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Comment by Red_Leaves_Flyy | Hacker News Reader

I7 3520m is a 2012 ivy bridge CPU.

Not surprised at all they chose this hardware.

ThinkPad X230 (in my limited and skewed opinion) is still the second best laptop ever made (for purposes like mine), behind only its predecessor, the X220 which has (what I and many others consider) the best laptop keyboard ever made.

It’s easy to find one with an i5 that’s perfectly adequate for most ordinary business tasks. Pretty good screen, ports, battery life. Upgradable, sturdy, repairable. Highly unlikely to be stolen. $150 in like new condition.

I’ve bought them for all my non-tech friends and family who I support, all are happy. Please buy these and keep the market for parts alive.

if you're not already aware, swapping the X220 keyboard (and palmrest) onto an X230 is a fairly straightforward swap. That modification plus the FHD mod and accompanying 1920x1080 IPS make the X230 a very nice daily driver.

Peripherally aware, as I’m tech-adjacent. I will have a closer look. Thanks for the nudge. Is there a definitive source for how-to?

Unless you strongly prefer the smaller form factor, I would suggest T530 (the intel igpu version, not the nvidia one) instead of x230. T530 supports FHD natively. The keyboard mod principles are the same for all laptops from that year. Keyboard mod resource: https://github.com/hamishcoleman/thinkpad-ec

x230 FHD resource: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640

after using larger machines I realized that laptops (for me) are for situations where a desktop is unavailable - airline seating, casual couch use, all generally things that don't require much. having recently acquired some P53s at work and traveling with them this week has really reinforced that idea. if an X230 isn't up to the task, it's probably the kind of work where I need to be at a desk with one of my desktop machines anyway.

I remember there being issues with the keyboard swap with some buttons not working as expected, plus you have to tape some pins in order to avoid damaging the keyboard or the laptop itself.

That's correct. Hopefully the firmware components it is based upon will support newer platforms in the future. From my understanding that mostly depends on the hardware vendors, which seem to close their solutions, instead of opening them.

Anyway, for secure communication (email, IRC, Jabber etc) this hardware will suffice with the current specification.

Disclaimer: I work with Nitrokey.

It's a surprisingly performant CPU. I've been using an x230 (the slower i5 variant, even) until a year ago and I felt pretty productive with it. In between Intel microcode nerfs and all kinds of software being rewritten into performance-hungry web-based SPAs I wouldn't recommend it in 2020, though.

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