Experiences with the Thinkpad 13? | Hacker News Reader

Experiences with the Thinkpad 13?

6 pointsveddox13 comments

Hi everyone,

I've been considering buying a Lenovo Thinkpad 13 and was wondering if any of you have had any experience with it?

I need my computer for home use (Internet, email(, movies)), university (reading and writing papers, some data analysis) and programming. Portability is important, as I take it to uni every day, as is a good keyboard. It should also play well with Linux.

From what I've read, the Thinkpad 13 is a very attractive option for my needs, although it's price is rather at the limit of my budget (~800€). I haven't yet heard anything from regular users yet, so I thought I'd ask.

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If buying a ThinkPad for personal use, buy one second-hand.

Why?

ThinkPads are mostly used by large corporations with procurement policies meaning they are replaced every 2-3 years. They're treated with care by (most) employees as it's company property. And spend most of their lives in air conditioned offices - little harsh environment.

The same of printers (you probably don't need a monster sized Zerox, but smaller colour laser jets can also be picked up). The same of mostly any corporate hardware. Procurement managers often don't know what to do with 'outdated' machines.

If you don't need the latest, go second-hand corporate turnover. And spend the $500 saved somewhere more useful.

But most used Thinkpads on eBay have cracks, scratches or look nasty.

As a person that compulsively cleans his keyboards, I'd happily pay those extra $500 if that means I'm getting a new device and knowing nobody was eating nearby or touching those sacred 7 row keyboards after jerking off to pictures of riced Linux desktops (pardon my French).

Yep! My former employer even sold most of them to the employees. The only piece we needed to buy externally was a hard drive (for client's data security).

Sounds like good reasoning. What older models would you recommend?

The T4xx and the X2xx lines have been pretty much the go-to for corporate IT over the last decade. Solidly built, upgradable (except for perhaps the bleeding-edge models), and heaps of spare parts around if needed.

X1 Carbon is amazing (not that old!).

I just do not recommend the Yoga models, the specs look great, but they are insanely slow with huge presentation decks or big excel models.

I can't comment for the ThinkPad 13, but I've been really disappointed with the quality of Lenovo's recent ThinkPad offerings. I used to have a 1st Gen X1 Carbon Touch and I swapped it for a MacBook Air after a year. Terrible battery life, shockingly bad display (other than the low resolution and poor colours, they placed some kind of protective film over the top which made everything a bit blurry). Screen wobbled, fan spun up way more than necessary (I don't think I've ever noticed the fan on my MacBook spinning up).

Before that I had an IBM ThinkPad X40 which I absolutely loved - it was a solid little machine. A friend of mine just had a fan go in his X230, and another friend had a T430 with a defective touchpad. Of course every laptop will have some failures, but it seems that the build quality on the newer models really isn't up to the same level it used to be.

I would heartily recommend looking into purchasing a second-hand ThinkPad. If you're taking it in to uni regularly then probably the smaller X210 or X220 would be a good fit.

I got a 2nd generation X1 Carbon Touch and while I love how light and powerful it is, I'm surprised how short the battery life is (sometimes it runs out of juice while I'm on the road - NOT OK) and the quiet when I turn it off (which aligns with what you said about the fan).

I've been using ThinkPad for 10 years and this is the first one to disappoint me.

I don't know if all x220 configurations suffer from this but some do have a terrible display.

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/Faint...

Thanks for the advice about the used Thinkpads! The only thing I'm concerned about with those is battery life. How easy/cheap is it to replace a battery on a used X220?

You can find the price online from Lenovo if you buy an OEM battery straight from them, I'd bet it's $100-190.

I have a couple of the T420s and with the exception of having to replace the CPU fans in both of them, I have no complaints.

I have an X131e, with 16 Gb and a 250 GB Samsung EVO 850. This is like Thinkpad 11, but from 2012 :)

Runs Windows 10 quite nicely, the CPU being old and slow only shows during compilation of C++ projects, otherwise it is a nice machine (despite the 11" inch screen, which is still a good fit for someone with normal eyesight).

A modern 13" Thinkpad must be all-round better (a bit larger, may be), I guess.

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