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Comment by bodge5000 | Hacker News Reader

These threads always surprise me with the number of people who buy new thinkpads. Nothing wrong with them I'm sure (well, maybe a few things wrong with them), I just never even considered it as an option.

I recently picked up an old 2005-ish (edit: 2011 actually) x220 for a few hundred quid off ebay which seems to be running nicely. Specs aren't anything to shout about but it works fine for what it is. Durability wise, its clearly been running for at least 15 (edit: 10?) years so its got something to it.

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I also have a x220. A couple of the benefits/tradeoffs:

The keyboard is the best, I have never used a laptop with a better one.

Using a dual core sandybridge is slow but if you develop on a slow machine you'll never build something your customers can't use.

You can install coreboot on it and remove IME.

It is on the list of systems Qubes (and every other Linux) runs 100% on.

The screen is only 720p but you can install a 1080p with a mod.

12in is borderline too small a screen size but the laptop is compact.

An extended battery in it gets around 8hrs of use.

Almost the entire machine is magnesium, aside from a strip of plastic at the top covering the antennas.

It can actually run 1600mhz 16gb of RAM.

> if you develop on a slow machine you'll never build something your customers can't use

This is the philosophy I try to go by. Some call it premature optimisation, but I just like working on optimisation as part of the normal dev process, rather than a secondary step which is all too easy to gloss over.

It gets a bit more difficult when it comes to game dev though, which is the current dilemma I'm in (need a new personal machine, which may end up being the x220, but that'll find use in any case).

Someone bought that laptop new at some point.

The X220 is from 2011. And they are good laptops yes, I have mine at a friend still running fine with an SSD and a bit more RAM.

> I recently picked up an old 2005-ish x220 for a few hundred quid off ebay which seems to be running nicely.

The x220 launched in 2011. It's an old machine, but not that old.

That said, I ran one myself for years and highly recommend it if you need a barebones, durable laptop for under 200ish.

Yep, your right. I did a google search and it came up with 2005, but that turned out to be the entire X-series. Cheers Google.

Love me some plastic frame laptops

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