Honestly I wish more “gaming laptops” were more straightforward like thinkpads. I don’t need rgbs, it to be super thin, or fancy cases. Just matte black, a fat power brink, and a solid build
I think a LOT of people would prefer having chonkier, heavier gaming laptops with better cooling and bigger batteries over thinner designs. The problem is that the very purpose of a laptop is to be a portable computer so the average consumer thinks that logically a more portable laptop (thinner) is a better laptop than a thiccer one. It would be nice if a company decided to make "enthusiast grade" laptops with upgradeable parts, keyboards with deep travel and cooling that can best be described as "overkill" for people that want the best possible gaming experience out of a laptop.
some of the old thinkpad's personality was brought over to lenovo's legion lineup, especially the 2021 and 2022 models, they're very bulky but pack some real power, and theres amazing value in buying used
Easily one of the best laptops I've ever had in my life, god how good the only thing is that when I downloaded Windows 11 it got slow and some office programs didn't work.
If an end user wears gloves on the workplace, like protective padded gloves, the nipple track button is *crucial* for use on a thinkpad. It lets you control the cursor without needing the trackpad that tends to not work so well when you need to go back to welding or whatever.
Wait, I thought the track button was just for nostalgic reason. Come to think of it.... yeah, I've seen ads of astronaut looking fellas holding laptops & working on something.
it's main use is so that you don't take your fingers off the keyboard - a touchpad means hand going back and forth between it for mouse control and typing position. Programmers and writers who touch type can do stuff faster if they use the "nipple"
I feel that the better thing to do would be just using mouse. Those thing are difficult to use. I couldnt image doing excel (which i assume what a blue collar do with a laptop) with those.
I got my first ThinkPad in 1995. It cost an eye-watering amount of money, even with the benefit of a friend’s IBM employee discount-it felt like buying a car (and it probably cost that much, though the exact numbers escape me). But the build quality of that machine was unmatched then, and I've yet to see anything like it today. I still remember the sensation of closing the lid: it clicked into place, and with a slight extra push, you could feel the air being squeezed out as it sealed so tightly it became like a rock.
There was a story about one of my college mates getting mugged on his way home from McDonald's study group. He smashed the mugger's face in with the side of a full-sized 15.6 inch Thinkpad. That bad boy still remained working the next day throughout the entire semester. 😂 Last I visited him it was still collecting dust in his store room. We fuck around and plug it in, aside from a busted removable battery, still booted up. 😂
Back in high-school (2006-2007), my thinkpad fell out of my backpack and bounced down a 10 meters long staircase... There was nothing wrong with the thinkpad! I'm however, till this day, the sole person on this planet who got detention for damaging staircase tiles using a laptop....
I don't know about that. I work for an IT company with 10s of thousands of employees where you can pick any type of hardware/OS combination you wish (within reason). If you walk through the office and look at what people actually use it's 2 MacBooks for every ThinkPad. Probably because we tend not to keep old stock around for long and the new ThinkPads are not that great in comparison. A lot of people are on other Windows and Linux laptops but it's mostly just macs. I mean, Apple products are status symbols for some type of people but you talk about workhorses and that's what ours look like. Upd: updated the ratio because I actually went around my floor and checked and it turned out to not be as dramatic as I imagined.
Macbooks are actual workhorses now especially with ARM chips. I couldn't do the work I do without one. They're that amazing. But they cannot take a beating...
True story - I used to repair laptops for work, including at some remote mine sites. I was on site and there was an old ThinkPad laptop running with quite the story. On its delivery day, there had been an accident on the highway, and it fell off the truck. Several years later during a Clean Up Australia day event, the box was found and returned. The laptop was weathered and caked with mud. They plugged it in to charge and it booted up first try 😂
That's why i clicked on the video, they gave me a thinkpad once the Dell was just too fucked up to use properly. And I got curious, as I had never seen one of those before. It's an E490, and I've some other colleagues, from other companies, use them as well.
As an IT Senior and Game Dev aswell I can confirm, these laptops does have a great quality. I sold a lot of them and even my customer resold them after 10+ years and they where still working perfectly fine, only the battery 🔋 needed to be replaced, which is totally fine and very common after so many years.
DDR5 Ram had to be soldered in for higher speeds than 4800MHz. But now they created a new Standard for swappable RAM, and a Thinkpad is the first laptop to support this new standard.
Yeah, they can't get enough speed trough the so-dimm slots but it's also not compatible with lp-ddr. The issue is that cheap laptops moved to soldered lpddr for cost saving, thin and light laptops moved to lpddr for efficiency and space, and high performance laptops moved to lpddr for increased bandwidth.
@@PromiseOkeke-o4e I collected them and they used to be very common at fleet auctions or recycling centers. Also, they were great for messing around with Coreboot and the fleet auction ones were quite easy to refurbish (Great Hardware Maintenance Manuals) Favorites are the (X200/X201 and for older models the 380 series) *Still collect them to a degree, but not as much as I used to.
@@7kibass I forgot that I kept letting the video play while I was eating after tapping your link… I looked at the screen at 0:41 and thought that photo was your reply 🤣
My dad is still using his Thinkpad T420s until 2021 where it basically unusable (battery died, speaker not working, overheating issues, super slow hard drive). I managed to fixed all the issues and installed an SSD to it, now it still working even though i rarely using it.
You can improve the girl easily by debloating Win7/10, I have an l440 that I run win10 on daily, aside from the weight, she still runs better than anything else I could have bought for AU$200. The other option is installing mint and not telling him, I did this to my dad, and he is happy with his PC :P $50 laptop, $80 ram $35 SSD m.2 free SSD for storage (free because I have like 10 120GB sitting on my desk, don't judge an old man and his hobby).
T420 is the best T Series thinkpad there was just because of the keyboard I am typing on... The T430 was okay just not the same ((yes you can flip the T420 keyboard into a T430)) but still. T420 is still my main laptop :)
T420 is the best T Series thinkpad there was just because of the keyboard I am typing on... The T430 was okay just not the same ((yes you can flip the T420 keyboard into a T430)) but still. T420 is still my main laptop :) I hope it keeps going for a few more years... then most of my daily laptops will be over 15 years old ha.... run a real OS kids not mickey mouse stuff and enjoy pressing your smooth lovely keys. used and abused every day, as it sits on the sofa it gets a fair few drops, but keeps on going. (( it's not 100% perfect wifi card probably needs changing, monitor has its wobbles, bezels around the screen need to be made better )). Sorry I have to disagree that the T480 was the best last T Series, I had one from work I used it as a desktop for maybe a year and a half, the two bridged batteries bubbled up like crazy, took out the batteries because I didn't want to get a dell, keyboard stopped working after a few months, screen stopped working, total junk. X230 is the best last X Series the funny thing is that although it does not have the old X220 keyboard it just works better than the T430's which is weird.
I boot up a X61 occasionally.. red nub Rules.. it has a SSD in it, but the battery has failed again (like a 8 year lifespan).. single core, dual thread is noticeably slow..
before i got a thinkpad, i had tried all sorts of mainstream popular stuff, macs, dell, hp, not a single one lasted me over 2 years. either a problem with ram dying, or motherboard just burning needing a repair. it was hell. then i found my current computer 8 years ago. only needed to change ssd 1 time a few years ago. other than i dont have to worry about it. did my final year project on this brick. trained ML models that required around 18gb ram.. i've put this thing through the ringer and nothing breaks it! this is the best thing i've ever owned.
I ignored the red trackpoint for ages. Seemed annoying. Then i worked a while at a small desk with no mouse space and forced myself to use it. Now I'm lost without it. I guess I'm now in the cult and won't be able to change brands.
Or perhaps is better you don’t bring your laptop to your parties, I hope the waterproof is good enough to resist a doble washing cycle with lots and lots of bleach.
@@dmora2309 How am I supposed to get laid at parties if I don't have my ThinkPad T480 to show them? I cannot simply stop bringing it to parties (and the bathroom)
My thinkpad is from 2012. I'm a journalism student, which means I do video editing, audio recordings, photo editing and design aside from normal writing and formatting text. I only made small upgrades to it and it still works great. Honestly, I don't see myself buying a new laptop yet. I think I can make it work for 3 or 4 more years.
One thing not directly mentioned was IBM's support OF repair / upgrade culture (not just designing the hardware to be easily upgraded and repaired but the first party support of it). For example, I remember enthusiasts appreciating the subtle differences between a Thailand sourced keyboard or a Japanese LCD... and you could call IBM up and ask for the specific part from the specific source and they'd send it without issue (no second guessing why or claiming they couldn't know or distinguish). The support site provided full illustrated documentation along with videos for just about any disassembly or install task. So it was like car tuner culture with the manufacturer backing you up. Many of the modular things Framework is being praised for today were standard issue for the Thinkpads. I remember being able to swap out my disc drive for extended battery or additional IO.
The real appeal is the thriving secondary market, yeah frameworks are easier and better for repair/upgrade, but no company buys 200 frameworks for workers and then dumps them onto the used market after 2/4 years making for a flood of affordable repairable laptops with lots of parts for the secondary market.
I remember buying two trashed units at an auction. I called up IBM and told them the motherboards were shot. The next morning, I had two brand new units sitting on my desk at work, shipped priority overnight, free of charge.
I hate the "thin and sleek" look that laptops try to go for these days, especially since it usually means it has worse specs or durability or some other random inferiority. As someone on the internet also said, I need my laptop to be "heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death" thanks to the huge-ass battery inside it, with every practical port imaginable plus a CD player.
On looks I do agree, but the thin slims have a niche. The X1s are particularly favoured in laboratories as there is limited space due to safety concerns and equipment and they have enough computation power to manage data and run control software while logging measurement for any application. Also, while expensive by compound and equipment standards an X1 is still "disposable" in a laboratory accident and will eventually wear out. Solvent fumes will condemn the X1 to an eventual death, but it should last 10 years. One personal gripe I have with the X1 is limited memory storage. I would pay to have an 8 Tb M2.SSD in mine, but the tight tolerances make it unfeasable. The other Lenovos are too bulky to work.
I’ll be honest here, I’m a card carrying member of the MacBook fan club in my private life, probably because I used to work for Apple. But I got started on an old Thinkpad 755CD back at the end of the 1990s, and when I joined my current employer and saw a Thinkpad waiting for me at my desk, a slight smile crept across my face. It felt like coming full circle. Those unremarkable black slabs really have something special about them.
I didn't even know it was a cult but had been randomly drawn to them over the years (still none owned) probably because the nice simple design that's not plastic trash that makes you feel budget AF and have squishy keyboards, and having an Ethernet Port in a modern laptop these days is like winning the lottery level of rare
And of those that are, some have an additional ram slot so you can make it dual channel. Was great for a company supplied one which only had 8gb of ram.
Awesome. :D I upgraded to a new thinkpad 2 years ago, the old one was from 2012 or so... Without HDMI or USB-C. I couldn't handle not having those ports in the modern world so bit the bullet and upgraded. But i gotta say, my new-ish Thinkpad P15S gen2 is a fantastic machine, worthy of its thinkpad logo. If you do decide to upgrade, I say go for it, the water is fine. I did test drive a few other brands, including an apple, but they were all fragile, non-upgradable non-repairable garbage.
I have an old acer quad core (2011).. and I just blow out the fan with an air compressor every month or so. I still use it every single day. lol.. Upgraded to 16gb ram.. I still can't find a reason to upgrade to a better laptop
With all the crazy "gaming laptop" shapes and "futuristic-looking" cases, no one can still beat the classic "compact rectangular brick" look. It's simple, not atrociously huge or disappointingly small. Just a reliable piece of brick.
And it might be durable enough to support its own weight. I never tried it, but I bet my gaming laptop would snap if i hold it with one hand at the tip.
I grew up in a major mining centre, and my grandfather was a mine boss. Everyone who needed to use a laptop on the property used a ThinkPad. Those things could handle the rigor of usage thousands of feet underground with dust, moisture, explosive jolts, and of course drops as major hazards. It had a knock-on effect in the community with ThinkPads being easily serviceable and a laptop of choice for the local businesses and university. Fun fact: The ThinkPad's original design was meant to evoke a modern bento box.
The Thinkpad is perfect for my dad, he was one of the OG users with blackberry meme but it still uses and upgrades it, replace pieces and resist for when use it outside, or had accidents and survives. He’s a tech dad that opens his think pad to add ram
Lenovo ThinkPad SL510... Found it in a NYC ewaste bin in the basement of my apartment building. Microcenter had a heavy-duty battery in stock. I installed a 256Gb SSD and I had 8Gb of DDR3 RAM in my inventory. Put Linux Mint: MATE Edition on it. It's fantastic... I love it....
I got my Thinkpad x220 -4286CTO in Dec 2010. It was amazing and i used it for 13 years everyday. It was the last proper ThinkPad with the proper ThinkPad keyboard.I travelled with it. It survived motorbike accidents with me. I recently got a Fujitsu uhx and i retired my beloved ThinkPad finally. i still habe it and use it occassionally. It works perfectly. The laptop was upgraded and fully kitted out with the following configuration: Intel i7 2740 16 gb ram 256 gb msata ssd 1tb ssd 720p screen A couple of 9 cell batteries
I did my whole engineering major with an old Thinkpad I got from my neighbor's work. It was a beast and I had a much better computing experience than my friends with new shiny laptops. One time I even managed to kill the keyboard and screen just before finals, bought replacements and got the computer back again in 30 minutes😅. Loved that beast.
I bought a T480S about two years ago as my main laptop, and it cost me $250 with an nvme ssd upgrade. I've yet to find a viable replacement at that same price, even today
@@cmbaz1140 Eventully yeah, but all i need is to upgrade to 32GB+1TB and a WWAN Card and all of these upgrades cost like 160$ here. The laptop itself was 160$ also
I had no idea there was a ThinkPad cult out there. My dad worked in corporate for over 30 years and had multiple. He often got to keep his older models, and would hand them down for me when i was old enough to have a laptop of my own. One of them specifically I believe he got it in 2006 or 2007, it was mine for a bunch of years, and when I had to get a better one for college I gave it to my mother. She still uses it to this day, and it works very well still! It even has it's original dock attachment!! I've never seen another brand that it's this durable
@@dwong98 alongside CD slots, one thing that i seriously miss from laptops back then is the removable battery. i have fond memories of even my slow, simple school-issued PC having it.
There is a T410 downstairs from me right now thats in use by my neighbor. It started life as a standard corporate lease, made its way into my hands as a work machine that I consolidated 4-5 other computers into (cheapo company). I used it for ~4 years and then IT guy gave it to me. Finally, having no more daily use for it, I donated it to my neighbor so he could plink away in a word processor. Absolute unit of a machine.
I have 2 that my former IT boss gave me because they didn't work. Said if I could fix them, I could have them. They are working great and even better with Linux
My Thinkpad was the ONLY laptop that had the exact specifications I was looking for (at the time). Without even knowing that there was a cult following (except amongst the Linux guys I knew), I came to *really* like my laptop. It's got a certain... je ne sais quoi. 🤷♀️😊
I got a ten year old think pad for free as some neighbors were moving out and left it behind. I installed Linux onto it from locked windows seven professional and it works amazing
I bought used Thinkpad T440, worked flawlessly through my university years, later I gave it to my father, who upgraded it even further with bigger SSD, bigger battery and higher resolution screen. Nowadays sadly it rare to see one device working for so long.
That's Kinda true. With the addition of hot swappable i/o they make some good quality laptops. Louis Rossmann did a review after using this laptop 2 years.
@@vafixer8885 you can't expect a fairly new company to release a cheap device, they had to secure the money to stay in the business... I personally think it's a fair price, especially since no one is brave enough to do what they're doing in the current laptop era
I don't know. Outside their cultish fanbase, I see lots of QA issues that is concerning and mixed reactions on customer service tech supoort. But I guess I agree with you if you are taking into account modularity and repairability.
I remember in the past every NASA mission when the cameras show the room where engineers watched the mission progress, all the laptops were ThinkPads, perhaps one or two Dell’s, not the case in latest missions, but ThinkPads had a good run.
@@ShadowMoon314 Sounds about right. Nasa's gay and lame now. Look at SpaceX. They use actual computers. That being said, if I could thinkpadify an M1 Mac, I would go for it.
My first THINKPAD was given by my University when I joined as Assistant Professor in 2007. It lasted comfortably till 2012 with one upgrade in 2010 done by the University itself. Did not change the battery or adaptor or display even once. But, it slowed down significantly after 5 years and handed it over to my cousin to be used in 2014. I think it is still working for productivity purposes without a single upgrade or repair.
I use ThinkPads both at my job and for my school work, having two separate laptops, and whenever I whip either of them out everyone immediately knows what it is and then I'm about to get some work done, The nipple mouse is top to your lets you mouse around without your hands over leaving the keyboard making it so comfortable for long periods of time
I was obsessed with ThinkPads in 2005 because I was a vendor at IBM and they only gave us ThinkCenter desktops. I only got a ThinkPad in 2014 but by then IBM had become just a job for me. Now I’m considering getting a refurbished T480 to relive the old times.
If you look at it from a laptop drop pov then yes, you’re getting fired for dropping company equipment. Thinkpads could be hammered back together after a drop😂.
That’s funny, my previous job gave me a Mac. My current one gave me a thinkpad. I want my MacBook back, and I’m currently looking for a job that will free me from that trashpad.
My father's work gave their employees the laptops they were replacing, got a p51, been using it daily for YEARS, 64gb of ram and a nice undervolt and it still runs windows 10 and games like a champ. Better specs than the t480 but still has great build and keyboard. 10/10 laptop, could not recommend enough.
This video was the reason i fell Deep into learning about thinkpads and (accidentally) buying myself a T480, i absolutely love it & am proud to say I'm a thinkpad owner, it's just so fun modding it
"They don't make X like they used to" is a meme but its genuinly true for thinkpads. They were the last laptop brand that let you fix everything. Btw I dont think the T480 is the last true thinkpad, really the T530/T570 are. I've had a T570 for years now, the 27 hour battery still works like new and if it ever goes bad, I can just buy a new one. Worst case scenario I open the battery and put new cells inside. It came with a german keyboard, I installed an aftermarket backlit english keyboard in 5 minutes for 20 euro. I added an extra 1tb M.2 drive and a 2TB SDD along with 32gb of DDR4. Oh and it had an extra slot on the side that let me install a USB-C connector. Its an absolute workhorse for all of my needs. I dare you to find a new laptop under 500 euro that has those specs. And yes, the thing is damn near indestrucable. If Lenovo ever goes back to the old style of thinkpads, I will happily shell out more than a grand for a new one. But until that happens, my T570 will keep on chugging.
@lollixd6580 it lasts an entire day, no problem. The fans aren't loud unless you're running something very intensive. Also, the batteries are hot swappable. If you need extra running time, you can just carry a couple of extra batteries and get a few days' worth of run time.
@@WarlordEnthusiast Thank you. Only thing bothering me rn is that the big battery (72wh) sticks out of the chassis, but the 48wh isn't that bad either, because you still have your intern battery.
I used my dad's thinkpad as my school laptop in high school. That thing only hella lagged like once while i tried to "overclock" it loading multiple tabs of facebook. Had to retire it bc the battery was broken and was running an old version of windows. I missed those laptops
The first big thing I bought with my first big salary was a refurbished T480, I swapped the keyboard and both batteries and applied a leather skin on it, it's a beauty.
: ) THANKS for sharing ! I have used ThinkPads since mid 90's and STILL today in 2024 ! SADLY new ones are not as expandable, but STILL one of the BEST Laptops out there! ALL the BEST and Cheers : )
Been rockin' my trusty W541 ThinkPad for a solid nine years now. Survived the wild ride of undergrad and the maze of grad school architecture projects like a boss. From sketching out dreams to bringing them to life in 3D, this beast has seen it all. It's been dropped more times than I care to admit, but it's tougher than a tank-just a little screen hiccup from all the adventures. One slap on the screen, and it's back to working again.
My first job in tech was being an asset manager for IBM. I'm bad with tools but I've been able to replace the LCD, keyboard, hard drive, ram and do it in an afternoon.
I had two very old laptops that I would occasionally install a new linux distro on and play around with. I recently attempted to do the same, but both of them seemed to have finally bit the dust. I needed a new laptop that was sturdy, lightweight, portable, and preferably with decent specs. I recalled the thinkpads we used at computer labs back when I was at school. They were all of the things I needed. I ended up buying a refurbished thinkpad, a T450s specifically, and then went on to install arch on it. It wasn't until a few days after I did this that I started seeing mentions of thinkpads with arch all over my youtube feed, and that includes this video. I had no idea about this thinkpad community, nor did I think that arch was such a common choice for a thinkpad. Now I see that we're all living the same lives lol.
The Thinkpads with Core i-series from 2011-14 were always a treat when I worked in computer maintenance. They really are built tough, are plenty versatile and pretty straightforward to repair. And they still look pretty good, if a bit bulky. But the chonk means I don't have to be concerned about whether or not my laptop screen is fucked if shoved into a tightly-packed overhead bin in a particularly bumpy plane ride. A Thinkpad that retains what made it great, just include a dedicated GPU and it's the perfect laptop.
I would love to see a "thinkpad skin" for framework laptops. Just imagine that absurd flexibility combined with a thick, resistant, and timeless design like that.
I have one of the newer ThinkPads, the one made by Lenovo, and boy is it still a beast. It can run Minecraft with mods and simple shaders at stable 30 fps, it survived being dropped from a desk a couple times, it’s drive is quite fast, AND IT’S YOGA SERIES (3rd gen), meaning it has a touchscreen which is very handy to me as a student. As for a roll cage - the body itself is one, being around 60% metal. Absolute unit of a laptop.
My classmate on Web Framework class has a thinkpad, he's a geek, and glazing the Thinkpad so hard it convinces me to buy one lol. I've never regret buying one.
@Im-not-alone-Im-full-of-myself if you go for age, obviously the T480 is the best of all. But I really love the 4:3 aspect ratio of the T41, and mine came with the uxga+ display (1400x1050), which was high dpi in early 2000s way before Retina Display was a thing, discrete graphics, and the keyboard was really great.
Lenovo sells 2000 USD Thinkpap laptops that the screen touches the keyboard leaving permanent marks to the screen. And they say that it's because we carry the laptop around... Also the battery life when in stand by for laptops like T14, T14s, P14, X13 is ridiculous poor. The consume more power in standby than other laptops when idling. But the worst thing on those laptops is the BIOS. OMG the BIOS... It is probably written randomly by a bunch of kindergarten kids. Just have a look at the Lenovo community forums...
@@datacoderX They are implementing lpcamm2 lpddr5x on the new p1 g7, so we could hopefully see lpcamm and upgradable ram coming back to the t and x series
True. BIOS update bricked my X13 twice. It is so common that as soon as ThinkPad brick, my company IT support will ask user to reset BIOS by pressing the pin hole.
screen bashed by its own keyboard every time you close the lid and it just keeps on fucking working. you can even just wipe away the debris and it's good to go.
Got a T500 for $15. Maxed out RAM, installed SSD, run MX Linux on it and it works well. The keyboard is great. Has original battery and it still holds a charge. It just a beater but gets the job done. Also, it has the last Core 2 Duo wich is great because no backdoor in the CPU.
It may sound weird, but I love my 2017 Dell XPS for most of the same reasons people love ThinkPads. It's really quite durable, has exactly every port I need and every part is replaceable. Mine is now coming up on 7 years old, and with a fresh battery and a fresh install of windows 11 it's a perfectly good regular use machine and ready for at least another 5 years. It wears its faint scratches on the aluminium case gracefully after years of heavy use, surviving being carried around daily (and not so carefully) for the first 4 years and even being dropped a few times. And it still has room for improvement too! I could still upgrade the original 16gb of ram, or the 512gb m.2 ssd. A desktop PC has replaced it for the heavy lifting like CAD and gaming, but I bought my XPS second hand for a good price in early 2018 when it was barely half a year old, and it remains as my trusty old portable machine.
I had a brief stint working at a mom-and-pop computer repair shop about five years ago. The ThinkPads were always the easiest to repair and I loved them. I think the most memorable ThinkPad I saw though was one brought in by a Korean couple. I think it was the oldest laptop I saw brought in that still worked (not the oldest-there was some insane 90's Toshiba laptop that a customer brought in for ewaste recycling.) If I had to guess, it was from about 2005-2007. It just needed a keyboard replacement, which, due to the design, I could just unscrew and lift out, rather than having to go from the bottom and remove every component inside it to get there. The thing was in miserable condition, but sure enough, to a slightly incredulous me, it booted up Windows 7 (this was about a couple weeks after the official end of life). I have a MacBook Pro these days-yeah, definitely not counterculture, but they brought back enough ports and I just can't ignore that power-to-efficiency ratio. Still, there exists an alternate timeline where I went with a modern ThinkPad-something in the T-series. I really admire them, and they're still on my shortlist for if I ever need an x86 laptop-them and the Frameworks.
Aren't they also one of the few places you can run open source firmware? I'm hoping framework can become the new thinkpad, but I don't think they're quite there yet firmware wise.
At the beggining of the year I got Thinkpad T490s. Pretty nice but when my VM capped my RAM, I wanted to upgrade. Bought the RAM, I found out RAM is soldered in. Thankfully I could return that RAM quickly. I knew that Thinkpad will be a stopgap for Framework, which I got recently. The biggest things I'm missing is the middle click on touchpad and fingerprint reader next to the touchpad. FW is much quieter and I can upgrade it obviously.
Just ordered myself a new laptop online, and while I gave some time to looking at other brands, something about the thinkpads kept pulling me back. The more videos I watch about Thinkpads, the more excited I get for mine to come in the mail. Cant wait to unbox and crack open my (memory replaceable) P14s when it comes later this week! 😁😁😁
Lenovo is the first company that’s using LPCAMM2, which is a new RAM standard called CAMM (compression attached to memory module) for laptops and they are super easy to switch out so hopefully thinkPads go back to their former glory
5:50 4GB for Linux??? I have been able to work semi-productively on Linux machines that had a P4 and 256MB of RAM until recently. Yes, it was a super-slimmed down version of mint with Openbox and tint2 for the desktop and only the bare necessities in terms of background processes, but working was in fact fluent with no lags at all (just dont open the internet browser)
i do have to say one thing on the un-upgradable CPU part. its not lenovo, its AMD and Intel not selling socketed CPUs for laptops. As for ram there are some new developments that might give it back to us.
This makes me wanna buy a thinkpad lol. A laptop where I can upgrade any of the parts, possibly has a dvd slot built in, and can swap to Linux if windows is slowing it down sounds amazing. It’s sounding like the best laptop I can have as a future comp sci student going to college this fall.
Honestly I wish more “gaming laptops” were more straightforward like thinkpads. I don’t need rgbs, it to be super thin, or fancy cases. Just matte black, a fat power brink, and a solid build
Agreed, I have no idea how RGB became a thing
I think a LOT of people would prefer having chonkier, heavier gaming laptops with better cooling and bigger batteries over thinner designs. The problem is that the very purpose of a laptop is to be a portable computer so the average consumer thinks that logically a more portable laptop (thinner) is a better laptop than a thiccer one.
It would be nice if a company decided to make "enthusiast grade" laptops with upgradeable parts, keyboards with deep travel and cooling that can best be described as "overkill" for people that want the best possible gaming experience out of a laptop.
In fact there are thinkpads with nvidia rtx.
and they have always been my option to choose if I took a "gamer" laptop.
There's the lenovo legion
some of the old thinkpad's personality was brought over to lenovo's legion lineup, especially the 2021 and 2022 models, they're very bulky but pack some real power, and theres amazing value in buying used
ThinkPads are the Nokia of the laptop world.
The older ones, maybe.
were*
@@FlyboyHelosim Older thinkpads, older nokias
Check out Panasonic Toughbooks then
So is Dell Latitudes
Easily one of the best laptops I've ever had in my life, god how good the only thing is that when I downloaded Windows 11 it got slow and some office programs didn't work.
When I gave it to my younger brother, he had the same problem and what helped me was to look for the keys in places and that problem was solved.
You can start by looking at the one that worked for me, which was BNH software, which is not the only one, but it is reliable.
@@jenniferG58 It's a good place to start and let him decide.
Thank you, I'm going to start investigating and I hope everything is resolved because I don't want to throw it away.
How about the ThinkPad T14P？this series is special for China, I would like to know what foreign brothers think of this product
If an end user wears gloves on the workplace, like protective padded gloves, the nipple track button is *crucial* for use on a thinkpad. It lets you control the cursor without needing the trackpad that tends to not work so well when you need to go back to welding or whatever.
True, I've heard a lot of stories about ThinkPads used in blue collar environments.
Wait, I thought the track button was just for nostalgic reason.
Come to think of it.... yeah, I've seen ads of astronaut looking fellas holding laptops & working on something.
it's main use is so that you don't take your fingers off the keyboard - a touchpad means hand going back and forth between it for mouse control and typing position. Programmers and writers who touch type can do stuff faster if they use the "nipple"
makes sense thank you
I feel that the better thing to do would be just using mouse. Those thing are difficult to use. I couldnt image doing excel (which i assume what a blue collar do with a laptop) with those.
Every like this comment gets I will buy one thinkpad
Can I have one? :)
@@DiariesByAn sure! comes preinstalled with arch
Can I have one
Can I have two?
Can I have mewtwo
I got my first ThinkPad in 1995. It cost an eye-watering amount of money, even with the benefit of a friend’s IBM employee discount-it felt like buying a car (and it probably cost that much, though the exact numbers escape me). But the build quality of that machine was unmatched then, and I've yet to see anything like it today. I still remember the sensation of closing the lid: it clicked into place, and with a slight extra push, you could feel the air being squeezed out as it sealed so tightly it became like a rock.
My golly, hold it right there, or something else will become like a rock!
@@451degreesFaw hell nah 😂
@amitaabh-hk8kd that comment is so crazy
@@451degreesF😂
My friend used to crack walnuts with his Thinkpad and used is as a chair while waiting for a metro
wow it's so multifunctional
There was a story about one of my college mates getting mugged on his way home from McDonald's study group. He smashed the mugger's face in with the side of a full-sized 15.6 inch Thinkpad. That bad boy still remained working the next day throughout the entire semester. 😂
Last I visited him it was still collecting dust in his store room. We fuck around and plug it in, aside from a busted removable battery, still booted up. 😂
Gigachad
I've been using them to practice breaking bricks. ruclips.net/video/Qb5YHjnJgEw/видео.html
Back in high-school (2006-2007), my thinkpad fell out of my backpack and bounced down a 10 meters long staircase...
There was nothing wrong with the thinkpad! I'm however, till this day, the sole person on this planet who got detention for damaging staircase tiles using a laptop....
ThinkPad aren't a cult. MacBook are. ThinkPad are workhorses.
I don't know about that. I work for an IT company with 10s of thousands of employees where you can pick any type of hardware/OS combination you wish (within reason). If you walk through the office and look at what people actually use it's 2 MacBooks for every ThinkPad. Probably because we tend not to keep old stock around for long and the new ThinkPads are not that great in comparison. A lot of people are on other Windows and Linux laptops but it's mostly just macs. I mean, Apple products are status symbols for some type of people but you talk about workhorses and that's what ours look like.
Upd: updated the ratio because I actually went around my floor and checked and it turned out to not be as dramatic as I imagined.
No they're definitely also a cult.
Macbooks are actual workhorses now especially with ARM chips. I couldn't do the work I do without one. They're that amazing.
But they cannot take a beating...
Ok, enjoy your nipple mouse
Spoken like someone who's drake the Kool aid would.
True story - I used to repair laptops for work, including at some remote mine sites. I was on site and there was an old ThinkPad laptop running with quite the story. On its delivery day, there had been an accident on the highway, and it fell off the truck. Several years later during a Clean Up Australia day event, the box was found and returned. The laptop was weathered and caked with mud. They plugged it in to charge and it booted up first try 😂
Amazing
"That will do, Think. That will do."
I keep forgetting how big IBM was and the fact that they were everywhere
Yea, they even had a subsidiary in Nazi Germany that contributed to the Holocaust
Yep. Even where they shouldn't.
Those who know, knows. 💀
@@LeafarR1657 context pls
@@azdaf They had a subsidiary in Nazi Germany called Dehomag, which was giving the Nazis all of their computing machines.
Hold on, I thought Thinkpad was made by Lenovo? I used to have one
Edit : nvm I just finished the video
If your company gives you a thinkpad, your job is secure. If they give you a mac then be prepared 😂
If they give you think pads they are too poor for Dell
Hell noo. My work place gave us dells and they are absolute plastic trash compared to a thinkpad@@kanalisationerstellen
That's why i clicked on the video, they gave me a thinkpad once the Dell was just too fucked up to use properly. And I got curious, as I had never seen one of those before. It's an E490, and I've some other colleagues, from other companies, use them as well.
Current rocking an 8 year old ThinkPad at work and it's still a beast. Great wee keyboard too
I’m just a intern and they gave me a $3,400 think pad. 2 Tb of storage and 64 gigs of ram, a i9 with an rtx 4090. That thing is a monster
As an IT Senior and Game Dev aswell I can confirm, these laptops does have a great quality. I sold a lot of them and even my customer resold them after 10+ years and they where still working perfectly fine, only the battery 🔋 needed to be replaced, which is totally fine and very common after so many years.
do you have a an advice on someone who's planning on upgrading thinkpad L470 to 32GB RAM
IBM was the GOAT of PC hardware, present day IBM tech would've been amazing
Crazy that IBM had a monopoly on software and computers. Well, until companies like HP and Oracle took a good chunk of the market share.
True I agree. IBM were the god father's of it innovation
If you think Micro Channel was better than ISA16, EISA, VLB, or PCI I have bad news for you
if they were that good the wouldn't go out of business
@@kenny4957 arent they still kicking hard
DDR5 Ram had to be soldered in for higher speeds than 4800MHz. But now they created a new Standard for swappable RAM, and a Thinkpad is the first laptop to support this new standard.
Was looking for this comment. We're getting back some of the old thinkpads!
Yeah, they can't get enough speed trough the so-dimm slots but it's also not compatible with lp-ddr.
The issue is that cheap laptops moved to soldered lpddr for cost saving, thin and light laptops moved to lpddr for efficiency and space, and high performance laptops moved to lpddr for increased bandwidth.
I believe its in the new Thinkpad P1 gen 7 laptop
5600 definitely works. I have a kit of 5600Mhz RAM I inserted into my laptop myself. But yeah, faster speeds are hard.
Dell beat them to the punch with "Dell CAMM" on their Precision's.
Yo that red nipple came in clutch when I was connecting to autonomous vehicles via tcp to push software updates in a hot and cramped parking garage
I love using it everyday
0:27 Hey, that's my stack of Thinkpads :D Thanks for including me in the video.
Hey, cool to see you here. Love the ThinkPad collection :)
Why and how do you have so much thinkpads?
0:25
@@PromiseOkeke-o4e I collected them and they used to be very common at fleet auctions or recycling centers. Also, they were great for messing around with Coreboot and the fleet auction ones were quite easy to refurbish (Great Hardware Maintenance Manuals)
Favorites are the (X200/X201 and for older models the 380 series)
*Still collect them to a degree, but not as much as I used to.
@@7kibass I forgot that I kept letting the video play while I was eating after tapping your link… I looked at the screen at 0:41 and thought that photo was your reply 🤣
My dad is still using his Thinkpad T420s until 2021 where it basically unusable (battery died, speaker not working, overheating issues, super slow hard drive). I managed to fixed all the issues and installed an SSD to it, now it still working even though i rarely using it.
You can improve the girl easily by debloating Win7/10, I have an l440 that I run win10 on daily, aside from the weight, she still runs better than anything else I could have bought for AU$200. The other option is installing mint and not telling him, I did this to my dad, and he is happy with his PC :P $50 laptop, $80 ram $35 SSD m.2 free SSD for storage (free because I have like 10 120GB sitting on my desk, don't judge an old man and his hobby).
@@ezevaillard7740 i was thinking of buying t440 and using it as main workhorse replacing my x230. What upgrade do you recommend?
T420 is the best T Series thinkpad there was just because of the keyboard I am typing on... The T430 was okay just not the same ((yes you can flip the T420 keyboard into a T430)) but still. T420 is still my main laptop :)
T420 is the best T Series thinkpad there was just because of the keyboard I am typing on... The T430 was okay just not the same ((yes you can flip the T420 keyboard into a T430)) but still. T420 is still my main laptop :) I hope it keeps going for a few more years... then most of my daily laptops will be over 15 years old ha.... run a real OS kids not mickey mouse stuff and enjoy pressing your smooth lovely keys.
used and abused every day, as it sits on the sofa it gets a fair few drops, but keeps on going. (( it's not 100% perfect wifi card probably needs changing, monitor has its wobbles, bezels around the screen need to be made better )).
Sorry I have to disagree that the T480 was the best last T Series, I had one from work I used it as a desktop for maybe a year and a half, the two bridged batteries bubbled up like crazy, took out the batteries because I didn't want to get a dell, keyboard stopped working after a few months, screen stopped working, total junk.
X230 is the best last X Series the funny thing is that although it does not have the old X220 keyboard it just works better than the T430's which is weird.
I boot up a X61 occasionally.. red nub Rules.. it has a SSD in it, but the battery has failed again (like a 8 year lifespan).. single core, dual thread is noticeably slow..
before i got a thinkpad, i had tried all sorts of mainstream popular stuff, macs, dell, hp, not a single one lasted me over 2 years. either a problem with ram dying, or motherboard just burning needing a repair. it was hell. then i found my current computer 8 years ago. only needed to change ssd 1 time a few years ago. other than i dont have to worry about it. did my final year project on this brick. trained ML models that required around 18gb ram.. i've put this thing through the ringer and nothing breaks it! this is the best thing i've ever owned.
Did you try ASUS? They are in the same league as ThinkPad.
@@eugeneeugene3313 hello. No, never tried Asus... didn't know they were in the same league. Would love to check them out. Any particular model?
I ignored the red trackpoint for ages. Seemed annoying. Then i worked a while at a small desk with no mouse space and forced myself to use it. Now I'm lost without it. I guess I'm now in the cult and won't be able to change brands.
Welcome... to the dot side.
The prickly nipple
MacBook touchpads are 1000x better than the nipple
This is how I used to play RuneScape as a kid on my moms ThinkPad lmao
@@jay31415 No
ThinkPads are so water resistant you can even pee on your keyboard and it'll still work.
how do you know this
Talking from experience?!?!?
That seems rather specific. Did you find that out firsthand?
Or perhaps is better you don’t bring your laptop to your parties, I hope the waterproof is good enough to resist a doble washing cycle with lots and lots of bleach.
@@dmora2309 How am I supposed to get laid at parties if I don't have my ThinkPad T480 to show them? I cannot simply stop bringing it to parties (and the bathroom)
My thinkpad is from 2012. I'm a journalism student, which means I do video editing, audio recordings, photo editing and design aside from normal writing and formatting text. I only made small upgrades to it and it still works great. Honestly, I don't see myself buying a new laptop yet. I think I can make it work for 3 or 4 more years.
One thing not directly mentioned was IBM's support OF repair / upgrade culture (not just designing the hardware to be easily upgraded and repaired but the first party support of it). For example, I remember enthusiasts appreciating the subtle differences between a Thailand sourced keyboard or a Japanese LCD... and you could call IBM up and ask for the specific part from the specific source and they'd send it without issue (no second guessing why or claiming they couldn't know or distinguish). The support site provided full illustrated documentation along with videos for just about any disassembly or install task.
So it was like car tuner culture with the manufacturer backing you up. Many of the modular things Framework is being praised for today were standard issue for the Thinkpads. I remember being able to swap out my disc drive for extended battery or additional IO.
the FRU numbers being on every component's really nice too
The real appeal is the thriving secondary market, yeah frameworks are easier and better for repair/upgrade, but no company buys 200 frameworks for workers and then dumps them onto the used market after 2/4 years making for a flood of affordable repairable laptops with lots of parts for the secondary market.
@@lolkthnxbai They still are, i am broke and with an external GPU and a second hand thinkpad made a gaming setup, now i have 2
Soo dope. A sense of class in the hardware space not contributing to a fast fashion mentality
I remember buying two trashed units at an auction. I called up IBM and told them the motherboards were shot. The next morning, I had two brand new units sitting on my desk at work, shipped priority overnight, free of charge.
I hate the "thin and sleek" look that laptops try to go for these days, especially since it usually means it has worse specs or durability or some other random inferiority.
As someone on the internet also said, I need my laptop to be "heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death" thanks to the huge-ass battery inside it, with every practical port imaginable plus a CD player.
It must have the ports!
My laptop is STILL portable when it weighs 2.5 kg instead of 1. It's MORE portable because it can safely port itself down a flight of stairs.
cd player for the win
On looks I do agree, but the thin slims have a niche. The X1s are particularly favoured in laboratories as there is limited space due to safety concerns and equipment and they have enough computation power to manage data and run control software while logging measurement for any application. Also, while expensive by compound and equipment standards an X1 is still "disposable" in a laboratory accident and will eventually wear out. Solvent fumes will condemn the X1 to an eventual death, but it should last 10 years.
One personal gripe I have with the X1 is limited memory storage. I would pay to have an 8 Tb M2.SSD in mine, but the tight tolerances make it unfeasable. The other Lenovos are too bulky to work.
Good luck getting osteoporosis in your 60s
I’ll be honest here, I’m a card carrying member of the MacBook fan club in my private life, probably because I used to work for Apple. But I got started on an old Thinkpad 755CD back at the end of the 1990s, and when I joined my current employer and saw a Thinkpad waiting for me at my desk, a slight smile crept across my face. It felt like coming full circle. Those unremarkable black slabs really have something special about them.
Ok, I'm 2 minutes in and I'm fucking sold. Was this video supposed to be an ad?
I'd watch until the end to avoid falling for the meme like I did ;)
dude same, forget gaming laptops. this is the real shit
@@alanway5lol love this energy
I didn't even know it was a cult but had been randomly drawn to them over the years (still none owned) probably because the nice simple design that's not plastic trash that makes you feel budget AF and have squishy keyboards, and having an Ethernet Port in a modern laptop these days is like winning the lottery level of rare
Waiting on mine to arrive…
It's worth pointing out *some* new Thinkpads have soldered memory, but not all. They have quite a few different models.
Good point, not all of them are soldered in.
And of those that are, some have an additional ram slot so you can make it dual channel. Was great for a company supplied one which only had 8gb of ram.
@@ArmChairPlum wasn't it shown in the video that one of the models didn't have memory slots?
We got some 1st gen Yoga X1's in for recycling, they were soldered unfortunately.
My X1 Carbon gave up on me and repairing was hard because of the parts being soldered so I switched to an Elitebook
If your employer issues you a thinkpad you are guaranteed a job. If your employer issues you a MacBook, you’re probably gonna be laid off in a year
Shamelessly stole the comment right below you
Comment stealer
I have a ThinkPad for close to ten years now the thing still works like a champ. All i do is clean the fan from time to time.
Awesome. :D I upgraded to a new thinkpad 2 years ago, the old one was from 2012 or so... Without HDMI or USB-C. I couldn't handle not having those ports in the modern world so bit the bullet and upgraded. But i gotta say, my new-ish Thinkpad P15S gen2 is a fantastic machine, worthy of its thinkpad logo. If you do decide to upgrade, I say go for it, the water is fine. I did test drive a few other brands, including an apple, but they were all fragile, non-upgradable non-repairable garbage.
@@eeydabez2169 there are 3 types of thinkpad, t, p and x series. can you please explain the diifferences?
I have an old acer quad core (2011).. and I just blow out the fan with an air compressor every month or so. I still use it every single day. lol.. Upgraded to 16gb ram.. I still can't find a reason to upgrade to a better laptop
Nothing special.. i have 19 years old laptop from 2005 that does the same...
@@ivaylotsankov7292 That"s even greater! 😁
We had a kid at my high school who was constantly getting in trouble for being on his ThinkPad during class lol
Did they think he was hacking or something because he was always in the terminal?
@@bnorrishwhat? No he prolly just wasn’t doing his work
My thinkpad t14 has horrible battery life, have to keep it at Eco mode with literally brightness for like 3 hours of battery.
@@1Dome Have you checked the battery health percentage?
Based and Thinkpad-pilled.
I'm obsessed with this specific image 6:09
With all the crazy "gaming laptop" shapes and "futuristic-looking" cases, no one can still beat the classic "compact rectangular brick" look. It's simple, not atrociously huge or disappointingly small.
Just a reliable piece of brick.
And it might be durable enough to support its own weight. I never tried it, but I bet my gaming laptop would snap if i hold it with one hand at the tip.
thats what she said ❤
Agree. I hate "futuristic-looking" things. Id take a luxurious IdeaPad U260 design.
I grew up in a major mining centre, and my grandfather was a mine boss. Everyone who needed to use a laptop on the property used a ThinkPad. Those things could handle the rigor of usage thousands of feet underground with dust, moisture, explosive jolts, and of course drops as major hazards. It had a knock-on effect in the community with ThinkPads being easily serviceable and a laptop of choice for the local businesses and university.
Fun fact: The ThinkPad's original design was meant to evoke a modern bento box.
who need that shit are you going in to a war or what
@@vladcretu6496 Are you illiterate or what
@@vladcretu6496 at least it's gonna last longer than a damn modern laptop lmao
The Thinkpad is perfect for my dad, he was one of the OG users with blackberry meme but it still uses and upgrades it, replace pieces and resist for when use it outside, or had accidents and survives. He’s a tech dad that opens his think pad to add ram
In my region Pakistan, Thinkpads is still the most popular to this date because how affordable and easy to upgrade
Using a thinkpad right now ;)
Facts. Bought X230 back in September 2019 for 15000 pkr (about $100 in Sept 19) and still rocking it.
@@ahmadmonu777 x230 is now going for 20 25k 💀
@@ahmadmonu777 did you upgrade it?
Do they bring them toJihad?
Lenovo ThinkPad SL510... Found it in a NYC ewaste bin in the basement of my apartment building. Microcenter had a heavy-duty battery in stock. I installed a 256Gb SSD and I had 8Gb of DDR3 RAM in my inventory. Put Linux Mint: MATE Edition on it. It's fantastic... I love it....
Mint will never not come to the rescue istg
love that distro
lol, i have the same machine. Runs a home server for me
I got my Thinkpad x220 -4286CTO in Dec 2010. It was amazing and i used it for 13 years everyday. It was the last proper ThinkPad with the proper ThinkPad keyboard.I travelled with it. It survived motorbike accidents with me.
I recently got a Fujitsu uhx and i retired my beloved ThinkPad finally. i still habe it and use it occassionally. It works perfectly.
The laptop was upgraded and fully kitted out with the following configuration:
Intel i7 2740
16 gb ram
256 gb msata ssd
1tb ssd
720p screen
A couple of 9 cell batteries
I did my whole engineering major with an old Thinkpad I got from my neighbor's work. It was a beast and I had a much better computing experience than my friends with new shiny laptops.
One time I even managed to kill the keyboard and screen just before finals, bought replacements and got the computer back again in 30 minutes😅. Loved that beast.
You use past tense. What happened to it.
What engineering did you major in???
@@Lil_Smo passed it down to my younger brother, and got an X1 instead.
@@OGTennyson Mech
@@almyor oh ok.
I'm doing civil engineering and I'm considering getting one
Recently I bought a T480 and I genuinely think it was the only right decision I've ever made XD
Are you going to upgrade?
How much does it cost?
Sorry you bought a laptop or a terminator model?
I bought a T480S about two years ago as my main laptop, and it cost me $250 with an nvme ssd upgrade. I've yet to find a viable replacement at that same price, even today
@@cmbaz1140 Eventully yeah, but all i need is to upgrade to 32GB+1TB and a WWAN Card and all of these upgrades cost like 160$ here.
The laptop itself was 160$ also
I hope you can live with the shitty "speakers".
1:26 is PEAK
I had no idea there was a ThinkPad cult out there. My dad worked in corporate for over 30 years and had multiple. He often got to keep his older models, and would hand them down for me when i was old enough to have a laptop of my own.
One of them specifically I believe he got it in 2006 or 2007, it was mine for a bunch of years, and when I had to get a better one for college I gave it to my mother. She still uses it to this day, and it works very well still! It even has it's original dock attachment!! I've never seen another brand that it's this durable
You replace the batteries then?
@@DNGR369 Batteries for laptops of that era were removable. You'd pull it out from the back of the device and plug a new one in.
@@dwong98 alongside CD slots, one thing that i seriously miss from laptops back then is the removable battery. i have fond memories of even my slow, simple school-issued PC having it.
There is a T410 downstairs from me right now thats in use by my neighbor. It started life as a standard corporate lease, made its way into my hands as a work machine that I consolidated 4-5 other computers into (cheapo company). I used it for ~4 years and then IT guy gave it to me. Finally, having no more daily use for it, I donated it to my neighbor so he could plink away in a word processor. Absolute unit of a machine.
I have 2 that my former IT boss gave me because they didn't work. Said if I could fix them, I could have them. They are working great and even better with Linux
I've own two Thinkpads. My first Thinkpad was an old R61i my aunt gave me. Years later, I bought a X1 Carbon. I love both. Now I want an X13s.
0:11 Watching this on a T480 drinking a Monster White, which I very rarely drink ahahahha
Ohh hey I'm using my T480S ;)
My Thinkpad was the ONLY laptop that had the exact specifications I was looking for (at the time). Without even knowing that there was a cult following (except amongst the Linux guys I knew), I came to *really* like my laptop. It's got a certain... je ne sais quoi. 🤷♀️😊
This is literally what happened to me also lol. I had no idea Thinkpads have a cult following
me, after I decided to try sardines on a whim one day.
its like the apple cult but like 900% cheaper
I got a ten year old think pad for free as some neighbors were moving out and left it behind. I installed Linux onto it from locked windows seven professional and it works amazing
I bought used Thinkpad T440, worked flawlessly through my university years, later I gave it to my father, who upgraded it even further with bigger SSD, bigger battery and higher resolution screen. Nowadays sadly it rare to see one device working for so long.
Framework is the spiritual successor of the thinkpad.
That's Kinda true. With the addition of hot swappable i/o they make some good quality laptops. Louis Rossmann did a review after using this laptop 2 years.
just so dam expensive...also the quality doesnt seem rugged at all, very bendy BUT...yes the upgradeability is such a nice thing
@@vafixer8885 you can't expect a fairly new company to release a cheap device, they had to secure the money to stay in the business... I personally think it's a fair price, especially since no one is brave enough to do what they're doing in the current laptop era
They need to make 2 in 1's and add a nipple
I don't know. Outside their cultish fanbase, I see lots of QA issues that is concerning and mixed reactions on customer service tech supoort. But I guess I agree with you if you are taking into account modularity and repairability.
I remember in the past every NASA mission when the cameras show the room where engineers watched the mission progress, all the laptops were ThinkPads, perhaps one or two Dell’s, not the case in latest missions, but ThinkPads had a good run.
Which laptops they are using for latest missions??
@@-Blue-_ macbook's
@@ShadowMoon314source?
@@ShadowMoon314 Sounds about right. Nasa's gay and lame now.
Look at SpaceX. They use actual computers.
That being said, if I could thinkpadify an M1 Mac, I would go for it.
My first THINKPAD was given by my University when I joined as Assistant Professor in 2007. It lasted comfortably till 2012 with one upgrade in 2010 done by the University itself. Did not change the battery or adaptor or display even once. But, it slowed down significantly after 5 years and handed it over to my cousin to be used in 2014. I think it is still working for productivity purposes without a single upgrade or repair.
I use ThinkPads both at my job and for my school work, having two separate laptops, and whenever I whip either of them out everyone immediately knows what it is and then I'm about to get some work done, The nipple mouse is top to your lets you mouse around without your hands over leaving the keyboard making it so comfortable for long periods of time
I bought t480 in last December it's beautiful, Strong and Upgradable. Perfect
I have one too, but I find the speakers to be substandard.
I was obsessed with ThinkPads in 2005 because I was a vendor at IBM and they only gave us ThinkCenter desktops. I only got a ThinkPad in 2014 but by then IBM had become just a job for me. Now I’m considering getting a refurbished T480 to relive the old times.
Just did. The battery is solid. Only issue is the warning message for using a 3rd party external battery
I have a T470 Signature Edition!
@@tegathemenace I got 3rd party internal and external battery on my T480 without warning message
I'm a comp scie student and I immediately fell for the memes to get a thinkpad, now ive budgeted for it in the coming months
If ur job gives you a mac you will get fired in a week
If you get a thinkpad you have a job for life
If you look at it from a laptop drop pov then yes, you’re getting fired for dropping company equipment. Thinkpads could be hammered back together after a drop😂.
That’s funny, my previous job gave me a Mac.
My current one gave me a thinkpad.
I want my MacBook back, and I’m currently looking for a job that will free me from that trashpad.
I saw this tweet on X too haha lol
@@andyvirus2300can’t you just use a personal mac
@@andyvirus2300 that’s why companies that allow preference are better.
My father's work gave their employees the laptops they were replacing, got a p51, been using it daily for YEARS, 64gb of ram and a nice undervolt and it still runs windows 10 and games like a champ. Better specs than the t480 but still has great build and keyboard. 10/10 laptop, could not recommend enough.
This video was the reason i fell Deep into learning about thinkpads and (accidentally) buying myself a T480, i absolutely love it & am proud to say I'm a thinkpad owner, it's just so fun modding it
"They don't make X like they used to" is a meme but its genuinly true for thinkpads.
They were the last laptop brand that let you fix everything.
Btw I dont think the T480 is the last true thinkpad, really the T530/T570 are.
I've had a T570 for years now, the 27 hour battery still works like new and if it ever goes bad, I can just buy a new one. Worst case scenario I open the battery and put new cells inside.
It came with a german keyboard, I installed an aftermarket backlit english keyboard in 5 minutes for 20 euro. I added an extra 1tb M.2 drive and a 2TB SDD along with 32gb of DDR4. Oh and it had an extra slot on the side that let me install a USB-C connector.
Its an absolute workhorse for all of my needs. I dare you to find a new laptop under 500 euro that has those specs.
And yes, the thing is damn near indestrucable. If Lenovo ever goes back to the old style of thinkpads, I will happily shell out more than a grand for a new one. But until that happens, my T570 will keep on chugging.
How big is the Battery?How long does it last? How loud are the fans? I need a work horse for university, and can't find a good laptop
@lollixd6580 it lasts an entire day, no problem. The fans aren't loud unless you're running something very intensive.
Also, the batteries are hot swappable. If you need extra running time, you can just carry a couple of extra batteries and get a few days' worth of run time.
@@WarlordEnthusiast Thank you. Only thing bothering me rn is that the big battery (72wh) sticks out of the chassis, but the 48wh isn't that bad either, because you still have your intern battery.
@@lollixd6580 I wasn't aware 72 hour batteries existed, I might have to get a couple.
@@WarlordEnthusiast So we helped each other out nicely 😂👍
I love ThinkPad for the KEYBOARDDDDDD...
That for sure.
Been writing for a content mill and loved the keyboard on my X230 (still love it!)
Yep, same for me !
I feel like Lenovo makes the best keyboards. Typing this on my Thinkpad X1 Yoga, and i came from Yoga c740 to this.
Ooh that sound❤
I own 2 currently, love them both. the older one is a T400 and my daily driver for away from home is a T495. Love them both!
looking from a old thinkpad e55o, a broken student from south america, loving this old laptop
I used my dad's thinkpad as my school laptop in high school. That thing only hella lagged like once while i tried to "overclock" it loading multiple tabs of facebook. Had to retire it bc the battery was broken and was running an old version of windows.
I missed those laptops
They become perfect again when you ditch windows and use whatever Linux. Windows really makes laptops unnecessarily obsolete
My Lenovo IdeaPad has worked for the last 13 years, Now think the sturdyness of ThinkPad
The first big thing I bought with my first big salary was a refurbished T480, I swapped the keyboard and both batteries and applied a leather skin on it, it's a beauty.
Last year I bought a refurbished T480s and I honestly think it's by far the best laptop I've ever used.
Framework would be a worthy successor to take the thinkpad torch.
This is what ive been thinking
next gen fav is gonna be this one
No mouse nub tho :(
They need more configuration options though, like 4k screens
@@DylanMatthewTurner what mouse nub?
@@pkop4 we'll hopefully get it eventually right?
This video will be my response to anyone who asks about my dear 50$ laptop.
: ) THANKS for sharing ! I have used ThinkPads since mid 90's and STILL today in 2024 ! SADLY new ones are not as expandable, but STILL one of the BEST Laptops out there! ALL the BEST and Cheers : )
Been rockin' my trusty W541 ThinkPad for a solid nine years now. Survived the wild ride of undergrad and the maze of grad school architecture projects like a boss. From sketching out dreams to bringing them to life in 3D, this beast has seen it all. It's been dropped more times than I care to admit, but it's tougher than a tank-just a little screen hiccup from all the adventures. One slap on the screen, and it's back to working again.
My first job in tech was being an asset manager for IBM. I'm bad with tools but I've been able to replace the LCD, keyboard, hard drive, ram and do it in an afternoon.
I had two very old laptops that I would occasionally install a new linux distro on and play around with. I recently attempted to do the same, but both of them seemed to have finally bit the dust. I needed a new laptop that was sturdy, lightweight, portable, and preferably with decent specs. I recalled the thinkpads we used at computer labs back when I was at school. They were all of the things I needed. I ended up buying a refurbished thinkpad, a T450s specifically, and then went on to install arch on it. It wasn't until a few days after I did this that I started seeing mentions of thinkpads with arch all over my youtube feed, and that includes this video.
I had no idea about this thinkpad community, nor did I think that arch was such a common choice for a thinkpad. Now I see that we're all living the same lives lol.
The Thinkpads with Core i-series from 2011-14 were always a treat when I worked in computer maintenance. They really are built tough, are plenty versatile and pretty straightforward to repair. And they still look pretty good, if a bit bulky. But the chonk means I don't have to be concerned about whether or not my laptop screen is fucked if shoved into a tightly-packed overhead bin in a particularly bumpy plane ride.
A Thinkpad that retains what made it great, just include a dedicated GPU and it's the perfect laptop.
That’s not a thinkpad, its a tankpad
Thanks for the great video!! Very informative and easy to absorb!
I would love to see a "thinkpad skin" for framework laptops. Just imagine that absurd flexibility combined with a thick, resistant, and timeless design like that.
You could 3D print it for sure! Or just paint an existing Framework top...
I have one of the newer ThinkPads, the one made by Lenovo, and boy is it still a beast. It can run Minecraft with mods and simple shaders at stable 30 fps, it survived being dropped from a desk a couple times, it’s drive is quite fast, AND IT’S YOGA SERIES (3rd gen), meaning it has a touchscreen which is very handy to me as a student. As for a roll cage - the body itself is one, being around 60% metal. Absolute unit of a laptop.
My classmate on Web Framework class has a thinkpad, he's a geek, and glazing the Thinkpad so hard it convinces me to buy one lol. I've never regret buying one.
I'm on my 4th ThinkPad right now. Went from a T41, to a T400 to an X201 and now a T480
I used to use HP.. the 2470.. got nub (pointer) addicted.. then got one that refused to load Mint Debian and switched to Lenovo
which one is best?
@Im-not-alone-Im-full-of-myself if you go for age, obviously the T480 is the best of all. But I really love the 4:3 aspect ratio of the T41, and mine came with the uxga+ display (1400x1050), which was high dpi in early 2000s way before Retina Display was a thing, discrete graphics, and the keyboard was really great.
@@ahumeniy Ya, I got that display too and the drivers in Mint don't really like it, especially when I turn it down to 1080.
Lenovo sells 2000 USD Thinkpap laptops that the screen touches the keyboard leaving permanent marks to the screen. And they say that it's because we carry the laptop around... Also the battery life when in stand by for laptops like T14, T14s, P14, X13 is ridiculous poor. The consume more power in standby than other laptops when idling. But the worst thing on those laptops is the BIOS. OMG the BIOS... It is probably written randomly by a bunch of kindergarten kids. Just have a look at the Lenovo community forums...
@@datacoderX They are implementing lpcamm2 lpddr5x on the new p1 g7, so we could hopefully see lpcamm and upgradable ram coming back to the t and x series
Finally a guy with knowledge, modern thinkpads are trash😊 Lenovo fcked it up
True. BIOS update bricked my X13 twice. It is so common that as soon as ThinkPad brick, my company IT support will ask user to reset BIOS by pressing the pin hole.
screen bashed by its own keyboard every time you close the lid and it just keeps on fucking working. you can even just wipe away the debris and it's good to go.
@@ignotumperignotius630 No. The marks are permanent. Can't be removed.
Thinkpad x13 is insane value right now (~$200 for 2021,2022 models), but modern thinkpad aren't nearly as upgradeable as the old ones.
6:08 sauce? Need that wallpaper
💀😭
Tell me if you find it bruhhhhh
dude do u found it
@@blacktear-bd3jp yeah bro in wallpaper flare
@DaPigMasta search:
shiki ichinose with laptop
Ur welcome
Got a T500 for $15. Maxed out RAM, installed SSD, run MX Linux on it and it works well. The keyboard is great. Has original battery and it still holds a charge. It just a beater but gets the job done. Also, it has the last Core 2 Duo wich is great because no backdoor in the CPU.
You have no proof that modern CPU have backdoor. Only internet FUD.
You have no proof that ancien CPU don't have backdoor. Only internet speculation.
@@hypnoz7871 intel ME is prolly not a backdoor but it's still bloatware I don't need
@@hypnoz7871 hello, agent.
@@hypnoz7871 You have no proof that it _doesn't_. No one does except Intel and the feds.
I hated those things, especially after the Lenovo buy out. The cheap plastic casing cracked, the keyboards failed, the adapters failed.
It may sound weird, but I love my 2017 Dell XPS for most of the same reasons people love ThinkPads.
It's really quite durable, has exactly every port I need and every part is replaceable.
Mine is now coming up on 7 years old, and with a fresh battery and a fresh install of windows 11 it's a perfectly good regular use machine and ready for at least another 5 years. It wears its faint scratches on the aluminium case gracefully after years of heavy use, surviving being carried around daily (and not so carefully) for the first 4 years and even being dropped a few times.
And it still has room for improvement too! I could still upgrade the original 16gb of ram, or the 512gb m.2 ssd.
A desktop PC has replaced it for the heavy lifting like CAD and gaming, but I bought my XPS second hand for a good price in early 2018 when it was barely half a year old, and it remains as my trusty old portable machine.
that's nice but most dell laptop's shape are completely junk
@@eone199 Well yeah just like most laptops from most big brands 🤷♂
I had a brief stint working at a mom-and-pop computer repair shop about five years ago. The ThinkPads were always the easiest to repair and I loved them.
I think the most memorable ThinkPad I saw though was one brought in by a Korean couple. I think it was the oldest laptop I saw brought in that still worked (not the oldest-there was some insane 90's Toshiba laptop that a customer brought in for ewaste recycling.) If I had to guess, it was from about 2005-2007. It just needed a keyboard replacement, which, due to the design, I could just unscrew and lift out, rather than having to go from the bottom and remove every component inside it to get there. The thing was in miserable condition, but sure enough, to a slightly incredulous me, it booted up Windows 7 (this was about a couple weeks after the official end of life).
I have a MacBook Pro these days-yeah, definitely not counterculture, but they brought back enough ports and I just can't ignore that power-to-efficiency ratio. Still, there exists an alternate timeline where I went with a modern ThinkPad-something in the T-series. I really admire them, and they're still on my shortlist for if I ever need an x86 laptop-them and the Frameworks.
Snapdragon is about to break that dynamic.😊
just got a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon. My first laptop was a second-hand T43 back in 2009 and it was about time to go back to the roots
Using it right now to watch this video, the typing is really satisfying and it serves me for a long time even if it fell a few times
Aren't they also one of the few places you can run open source firmware? I'm hoping framework can become the new thinkpad, but I don't think they're quite there yet firmware wise.
I've noticed well I mean I've changed two batteries, and both don't hold a charge L430, but the thing works well when plugged in
At the beggining of the year I got Thinkpad T490s. Pretty nice but when my VM capped my RAM, I wanted to upgrade. Bought the RAM, I found out RAM is soldered in. Thankfully I could return that RAM quickly.
I knew that Thinkpad will be a stopgap for Framework, which I got recently. The biggest things I'm missing is the middle click on touchpad and fingerprint reader next to the touchpad.
FW is much quieter and I can upgrade it obviously.
watching on my Thinkpad x270
watching on my W520
Just ordered myself a new laptop online, and while I gave some time to looking at other brands, something about the thinkpads kept pulling me back. The more videos I watch about Thinkpads, the more excited I get for mine to come in the mail. Cant wait to unbox and crack open my (memory replaceable) P14s when it comes later this week! 😁😁😁
Cause of Luis Rossmann talking about what he liked about his og IBM ThinkPad
Lenovo is the first company that’s using LPCAMM2, which is a new RAM standard called CAMM (compression attached to memory module) for laptops and they are super easy to switch out so hopefully thinkPads go back to their former glory
5:50 4GB for Linux??? I have been able to work semi-productively on Linux machines that had a P4 and 256MB of RAM until recently.
Yes, it was a super-slimmed down version of mint with Openbox and tint2 for the desktop and only the bare necessities in terms of background processes, but working was in fact fluent with no lags at all (just dont open the internet browser)
I've used Thickpads at work for almost a decade and I think they are well made. That's why I bought one used for myself as well.
i do have to say one thing on the un-upgradable CPU part.
its not lenovo, its AMD and Intel not selling socketed CPUs for laptops.
As for ram there are some new developments that might give it back to us.
lpcamm lets go
Great video. You can still spec Thinkpads with twin SODIMM sockets and M2 sockets. Usually T-series or the workstation series.
This makes me wanna buy a thinkpad lol. A laptop where I can upgrade any of the parts, possibly has a dvd slot built in, and can swap to Linux if windows is slowing it down sounds amazing. It’s sounding like the best laptop I can have as a future comp sci student going to college this fall.
0:19 That ran fumo lol. Funny.