Which ThinkPad Should You Get? (And Libreboot notes)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- I talk about the basics of ThinkPads, the main series and what the differences between some of the more common models are, including processor type and the ability to be Librebooted.
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The moloch wants us to use macbooks.
you write this comment under each video manually or you have a script for it?
@@daveshouldaine2520 Oh trust me, he for sure scripted that haha
@@mosk11tto I'm sure ;)
not found (link does not work)
I bought a lot of untested Thinkpads that were absolutely not guaranteed to work, thinking that I could at least make one or two work. They all worked flawlessly.
same!
where did you buy them at?
@@p0kepengin592 Mostly Facebook marketplace.
I found my Lenovo T61 ThinkPad in the trash in a subdivision I was working in. NOTHING wrong with it. I love rich ppl leaving me gifts 🤘🤓🤘
For real?
@@dylansnowrove3732 I got a really nice workstation chair the same way. It needed a couple of commonly available bolts to stabilize the arms. Otherwise it's as good as new!
I got the T60 version out of the trash it's the 10th laptop I have found
@@ronaldrobinson2025 I need to do some more skipdiving! I can't believe what people throw away!
@@ronaldrobinson2025 where do you live?
t4** are 14", t5** are 15", w700 is 17", x2** are 12"
x2**'s are 12.5
T5xx and W5xx are 15,6''
X201 is 12"
w70*ds is 17" + 10.6"
THANK YOU SO MUCH
1:52 "inchage" - when _size_ simply won't do
Sign of a poweruser
that made me crack so bad
he does this shit all the time - "electrical stream"
Hey Luke, nice meme. I don't know if you remember, but we talked in the comments a while back and I ended going with your recommendation and got a X220 and fitted it with SSD and such. It's been great and I wanted to say thanks for your help and all you're doing. Keep fighting the good fight!
Are you still happy with it? 2 years have passed and I'm really thinking of buying X220....
i wanna know too xd
@@lilGyros he moved out to the country and cut off his internet
@@jkohnson lmao
@@jkohnson dying laughing
Really made me think...
pad
@@stumblinghaha
.ly
@@stumbling damn it!! LOL
thunk
Ouh yeah luke's massive rain of videos ! I love this type of weather ;)
Useful and interesting as usual !
i watched this vid before my first year of uni, that was in 2019, i bought an x220 used on ebay for 60 pounds, i still currently use it now at my current job, dual booted hackintosh, arch linux and sonoma MAC OS for IOS development, custom BIOS, 16GB of ram, express card for USB 3.0 / external GPU, new battery, new screen, new keyboard, modded USB c charge port, and it all still cost me less than the cheapest used macbook i could find and ive never been happier, if you're hesitant, and you like tinkering, just buy a thinkpad
I've got a T530 and used to have an X200t I gave to a friend in need. Really great laptops, I love these things.
Can you do a rant on how uncomfortable modern furniture is?
nooooo, can you please do a rant on how shit modern combustion cars are compared to horses?
@@afonsosalbrecht noooo can you please rant about how shit modern horses are compared to walking?
I have an X230 with the X220 keyboard/palmrest, and an IPS display! It’s fantastic!
Is the X230 with a X220 keyboard worth the effort? I have an X220t.
I was shocked you didn't knock over that cup. Great video!
To be entirely fair, the chiclet keyboards on Thinkpads aren't bad for what they are. As far as chiclet keyboards go, Lenovo makes some of the best ones.
The real problem I have with modern Thinkpads is how much they're losing their edge over the competition. It used to be that Thinkpads were almost the only option worth considering for a business laptop, because the build quality and design was just that good. Nowadays they're really no better or worse than any other business laptop.
John van Capel I believe things would be different if IBM had sold their PC Division to Dell or HP, but they had to sell it to Lenovo. I’ve read that they did so because it was a way of getting a foothold in China.
What was the last elite one you would recommend for its time?
@@muhammedbekirkabasakal5788 T480
@@helmetculture t480 bro absolutely. Pop a glass trackpad on it, it can also take 64 of ram and also wwan drive (if you can find one cause they are rare). Its a solid coding and linux machine.
I got the W510 I paid $200 for it in mint condition. It has 30 gigs of ram and am i7. It's a beast web surfing. Thanks for the excellent video.
Well, I would say that the keyboard on the T430/T530 is still very good. It's not the old keyboard but it has a unique "premium/business" feeling, which in my opinion isn't tiring at all. The T430/T530/W530 still have the original sturdy build but after those it just goes downhill... I bought my first Thinkpad (T530) about 3 weeks ago and I got a really good deal (about 370€) for the best configuration (i7-3740QM, Nvidia NVS 5400M, 1080p display). This might sound much, but those old Thinkpads are really rare in europe and especially in Austria.
also you can swap out the t430 keyboard with 420 one with the help of youtube
Just bought two T430s Thinkpads for $100 each! i5-3320M, 8GB RAM & 128GB SSD. Amazing laptop! I plan to upgrade the chip & RAM over the next month on one of them, which has already replaced my 2013 Macbook Air 13, as my daily driver. Came with Windows 10, which I kept on the other one but I installed a distro of Linux on my daily driver. Really enjoying this machine!
I have a T430 a couple years ago, I upgraded my cpu to a Quad Core i7-3740QM and I'm more than happy with it
The T420 is 14 inches. IBM sold the ThinkPad brand in 2005. The X60 was built under lenovo. The chiclet keyboard was introduced with the T430/X230 generation.
true but you could swap them out
@@dragontos can a x220 or t420 run 1080p videos without problems?
Hey! Thanks for pointing me to Libreboot. I'll check it out for the T450
Clear and concise. Thanks Luke
Accurate info here, thank you for the details!
Great video. I like that you give actual information and opinions!
got a thinkpad t520 from my dads work for free, popped an SSD and some more ram in it for a net $50 linux brick
I just recently bought the X260, and it's a pint-sized powerhouse. I've been able to edit music on the go with studio programs on it, and it holds its own. Boot up is fast (10 seconds) , browsing is fast, and for a refurbished $100 laptop, it's a beast.
I also recently refurbished an E531, and I'm looking forward to giving it some extra hardware upgrades. I bought it without an HDD for $54, and I installed the SSD and OS, and replaced the battery. Runs almost as fast as the X260, and that's impressive.
just ordered the t400, thank you for the advice!
I have a t400. Sadly it fell and the screen doesnt work unless you plug a monitor in. Works great still
Man all these years later, this is exactly what I needed, last gen with the most perfect keyboard ever on a laptop + as advance a hardware as possible, X220 vs T420 it is. Thanks a lot.
Really good video. I was recently looking to upgrade to a new laptop, watched a few videos from a few people and landed on a refurbished (from a well known/rated ebay refurbishing company) X1 Carbon 3rd gen. Thing has a 5th gen i7, 8 gigs of ram, 256gig ssd and I got it for under 400. MRSP was I believe around 1,700 ish? Cannot believe what good deals you can find on just a couple year old hardware if you look around. Runs Manjaro perfectly. I also saw some people really praising HP Elitebooks. Def learned an important lesson as a coder, that in the current age, I no longer HAVE to spend 1,000 plus (often way more for high spec machines) I can just buy them pre-owned or refurbished for 1/4 the price and get a few usable years out of them. Good show man. Good show.
luke's videos are very educative and inspirational.
I used Thinkpad T570, T420, X1 Carbon and Ideapad S540. But I really like the S540 Keyboard layout compared to the earlier version keyboards.
No, Luke. You need SSD. Obviously you don't know what it's like to come back to a slow mechanical drive.
i remember struggling through windows w a 5400 drive, dualbooted linux and it was surprisingly faster. i really didn't think linux is drive independant
Luke is a boomer, never experienced speed or power
In the X230 you can add the x220 Keyboard and flash the bios. Both are pretty much the same chassi.
Nope
I'm using a T440p right now, and its build like a tank!
The 30 series (x230 t430 ...) are still a decent choice if you don't care about the keyboard or free software. They are really close to the previous series in terms of quality and with some tinkering it's possible to install the classic keyboard.
Max 593 I agree. My second ThinkPad was a t430 and is currently my daily driver. It's essentially a t420 with an updated keyboard. It just depends on which keyboard you like better. I have no preference really. All the ThinkPad keyboard hate is kind of turning into a meme.
I have used the x230 for almost a year now and I had absolutely no problems with it.
Just recently, I replaced the charger and the new one didn't work that well so the board got fried. I have taken it for repairs and they offered me the t410 as replacement for now. I only came here to see the reviews to know what to decide.
I do a bit of graphics design on Figma .nd photoshop, and a bit of coding too. I also do a bit of AutoCAD every now and then. Apart from that, nothing else. Would anyone recommend taking the t410?
pretty sure most if not all of the 30-series can be modded pretty easily to use the classic keyboard
i had a R60 in 2006, x100e in 2010 and using the T430s now. cheers!
This is a really rad video mate, I personally have a T420 and it's awesome.
You are such a super mensch, mang. Much love, Luke, great work, love your channel. Following you on Odysee. Been researching thinkpads past few days. stoked to see a Luke review!
T451 was pretty based. All of the IO I need, removable CPU/ram, and amazing specs tech wise. Only complaint is battery life and trying to get the Nvidia GPU running on linux.
Thanks for this. Very satisfying to know.
My Thinkpad is 11yrs old now (X220) still use it every day, does everything its called on to do for my own use and work. No plans to replace it. Only part I have replace is the battery which was this year.
I've got 7 of them, i buy most of them in the "for parts" section of ebay and fix them up
models mentioned:
x60
x200
x220
t420
also mentioned t60 and t400
Man even being 7 years old and still running, my T520 and X220 I got off ebay - put in an SSD in each and use them for my travel purposes. Always was a fan but using them man oh man are they still great machines. Built like a tank, still hold up in performance vs most of todays stuff and obviously what the Thinkpad is known for - the keyboard, being spillproof, being able to use them w/ one hand (with extended battery) but its almost like driving a Jeep YJ vs a newer wrangler. Its old school that still holds it own. Seriously..go buy a thinkpad from 2011-2014 vs something new for a quarter of the price and it will most likely beat it!
Very helpful, thank you so much for this video!
X 60 is so beautiful！
Bought my x220 with 4gb RAM 128gb SSD and an i5 for £80.
Where did you get that price?
Arcas someone in a discord channel sold it to me.
I bought mine on ebay (without hdd and batt. but I put a new ssd and and cheap batt.)for $80USD.
Whoa! Is it in good condition? *THINKPAD TELE PORN XXX*
Yes, only a few tiny dings!
You are absolutely rocking it
ThinkPads AND Casio F91-W
Good stuff, thanks Luke
I owned every thinkpad every made since the one in 89 with the pop out butterfly keyboard . I like the yoga gen 4 11e windows version works fast like brand new as I bought it off of amazon for $178
Really like the video, I am in the market for a t420 and x220 now.
I have 4 Thinkpads altogether, 2 are T520. Love them both from the keyboard, the build quality, the keyboard and the light that comes down from the camera area to illuminate the keyboard. I will admit that I am running Linux on both and the run amazingly. Planning on upgrading both to i7 and ssd.
I bought an i7 to replace the i5 ln my T520 (Which has the nvidea and higher res. screen) because I had read it has the bigger i7 cooling and when I compared the specs, my lower end i7 isn't any faster than my top end i5. I'll just keep the i7 for a rainy day. I needed a laptop with the DVD drive (which I swap out for a 2nd storage 1TB hard drive when I'm not using it.) I'm still using a copy of photo shop 8 installed on DVD. SSD for the boot drive would be a lot quicker start up.
I have both a t430 and t420. While I am a Dell guy, I love my Latitude series. But there's no denying these vintage are very well built. I call them my tiny tanks:) But, I've been thinking of replacing my bios on my t420 since it only has the intel graphics and while I have my Windows 7 recovery set, I enjoy Linux on these laptops. They work completely out of box, and we have docks.
The older T and X series laptops are great. The T61 is killer use the bios update and install a SSD. You can also add a second hard drive in place of the CD/DVD drive.
This guy is spontaneous, i like it (y)
I have the x220 and typing on it is really amazing
Bought w530 with 3740qm i7vpro, 1080hd screen, 16gb ram, 500gb, k2000, win10 pro and fingerprint scanner model for 199. That was 2yrs ago. Im in love w it very fast.
T410 for $1 at a surplus sale. Love it! I5 520m and 4gb ram running manjaro
SlayerProof 32
I have used the x230 for almost a year now and I had absolutely no problems with it.
Just recently, I replaced the charger and the new one didn't work that well so the board got fried. I have taken it for repairs and they offered me the t410 as replacement for now. I only came here to see the reviews to know what to decide.
I do a bit of graphics design on Figma .nd photoshop, and a bit of coding too. I also do a bit of AutoCAD every now and then. Apart from that, nothing else. Would anyone recommend taking the t410?
Lenovo went to the chicklet style keyboard so they could add back lite keys. Some reviews have stated that these keyboards were not that bad in their feel, but the layout was bad. In any case you can transplant an X220 keyboard into an x230, and a T420 keyboard into a T430. So I would suggest that the X230 and T430 are acceptable machines.
Id rather the original keyboard like whats on my x220 than a crappy backlit chicklet keyboard!
You don't need ckicklet keys to be backlit (See: Thinkpad 25). Leshito is pandering to mindless normies while throwing the hardcore Thinkpad fanbase under the bus.
I don't get the hate for the chicklet keyboard. I think they are still the best keyboards in the business and a lot of reviewers agree on that. Maybe the older keyboards were even better, however I don't know if you wanna get a 7 year old or even older machine at this point.
ThinkPad collector here as well and ultra happy with them, they are also still my daily drivers, i have:
T440P (1080p ips, 16GB Ram, i7mq,nvidia).
T440 (1600x900) i5,8gb,
T440S (1080p touch, 12GB, i7)
X240 8gb 1080p,i5
And all of them have upgraded touchpads to *50 series with physical buttons
I prefer the T430 and its keyboard and might collect 1-2 more refurbished Thinkpads from that time. My T430 only takes slim 2.5" disks and it is the only issue to consider. The newer "laptops" do not make much sense to me. Gaming/3D equipment jumped from $500 to $2000 in recent years and we get more in the desktop departments than in the experimental laptop departments.
I have MANY thinkpads. My favorite? My W540/32gb/RAM, SSDx3/K2100m
Thank you for this video. A great overview with all the necessary details for people caring about their freedom.
Love you content!
watching on my t520 running arch :-)
Librebooting my t400 was a pain. The bios chip is buried, you have to remove the entire motherboard to access it properly. It's worth it though. I like having the wider screen. I don't know how the t500 fares with librebooting. But my daily workhorse is the x60. Mostly for portability. It's a LOT smaller and lighter than my t400. It's librebooted with an ssd, it's lightning fast. I also have an x60 tablet for note taking purposes but it is a 32 bit cpu. It doesn't make that big of a difference to be honest. It all depends on what you are using it for. Parabola still has 32 bit support but arch doesn't. Both of the x60's were librebooted without taking out a single screw.
I recently bought an x201t though. I do a decent amount of audio and video editing and wanted something more powerful. It's mostly a hobby, but it's relatively cheap for "better" performance. I also use it for taking notes in class/anything else. I corebooted it, put in 8g of ram, and gave it an ssd. I only connect it to the internet for updates. That's the only way I get peace of mind. It will never be completely free, but this is the closest I'll ever get. I plan on removing the wifi-card sometime this week so that the ethernet port is the only access point to the internet. I'm assuming it will work but have yet to test it.
Wifi has a kill switch so don''t be stupid and leave it in.
I bought my thinkpad t400 as not working, it had no display but fan was working.
I flashed the bios with original rom because i didnt have wifi card for libreboot.
But yeah man it was a pain. The 8 pin clip cost too much so i soldered wires directly to the chip but it worked soo i think that clips are kinda overrated.
Can you tell me which 4gb sticks it accepts? I am having trouble with getting my to work with 8 gb
Hi Luke! Thank you for sharing such useful info through TH-cam! I'm a first time ThinkPad buyer, and I mostly use computer for web browsing and typing docs. Which one should I really get because the prices are really very reasonable! Thank you!
when your friend thinkpad makes a joke...
C L A S S I C T H I N K P A D
now i know why i like so much typing on my t420 :)
You need to watch out for faulty hard WiFi switch on the X Series. They can play up and switch the WiFi on & off infuriatingly. There's a fix, but it mean taking out the card and masking pins. Other than that they're solid, machines that are great value for money.
that might be the answer to why my x201 wifi is hard blocked and i havent been able to figure out how to remove the hard block
The individual ThinkPad series do not just differ in screen size...
6:06 freedom periority yhh , thats like right to the point good job bro.
ty good video.
I ordered a ThinkPad T500 yesterday as of writing this. Waiting for it as of writing
Tell us your experience.
I just purchased a t430; i agree with you about the t420/x220 being the last real good one in stock configuration, but if you're planning on doing mods, t430 seems more suitable. I'm gonna throw in an i7 quad core, a t420 keyboard, likely an IPS screen with an FHD IPS mod, and will use 1vyrain software to disable Intel Management and allow for custom BIOS flashing (along with other goodies like overclocking and such).
Granted by the end I'll have spent probably as much as getting a fairly modern laptop, but it's gonna be a durable workhorse and have the old keyboard anyway.
I'll likely grab an x220 and maybe an x200 as well if I find them cheap enough so I can have some beaters to mess around with, but the t430 is definitely solid if you want to do some diy modding.
did u do it bruh? how is it?
Great video, thanks.
Thanks for the advice I just bought T480 i7 8th generation loaded with 64gb Ram m2 ssd..
Holy shit thats powerful man happy for ya
I have the t440s and i'm so happy i bought it. I bought it recently refurbished, and it works like a charm! This thing is awesome even after this time, but i would absolutely take one with an ips panel, the tn panel is shitty as hell.
I had my T400 librebooted yeahh!!
Hey Luke are there any compact laptop with a trackpoint keyboard like the Lenovo x60 but with modern specifications? I'm really impressed with this feature.
X201 has the same form factor as the X200 but has an i5 chip. This means it takes the same docking station as the X200.
Love my T520 and I will stick to it no matter what
Wish I would have done my research before I bought my x230. Hopefully one day they will figure out how to libreboot it. I think the reason they switched to another keyboard design was to enable backlit keyboard, none the less I have seen people modify thinkpads to have the classic thinkpad keyboard.
X230 one of the best mashines you can get. You can flash another bios and change the keyboard.
I am getting am x200 and making it librebooted. I'm flashing it myself! Just hoping that at some point you will make an update video if the it and i7 processor models can have the Intel management engine removed.
Tnx, that was so honest
Hi Luke, you seem like a kind, warm person. I am convinced now that I should acquire a Thinkpad. I am a writer, and spend lots of time on a crappy chiclet keyboard. I absolutely want that quality keyboard. I just wanna drop something simple on it like mint and get writing! Is eBay still the best place to go looking for these?
I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 for $43 bucks shipping included, I love this thing, it has MX Linux 19 installed with only 3GB of ram and a 2.0Ghz core 2 duo, the laptop works very, very well even with an 5400 rpm Hdd.
I got an ssd for $10 it was definitely worth it
(I use a toughbook ct 19 mk3 with core 2 duo)
i didnt know it was a meme. i genuinely love the thinkpad series.
Well, the chocolate keyboard is awesome, i have used both the old and the new models, and as student, (i type alot) both of them feel just perfect.
I used to meme and make fun of the "hacker" image of a guy in a hoody with a thinkpad, until I got myself an old t61. And yes, the hoody does add +5 to computing power and +10 to im-in-the-mainframe speed
I got a thinkpad x200 with 8gb of ram, an ssd, libre boot, and arch linux with i3. Call me a copycat but that machine works damn fine.
Try out dwm, i find it much much simpler
What kind of x200 is that with a i3 and 8 gb of ram? I have a x200s with the Core 2 Duo and 2gb of ram (max 4)
NickCorsair YT i3wm
T430, T420, T440p, YOU can upgrade the CPU to quad core and RAM up to 16GB
I got the W520, ram can be upgraded to 32GB, but 16GB is way more than i need already
i find a refurbished x201 for 100€ (grade b) it has a really cool design and nice specs. Damn, the keyboard is waterproof but the only think that i don’t really like is the backlight screen.
so... is it still really worth?
I also read something on google that says that you can upgrade it as well
Bought a used T440p for about 290$ with i7 4710MQ CPU, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM & FHD display.
Update on it? How is it going?
You Rocked it. I built the same exact thing for about 350.
Have you considered the one's they got up in the International space station?
btw got the x200 for 70 bucks and the ssd for another 50 bucks. still looking to speed up the libreboot.
What do you think about t25?
And one note about `inchige`, T4.. are 14 inch, T5.. are 15 inch, and X2.. are around 12 inches. Should be easy to remember since diagonal is in model number...
Honestly, only recently got into linux, but I remember my sister used to play documentaries for child me on one of these. I want one
i always wanted a thinkpad.
I used to have one as a kid and loved the joystick mouse thing.
It sucks tho that their so hard to find
how risky is the libreboot process? ive got an old x200 that im tempted to libreboot. what are the main benefits aside security? a tutorial on how to do libreboot (if u havent already made one) wud be hugely appreciated!!
Love the channel, keep at it!
It's a little faster to boot than the stock BIOS, and it's all free (as in freedom) software if you care about that from a philosophical standpoint.
Generally if you follow the instructions on the Libreboot website, it's not going to be a problem. If you mess up, you do end up with a non-booting laptop - but unless you fry something hardware-wise, you can generally try again.
Do you have any sources regarding the project(s) to remove Intel ME from the x220 and/or make it librebootable? I'd like to read details and follow any updates on the progress if possible.
I don't know the specifics, but earlier this year, Minifree was working on it. I don't know if they actually made progress, but a couple other companies and organizations (Purism and system76) have said very recently that they've finally cracked the ME and made it removeable (this should work on the X220 and most all laptops as well). I don't know if this claim has been verified by 3rd parties, but if it's tree a libreboot for the X220 would be very close. Even if Libreboot doesn't do it themselves, you could coreboot the thing and run whatever advanced me_cleaner purlism and s76 have developed.
How did you manage your trackpoint drivers and sens on Arch Linux? I found myself having to make a conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ to make my trackpoint usable. I am wondering if you noticed any change on any of your laptops and do you ever need to change anything related to it upon a fresh install?
Really?? What model do you have, a later one? The trackpoint works out of the box on all of my machines, even on the barest Arch install. No pacakges necessary for me.
Unfortunately, it's a later one. I was gifted the E570 by someone else since he was part of a company that gave heavy discounts for Lenovo products. It's not entirely bad and does what I want it to do for Arch Linux but I had to use this conf (pastebin.com/sivU1y6C) in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ for my trackpoint to not feel like shit.
I have a T460 that was made in 2016. So far, so good. I bought it used in 2020 for $220.