection... a T61 would also be great for - as you said - distraction free typing experience.

[@MGMan37]

I had an X230 and did the keyboard swap - I may be a blasphemer here but if I had to go back and do it again I don't think I'd do it again. I didn't find the typing experience to be notably better (that is to say, the newer style of keyboard is still among the best in class in the laptop industry in my opinion). So I think it's only worth doing if you really need that 7th row or just want the pure aesthetic vibe of it (understandable).

[@stlrsfan27]

Awesome video my friend. It's hard to beat a Genuine IBM Thinkpad. Lenovo is good but I prefer the classic construction and quality of IBM. Keep up the good work. 😎

[@Retro.Reverie]

I would certainly not complain if they made an exact copy of the classic IBM with modern specs. It’ll never happen but a man can dream

[@little_IBLOWN5198]

love your vids new subscriber coming up

[@Retro.Reverie]

Thank you! Glad you're here :)

[@megasoid]

Good job!

[@sarkybugger5009]

Watching this excellent video on a docked T420, upgraded to i7 - 16GB - 3 x SSD - USB3. Does all I need, cost peanuts.

[@martinnemeth5935]

Same setup

[@MGMan37]

I had an X230 and swapped to the X220 classic-style non-chiclet keyboard. I may be blaspheming but I didn't find the X220 keyboard typing feel to be notably better. I think the newer thinkpad chiclet-style keyboard is still best-in-class among laptop brands. If I had to choose again I don't think I would bother doing it. I think the main benefit of the old style is the 7th row or the pure aesthetic vibe. Really the main IBM-era thinkpad feature I miss most is the downward-sloping front edge of the palmrest.

[@hydrazine884]

I've only had experience with ThinkPads as a work laptop so far. I first had a T480 and now a T14 gen3 (T480 was a little bit hot, but that's probably more to do with the dated Kaby Lake-based CPU). I did have to get accustomed to the swapped CTRL and Function key, but it didn't take too long. I would love to buy one second hand...

[@JikoMuskato]

I do have a Thinkpad R60 (Core 2 Duo), T60 (Core Duo), T420 (i5 2nd gen) and E590 (i5 8th gen) - and I think they are incredible. But the really modern versions start to suffer from the typical problems other laptops have: (partly) soldered RAM, no more expansion slots (neither express cards nor Ultrabay), most even don't have an SD card slot anymore. That's a bit sad to see. Like my T420 at some point was running three (!) SSDs and had two nine cell batteries and both the RAM and the CPU were upgradable (even though fitting CPUs are rather expensive even up to this day when compared to desktop counterparts). But nontheless I still prefer Thinkpads over other models especially because I love to use the trackpoint and all the other brands coming with trackpoints in the past actually stopped using them by now. The nicest upgrade they had apart from general specs was the addition of a numpad starting with the T540 and newer 15" models. Right now I'm thinking about getting the E16 with AMD CPU, which has both in incredible battery life and a nice iGPU. The T60 and R60 are still carrying the IBM label but were already built by Lenovo who were allowed to use the IBM logo for some more years. They actually didn't strech that as long as they could have and started to sell them as Lenovo short time after that. And yeah: I dislike chiclet style keyboards as well. But there's nothing else in laptops these days. I didn't have any problem with Thinkpads moving over to 16:10 and 16:9 screens as that was just the typical screens everybody used and also the standard in TVs, which moved from more rectangular shapes to 16:9 as well.

[@smorrow]

16:10 is the good one anyway - wide enough for multitasking, tall enough to be useful. 16:9 is the only one still complained about. Upgradable RAM probably is coming back, firstly on Dells, in CAMM form.

[@jadenippersiel912]

I just dug out my old IBM thinkpad 2722, can’t find the charger but it worked the last time I used it years ago.

[@GNU_Linux_for_good]

That was super interesting. Just bought a refurbished X390; the fullHD-resolution (compared to X220's) was worth it. _Thanks_

[@tato-chip7612]

Honestly my major gripe with old thinkpads is the old hardaware. its not just an issue of performance its also an issue of maintenance and support, even if you use linux with a lightweight window manager. Reality is newer hardware is simply more efficient too and you can make good use of the big battery banks (or dual batteries in the case of my T440s)

[@tomschmidt381]

I'm a ThinkPad fanboy. My wife and I each have a T520 in addition to our desktops. I'm even using a T420 with a large HDD in the CD-ROM bay as a poor man's server on our home network. My first Thinkpad was a T61, the first one with a wide screen display. I've had good luck buying off lease units on eBay.

[@misterthegeoff9767]

I love my old X230 and T430 but the reality of the matter is if I am actually taking a laptop with me anywhere these days I go straight for my X270. Being able to charge by USB and not carry a bulky charger or a bunch of spare batteries with me is more useful in general than a slightly better keyboard. Whenever someone needs a cheap laptop I always point them to the t450 which I think gives the best value out of all of the modern thinkpads and make great web browsing/streaming/office PCs. I do want to pick up a T480 as well if I see a cheap one. Going back to quad core processors but with modern features like thunderbolt while still retaining socketed RAM is the perfect combination for me

[@MGMan37]

I see T480's for sub $200 where I live, I think it's currently the best in value right now. I don't think I'd go for anything older than an _80 series at this point just due to the sheer peformance increase.

[@AtomLabX]

I'm glad that you did not trash on the new models. I prefer the new models, and I always and I will always say, people are just hooked on the old models... that is about it! The new models are amazing and work great, and they are priced amazing! to what they offer! Also, I bought my brother a newer one two years ago, when he started college. He is heavy on using it, like heavy heavy, yet he loves it, and he doesn't know much about computers yet, I asked him, would you like a MacBook or a Razor Laptop? He was like nope, if anything he would get the same type of laptop again, but a newer model, since he like how easy is to work with the machine! As for me, a person who has been using personal laptops and computer since 1990's... I must say, I love the new once!

[@TheAltair033]

I have a 4th gen x1 yoga and it has the best keyboard i have ever typed on. beats x40, my x220, my t450s and even my model m. it's just the perfect keyboard for me. I wish they made a usb version of that

[@Rac3r4Life]

I love current ThinkPads. My current model is the X1 Yoga Gen 6, and it is an excellent machine. I am a Linux user, and ThinkPad has always been great with their Linux support.

[@wskinnyodden]

Have a T540P and the one with the High res 2k screen at that and the GFORCE 730M, so one of the top equiped T540p's the other one being the same but with a Quadra. Also, swapped the DVD Burner into a USB enclosure and put a 1Tb HDD on it so I wouldn't waste space on the 256Gb SSD. Was considering selling it as I finally built me a new desktop, but am having second thoughts about that.

[@System0Error0Message]

do a board swap to W series and upgrade the CPU to the extreme edition. You get more ram slots and you can get the quadro instead which is faster but more importantly you get thunderbolt.

[@dilbertc1]

I handled the T20 through the T400 until we changed to HP. We still bought some of the x series for the smaller form factor and I held out as long as possible with the x220 since it was one of the last ones with the legendary keyboard. The hard drive being on a sled or behind an access panel sure made hardware refreshes a breeze when transferring data. From a servicing perspective, the T4x series was the worst with varying screw lengths and what feels like some sort of hardware defect as we had to replace so many system boards (we did warranty repairs in house).

[@user-gj1ub5go7e]

i own a few x201 and love them.

[@WhatTheFlash-cx6ox]

Think I’d love that old IBM logo, I have the 2011 Lenovo thinkpad x220, I think it’s flipping amazing, especially as a Linux laptop.

[@MrMosoani]

I will receive and excited to unbox my T480s 1TB 20gb RAM this week. I accidentally bought it coz I meant to buy the t480. Coming from Macbook Pro user of 10yrs. Switching to Windows especially on Thinkpads it's like coming home. I grew up using windows and thinkpads was my first choice but because of wanting to showoff I ended up buying Macbook Pro.

[@cyngaethlestan8859]

I bought a second hand X21 for £250 many years ago. It came with a detachable ~docking unit that sat under the laptop with a DVD and FDD plus a pair of decent speakers. fantastic machine 192mb of ram Win98se that's had a few nice extras added. I used it yesterday for about two hours the first time since the battery finally died at Christmas time. If I still went out with a laptop it would be worth getting a new battery but as I tend to use it sitting in an armchair, having the lead is no problem. I am also lucky enough to have a T60, both superb machines. - I would not tolerate your modern laptop, not just because I loath M$ 8-10-11 but without a detachable battery it's usefulness is highly compromised. - I have moved from Win7 to Q4os Trinity(Linux) for my internet connected box and remain a loyal user of (highly enhanced)XP for all my other desktops.

[@System0Error0Message]

To me the most important features thinkpads did away with was modularity. I have 2 old thinkpads that have modular IOs that i do like using. On one thinkpad it has 3 mini PCIe slots, hot swap bay, PCMCIA, expresscard and a dock with a PCIe slot. I used all those expansions and being able to use an extra battery was nice. On another thinkpad it has expresscard and thunderbolt. This is typically my complaint about modern laptops is the lack of modular IO and while the framework does offer this it does not offer thunderbolt as i do like PCIe connectivity for things like running GPUs externally as this saves power so i only plug in the component when i need it. One example of using the IO on an old thinkpad was, PCMCIA card for modern IO, expresscard for eGPU, miniPCIe slots for wireless, soundcard on the 2503 dock, extra battery and CD for the hot swap. The only thing that stops a similar HP laptop with its modularity from being popular is price. If you are going for the eGPU/PCIe card route, dont bother with dell AGA, it is terrible. stick to PCIe options instead like thunderbolt or expresscard. You cant run a 10Gb/s NIC on dell AGA but you can on thunderbolt while dell will disable your GPU with a card plugged in yet not let you use it.

[@jamesbuckwas6575]

While I agree that having greater modularity in modern laptops would be fantastic (for greater port variety, swappable batteries, and eGPUs), the framework laptops do offer thunderbolt natively on their expansion cards, and can connect to eGPUs.

[@MarkJay]

Guitar pick works great for removing backplates on newer thinkpads

[@taunusv4power]

I'm still stuck on the 20 series. Ever since they were new, I've had 2 T420 and finally a w520 and i love it. It still works great today. So I'm kinda biased but i hate the removal of the thinklight and the 7 row keyboard.

[@mbrit]

Your production quality is *amazing*... where did you pop up from?!?! 😂

[@Retro.Reverie]

Thank you!! I feel like I’m getting a lot done with meager equipment 😁

[@hugeslacker]

I really like the newer thinkpads. I find them pretty easy to work on. I can replace a motherboard in a t490 in 20 minutes. It's really not that bad. And I love how cheap the decommissioned ones are. I'm seeing this video probably because I looked up the p15s, since I bought one the other day and I'm waiting for it in the mail. I make purchase recommendations for my clients and always push for thinkpads over other brands. Lenovo in general really. I do a lot of AIO Lenovos, and I love their mini pcs like the m720q for small linux servers and opnsense routers.

[@adwaitagnome]

watching this video on my T420 running GNU/Linux. I really do prefer to utlitarian nature of not only older ThinkPads, but older business laptops in general.

[@johnnyquid-xj4kk]

I’ve been an Apple fan since the early 90s, but I’ve always liked Thinkpads. I’ve had several of those laptops, and even the older ones w the i5 do fine nowadays.

[@burtdanams4426]

Me and my family have always used discounted/spare Macs since at least 1994, it actually may be even longer than that. It's been so long that I had to text my dad and find out when he first got one. [He texted back: my parents and grandparents have been using Macs since 1981.] HOWEVER, the one pc laptop that I always enjoyed using and always wanted to have as a secondary laptop was an IBM THINKPAD. And no it's not just because the original think pads had the same keyboard layout as the Macs, even though it is the superior keyboard layout for anyone with hands, it was everything about their design, durability, ease of use, the consistency of their flagship models from generation to generation. To a kid that always had used Macs, the Thinkpad family seemed like the only logical decision for a Mac user if they needed to have a windows pc.

[@mutsukiaz]

This is an amazing video for future ThinkPad users like me, deciding on whether I buy an older or newer ThinkPad when I do get around to buying one. Thanks for the video.

[@Retro.Reverie]

I’m glad it was helpful, so long as you avoid the strange ones without the buttons above the trackpad, I think you really can’t go wrong!

[@kgober]

if you want a Yoga with upgradeable RAM, the L390 Yoga has 2 SODIMM slots and no soldered RAM. its M.2 SSD is also upgradeable.

[@ZeDestructor00]

About upgradeability and keyboards.. What I (and most saner folks) folks really miss from the modern keyboards is the 7th row of buttons, not the bevelling. Moving from 7 to 6 rows (from my X220 Tablet to an X1 Yoga) meant that a number of keys were moved around, Esc and Del buttons were changed from full-height to half-height, the back/forwards buttons were replaced by pgup/dn and the media control Fn-combos on the arrowkeys were just gone, with no replacement. It's a fairly hefty downgrade IMO, but thanks to other manufacturers doing even worse things to their laptop keyboards, they're still the best in the business :| Re. upgradeability: while originally soldered RAM was for making the laptop thinner, nowadays soldered RAM is done for graphics performance on modern CPUs with fairly strong integrated graphics. Storage has remained upgradeable, and what really was lost is socketed CPUs and modular dGPUs (when present). Some people bemoan the loss of this upgradeability, but with how slow meaningful upgrades have become, I agree that there isn't much value in such levels of upgradeability. Especially when you can spec upto 64GB of RAM into an X1 nowadays.

[@smorrow]

The six-row keyboard lets you micro-manage brightness with one finger. All you trade off for this is the F keys, which only Windows people use anyway. The paging keys near the arrow keys is a good thing because you use those keys together - they're the coarse and fine controls for the same thing: scrolling. The loss of the integrated numeric keypad (which you didn't even mention) sucks, but it was hard to use anyway due to num lock being in the fn layer.

[@ZeDestructor00]

​@@smorrow For the single-finger brightness control: there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from adding an Fn-lock mode to the classic 7-row keeb (besides, in my case sinceI use my F keys plenty under Linux, the new 6row keyboard making me need two fingers for volume is a net downgrade) I much prefer the paging keys up top because it follows the standard desktop layouts far more closely. Besides, many of the better document readers use the back/forward buttons, either as pgup.dn, or to navigate to prev/next headings Losing the numeric numpad you yourself agree that it sucks anyways, so no big loss (besides, in 2023 I can go to loads of places online and just get myself a nice USB or BT external numpad, something that has existed since the 90s with IBM's own Model M4 line!). What you haven't talked addressed is the complete loss of functionality, like the loss of the media controls Fn-layer on the arrowkeys - I listen to music all the time in my laptops, and now I need to go and mouse around to my media player, wait for the thing to popup it's popup or restore the window, then go and aim at the media controls and click em. *completee and utter horseshit* given that the previous design had IMO the perfect layout as far as laptops go (on desktop, it's common to have media controls as the Fn-layer under the Fkeys, for reference). There's also general UX fails - half-height Esc and delete keys, no context menu key (meaning once again, one has to resort to a bloody mouse for things that could be done with a button), telocation od prtscrn to near the spacebar (who tf thought that was a good idea?!)

[@DrathVader]

Eh, you win some, you lose some. I switched from a very tired T420 to a T14s recently. Keyboard has a much worse layout, it's not upgradeable at all (save for SSD) and I really wish it had an ethernet jack, but also display is much better, battery lasts way longer (even though it's not easily replaceable) and it still feels solid and sturdy compared to most other modern laptops. Tbh my biggest gripe with it is that thinklight is gone.

[@AlternateSnake]

I think it's something blown out of proportion honestly. I have always been a devout lover of Thinkpads but newer ones aren't atrocious by any means especially in comparison to other companies. A lot of goofballs take newer L series units and compare them to old T series units and go "SeE? nO DuRaBiliTy!!" It's just not true. These laptops simply change to meet the demands of businesses. Some of the changes I may not personally alike along with other people, but the quality on these models rarely ever goes down. It's very consistent. My old T420 is built just as well as a new T14. There are things on the older models like upgradability that make them well liked. But upgradable units also don't sell. And businesses are greedy. But the laptops themselves are still tanks even if they're leaner and less bulky. I really don't see a quality change between most of the generations of Thinkpads I've used (From 2007 to 2020 atleast) Some questionable designs occasionally but overall the things are still the same high quality all these years later.

[@turtlexhdc]

I still have 2, a T430s and a L480, both great. I tried a x280.. ok-ish.. hopefully they gonna chip in the RISC-V or ARM

[@wulfhem]

in a few days im switching from my old beloved X61T to a refurbished X13 yoga gen2. i already know that i will be missing the keyboard.... Lenovo, please bring back the old keyboards

[@Daniyess]

Love This Video ! Was very informative and Interesting. Im daily driving an T480 and have an T430 myself and an X13 Gen2 from work, must say the Quality of the ThinkPad laptops didnt change much! Will proably stick to them and will recommend them.

[@fryode]

I owned an R40, a T60, a W500, an X60 Tablet, an X61 Tablet, a T420, and a W540 (with that goddamned clickpad). After that, I switched to Alienware. Can't get a gaming GPU on a ThinkPad so I gave up my beloved TrackPoint and learned to use a touchpad. End of an era. When they did away with the old keyboard layout where it was basically eight rows on the right side, that pissed me off, but I learned to deal with it. On my Alienware M15 R7, I have to hold Fn+Up or Down arrow to PgUp and PgDn. It's no wonder I'm using a mouse more often than not.

[@formbi]

the old keyboard layout is just fantastic (especially the xx20 iteration), the new one is just like in typical toy laptops 20:40 lol, I have 32 GB in my W520

[@Omnonymous]

Got a free Lenovo T420s. 4gb, core i7, windows 10. Thinking about some ram and maybe an ultrabay battery? Any suggestions for other internals that can be swapped out for more internal battery? Ive heard tell of a smartcard battery, never seen one though.

[@Retro.Reverie]

I can’t say I know much about these batteries, but I’d say the best place to start is upgrading to 16gb ddr3 and swapping the hdd for a sata SSD, the performance boost from that alone will be worth while. I also like to do hard caddies in place of optical drives if you have one, then you can recycle the old hdd for extra storage

[@Omnonymous]

@@Retro.Reverie Got 16 Gigs of ram, off amazon. Mine already has an ssd, so it's down to an ultrabay battery. I don't have any big storage to do, battery life means a lot to me. 😀

[@cobra-chicken]

I used to daily drive a T420s. The best mod that I've done was probably the IPS screen upgrade. It was night and day and you will never be able to go back to the default garbage TN panels. Ultrabay battery is fun as you can hot swap it if you got multiple units of them but keep in mind these batteries doesn't have that much capacity and don't actually last that long. They are also kinda expensive these days since they're harder to come by.

[@thepuzzlemaster64]

The one thing I ran across with the Thinkpad line is that there's a lot more Thinkpads that are easy to service than what most people will say. I've heard people say that the T430, or the T480 was the last "good" Thinkpad with solid repairability, but I've found that the most recent Thinkpad that has a replaceable battery, replaceable RAM, and easy to access Hard-drive was 2018's P52. (or at least, the most recent one I found) Just goes to show how long Lenovo has been at this this whole repairability thing.

[@oussama4629]

but the P series generally are more expensive; big and heavy than the more common T and X series

[@TexasCat99]

I have kept my older ThinkPad models for historical reasons. The loss of the modules isn't really a loss when you consider how technology has changed. Yes, I can swap out the DVD drive, HD, Memory and battery without opening the case. On my modern T and P models, its about 5 or so screws on the bottom., No release latches. First, the notebooks of the 90s and early 2000s had VERY little battery life, about 2 hrs. So for many business users, they would carry 2-3 spare batteries that they could swap out. Some ThinkPads can hot-swap 2 batteries. (The DVD/CD drive bay can hold a battery pack) With today's model that can run about 5~8 on battery power, the need to swap out is gone. And, of course, we don't use Floppy drives or optical drives anymore. So, 5~8 screws to upgrade the memory or SSD every 3~5 years is fine. BTW: My P-52 has 3 SSD drive bays. Its a workhorse. You can get them for around $300. Lots of USB ports on the sides and rear. I use my T460 for light use and portability. The P-52 for the big jobs and having those USB ports is handy. Oh yeah, older ThinkPads had a docking connector on the bottom, so the user can pop the Thinkpad into a base and have desktop connectors. Nowadays, a single USB-C 3.x port does the job. No more docking bays. Which is fine, as they weren't always compatible with various models.

[@smorrow]

6:46 The Butterfly keyboard adds thickness.

[@quanvu6005]

Hi, can I ask what is the game you play at first 40 seconds? Thank you!

[@Retro.Reverie]

It’s called Celeste! I got my copy from itch.io, but I think it’s on Gog and Steam

[@FlipidusX]

i only know the new ones, i have a X230, X240, X270, X380 Yoga, X12 Detachable and a P53 😀but i will also look for an older one for my retro computer collection.

[@Rayyan-hi2ge]

u should review the t480s

[@milescarter7803]

PS: on flagship models Lenovo sometimes makes a deal with Intel to run RAM at *any* speed the RAM reports. Examples: my X230 Core i7 runs 2133mt/s *DDR3*, it makes it really zoom. Also my P50 Xeon would /attempt/ to boot with 3200MT/s RAM. It couldn't do it, but it would try. It did manage 2666 I believe.

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

Did the 3200 sticks downclock, or did you need to get slower RAM?

[@clou09]

I believe all ram will downclock to what the cpu supports. I haven't seen ram that can't.

[@fourfortyroadrunner6701]

For me, two things. I use models with the ultrabay, which allows instant high speed backups. (You can put a HD in the ultrabay) Additionally, you can put an mSATA drive in the cellular slot. I have more than one T and W 510/520/ 530, and recently picked up a BIG STACK of EIGHT T420/T430s. I am 75 and have NO plans to get anything, uh, "better" My First thinkpad was a 360 something, DOS/ W3x/ W95. Tiny thing. I even have an old PCradio--weird, with a DOS rom-drive The second is COST. Used machines, great repairability

[@Retro.Reverie]

Can't agree more. Just picked up a T60 with a dead board for $16 before shipping, got a replacement T61 board for $25 locally.

[@theworldoffun8997]

There was a laptop from a Chinese Clevo that lets you change not only RAM, but a CPU too as they just have put B350 motherboard with a whole ass AM4 socket. That's what I call an upgradability

[@System0Error0Message]

up till the 4th gen iseries laptops you could upgrade the CPU. I did on mine to the extreme edition recently for its very cheap price to get more cache and performance but it can pull more power than the laptop was designed for. (it can use 100W instead of 65W)

[@ArthLud]

I love my T430. And my 240 (model 2609). I think the Thinkpads are the best!

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

I should get an X380 Yoga and see how I like it. I quite like competitor tablet PCs.

[@Deadguy2322forreal]

Well, I never had a classic Thinkpad have a BIOS issue that won't let you wake it from sleep if the charger is connected, an Issue I had with a 2023 model due to an issue in the USB-C handling of the BIOS, which Lenovo did not fix after three BIOS updates in a 2-month span, so...

[@pf100andahalf]

I'll probably take my T430 to the grave. It always does everything I need it to do. I've used 1vyrain to mod the bios to remove the wifi module and battery whitelist, replaced the wifi card with a more modern wifi 5 one, replaced the dvd drive with a 1tb hard drive, replaced the boot drive with an ssd, set the battery to stop charging at 80% for super long life, everything but replace the display with IPS which I would still like to do but it's not a priority. I still use it to this day. Last year during a move it was my only pc for a month and I was using geforce now (with it's intel apu) to play cyberpunk 2077 at decent frame rates. I use it every time I go to the laundromat with my phone's wifi hotspot and it makes the time fly by. It's everything I need in a laptop.

[@cobra-chicken]

I used to daily drive a T420s until recently I need to start running some heavy workloads and it started to show it's age. I switched to a P52 and I like it so far. The build quality is still there but there are some things I really miss such as the dedicated volume buttons, barrel style charging ports, lid latches, and the option for an extended battery pack (or the dual battery system on the old s models). The 7 row keyboard is honestly the least important factor for me out of them all. I think it makes more sense design wise but the newer Thinkpad chicklet keyboard is decent and still blows most modern consumer grade laptop keyboards out of the water. Sadly the P52 is already almost 6 years old and the modern workstation grade thinkpads (like the P1) honestly just looks like a Macbook to me.

[@DaT0nkee]

Without watching the video, just reading the title: YES. And now i watch the video.