The X220 ThinkPad Is the Best Laptop in the World | Hacker News Reader

The X220 ThinkPad Is the Best Laptop in the World

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41 pointsexiguus35 comments

I love the X220. Its input system is unparalleled, its storage (mSATA??) mega flexible, its case nigh unbreakable, its ports waiting to connect to almost anything, its parts all replaceable. I even have the SK-8855 so I can use the (exact) same keyboard when at a monitor and keep all my muscle memory. In the ways you physically interact with a machine, the X220 gets it all right, and there's something ineffably cool about a machine that's indeed so physical.

That said, its display tech is bordering on too old. 1366x768 is too small for most people to reasonably work on. In true X220 style you can upgrade this, and although you give up a DisplayPort on the dock, most people won't care about that. The other problem is external resolutions are limited to 2560x1600, which isn't 4k. Finally, a lot of software has gotten too heavy for its CPU. You can run things like VSCode, Slack, Google Meet, etc. on it, but it's not wonderful. I have a basic belief that if an app is slow on the X220 it's too slow in general, but developers of workplace collaboration apps and almost all websites disagree.

One of my "when I get rich" projects is to design/print a board to put a Raspberry Pi 5 CM in an X220 shell and sell it along with display upgrade kits. I think I've had actual dreams about this.

It flat out amazes me that there are not replacement motherboards or Pi upgrade kits for older Thinkpads and MacBooks.

They have a huge following and many amazing features as you say. The MacBook screens, trackpads, keyboards, and speakers are still top shelf.

I have a couple of old MacBooks (and a Thinkpad) that I would upgrade for sure. A Snapdragon X Elite would be great.

The thing about a Pi 5 though is that it is really not any faster than the X220 natively.

That's not true. There have been modded ThinkPads with modern motherboards for many years now.

https://www.tpart.net/product-category/all-products/

But only on the original can you install Libreboot (currently, at least)

Fair but they're very small batch.

I had an X62 (upgraded motherboard in an x60 shell from 51nb) and my brother had whatever the upgraded X220 was, but they were a little flaky. Super cool though.

AIUI the thermal design is the blocker with modern chipsets. Usually it's really carefully tuned along with software to dial in the right performance/battery life/longevity/safety metrics, and that's a different skillset than EE'ing a new board.

> The thing about a Pi 5 though is that it is really not any faster than the X220 natively.

It's generally faster [0] but I mean, it's the Raspberry Pi experience. Battery life would be much better, though. I understand people wanting a "modern" X220, but a big benefit for me is that I can't write junk slow software on it, so something circumspect like an SBC is ideal for me. Plus I love the idea of slapping a new CM in there and everything getting better.

> speakers are still top shelf

I'll confess to apostasy: I bought a 14" M1 Max at the end of 2021. Although it's quite different than the X220 it's a great machine in its own right, and one of the ways it's objectively better is its speaker system. It's bananas how good it sounds. It's a computer I hate to love, but I agree the Apple Silicon laptops are probably all time great laptops. I"m tempted to say they're maybe even on par w/ the X/T series 2005-2012, but they're essentially not user serviceable, and in particular I'm skeptical the keyboards and storage hold up over time, so we'll see what the used market looks like in a few years.

[0]: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/12009065?baseli...

I don’t understand the super thin and light laptop trend.

I don’t care how much it weighs, give me a milled aluminum chassis that could double as a weapon. I also want it thick enough for a normal Ethernet port and a good keyboard. Speaking of ports, I want them all. Can’t always predict what my travels will get me into, and more options is better than less. Especially when 2,000 miles from the box of cables, converters, and dongles at home.

There are people who get things done and others who want to look like cowboys without cattle, and people in between.

To quote CanadianGold:

I don't WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet

I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer

...

i will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death

https://www.tumblr.com/canadiangold/675669211762294784/i-wil...

The X220 ThinkPad was launched in 2011. Since then, I have owned more than three of them. I have also had several X201 and X230 models. Among them, the X220 is my favorite because it features the iconic blue Enter button.

All of these models are nearly unbreakable. The only issues I've encountered so far are related to the fans and the fact that they tend to get very hot after about two years of daily use. By daily use, I mean working on them and having daily video calls—the hardware just isn't designed for that level of usage.

I have given all of my previous ThinkPads to friends and family. Recently, I purchased a used X220 (with an i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD) for 250 bucks. It's now my "holiday" notebook, running FreeBSD and Sway.

I'll happily agree with that. My X201 was basically the closest thing to walking around with a desktop in your backpack. If I had the money to install a high-res screen, I'd still be using it today.

Best means that it's better than everything else which in this case is factually incorrect.

I do think that X220 is a great laptop because despite its age, it still runs great.

But, tbh, i don't think that it holds up well in terms of performance if we compare it to any modern laptop.

What we do want is a modern laptop which is open source friendly, has a great battery life, is repair-friendly, has a good hardware. Do Framework laptops fit this criteria? I don't know. I also do hear that the modern Thinkpads are good but they used to be better, years back.

Many Asus Expertbook laptops support RAM replacement, has multiple storage slots, ethernet and other ports.

IMO, Framework fits. It's very repairable, and it's kinda easy to do. Not having to work with clips of any kind is great, it's all screws and magnets. At least the 13" one has the same (or even a bit less) flex and feeling like e.g. a Lenovo Thinkbook. It's CNC-ed aluminium, both bottom and lid.

It is significantly more fragile than a X220, though. And tbh, the screen looks the most fragile of any laptop I ever had, as there is an air gap behind the LCD, i.e. you really shouldn't hit it with e.g. a pen or something, at all, as it may flex and break. At least you can easily replace it, without ripping out glue, if it happens? :s

It also is not the best bang-for-buck compared to other new laptops, if you ignore the repairability. IMO understandable due to their smaller scale and additional engineering, but still true.

I use mine with Linux and it's great, you feel like a first-class customer like you do with e.g. a Systems76 machine (which are also nice), it's explicitly supported. Here is their support page for each motherboard: https://frame.work/de/en/linux

If you choose a mainboard with a new CPU, you may need to use a mainline kernel instead of LTS for a while, but that's it, in my experience.

Battery life is not on ultra book level, but it's at least on par with the X220. I get like 8, 9 hours out of it.

Can highly recommend it, even if it's not perfect.

> you feel like a first-class customer like you do with e.g. a Systems76 machine

I don’t think the comparison with System76 is fair as long as Framework isn’t interested in opening up their BIOS firmware.

Right, fair enough :D

https://www.tpart.net/product-category/all-products/

> i don't think that it holds up well in terms of performance

Look, honestly, for a lot of us this does not matter.

It's a 4-thread 64-bit computer with 16 gigs of RAM and not one but two arbitrarily large SSDs.

Yes, there is modern bloatware -- any desktop app written in Javascript or using Electron, for starters -- that is a bit sluggish, but it's still usable. My X220 runs the latest Ubuntu 25.04 and runs it pretty well. Running Alpine Linux it's extremely snappy, and close to my M1 MacBook Air in performance.

There is still a choice of tools. Choose your tools with some care and this is still a perfectly usable computer.

Rolls Royce does not state performance figures for its cars; it merely says "adequate". The performance of an X220 is adequate.

Computers stopped doubling in performance every 18 months or so nearly 20 years ago now, and since then, they've gained on average about 10% - 15% performance every generation instead.

It's still got adequate horsepower for general use. I can run a VM with a whole modern OS in it and write about that OS in a rich text editor at the same time, while running a browser with a dozen tabs for research and fact-checking.

I don't need cutting-edge performance all the time. It's nice, but then again, the Thinkpad has a much better keyboard than any modern laptop money can buy and it also has 3 physical mouse buttons so I can middle-click. Between its horrible flat keyboard and no right-click or middle-click, I'd rather work all day on my Thinkpad than on the MacBook Air.

Yes, I know how to simulate the missing mouse buttons. I have an app for middle-click. But it's cumbersome and awkward, while the Thinkpad is a joy to work on. I can have 2 screens and a mouse and a keyboard and tether to my phone and have my headphones for a conference call and have it on mains power, all at the same time, without dongles or docks. That's worth a lot too.

It's also much better at virtualisation than the MacBook, and that matters more to me than 8 threads of Arm64 code.

Framework Laptop has consistently higher iFixit repairability scores than Thinkpads (which also score well): https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc...

One think I don't remember having in X220 was physical microphone off switch, which is present in the Framework.

Partially true. Convertible laptops are the worst of both worlds. Most desktop OSes simply don't provide a good tablet PC like a tablet can.

My T480 has 2 batteries and lasts 10 hours but that can be extended by swapping the external one. I have 4 so that's about 20 hours.

32 GiB of RAM, 2 TB SSD, magnesium top case, and WiFi 7.

The T490 OTOH succumbed to Appleization.

Love mine but the I5 is showing its age. Incredibly slow to do anything. Firefox with NoScript and uBlock Origin becomes necessary.

I use an even older machine, but I no longer run stuff on it. I use it to VNC/RDP to my system at home.

> Firefox with NoScript and uBlock Origin becomes necessary.

It is anyway, including on Apple Silicon.

> I don’t think anyone could argue against these keyboards being the golden standard for laptops.

That's very ready to argue - it has the same awful unergonomic layout like almost every other keyboard instead of ortho staggered. And the spacebar is needlessly huge

Also the screen had poor resolution for the best laptop

I had one and it was great.

x60 all the way

I prefer X61T. I still use mine as a terminal / VNC client for my server at home when I'm on vacation.

Nope. X220t is better because you can write on it! I actually did most of my PhD with an X220t folded and mounted to my wall with a little handmade desk in front of it and an extra screen. Worked great.

With one of the downsides being the sacrifice of a USB 3.0 port.

What do you still use USB3 for? There's wifi, wireguard, smb/nfs and home NAS.

WiFi on an Atheros interface is kind of limited in speed.

Also, nothing really beats the ease of sticking a USB stick and copying files over.

For me, a NAS really does beat the stick every time, just for the fact that I don't copy, not even once, much less twice (to stick and from stick).

Atheros speed is enough to watch HD video from NAS. Even an old ath9k card is enough for that.

What happens if you want to take some (video) files to someplace that doesn't have (sufficient) network availability though?

Holy mother of clickbaits. There IS no best laptop in the world, just like there is no best car in the world etc.

Fully agree. I hate those takes. Best is subjective, so there is no absolute best.

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