Is there really a market for modding a 7+ year old laptop? I know thinkpads used to be great (And some still are), but, I just don't get the point in trying to give more life to something so so old - most likely ~3rd-4th gen intel.
As a 7 year old Thinkpad user: 4th generation Core is absolutely fine for me. I can get a refurbished and kitted out replacement for some 200 euros. I could upgrade the RAM from 8G to 16G, but in my daily use I've seen no concrete reason to do so yet. SSD is great, though. Maybe I spend a few more minutes compiling software on this machine than I would on a more recent laptop, but I'm not losing sleep over it.
I can see why you'd want something more out of, say, a gaming PC or something you use for resource intensive analysis applications, machine learning etc. but getting a laptop for that seems like a waste of money to me, compared to getting a desktop computer that you can upgrade incrementally.
I'm interested, though. What is it that people do where you feel that your laptop needs to be more powerful than this?
More importantly, they are the most recent laptops that you can fit with non-chiclet keyboards.
[1] https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8550U-vs... [2] https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4550U-vs...
I left a good one in it while docked but unplugged, the dock apparently killed the battery.
I'm pondering whether changing the 16550 cells make senses
I love the keyboard and trackpoint, and older Thinkpads are rugged in a way that new models have apparently given up on. I bought the Thinkpad 25, which was basically a 2017 mid-range laptop with the old keyboard. It's adequate, but flimsier and less reliable.
I have more modern think pads as well but I plan to keep the t420's for a while. They're solid reliable expandable and great form factor :)
For the entire ThinkPad lineup spanning 5 generations? Oh yeah, definitely.