I was considering buying a CHROMEBOOK to develop web... But I bought a Thinkpad X220 (Intel i7, 6GB RAM) for US$ 100,00.... I just replaced the HD to an SSD for $60. What a fast, cool and portable machine. And it is a REAL computer... Very happy with this computer.
Chrome OS is actually a Linux variant. Plus with recent updates to the OS, there is a selection of actual Linux based programs that can now be run inside chrome OS.
@@911Salvage It is not enough. I use Visual Studio Code or PyCharm and they barely fit on the screen. It's a very small computer overall. Great for some ad hoc tasks, but I am looking for another T-series Thinkpad as my daily driver.
@The Anonymous Sir Backspace I use an x201 for light web-based work or when I want to sit on the sofa. It does over heat a bit too much (even though I changed the internal fan and upgraded to ssd). It's not the best laptop, has shitty speakers and some people don't like the tft screens ( personally love it) but this thing is rugged : no matter how many times I dropped it or just flung it on the sofa, this thing just wont give me a good reason to finally get an x220 :(
Got the new Thinkpad T480 at work, replacing the previous T61. I also own an old X60 which is still chugging along just fine and I bought a 4-year old T440 last week to handle some SPSS and Nvivo field work. All my experience says the Thinkpad series are extremely durable, they'll survive a nuclear war without breaking a sweat. And because businesses buy them by the thousands and dispose them for new models every 4-5 years, good used ones are easy to find, parts are plentiful and easy to source. If you don't feel the urge to cough out a lot of money for a stylish brand new mid-high end laptops, second-hand Thinkpads make a great alternative choice. If all you do is browse the net, watch videos, do some word processing + spreadsheet work and do some light gaming to kill some time in between, they are often a far batter choice compared to brand new 'disposable' laptops in the
I just got myself a t440p and I'm maxing it out: i7 quad, 16GB ram, 500GB SSD, 1080 IPS panel, backlit keyboard and a new battery, thinkpads are very modular indeed! Hard to find that on modern ultrabooks.
I built my PC a few years ago and its my daily driver....but for portable use I rock a T520 and X220 and they outperform most midlevel stuff now a days. I put SSD's in them and HOLY CRAP I mean come on - the build quality, spillproff keyboard, overall performance vs what I paid for ($200 and $80), the keyboard itself and overall well...those that love thinkpads know what Im talking about.
I've still got two IBM branded Thinkpads, a 570 and an x60s. Both are superb machines. Haven't found a modern laptop, even from Lenovo, that has the same quality feel and versatility as these machines.
My Thinkpad W500 with 8GB Ram from 2008 still works perfectly, 11 years later ! It's fast enough for raw photo editings in Photoshop, Audio Editing and almost everything else. No noice, no high temps, no problems. Amazing quality machine!
I tried to work 2 times on the laptop under Windows 10-actually the machine worked absolutely perfect-very fast and smoothly, but i had problems with Photoshop and some drivers, because the machine is very old, there was no drivers and the 2nd problem was that I can't enable OPEN GL and hardware acceleration in Photoshop so the editing was slow. For everything else was very,very good, but I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 again.
Agreed! I have a T500/Radeon Mobility/T9600Penryn CPU/8gb/RAM/256gb SSD/320gb/7200rpm HDD. And yes, I DO play games on it. Mass Effect 2, at 50 FPS, and Sims 2 at 54 FPS. Not bad! And YES, I do some rendering with it, and it works adequately!
I've been using ThinkPads ever since I discovered them in 2001/2002. I currently have the T-410.....T-420.....T-430...and a T-530. They ALL work flawlessly, and no matter what I use them for...(some for watching movies...some for learning how to be a programmer...and some for studying for the RHCSA and CompTIA-Linux+ exams!) Definitely a laptop that lasts...I've had to upgrade the processors...the RAM and the hard drives...(all SSD's now...and one i7, while all the rest are i5's) and these machines are just the BEST...for WHATEVER you want to do. Mind you..the newer laptops might be lighter...less prone to fan errors...and better able to remain dust-free internally...but these machines are the BEST thing to happen to laptops and since their inception?...I've not found a machine to rival them! I run Linux on all of them...(not a fan of Windows "spying" ways!...LoL!) and I've never had a problem...no driver issues....no display issues...NOTHING!
Ohh i use T400 and everytime i turn it on it stays in a black screen so what i always do is removed the battery and put it back again after that i turn it on and it's back too normal again Note: i do this everytime i opened it
A 701C Thinkpad is old. A 760 Thinkpad is old. C2D Thinkpads aren't old. I know they aren't because I'm typing this on a T60 Thinkpad. OK, it's old. But it's still useful. Like me, some days.
I'll also give a nod to the "newer" ThinkPads as well (T-450 / T-470 / T-480) they're buit a little sleker, but the innards are still there, built tank-tough...and MODIFIABLE!. I can swap out SSD's....add another RAM stick....not sure about messing with the processors on these though, although they're pretty fast...so I wouldn't even have to try!
Got my girlfriend a X200s for around £100 a couple of years ago. Put a 120GB SSD in it and upgraded to Windows 10 (it came with Vista) and the thing flies. It outperforms the Macbooks most of her colleagues are using and it's super durable and probably about 9 hours battery with the extended battery.
I have an T43 a T61 and a T410. All running Win10 with an SSD and maximum RAM. The T43 slow. TH-cam... not really. Office OK. The T61 is usefull. TH-cam and other stuff. The T410 i5 is really nice and feels very modern. Bought a week ago with 8GByte RAM SanDisk 250GB SSD and in great shape for USD 130. Great stuff.
I have a T420 that I got as a replacement for my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. I didn't even realize how much I missed having a CD drive, many different ports and a good keyboard
I can't understand how people even tolerate only having a single thunderbolt port on their new apple laptops, literally not even a single headphone jack or usb port.
This is the Laptop 💻 that I have. I enjoy using it a lot. I’m looking forward to upgrade it. With more Memory, Ram, & also changing the CPU. I have found your channel. You sir have a new subscriber. Thank you very much.
I just ordered a refurbished 2014 ThinkPad T440 on eBay with 8 gb, 500 hd, 2.7 ghz, i7 for $299. I'm hoping it will work well for school and everything else. Waiting for it to arrive on Friday to replace my dying MacBook Pro that I can't yet afford to replace with a new one.
Though I have a more recent thinkpad I still mainly use my T500 (T9400, 8G ram, hdd1 160g, hdd2 500g, 3+ hours 9cell battery, win7, xubuntu 10.4, ubuntu matte 16.4). It is ok for most tasks, not all. Forget about media conversion, current versions of Firefox run rather slow. Other than that is great - cheap parts on the net. I 'd say the only concern is the weight, 3kg but then again it is durable. I consider the after 2011 thinkpad keyboards trash, that is why i still like it.
I have a Thinkpad T61p and even though it's got a 800MHz FSB (and quite frankly stupidly designed cooling) it handles itself pretty well and its currently got a 500GB 5400RPM HDD, it swapped it from the 60GB SSD as speeds where the same but I was getting a bump in space, I did apply a overclock to the GPU to 580MHz on the GPU core and 9xxMHz on the VRAM and it helped FPS quite a bit in games like HL2
@@simple_networks Also, how did you get the switchable graphics running in Windows 10? I've never been able to get them running properly on any T400/500 ThinkPad.
@@SebisRandomTech not sure what you mean by switchable graphics. Could you explain a little more? And as for windows 10, I haven't actually been able to successfully get this machine to run Windows 10 without major driver issues. Unfortunately the farthest I can go is Windows 7.
@@simple_networks T400/T500/W500's with a dedicated GPU have a switchable graphics feature allowing the system to switch between the Intel GMA graphics and the dedicated GPU. Unfortunately to my knowledge this does not work at all in Windows 10, which was why I asked how you got it working. :P
Worth every penny I have a nice T500 with a TN screen so would love to upgrade the screen but other than that it works just fin and does the job I need it to do it runs every day is easy to clean and just works what more is there to say and NO GLUE unlike all the crap made now that is glued or soldered together.
NICE MAN, matter a fact, i also still use W500 for my multimedia centre now, upgraded the CPU to T9900, 8GB of RAM, 120GB SSD, 9 Cell Battery and it has ATI FireGLV5700 GPU, and the 1920X1200 screen is beautiful, maybe not as good as IPS screen, but still acceptable thou..sit on the docking station for a daily basis since a year ago, and never had any problems at all.. PS : W500 is also the last thinkpad that still using Solid Magnesium Plate in the top case.
yes man, put any SSD in it, and its still much faster than today's consumer grade laptop. you might be wanna check also the thinkpad Advanced Docking station if you want to use eksternal GPU.
T420 here. THE BEST DEAL OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. It has everything I need from a real laptop: All the ports I actually need, the horsepower to even edit and render videos and photos, it's so strong and sturdy I can toss it in my bag and roam around town without worring about damaging it... I couldn't be more happy. I recomand a classic T series to everyone. The keyboard on the T430 is shit tho, so if you can stick with the T420 like me, it's a second generation i5, it has all the power you need from a laptop. Avoid the s variants.
I agree! From the T430 and on Lenovo moved to the chiclet type of keyboard. I prefer the T410 / T420 version of the keyboard. Those chiclet keys?...they're just not the same, but I guess as long as you have a Thinkpad its all good!...LoL!
To anyone who reads this, you can put the T420 keyboard into the T430 and get that great clackiness but get the extras from the T430 (not a ton of differences, I think mostly just one or two more USB 3 ports). Also of the shit Lenovo keyboards, the T430 has the best one because it uses the same switches as the T420 and before, just a different key layout. So if you aren’t married to the old layout then the T430 might suit you just fine Apparently the T4 series is the way to go though. New enough to still be useful in the modern world but old enough that it’s still modular and upgradeable.
In all honesty, this video doesn’t really hold up today as mine doesn’t work very well anymore either. After the end of windows 7 support I’ve tried windows 10 and Linux and it’s just not very usable anymore.
I don’t know much about it as I haven’t owned one but from the little research I’ve done it seems like a pretty decent machine. From what I gather it’s just the next step up from the W500.
I use a Lenovo IBM ThinkPad it had win XP and my brother brok it and i put win 7 on it and it's work good and MSN\youtube\google\and Chrom\to it just good 160harddrive and 1TB on it.
Just watching this with a T61 with Nvidia graphics. So this one is supposed to be both obsolete and broken... :) Obviously it isn't my main machine but it is good enough for what I use it for.
T400 here, without switch graphics (only intel GMA 4500MHD) , added to productivity and media consumption as mentioned in this video; it runs W10 LTSB x64, hundreds of older games, surprisingly some newer ones like Hitman absolution (2012) @ very playable frame rates (25 +) and almost any retro emulator up to Gamecube and PSP @ 35+ FPS all on a Core2 duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz. and meager 2GB DDR3 RAM!!!!!!
Yes, ThinkPads are still worth their weight in gold! I have a T-420 and a T-430 that have served me well for years!...and while they might run well with Windows 10 on them?...they REALLY proved their mettle after I installed Linux on 'em (Fedora and Elementary OS) and now?...I don't think I'll ever get used to or use these newer laptops that are thin...light...fragile...and PORT-less!...LoL! I've replaced their i5's with i7's...upped their RAM to 16GB...and installed 1TB ssd's in each of 'em....I love these machines to death! And while I have a Dell XPS 15"...and a Huawei Matebook Pro?...those are more for media consumption (as their screens are awesome!) but for getting stuff done?...I'm not using ANYTHING but my "T-Pads"!
@GateCrashers Two words: HELL YEAH!....go ahead and get one, max it out on whatever is swappable....then come see us here in like....7-10 years when your family and friends will have "gone through" various machines....while you've kept yours in working condition with NO issues!..LoL! I looked it up....and the Lenovo ThinkPad T-420 was released in the year 2011. So that means I'm using "tech" that's NINE years old!!.....and with NO ISSUES!....no worries about updates, because Fedora Linux is pretty good about giving you updates and patches in "small doses". As for the T-430? well that came out a year later in 2012...so 8 yr old tech...that runs better than some of the tech that I've seen my brother and sisters use!@ LoL!...since Elementary OS is a very resource-light" version of Linux, that one too runs smooth and fast. If I had to give just one bit of advice?...it would be to make sure you get your ThinkPad with the 1600x900 screen, and avoid the 1366x768 ones!....if you get it upon purchase?...then you won't have to struggle like I did trying to change it out. Granted its easy to do....but why put yourself through the hassle.....unless you're into that!. Either way;....let us know when you get it!.....
these are great laptops i still have t40 it still works great i allso brought x230t about month ago. only I am disported theres no dvd rom i have some older games needs cdrom
The W series was IBM's mobile workstation for CAD or engineering. It is similar to a T5x0 Series, but has NVidea accelerated graphics, which is why it can do some basic gaming. My daily driver is a W510, which has a Series 1 Corei7, and its plenty fast enough for almost anything. I do find the Core2Duo models to be a little slow, though. I'd advise getting a 10 series or 20 series (X220, T420, T510, etc.) which are almost as cheap and have the same great build and keyboard, but are a little faster. I'd avoid the E, R, L and G series, which were "budget" models, and not built as well as the X, T and W series. The G especially is to be avoided. nn30 models and above (X230, T440, etc.) have better io and processors, but unfortunate "chicklet" keyboards and aren't as well designed as earlier models. Series explanations; X2n0 12.5" ultraportables. Best for mobile use. T4n0 14" General laptop. The most popular. T5n0 15" General laptop. Best screens, but bulky to carry. W5n0 15" Workstation, Like the T5x0, but with NVidea Quadra cards W7n0 17" Workstation. Rare and best for desktop use.
You can actually play AAA Titles on old ThinkPads ;) I have an ThinkPad T430 with the intel HD Graphics and I can play GTA V, PUBG and even Skyrim by using Vortex app on Windows 10.
Unfortunately this Thinkpad is before the time of decent Intel HD graphics being implemented. GTA might light this thing on fire......but now I’m gonna try it:)
TechYoSelf if you install and run gta V on the local hdd then yes but with this Vortex app and Windows 7 it gonna run very smoothly :) You can actually ask vortex.gg if they gonna give you a account for testing/advertising purposes. I did the same thing and got a account for free
@@simple_networks I found a thunderbolt 3 adapter that plugs into the express card slot-then you just connect an egpu via thuderbolt 3 I'm not sure how big of a bottleneck using expresscard will be, I don't think it should be that big as I'm fairly certain that expresscard taps directly into the pcie lanes Also, for a less expensive egpu-buy the dock for the t500, it has a slot that will fit pcie x16-but you will only get pcie x1 speeds out of it Either way, you can get pretty decent graphic performance out of one of these things, especially if you have the skill and the tools to perform a quad-core upgrade
@@simple_networks I got a whole series of upgrades planned tbh, most of which are predicated on successfully flashing coreboot on to the machine to get rid of the whitelist That way I can upgrade the wlan card and get a 4g LTE wwan card and will be able to proceed with the quad core upgrade should I ever actually do it
@@simple_networks well, I half lied I think, I can't find the original adapter that I mentioned but you can also use the BPlus PE4C v3.0 via expresscard, then you have a pcie x16 slot now available, so building a custom enclosure would probably be a good idea but either way, the t500 is now running a desktop size graphics card externally
Seriosly i dont get why you like this old ugly laptop it has a bad screen bad speakers a bad trackpad (not talking about the trackpoint and keyboard those are great ) and just no newer ports like thunderbolt 3 which is an amazing technolgy
I was considering buying a CHROMEBOOK to develop web... But I bought a Thinkpad X220 (Intel i7, 6GB RAM) for US$ 100,00.... I just replaced the HD to an SSD for $60. What a fast, cool and portable machine. And it is a REAL computer... Very happy with this computer.
Chrome OS is actually a Linux variant. Plus with recent updates to the OS, there is a selection of actual Linux based programs that can now be run inside chrome OS.
Well don’t get me wrong, that still essentially what it is still but it has come quite far with more options to make it more viable for everyday use.
IIRC all X220's have 1366x768 screens, don't they? Do you find 1366x768 pixels enough for software development?
@@911Salvage It is not enough. I use Visual Studio Code or PyCharm and they barely fit on the screen. It's a very small computer overall. Great for some ad hoc tasks, but I am looking for another T-series Thinkpad as my daily driver.
@The Anonymous Sir Backspace I use an x201 for light web-based work or when I want to sit on the sofa. It does over heat a bit too much (even though I changed the internal fan and upgraded to ssd).
It's not the best laptop, has shitty speakers and some people don't like the tft screens ( personally love it) but this thing is rugged : no matter how many times I dropped it or just flung it on the sofa, this thing just wont give me a good reason to finally get an x220 :(
ahhh, the W series are a rare gem.
I used X200 in the past with nearly the same specs (except the ATI graphics) and this particular laptop made me fall in love with Thinkpads in general
Got the new Thinkpad T480 at work, replacing the previous T61. I also own an old X60 which is still chugging along just fine and I bought a 4-year old T440 last week to handle some SPSS and Nvivo field work.
All my experience says the Thinkpad series are extremely durable, they'll survive a nuclear war without breaking a sweat. And because businesses buy them by the thousands and dispose them for new models every 4-5 years, good used ones are easy to find, parts are plentiful and easy to source.
If you don't feel the urge to cough out a lot of money for a stylish brand new mid-high end laptops, second-hand Thinkpads make a great alternative choice. If all you do is browse the net, watch videos, do some word processing + spreadsheet work and do some light gaming to kill some time in between, they are often a far batter choice compared to brand new 'disposable' laptops in the
I just got myself a t440p and I'm maxing it out: i7 quad, 16GB ram, 500GB SSD, 1080 IPS panel, backlit keyboard and a new battery, thinkpads are very modular indeed! Hard to find that on modern ultrabooks.
what cpu do you have. I want to upgrade but worry that bios upgrade might be risky
I built my PC a few years ago and its my daily driver....but for portable use I rock a T520 and X220 and they outperform most midlevel stuff now a days. I put SSD's in them and HOLY CRAP I mean come on - the build quality, spillproff keyboard, overall performance vs what I paid for ($200 and $80), the keyboard itself and overall well...those that love thinkpads know what Im talking about.
I've still got two IBM branded Thinkpads, a 570 and an x60s. Both are superb machines. Haven't found a modern laptop, even from Lenovo, that has the same quality feel and versatility as these machines.
Watching this on my X220. A great little laptop for the price and sadly one of the last with that sweet ThinkPad keyboard. (It's a daily driver)
My Thinkpad W500 with 8GB Ram from 2008 still works perfectly, 11 years later ! It's fast enough for raw photo editings in Photoshop, Audio Editing and almost everything else. No noice, no high temps, no problems. Amazing quality machine!
That’s great to hear! Are you running Windows 10?
I tried to work 2 times on the laptop under Windows 10-actually the machine worked absolutely perfect-very fast and smoothly, but i had problems with Photoshop and some drivers, because the machine is very old, there was no drivers and the 2nd problem was that I can't enable OPEN GL and hardware acceleration in Photoshop so the editing was slow. For everything else was very,very good, but I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 again.
I had the same issues with the drivers. I would really love to get windows 10 on there but for me, the graphics drivers don’t work properly.
Agreed! I have a T500/Radeon Mobility/T9600Penryn CPU/8gb/RAM/256gb SSD/320gb/7200rpm HDD. And yes, I DO play games on it. Mass Effect 2, at 50 FPS, and Sims 2 at 54 FPS. Not bad! And YES, I do some rendering with it, and it works adequately!
I've been using ThinkPads ever since I discovered them in 2001/2002. I currently have the T-410.....T-420.....T-430...and a T-530. They ALL work flawlessly, and no matter what I use them for...(some for watching movies...some for learning how to be a programmer...and some for studying for the RHCSA and CompTIA-Linux+ exams!) Definitely a laptop that lasts...I've had to upgrade the processors...the RAM and the hard drives...(all SSD's now...and one i7, while all the rest are i5's) and these machines are just the BEST...for WHATEVER you want to do. Mind you..the newer laptops might be lighter...less prone to fan errors...and better able to remain dust-free internally...but these machines are the BEST thing to happen to laptops and since their inception?...I've not found a machine to rival them! I run Linux on all of them...(not a fan of Windows "spying" ways!...LoL!) and I've never had a problem...no driver issues....no display issues...NOTHING!
But how do you fix those errors specially the start ups error
What errors are these? I haven’t heard of them.
Ohh i use T400 and everytime i turn it on it stays in a black screen so what i always do is removed the battery and put it back again after that i turn it on and it's back too normal again
Note: i do this everytime i opened it
I am have a T440p with I7 4700MQ 16GB Ram, gtx 730m/ intel 4600 for 400$
I replaced the old hdd with new ssd, it is a monster now
I believe most C2D are still functional for most casual uses. Not everyone is rendering videos right. "Function over Form"
Agreed. They are great CPUs!
I use an x60 for retro computing and it's an awesome machine. Solid, sturdy, reliable. It's hard to explain but it just feels like a workhorse.
Good choice... Got an x60s for similar use.
A 701C Thinkpad is old. A 760 Thinkpad is old. C2D Thinkpads aren't old. I know they aren't because I'm typing this on a T60 Thinkpad.
OK, it's old. But it's still useful. Like me, some days.
Definitely still useful! Technology wise it’s old but functionality wise the C2D has still got it!
I daily drive a Celeron n2830 and trust me, it is slower than core 2 duos
I'll also give a nod to the "newer" ThinkPads as well (T-450 / T-470 / T-480) they're buit a little sleker, but the innards are still there, built tank-tough...and MODIFIABLE!. I can swap out SSD's....add another RAM stick....not sure about messing with the processors on these though, although they're pretty fast...so I wouldn't even have to try!
currently watching this on a t43 with a 1.83 ghz pentium m
bought it for 5 bucks, id say so
Got my girlfriend a X200s for around £100 a couple of years ago. Put a 120GB SSD in it and upgraded to Windows 10 (it came with Vista) and the thing flies. It outperforms the Macbooks most of her colleagues are using and it's super durable and probably about 9 hours battery with the extended battery.
I wouldn't say that c2d will outperform macbooks since 2010 ;)
Friend of mine was jumping on thinkpad t60 and... it survived withount any scratch :)
Well that proves the durability right there:)
Ive just bought an imaculate 2006 T60 thinkpad for 30 quid best laptop ive ever owned
I just bought a t430s. Upgraded to 16gb RAM & 250gb SSD. It rocks:)
Excellent! I'm glad your enjoying it!
Just got a T61 with docking station 💪
I have an T43 a T61 and a T410.
All running Win10 with an SSD and maximum RAM.
The T43 slow. TH-cam... not really. Office OK.
The T61 is usefull. TH-cam and other stuff.
The T410 i5 is really nice and feels very modern. Bought a week ago with 8GByte RAM SanDisk 250GB SSD and in great shape for USD 130.
Great stuff.
I have a T420 that I got as a replacement for my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. I didn't even realize how much I missed having a CD drive, many different ports and a good keyboard
I can't understand how people even tolerate only having a single thunderbolt port on their new apple laptops, literally not even a single headphone jack or usb port.
This is the Laptop 💻 that I have. I enjoy using it a lot. I’m looking forward to upgrade it. With more Memory, Ram, & also changing the CPU. I have found your channel. You sir have a new subscriber. Thank you very much.
I guess the cpu cannot be changed. It is fixed on the motherboard. But a core i5 or a core i7 does not need to be upgradet.
The fact that I'm blazing this sweet comment out on my R60e (T7400, 3GB baby)
By the way, hoping this channel grows BUT keeps a considerable Thinkpad spice; you got 1 more sub....
I just ordered a refurbished 2014 ThinkPad T440 on eBay with 8 gb, 500 hd, 2.7 ghz, i7 for $299. I'm hoping it will work well for school and everything else. Waiting for it to arrive on Friday to replace my dying MacBook Pro that I can't yet afford to replace with a new one.
Can you let me know if it was good or not? Im considering getting that same laptop.
Though I have a more recent thinkpad I still mainly use my T500 (T9400, 8G ram, hdd1 160g, hdd2 500g, 3+ hours 9cell battery, win7, xubuntu 10.4, ubuntu matte 16.4). It is ok for most tasks, not all. Forget about media conversion, current versions of Firefox run rather slow. Other than that is great - cheap parts on the net.
I 'd say the only concern is the weight, 3kg but then again it is durable.
I consider the after 2011 thinkpad keyboards trash, that is why i still like it.
Is the x220 better or is x260 with touchscreen and stylus better?
For drawing and light gaming like wizard101.
Sorry to bother, but what driver do you use for the V5700 video card (for Win 10 x64) ?
I was wondering the same thing myself. I know the T400/T500/W500s with dedicated graphics struggle a bit with Windows 10.
I have a Thinkpad T61p and even though it's got a 800MHz FSB (and quite frankly stupidly designed cooling) it handles itself pretty well and its currently got a 500GB 5400RPM HDD, it swapped it from the 60GB SSD as speeds where the same but I was getting a bump in space, I did apply a overclock to the GPU to 580MHz on the GPU core and 9xxMHz on the VRAM and it helped FPS quite a bit in games like HL2
I’m impressed on the GPU overclock. Nice going!
A nice thing is that with windows 10's Hello works right out of the box when setting up 10 and the fingerprint sensor works on the first try
Is it possible to switch this keyboard into a w530?
What's the resolution of your W500 screen?
1920 x 1200
@@simple_networks Nice, I have a T500 and am looking to upgrade the screen to one of those high-res panels. Right now it has the stock 1280x800 panel.
@@simple_networks Also, how did you get the switchable graphics running in Windows 10? I've never been able to get them running properly on any T400/500 ThinkPad.
@@SebisRandomTech not sure what you mean by switchable graphics. Could you explain a little more? And as for windows 10, I haven't actually been able to successfully get this machine to run Windows 10 without major driver issues. Unfortunately the farthest I can go is Windows 7.
@@simple_networks T400/T500/W500's with a dedicated GPU have a switchable graphics feature allowing the system to switch between the Intel GMA graphics and the dedicated GPU. Unfortunately to my knowledge this does not work at all in Windows 10, which was why I asked how you got it working. :P
Worth every penny I have a nice T500 with a TN screen so would love to upgrade the screen but other than that it works just fin and does the job I need it to do it runs every day is easy to clean and just works what more is there to say and NO GLUE unlike all the crap made now that is glued or soldered together.
NICE MAN, matter a fact, i also still use W500 for my multimedia centre now, upgraded the CPU to T9900, 8GB of RAM, 120GB SSD, 9 Cell Battery and it has ATI FireGLV5700 GPU, and the 1920X1200 screen is beautiful, maybe not as good as IPS screen, but still acceptable thou..sit on the docking station for a daily basis since a year ago, and never had any problems at all..
PS : W500 is also the last thinkpad that still using Solid Magnesium Plate in the top case.
yes man, put any SSD in it, and its still much faster than today's consumer grade laptop.
you might be wanna check also the thinkpad Advanced Docking station if you want to use eksternal GPU.
you can buy in amazon link : www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Advanced-Docking-station/dp/B000E1NW8C
Is that the frozen bubble music??
What’s frozen bubble?
TechYoSelf classic Linux game. Kinda what minesweeper is to windows.
Awesome video. I love thinkpads. What FPS do you get on CSGO?
.4 fps
Getting the thinkpad 420S not alot of videos for it. :/
T420 here.
THE BEST DEAL OF MY ENTIRE LIFE.
It has everything I need from a real laptop: All the ports I actually need, the horsepower to even edit and render videos and photos, it's so strong and sturdy I can toss it in my bag and roam around town without worring about damaging it... I couldn't be more happy.
I recomand a classic T series to everyone. The keyboard on the T430 is shit tho, so if you can stick with the T420 like me, it's a second generation i5, it has all the power you need from a laptop. Avoid the s variants.
I agree! From the T430 and on Lenovo moved to the chiclet type of keyboard. I prefer the T410 / T420 version of the keyboard. Those chiclet keys?...they're just not the same, but I guess as long as you have a Thinkpad its all good!...LoL!
To anyone who reads this, you can put the T420 keyboard into the T430 and get that great clackiness but get the extras from the T430 (not a ton of differences, I think mostly just one or two more USB 3 ports). Also of the shit Lenovo keyboards, the T430 has the best one because it uses the same switches as the T420 and before, just a different key layout. So if you aren’t married to the old layout then the T430 might suit you just fine
Apparently the T4 series is the way to go though. New enough to still be useful in the modern world but old enough that it’s still modular and upgradeable.
you have a w500?!!?! pls tell me you atleast librebooted it
It’s actually now a dedicated windows XP machine.
I have one just like this and it's not working it's all lagging on everything
In all honesty, this video doesn’t really hold up today as mine doesn’t work very well anymore either. After the end of windows 7 support I’ve tried windows 10 and Linux and it’s just not very usable anymore.
Who is watching this on a T500?
T60 here. :) But i want a W500, after trying the old 7 rows keyboard. (also have a T420, T430, W530). I never knew the x00 series had 16x10 screens !!
T60!
It was not that long ago that I was still using my old IBM R51.
Thoughts on w700?
I don’t know much about it as I haven’t owned one but from the little research I’ve done it seems like a pretty decent machine. From what I gather it’s just the next step up from the W500.
w700 is an absolute beast, but incredibly rare.
some weeks ago...
I Just got a T61 with docking station
works well
T = TANK
The only thing that I wish about thinkpad's is the Hi res displayes, even the newer models still don't support high res displays which is really bad.
Ya. In all honesty, even the full HD panel in mine isn’t that great. They are business oriented laptops though so it’s a little understandable.
I use a Lenovo IBM ThinkPad it had win XP and my brother brok it and i put win 7 on it and it's work good and MSN\youtube\google\and Chrom\to it just good 160harddrive and 1TB on it.
Just watching this with a T61 with Nvidia graphics. So this one is supposed to be both obsolete and broken... :) Obviously it isn't my main machine but it is good enough for what I use it for.
There ya go! As long as you have reasonable expectations for old hardware, it can get ya pretty far.
Both TH-cam and Netflix work fine on internal display so it is still a fine machine!
Awesome video man!
Thank you!
Good video i too like the old thinkpads over any modern labtop. 1 error though specifications* 0:20
T400 here, without switch graphics (only intel GMA 4500MHD) , added to productivity and media consumption as mentioned in this video; it runs W10 LTSB x64, hundreds of older games, surprisingly some newer ones like Hitman absolution (2012) @ very playable frame rates (25 +) and almost any retro emulator up to Gamecube and PSP @ 35+ FPS all on a Core2 duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz. and meager 2GB DDR3 RAM!!!!!!
Yes, ThinkPads are still worth their weight in gold! I have a T-420 and a T-430 that have served me well for years!...and while they might run well with Windows 10 on them?...they REALLY proved their mettle after I installed Linux on 'em (Fedora and Elementary OS) and now?...I don't think I'll ever get used to or use these newer laptops that are thin...light...fragile...and PORT-less!...LoL! I've replaced their i5's with i7's...upped their RAM to 16GB...and installed 1TB ssd's in each of 'em....I love these machines to death! And while I have a Dell XPS 15"...and a Huawei Matebook Pro?...those are more for media consumption (as their screens are awesome!) but for getting stuff done?...I'm not using ANYTHING but my "T-Pads"!
@GateCrashers Two words: HELL YEAH!....go ahead and get one, max it out on whatever is swappable....then come see us here in like....7-10 years when your family and friends will have "gone through" various machines....while you've kept yours in working condition with NO issues!..LoL! I looked it up....and the Lenovo ThinkPad T-420 was released in the year 2011. So that means I'm using "tech" that's NINE years old!!.....and with NO ISSUES!....no worries about updates, because Fedora Linux is pretty good about giving you updates and patches in "small doses". As for the T-430? well that came out a year later in 2012...so 8 yr old tech...that runs better than some of the tech that I've seen my brother and sisters use!@ LoL!...since Elementary OS is a very resource-light" version of Linux, that one too runs smooth and fast. If I had to give just one bit of advice?...it would be to make sure you get your ThinkPad with the 1600x900 screen, and avoid the 1366x768 ones!....if you get it upon purchase?...then you won't have to struggle like I did trying to change it out. Granted its easy to do....but why put yourself through the hassle.....unless you're into that!. Either way;....let us know when you get it!.....
Sadly, you didn't said anything about the battery and how it holds up
Ya I couldn’t make a generalization about that one. Mine held up okay. It gets about 3 hours.
TechYoSelf thanks, I think this info is kinda important, if you want to use it for school.
You are very right, I will try to incorporate that in my future videos. Thanks for writing in!
Got T400 for free from my office. Put SSD + upgraded the RAM and it runs great
these are great laptops i still have t40 it still works great i allso brought x230t about month ago. only I am disported theres no dvd rom i have some older games needs cdrom
I like how the comment section quickly becomes r/thinkpad, where people showing their ThinkPad specs and their thought on their machines..
The W series was IBM's mobile workstation for CAD or engineering. It is similar to a T5x0 Series, but has NVidea accelerated graphics, which is why it can do some basic gaming. My daily driver is a W510, which has a Series 1 Corei7, and its plenty fast enough for almost anything. I do find the Core2Duo models to be a little slow, though. I'd advise getting a 10 series or 20 series (X220, T420, T510, etc.) which are almost as cheap and have the same great build and keyboard, but are a little faster. I'd avoid the E, R, L and G series, which were "budget" models, and not built as well as the X, T and W series. The G especially is to be avoided.
nn30 models and above (X230, T440, etc.) have better io and processors, but unfortunate "chicklet" keyboards and aren't as well designed as earlier models.
Series explanations;
X2n0 12.5" ultraportables. Best for mobile use.
T4n0 14" General laptop. The most popular.
T5n0 15" General laptop. Best screens, but bulky to carry.
W5n0 15" Workstation, Like the T5x0, but with NVidea Quadra cards
W7n0 17" Workstation. Rare and best for desktop use.
thanks for all the info! This will be helpful to me and hopefully other viewers as well.
Thinkpads are complete tanks. I still have and use my X230T.
I have R60 c2d and t420 with I7
I have r60 with 3gb ram and ati gpu
Just got a t61 for free, new ssd arrives tomorrow :)
I have an R500 that refuse to die.
R500 here. Works ok with linux.
Only for the fact that they're cheap and built to last, easy to fix, and great low-spec gaming machines I say yes.
Wathing this on a old Thinkpad (x230), it's my only computer!
I see those all over the place at the university I study. Must be quite the little machine!
TechYoSelf Yeah, it was originally running Windows 7, but I upgraded it to Windows 10. I kind of regret that now, as it is VERY slow.
I brought x230t i5 about a ago its great
You can actually play AAA Titles on old ThinkPads ;) I have an ThinkPad T430 with the intel HD Graphics and I can play GTA V, PUBG and even Skyrim by using Vortex app on Windows 10.
FPS?
57 but mostly 60 FPS
Unfortunately this Thinkpad is before the time of decent Intel HD graphics being implemented. GTA might light this thing on fire......but now I’m gonna try it:)
TechYoSelf if you install and run gta V on the local hdd then yes but with this Vortex app and Windows 7 it gonna run very smoothly :)
You can actually ask vortex.gg if they gonna give you a account for testing/advertising purposes. I did the same thing and got a account for free
Ooo tell me more about vortex. What does it do?
Oh, my T500 also has a 1680x1050 display.:)
I just modded a t500 for a core 2 quad. I can edit full hd video on a underclocked x200s lol :D
This a best CrossOver , TripCode comment this Video
Nah mate, I'm turning mine into a gaming laptop, all you need is an egpu...expensive but it'll turn pretty much any laptop into a gaming laptop
How do you plan to connect the eGPU? To a laptop this old?
@@simple_networks I found a thunderbolt 3 adapter that plugs into the express card slot-then you just connect an egpu via thuderbolt 3
I'm not sure how big of a bottleneck using expresscard will be, I don't think it should be that big as I'm fairly certain that expresscard taps directly into the pcie lanes
Also, for a less expensive egpu-buy the dock for the t500, it has a slot that will fit pcie x16-but you will only get pcie x1 speeds out of it
Either way, you can get pretty decent graphic performance out of one of these things, especially if you have the skill and the tools to perform a quad-core upgrade
@@simple_networks I got a whole series of upgrades planned tbh, most of which are predicated on successfully flashing coreboot on to the machine to get rid of the whitelist
That way I can upgrade the wlan card and get a 4g LTE wwan card and will be able to proceed with the quad core upgrade should I ever actually do it
@@simple_networks well, I half lied I think, I can't find the original adapter that I mentioned but you can also use the BPlus PE4C v3.0 via expresscard, then you have a pcie x16 slot now available, so building a custom enclosure would probably be a good idea but either way, the t500 is now running a desktop size graphics card externally
i am watching this on a T430S
Interesting spelling you got there bud.
Typos happen.....bud.
Seriosly i dont get why you like this old ugly laptop it has a bad screen bad speakers a bad trackpad (not talking about the trackpoint and keyboard those are great ) and just no newer ports like thunderbolt 3 which is an amazing technolgy
Its cheap, built like a tank, and is extremely functional. Thunderbolt is a great technology for sure, but not everyone needs that.