The “Ultimate” ThinkPad (2020) | Hacker News Reader

The “Ultimate” ThinkPad (2020)

calbryant.uk

154 pointsLaSombra126 comments

I also still use my ThinkPad X220 happily with Archlinux. Contrary to the author I've built in immediately an OEM IPS-Panel and a Bluetooth 4.0 chip from the next generation. I bought it very late in production cycle because I prefer to keep the classic keyboard with the blue enter-button. The only nasty thing is the USB 3.0 Port which immediately went into sleep states, workarounds are either to connect a device at boot-up or use powertop to wake it up. It is even possible to attach HiDPI displays via DisplayPort (always better than HDMI) but you will fallback to 30 Hz and the tiny GPU will have a hard time.

  Pros:  
  * Mobile with A4/Letter form factor 
  * Powerful, with a dock it replaces a desktop computer
  * Standard size keyboard
  * IPS screen is still state-of-the art
  * Replaceable battery
  * Works very well with Linux
  * With a i7 CPU even provides USB 3.0
  Cons:
  * Modern ThinkPads provide a tighter case, especially the palm rest

But that touchpad though… you must be a track point pro.

Of course my friend :)

The TouchPad is the area below the palm rest? It requires users to interrupt the workflow. Probably some sort of design element or fidget? Never used.

Never had an issue using the trackpad of my MacBook with my thumb without leaving the keyboard. That of course only works with a great trackpad which click everywhere on the surface which is the case with ForceTouch trackpads

I wish I could learn to use the clit :( Every time I put my finger there things end up all over the place.

Just turn off your trackpad.

For me it is a nipple. Anyone else?

Clit is generally considered to be the workplace-appropriate term, as some people have been offended by the “nipple”.

Which is kind of bizarre as nipple is also associated with breastfeeding while clit well… it only has one function

Really? I didn't know 'clit' had any other meaning than as a colloquial abbreviation of clitoris.

I would not use that term at work. I can only assume the parent is joking.

It does not

I'm offended by those people being offended by the word nipple.

I had to force me to use it for a few weeks until it clicked on me. It's a pressure sensitive device, not a joystick. You have to get used to put the right amount of pressure for the speed you want to move the pointer.

Took me half a day to use it. Yes it's a bit sensitive but now I don't want to go back

I spent my childhood playing real-time strategy games with a ThinkPad TrackPoint. It's great.

> the tiny GPU will have a hard time

If you move up to the X230, which your X220 keyboard can bolt right onto, you'll get a Vulkan-capable HD4000 iGPU.

4K works even on the X201, though also only at 30 Hz.

I don't want to start a religious keyboard war but does anybody know the actual rationale for the Ctrl Fn swap in ThinkPads?

I agree that it is more ergonomic, but I am just curious if that is the actual reason for the swap? Or if there is some older legacy aspect or story behind it in the ThinkPads?

They originally put it there because it's easier to locate apparently:

> The Fn key was originally placed by the ThinkPad designers in the lower left hand corner to make the key easier to locate when using the keystroke combinations. There was a rationale. This is especially handy for turning on the ThinkLight in the dark. Aim for the two extreme corners.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111115202457/http://www.lenovo...

The best place for the control key is determined by two things: finger strength and relative frequency of use. The control key is typically used far more often than alt/meta, super or (for those lucky enough to have one) hyper; as such, it should be positioned so that it may be struck with a strong finger: an index or middle finger would be great, or perhaps a thumb (as we learnt to do with Macs back in the 80s).

As such, it seems remarkable that most keyboards place it far outboard, where all one can do is strike it with the weakest finger of all. Even the superior alternative of caps lock as control is not as good as alt as control.

All of which is to say that the control key placement on the ThinkPads, while imperfect, is better than on most laptops.

Indeed, I have CTRL on left thumb as the innermost of my 3 thumb cluster keys.

Bottom left and bottom right (the control keys on both sides are useful) are fine positions for a lot of non-laptop keyboards, namely those keyboards where you can comfortably use the palm of your hand to hit control (learnt that from Xah Lee). It is problematic for laptop keyboards, however.

The fn on left bottom instead of ctrl is super annoying. I would avoid this keyboard as much as possible. Or at least remap it.

There's a bios option to swap them.

Right - every Thinkpad that I ever had (6 or 7) always had that option.

You got it backwards: Lenovo/IBM never made any swap, though several other manufacturers did. The fn key is still in the same location as when it first appeared in the ThinkPad 300 in 1992. That location was more common in older laptops (google some pics of early Compaq LTE or HP Onmibooks), but at some point all brands except IBM and Apple decided to place CTRL in the left corner.

I always set Caps Lock to act the same as Control. One of the benefits is that I don't have to care about the Fn/Ctrl placement.

ctrl/super/alt are relatively correct. People who swap ctrl to the far left are then messing up the relative correctness of the modifiers, which seems worse. Imagine a qwerty keyboard with a new letter key inserted between a and s vs one where the new letter is placed right at the edge.

A couple of months ago, I bought a used Thinkpad X200t in excellent condition. I knew about the popularity of the older Thinkpads and libreboot, and I was interested in a tablet pc because I wanted to use it to read and make notes, so when I came across that X200t (in excellent condition and good price) it was an easy decision to buy it.

Its specs are low (256GB SSD, Core 2 duo, 4GB RAM, 1280x1024 screen), but I find it very usable for browsing, reading and annotating pdfs. It runs Debian stable with KDE Plasma (the pen works well with krita, okular, xournal). The battery is old but is still holding a charge for several hours. I thought the screen would be annoyingly small, but I noticed that it is actually just fine for most web pages. I like the old 1280x1024 a lot more than the nowadays popular 1366x768. I really like it, it's also small and easy to travel with.

What you can do with it, is however limited by the Core 2 Duo chip, and the amount of ram. It's not gonna run a heavy IDE, and as a developer that's a bit of a pity, but was also completely expected.

I just checked how much people ask for old Thinkpads X200 and X200t and they really ask a lot for them, especially for ones that are already librebooted. That's amazing if you realize that those came out in 2008.

Why not upgrade the RAM?

The X200 officially only supports 2x2GB, but seems to work fine with 2x4GB, as long as it's the correct type of ram (single-sided if I remember correctly). So I need to find the right type of ram and it's something I plan to upgrade, but didn't get to it yet.

It is probably better to stick with 2G+4G combination, as in that case it is less picky about the correct type of the 4G module (as in, there are modules that work in this configuration, but not as 2x4G) and IIRC the chipset cannot address the entire 8GB of RAM anyway.

Mine has had 2x4 in it since app. 2010. I tested it in the shop so I knew it worked and right after I walked out of there I called one of my nerdy friends and we talked for a very long time about the an obscene amount of RAM I had.

That machine developed a screen fault later, but I replaced it with another X200, which is still my personal machine. I have a T490 for work and the experience makes me want to stockpile the older models.

You can (could ?) buy these refurbished dirt cheap when big companies update their fleet.

There is a huge modding community, but you don't really need to go that route if all you want is a reliable laptop. Although you might need to change the battery and fan, they're after all 8-10 year old by now.

> You can (could ?) buy these refurbished dirt cheap when big companies update their fleet.

At least for me, this is half the appeal of thinkpads. They cost so little for their performance, I have a mate that even got a couple for free.

Most of mine I didn't even need to change anything. The fans still work nicely (sometimes given them a clean of course) and no real battery problems to speak of. Probably a good idea to anyway, but yeh, they're solid laptops even after all these years

The standard display in these devices is terrible though. You should assume you will want to swap it out for something better.

Simple rule of thumb, you always want the IPS display option.

I got lucky on mine and got an IPS panel... The seller never specified anything about the screen but from the photos I still had a hunch it could be an IPS panel. For a good while after I purchased it I would look all smug at my friends brand new notebooks that still had crappy TN panels over my old (but decked out!) x220

Micro Center often has off-lease ThinkPads at very attractive prices. They may have scuffs and scratches, but they've always been solid performers. The TrackPoint seals the deal for me.

I do have a recent Dell Inspiron, but I find I'm mostly using it like a desktop, with an external keyboard and trackball, and a second monitor or TV set plugged in. I just can't stand trackpads.

I feel like the X200 / X201 were almost perfect laptops in their time (apart from being hot asf). Every model after them has a catch or a few.

Where do you find well-made batteries? OEM batteries for my X230 are no longer available, and I've had a hard time understanding which third party batteries are safe.

GreenCell may have some in their inventory. Also Luxnote has for pretty much all the models, but they don't build them AFAIK.

0A36307 is the OEM battery you are searching for the X230. I managed to get one manufactured in 2020 from a reputable distributor in Germany - in an original Lenovo box. But yes, they come at a price. However, after a battery that overheated, I'm willing to take the hit on this one.

I bought a top-end T460s for $220 a few years ago. Insane price for the specs, I went ahead and maxed out the memory and ran all sorts of crazy stuff on it. It was a champion Hackintosh for a few months, but I decided to leave it on Linux like the rest of my devices after a while. Really solid machine for the price.

Fellow T460S-er! Is yours 4gb soldered or 8gb soldered? What ram did you install? I'm always worried about incompatibility with the soldered ram so I never upgraded

I had 4gb soldered, and since I'm a dork who doesn't care I went with a 16gb stick to match it. No complaints here, it runs Linux just as well as it did with 4 gigs, except now it has 15-20 more podman containers running :)

I don't know, half the other stories seem to suggest they don't play well together. What ram did you buy? Crucial?

I’ve got a T460 with 16GB. Didn’t even know about potential ram incompatibility. Just ordered some from crucial and put it in.

AFAIK the non-s model has two DIMM slots, where the s models have only one. The "incompatibility" comes from not matching the soldered stick so you can have dual-channel memory, which is pretty hit-or-miss.

I did not find a fan for my X230. Do you know a source?

My girlfriend runs her pet behavior business from a Thinkpad X230, it have taken a lot of drops so the next upgrade is to replace the shell, but I've kept it clean, tightened the screws a couple of times and replaced the keyboard when some keys fell off.

It's a workhorse and it just keeps going, she really likes the form factor. In the beginning she didn't like the trackpoint, but now it's the only thing she uses.

pro tip: you can also have it as an external keyboard.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb...

I first thought it would feel cramped but it turns out its work out better than full size keyboard if you are switching back and forth between laptop and desktop.

There's a whole cottage industry springing up around these. https://popey.com/blog/2020/12/keyboards-old-and-new/

In future I might pair one with a thinkcentre nano, e-ink or touchscreen and a big lithium battery.

Unicomp also offered a Model M-style keyboard with a trackpoint, but it's unavailable right now due to part shortages. I kind of regret not getting one the last time I shopped for a keyboard, but if they show up again, I'll probably pull the trigger.

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/EnduraPro

Sadly, only a 2-button pointing device. :-)

You might like the Shinobi keyboard from TEX Electronics? It's a mechanical keyboard in the format of an old-style ThinkPad keyboard.

https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi?variant=16969883648090

I bought the Shinobi. It is excellent, especially for ThinkPad and TrackPoint lovers.

Before the Shinobi, I used the Lenovo external Thinkpad keyboard [1] (old model, SK-8855), which is now extremely unavailable.

I also have the X220 and 6 (!) replacement keyboard inlays -- they fit into both the X220, and the SK-8855. I bought that many to have a lifetime supply of quality keyboards in case they become unavailable (which they now are), but I always wished somebody would go and make an infinitely-repairable, mechanic external ThinkPad keyboard replacement independent of Lenovo's whims.

Then TEX did exactly that.

Also, the maker of the device, Justin Wu, is super responsive via email and answered all my technical questions.

Now the only thing I need is frame.work to team up with TEX to bring such keyboards to laptops. I already lobbied for that here: https://community.frame.work/t/what-keyboard-options-will-be... Maybe you can help me lobby :)

[1] What it looks like: https://picclick.de/Lenovo-Thinkpad-Keyboard-SK-8855-2828993...

The Lenovo generation of external UltraNav keyboard has one huge desing issue: the cable is conneted by USB micro B and thus it is not question of if, but when it will break. I thought about just soldering the cable directly into it, but there dose not seem to be a way to non-destructively disassemble the keyboard.

There is a Bluetooth version too.

Mine seems to have just bit the dust. It boots to grub but then whenever some OS or bootable media tries going up the whole system resets. Memtest runs just fine though. Would love to have some system utility that boots and indexes the HW and tells me what is wrong, or some way to step through the Linux init process. Would be a fun way to learn about the underlying bring up process and also diagnose the issue.

Probably not worth the effort considering how little monetary value my x230 has.

>tightened the screws a couple of times

you may use a thread lock adhesive, make sure is the "blue" type ( can be easily removed) not the "red" one.

> I won’t cover the installation steps as it’s covered by a fairly comprehensive guide already available here: https://nitrocaster.me/files/X220.X230_fhd_mod_rev5_v0.2.pdf

Link is dead and 404s. The file directory 403s.

Always frustrating to see people not mirror.

Internet Archive Wayback Machine comes to rescue: https://web.archive.org/web/20200805190606/https://nitrocast...

Also, they lowercased some Xs. Its at https://nitrocaster.me/files/x220.x230_fhd_mod_rev5_v0.2.pdf and linked to from the product page https://nitrocaster.me/store/x220-x230-fhd-mod-kit.html

Surely this can be a business: A laptop that has the characteristics many of us value in an X220, but without violating Lenovo’s IP. My priorities are the keyboard, reliability, legacy ports, replaceable/upgradable parts. I don’t need the latest CPU nor the highest res screen, but these would be nice, and I appreciate they are of high importance to many.

I’m a non-tech software exec and can have pretty much any laptop I want, but have been exclusively on one X220 after another since they came out. They kept getting cheaper and cheaper! I’m afraid to look now.

At this point, it has been so long that I don’t want to deal with the learning curve or annoyances of anything else, and would probably pay whatever it took for that privilege. At one point, my tech team talked me into a top-of-the line MacBook Pro with every option and dual boot, but I was fed up relearning every little shortcut and shuffled it along after two weeks.

Isn't that pretty much what Ministry of Freedom provide [1]? Or do you specifically refer to X220, and X220 only? Why don't they provide a X220?

[1] https://minifree.org/

Oh, I’d forgotten about that one! Right, those are X200 but she’s apparently got an announcement soon. Maybe X220? If so, yep, that would do it.

Why I got stuck on X220? Had been upgrading regularly since X40, but stopped when they got to the last of the V8 Interceptors, know what I mean?

Well, going from a thinkpad x220 -> mbp is a big change. But I found that the dell xps 13" was very easy to migrate to, and wasn't agonizingly slow for compilation like the older thinkpads.

I still like my x201 and x220's, but I relegate those to less intensive tasks. I have openbsd on one that I pretty much just use for writing articles or emails, which is nice.

However for travel, the older thinkpads are just so incredibly bulky compared to the xps models or the new framework laptop.

I don’t really have any intensive tasks, unless you include VNC to the mothership, 80 browser tabs and all-day video calls from the hotel bar ;)

Not quite the same but the most comparable product I'm aware of is the Panasonic "Let's Note" line, which intend to be durable business ultraportables with lots of ports and replaceable (if not hot-swappable) batteries

Though I haven't used one; they'd be difficult to acquire in the West

https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/fv1j/

I bought a modified X230 on eBay several years ago, then upgraded the RAM to the maximum it would support and installed a 1TB SSD. It’s been going strong for years only needing battery replacement and is my “car laptop” I use for running diagnostics, tuning, and in car data logging in my race cars. It’s taken a SERIOUS beating and still performs.

I wish I could buy another more modern variant, but the original seller is no longer on eBay. Anyone have a link to reliable sellers of retromodded X series?

https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/systems/?set_language=en

https://minifree.org/

It appears that these are just base older Thinkpads with Libreboot. That's great, but not what I am referring to. There are people in China who are retromodding older Thinkpads with new screens, motherboards, and CPUs. The X230 I previously bought is basically the same thing as it left the factory originally, since it came with relatively decent hardware capabilities out of the box, but similar X220s are generally upgraded to at least a Haswell generation CPU / chipset. The big factor being that they are capable of supporting 16GB of RAM, which is a necessity for a modern laptop. An X200 can't have 16GB of RAM, and while 8GB usually works its not officially supported, the official maximum is 4GB.

I'd like a newer retromodded X series because I have heard that some folks are bringing them up to new enough generations of hardware that they support nVME disks, which would be a significant performance advantage over a SATA SSD, and the power improvements would increase battery life in newer generation hardware as well.

I'm fine if it's an X200 shell, but I don't want original X200 hardware.

I got a long way upgrading an old X220 but recently purchased a 51nb X210 (modified X201 with a new mobo) and it's excellent. USB 3, heaps of RAM and a 3k x 2k display

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, is quoted as saying "change is the only constant in life."

Cutting my teeth with computers from the 80s through to the 00s, it's bemusing to see people resorting to hotrodding ancient shells of computers that in times previous would have been replaced every two years.

Maybe this slower rate of change is more sustainable, or maybe it is a temporary blip. At least the new Apple chips were good, but I'd rather wait for everybody else to catch up, however long it takes.

I am increasingly uncomfortable with how slowly things are moving. I don't remember generations past complaining about decceleration, rather the opposite.

It'd be awesome if new computers weren't missing so many desirable features.

With a modded old thinkpad I can get 95Wh of battery, I can get another 75Wh in 10 seconds by swapping the external battery.

I can get a 1440p 400nits matte display, even a version with HDR support or in 4K exists.

I can get as much RAM as I desire, thunderbolt 3 support, USB ports, ethernet port, hdmi, smartcard reader, sd card reader, LTE support, charging via usb c and via the old style connector.

I can use old docks and thunderbolt docks.

All that's missing is upgrading the CPU and the thunderbolt port to more lanes.

Which modern PC offers in 1.1kg-1.3kg 95Wh of battery, such a good display, such great reliability and connectivity, with 16 or 32GB of ddr4-3200mhz ram, 2TB NVMe storage, for less than 500€?

Which modern PC can even compete at all with that offer?

If you could replace the motherboard with these chinese mods, and add the ThinkPad 25 keyboard (with minor mods it fits into the T470) you could turn a T470 into the ultimate ThinkPad.

Well thanks for that info about the keyboard, since you saying that, I've found this insane t25/t480 story: https://kitsunyan.github.io/blog/frankenpad-story.html

Which modern PC can even compete at all with that offer?

Excepting the price the m1 macbook air is a strong contender. It is roughly the width and depth of an x220 but half the height, 1.3 kg, P3 400 nits high dpi IPS display, insane battery life (to the point of not needing a spare), P series performance, trackpad so good I don’t miss a trackpoint. It is missing the great keyboard and the ports though, although in practice the only thing I really miss going to the mba from a thinkpad is usb-a.

Even if you ignore the keyboard and the ports, the M1 has significantly worse battery.

The M1 13" has 58Wh, the M1 14" has 70Wh. And while the M1 does use less power in idle, under load it's just as power hungry as all the other processors, so for serious usage the battery would become a bottleneck.

The aforementioned thinkpad can get 95Wh, and you can swap batteries if you carry a spare. That's 170Wh of power in just 1.6kg. You can get a LOT of mileage out of that.

Now imagine an updated T470 with a more power efficient processor, e.g. a recent ryzen or an M1. Such a hypothetical device would last you forever, even if your system is at full load.

You can't compare battery capacities with the M1.

Under load the M1 uses significantly less power than any current AMD or Intel CPU.

I'm pretty sure the M1 would last longer than your T470 on both batteries (95Wh + 75Wh).

The M1 Max draws in Cinebench single thread 11W, in multi thread 34W.

That's not much, but it's not the 2x-4x more efficient it'd need to compensate for the smaller battery.

Only for idle, browsing, video en/decoding, etc will you see significant improvements. For developers, the M1 is close, but not perfect.

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- Somebody in the 1800s marketing Ye olde Apple® Pro Stand™.

I expect the trend to continue, as individuals find it more and more difficult to keep up with the marketing induced conspicuous consumption cycles - they'll accidentally rationalize an already reasonable position: treating durable goods like consumables is stupid and should be scorned instead of aped.

It was not always conspicious consumption, but certainly yes consumer buying power has gone down and so has the price performance ratio, particularly over the last ten years.

There were legitimate improvements between every generation of thinkpad I am aware of up to the Tm30 series, the Tm40 series was a a sidegrade and so was each that followed up until the arrival of the Ryzen chips.

key: Xm30/Tm30 with m for model - m = 2/4/5

I was speaking about the broader electronics market. I don't really view anything post Lenovo sale to be a thinkpad - there is practically zero design continuity. I think the [T|W]520 was the last IBM design, the product of a left seat right seat transition, where Lenovo's contribution was restricted to basically slapping their badge on it. After that the consistent method of segmenting by travel/performance design consideration was replaced by an explosion of confusing product offerings that seem to be a lot of distinction without difference. Oh, and they immediately (no joke, the first order of business) got rid of the most iconic thing about the brand: the nice keyboard. It really makes you wonder why they even bother pretending.

Love my Thinkpad X220. I changed already keyboard, screen, some parts of its case.. It runs on SSD and it has 16GB RAM. I love it. The only issue is with CPU. Mine still running on a i5 and I would love to update it, to at least an i7.. is that possible?

The chip is soldered in, and the heat dissipation from the i7 2640m in the x220 model is woeful, 30-40 degrees at idle and then 90-96 under load typically. The fan will sit at 4500-5000rpm to get the temperature back below 50 degrees, depending on your thinkfan profiles in linux. A docking station makes matters worse.

I cannot wait to replace mine.

but what would be the alternative? There is any CPU update that would be possible for us?

I don't think there is enough demand for anybody to make a replacement motherboard for the shell, maybe some person will undertake a solo project to do it for a lot of money.

Apparently you can fit an x230 board in there but the x230 does not accept x220 batteries and so you have to flash the EC too. I'm not massively impressed with the performance of the x230 i7 and the heat dissipation will remain a big problem, so I don't consider this swap worth the effort.

https://old.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/3fzm0c/x230_mothe...

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Embedded_Controller_Firmware

There are more options if you want to get into soldering CPUs

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=121844

I have a couple of used X201 Tablets with i7s that I picked up a few years ago to use as beaters, and I'll heartily agree that an i7 in a laptop is ill-suited for any kind of extended load[0]. If I set the BIOS to the "normal" setting, the 2.13 GHz i7 L 640 throttles down to 1.2 GHz. There's also a "performance" setting; I don't recall what it throttled to when using it, but I do recall that it would let the CPU get up to 99°C, one degree shy of shutdown. They stay in the low 80s [edit: under load] in normal mode.

If you only need short bursts of high performance, the i7 is fine.

[0] YMMV, particularly with newer processors

Perhaps an X2100 with an i7-10710u. [0] He's a one-man shop, so the lead times can, generously, be substantial.

[0]https://www.xyte.ch/thinkpads/x210-x2100/

I love the form-factor of my X230 (which is my most-used personal computer), and I do wish I could have the X220 keyboard and a 1080p display. But there is nothing that could convince me to undertake a project like this.

(My offspring has an X240, and it's terrible. And I hear that newer ThinkPads even have soldered-in RAM and glued-in batteries. I don't know what I'll do when my X230 wears out. Maybe bite the bullet and buy a Framework.)

For me, the entire 40 series was a disaster, especially with the removal of all physical trackpad/trackpoint buttons. I've actually seen a security architect repeatedly slam the client-provided T540 onto a desk in rage. Lenovo apparently saw the error of their ways with the 50 series and they had dedicated buttons back ever since.

X250 was my favourite of that form-factor, as it still had external and internal battery replaceable easily by user. I seem to recall even upgrading the RAM. They can be found for $250ish CAD if you wait/bargain a little.

I too however could never commit to a project like that; just don't have the time/energy/priority. I believe it's the type of thing you undertake for the process, not results :). I ended up being one of those fools who paid for a T470-but-with-good-keyboard, the T25 Anniversary model, and 3 years later I'm still a very happy fool :).

I replaced the trackpad in my t440s with a spare part from a t450s. No problem.

I might be the only one that likes this t440s style trackpad. I have no desire to mod it. I love that you physically click it. Coming from a macbook, I was at first baffled that apparently you can’t rest your thumb on it while moving the cursor, but I quickly got used to that. And now I can’t stand macbook trackpads!

The newer ones you can still physically click. Although it doesn‘t move that far anymore. The main difference is, that the 4-series doesn‘t have dedicated trackpoint buttons. If you are a heavy trackpoint user, this is just bad.

Ah gotcha. That makes total sense. I last like ten seconds each time I try to use the trackpad, probably because of lack of buttons. I probably need to replace my t440s soon because the ram/processor is problematic for my usage (gdal and geospatial data conversions, big gimp and inkscape files, simultaneous rails/npm servers for dev, etc). I’ll look into one with the sweet buttons.

Depends on your use patterns:

1. If you use TrackPoint, the lack of buttons is murderous. Just a complete deal breaker. I have no idea how it passed any usability testing.

2. If you use trackpad alone, we still felt it was inferior to the 30 or 50 series. Clicking trackpad did not feel "positive" somehow; felt like sometimes it would register a click, sometimes it would register a swipe before the click.

Most of all, it made it difficult to JUST CLICK. Imagine you're in photoshop and you want to select a specific pixel... if you have a dedicated button, np. With buttons integrated with trackpad, it felt that I could never select the specific pixel without it moving ever so slightly when I just wanted to push a button.

Yes, the X270 was the last X series with a separate battery. All later models have only built-in batteries.

Most of them have one soldered and one replaceable ram module. And so far (t440s, t450s, t470s) I could always easily replace the battery. No glue, just with a screwdriver and a prying tool to open the case.

Join my lobbying of frame.work to team up with TEX to bring a Thinkpad-like keyboard option to their laptop:

https://community.frame.work/t/what-keyboard-options-will-be...

Can we lobby for a framework Surface? That way you can choose your own keyboard, without the existing one getting in the way.

I’ve done most of these upgrades minus the screen. The keyboard swap wasn’t too bad. Coreboot was a little more scary because of flashing rom and things. The 220 keyboard is pretty nice, although I had to buy two because the first one I bought had a dead key :(

My franken230 is my “thinking machine”… it’s what I use any time I want to write something out because the experience of typing on it is so nice.

Link should probably be changed to remove the anchor part, as this jumps to the bottom.

I have an X230 that I've done a bunch of upgrades to. It's got CoreBoot, an FHD IPS screen, a quad core i7-3612QE, plus the usual memory and SSD upgrades. It's pretty neat, but I've been growing tired. I haven't refurbished the battery so its life off charger is abysmal, it's really chunky, the trackpad is awful, and every year or so I need to reflow the Nitrocaster mod solder joints because the display starts to go snowy.

It was a fun project to put it all together but I find myself using it less and less as days go by.

I thought ivyrain provided a way to reflash the bios without having to directly reprogramming the flash chip?

What are the aspects that are considered superior for the older 7-row keyboards compared to the newer 6-row keyboards? I have always seen a lot of praise for the older 7-row keyboards but it is not clear to me what makes them superior and too much time has passed since I used one to remember the feel. Is it the feel of the membrane that has changed? Is it the layout itself that is missed? The shape of the keys? Is it key travel? They do indeed have a very iconic look.

Personally I enjoy the clear and sharp separation of keys I can feel on so called chicklet keys. I never liked the keys with lean sloping edges. For the same reason I prefer XDA keycaps for mechanical kkeyboards. And I think the 6-row arrangement alows for a larger touchpad.

> Is it the feel of the membrane that has changed? Is it the layout itself that is missed? The shape of the keys? Is it key travel?

Yes to all four. The chicklet keys remind my muscle memory that the layout has changed from what I am used to so 'touch typing' for anything that involves pgup/pgdn/home/end/insert/delete is now a chore to look and see where they have moved things.

The most egregious crime I have seen on some models is there is no LED for fn or capslock anywhere, and is to be provided by the OS, such as the e550 and e330

The problem I have with chiclet keyboards is that the keycaps aren't dished enough (or at all). That tends to encourage me to hit keys off-center and sometimes snag adjacent keys.

That is another valid point, I find that disorienting.

I agree that there have been several misssteps (like Lenovo tring to replace the Fn-row with a touchbar) but I think there is a lot to like about the current itereation as seen on the T14 (1). It was even officialy converted into a wireless keyboard (2). Things I like in no paticular order:

- Shape of keys: mostly flat chicklet but slightly scooped, rectangular with one curved edge, island style

- Fn keys are separated in groups of 4

- Spacebar is exactly 5U long and alligned to CVBNM (I find verry annoying when this is not the case)

- Modifier keys are vertically aligned to shift row keys

- Home, End, Insert, Delete placement is reasonable (especially Esc is above ~, Delete is above Backspace and Insert is next to Delete) though I usually find Fn+arrows more mentally comfortable for PgUp/PgDown/Home/End

- Media keys is great with leftmost group being audio, followed by display and then others

- It's backlit

- LED indicators for Caps and Fn

A layout I might find even better is the japanese version(3). I would actually prefer to have the spacebar only as wide as VBN and have 2 more modifier keys left and right. This version however has one key to much to the left of the spacebar.

(1) https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51e0Sd1FYDL._AC_SL1280_....

(2) https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/accessories-and-monitors/keyboa...

(3) https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5158Zq01plL._AC_SL1145_....

Unfortunately they just remind me of bad memories. The aftermarket external keyboards are the solution for me.

> (like Lenovo tring to replace the Fn-row with a touchbar)

Normally I would thank somebody for bringing something like this to my attention, but I actually don't even want to know and will try and blot this sentence out from my memory now.

Than, to your horror, here is how it looks (1). Thankfully it was only used on the Gen 2 of the X1 Carbon.

The thing is, the concept of the touchbar (especially as technically implemented by Apple with a matte texture) is actually great. The great mistake was having it replace the Fn-row. If it was placed above the Fn-row, the touchbar would have been great.

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkB6T6LrhQ

They just feel great to type on. It's probably a combination of key travel, getting the scissor mechanism right, perfect force needed and the feel of the depressing and popping back up of the keys.

The current gen is oookay to type on after you get used to it, but when I go back to my X220, the difference is that the X220 is a _joy_ to type on, rather than just okay. They also seem to last pretty well, given how old that X220 is now.

The 7 rows were nice because you had a few extra "media" keys without needing to Fn-combine (assuming you've set Fn to be off by default so you can use the function keys for your software).

I'd say it's more about the "more buttons less fn" aspect, because I don't think Thinkpad keyboards are particularly great (though definitely some of the best stuff you can have in a laptop). I don't use touchpads unless I have to so I don't care about its size.

All 4, but mostly the layout and shape. There is space on the keyboard deck, yet all sorts of buttons are hidden under fn, and for people who use pgup/dn / home/end, it is a big change. Also, I think the thinklight is vastly superior to the backlit keyboard for illuminating the whole area around it.

I keep trying to get my 'ultimate' thinkpad but there has been a 4+ month wait on shipping for the last year on the customization options I want.

I guess I should have just ordered and waited, but at this point I worry they'll announce the next gen before they even get this one shipped.

Also, it truly irritates me how the price for the same exact configuration can vary drastically from week to week, ranging from $2500 to $4500. I'd be pissed if I paid $4500 and then they offered it for $2500 while I was still waiting for mine to arrive.

I'd love to see what one of these would be like with a modern AMD APU or a modern arm chip. I'd love to have a laptop with days of battery life and decent performance

Are there ARM chips available which provide reasonable laptop performance and aren't proprietary Apple chips?

I'm very happy with my old t440 bought for cheap on ebay, just replaced the screen with an IPS I highly recommend this blog, same kind of information than on the link given today, but focused on T440 https://octoperf.com/blog/2018/11/07/thinkpad-t440p-buyers-g...

An impressive display of not just the right to repair, but rather the will to improve!

Reminded me of the time when I needed to restore network adapter's firmware in T43 after the eeprom apparently got reset by a minor spill around the touchpad. Luckily it was just water, but still the restoration was almost like a neurosurgery.

Still hoping to find replacement batteries for the T43 and T430.

ThinkPads have been my workhorses for well over a decade, but I'm ready to shift from ThinkPad to Framework.

Lenovo showed itself to be a bad custodian by loading up their laptops (albeit not the professional line) with adware.

We need more companies like Framework, Pine Phone, Fair, etc.

I've been using a T420. Would I gain much by moving to an X220/X230 ?

I've heard they are slightly more performant, but I'm not sure how going from a 14' to a 12.5' screen will feel.

This is a cool “tinkering” project, but my “ultimate” ThinkPad would rarely see the BIOS boot screen, and sleep/suspend/wake would actually work properly.

A lot of work to fix a shitty laptop. Why not just buy a well designed one in the first ppace

because almost all of the others are unfixable shitty laptops? Old Thinkpads are really serviceable, I am still using my X61 because I could update so much of its internals. This is not the case of anything else apart from frame.work, which is not available outside of US unfortunately (for me).

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