Lenovo Thinkpad W500 The best retro Thinkpad that is still usable today

This is my retro Thinkpad.
The W500/T500 has a lot of advantages over the T61p/T61.
- Works better out of the box. For example you don't have to install the middleton bios for extra features.
-This thinkpad takes out of the box penryn cpu's, Sata II speed and the much better centrino 5300 Wifi card
-Doesn't have the nvidia 2007-2008 quadro disease. It has still a powerful GPU, the V5700 with 512mb Vram or T500 with a HD3650.
-Better i/o over the T61p displayport.
- DDR III RAM up to 8GB
This is the best 15" retro Thinkpad pick in my opinion. if you want something smaller, the x201 and t410 are the best option.
Music: Ehriling Mood and Abdelmoumen

[@kenmcf]

I bought a few lenovos years ago to use as dev machines. I put Fedora on them . Mostly what i like about them is the keyboard...you just can't get that springy feel anymore with keyboards its heaven. My 21 imac gave out this week, i put my w500 on my desk..I really have not been using it much..but I am reminded what a great computer it is...totally quiet..nice and solid...and the keyboard..its like a cup of coffee in the morning...

[@CannibalSodom]

I am watching this on a Lenovo Thinkpad W500

[@yonatangoldman9759]

Me too. With an X9100 @ 4 GHz

[@mychemicalmods5412]

same

[@Windows7Pro2009]

Rowan Stern Wait. 4Ghz? Can this laptop handle this heat if it is running 4Ghz?

[@yonatangoldman9759]

Yes, undervolted. I use Throttlestop

[@elektron2kim666]

I just saw a good W500 in a shop window nearby. My "new" T61 is pretty cool as well.

[@Go.el_Hadam]

I love these old school thinkpads. It is shame I only learned about them in the last 2 to 3 years. I would have purchased one a long time ago.

[@MisterWayneTV]

But at least you can get them now for cheap!

[@Go.el_Hadam]

@@MisterWayneTV A valid and true point.

[@kenmcf]

I have one of these and also a t420S, Both with Fedora 25 or so. The extra screen size of the W500 is awe inspiring. I use them for open source development, and if either dies, I will get another. My favorite features. There is so much, but i especially love the keyboards. Just the best. I dropped my t420S in puerto vallarta this onto a hard mexican tile floor and kinda messed up the hinge/plastic around the screen..but I was thinking.."hey..I only paid $135 for the thing..."

[@BillyG869]

I have two, they are like a Maytag...Heavy daily use, use on dusty job sites, never fail.Only complaint, weak screen (Dim)

[@olaf2046]

same here! perfect laptop in EVERY department except screen brightness.

[@archygrey9093]

Yeah, they were the last to use the ccfl type screens that get dim with age and use way more battery power. It is possible to replace the fluorescent tube with an led strip though if you're into that sort of stuff.

[@user-ox4ii2bw6x]

This is the best old working thinkpad. It has a great CPU, decent card (for the time) perfect amount of RAM, SATA SSD, a CD drive, supports libreboot, excellent libre-distro support, good diplay, tactile feel, AND its a thinkpad, meaning its going to take wear and tear and be perfect.

[@zeemann]

I have newer Thinkpads,but I love working on this unit.I am planning on adding more RAM and SSD,what do you think .I welcome your advice.

[@SilverSonic1992]

Vista and XP can still be used with an SSD; you just need to make sure that you use the bundled trim tool and disable defragmentation.

[@HHuey21687]

hi yes you should upgraded if you decided to keep the laptop or gonna use it for work or something, i have the same lenovo t500 as well from a friend of mine he gave me and i upgraded to 4gb rams and wd 1tb hd and it load much faster than before when i have 2gb rams on it. and previous i have lenevo t400 also which it died on me.

[@billschwenke790]

I came across a Thinkpad allowing four SODIMM and an Asus as well, pretty cool feature if you ask me!

[@nuclearant9523]

I ever owned one thinkpad W500, 16G Ram, T9400, 256 G SSd, it's amazing.

[@romandomashenko8950]

Does it support 16gb ram?8/

[@N2RI1]

must be confused with W520 as W500 didnt have that RAM cap

[@ExWEIMan]

Don't forget the idiots at Lenovo ditched the embedded numeric keypad. They forgot all about the above average users that knew ASCII and used the keypad to place characters in whatever application they were using.

[@merlindxb4333]

The Libreboot Lenovo W500 from Minifree is a business-grade, secure owner-controlled laptop that safeguards your privacy, security and freedom. It sports a dual-core Core 2 Duo P8400 and Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics, making this a decent workstation for most computational tasks. It runs 100% entirely on free (as in freedom), libre software, from the BIOS, right up to the operating system, drivers and applications. It comes with the free (as in freedom) Libreboot BIOS replacement, and Trisquel GNU+Linux operating system, which is FSF-endorsed and extremely user-friendly even for GNU+Linux novices.

[@stuartgreen5631]

Can't say enough good things about my W500. Just bought a Lenovo T430s which is a slightly more modern classic to carry around. I like it. But the W500 blows it away in welcoming comfort and viewing.

[@beickus]

T500 here - t9550, 8g ram, 1280:800 (1680:1050 died after 13 years), hdd1 win 7, hdd2 xubuntu

[@billschwenke790]

I think I got a W510 Maybe, but definitely a T500, the Core2 and then an i5 later model, Thinkpads and HP seem most common on the used market then Dell, the HD3650 is used in HP laptops of the same vintage and not compared near enough

[@ethical1872]

How hot does your CPU and GPU gets while browsing or watching on KZbin?

[@Viperano1]

Just bought a Thinkpad W500 a few days ago with 95 dollars or 82 euros for my people from Europe and IT FEELS WONDERFUL... 8GB of RAM that I'm gonna try to upgrade to 16, Core 2 Duo T9400, switchable graphics (ATI 3650HD and the Intel 45 Express), the memory is a 200GB HDD 5400 RPM that I have to replace fast. I'm still stuck on the windows 7 that it came with, should I upgrade to Windows 10 after I get the SSD, do I lose a lot of features with 10?

[@archygrey9093]

Windows 10 will but it will be more resource heavy and a few things like some f key buttons won't work (like the screen hot and lockscreen button for example) but it will still function alright otherwise, this is because windows 10 only officially supports thinkpads from the w530/T430 and newer. You should consider trying something like Linux Mint, Linux works perfectly with old thinkpads and is much easier to use than people make it out to be.

[@romandomashenko8950]

Have you had success with 16gb ram upgrade eventually?

[@nickb3968]

Watching this with my x201 running Mate OS

[@y0s967]

what is the song at 1:50 plzz

[@saifzakaria46]

Where to buy

[@ribowoo]

i have this laptop upgrade procesor P8700

[@hackerman7682]

Libreboot them and be free.

[@cthallam6850]

don't forget W500 is already made by Lenovo

[@arnaldo_bittencourt]

Can I install W10 on it?

[@jpvanalles]

Yes it can. Everything is working except switchable graphics mode by the lenovo thinkvantage powermanager. You have to switch in the bios to discrete graphics mode

[@paul-cristianmihai4431]

Also...what driver have you installed for the V5700 in Windows 10 x64 ?

[@schizophrenicgaming365]

no, install gentoo

[@enriquecervantes9928]

The real question is why would you want to

[@gip7889]

@@jpvanalles Following this url win10-on-t500.blogspot.com/ , I managed to make my t500 (I don't have a w500) switchable graphics working on windows 10 pro 64bit ver 2004.

[@Gitzeev]

Can you play games like gta or any ps3/ps2 game on it?

[@SilverSonic1992]

The GPU should have similar performance to an Intel HD 4000, so it should be possible. The CPU should also be sufficient.

[@dominikm.7182]

Silver Sonic 1992 lmao it's way weaker than Intel HD graphic 4000. The Sims 3 complete edition struggles with this card.

[@billschwenke790]

MAME and Microsoft Arcade haha. Old GTA for PC like San An maybe but Renderware was used for 3 and Vice City...on PS2 at least

[@billschwenke790]

Tech site says Radeon HD3650 compares to nVidia Geforce 8600GT rather than GS lower quality so that sounds good on paper

[@live1phish]

....for just a few more days

[@N2RI1]

display very blurry redo video with display in focus

[@justinlyons8676]

windows 7 or xp pro

[@jpvanalles]

Windows 7.

[@justinlyons8676]

@@jpvanalles OK and my favorite windows is windows 98 because is classic windows from 1998

[@canyonstinky7817]

Not a retro pc YET

[@arambp77]

Hallo