2011 Lenovo Thinkpad X220 daily user here. Really nice machine really for my needs, running the latest Debian smoothly.
I do have a spare ready to take over if needed. Old hardware could always die very suddenly. It's a frugal solution, both cheaper and more ecological than buying new.
T420 here for the nostalgia. Apart from the ssd and ram upgrades, the FHD IPS upgrade made it an excellent cheaper alternative to the thinkpad 25th anniversary edition. My only problem with it is the battery, I bought a new one but it only lasts for about 2-3 hours.
If anyone here is planning to do the FHD upgrade, be very careful with power, you need to remove the battery/power cable and press the power button a couple of times to discharge all capacitors etc, otherwise you will blow a microscopic fuse (I did!) and it's near impossible to replace it. I just soldered a bridge between the contacts! I just can't do anything wrong again or I'll fry something.
T420 daily here too. I love it's keyboard. Not sure what I'm going to do in the future when I'm forced to upgrade. I hear you can install a classic keyboard on newer gen Lenovo laptops, but I'd really prefer a solution that didn't require mods.
Huh, odd. Even my old, quite run-down battery (9-cell) gets me 5-6 hours. Back when it was brand new, it got me anywhere between 7-10 hours. This is on Linux. Maybe it's the display, since I still only have the old 1600x panel.
> Maybe it's the display, since I still only have the old 1600x panel.
It is most likely due to poor quality batteries. The "cells" in a 9-cell battery are 18650 batteries, which vary in capacity from 3400mAh at the high end, to counterfeit ones that are labelled to have 1200mAh capacity, but in reality have only a fraction of that. Lithium-ion batteries also have a limited shelf life, so even good quality aftermarket batteries will have a fraction of the rated capacity if they have been sitting in a warehouse for years.
I managed to do this on a 2016 HP laptop, replacing the screen assembly. The laptop base worked great, plugged into a TV via HDMI, but a few days later, after the replacement top half had arrived, plugging it in and there was a pop sound... and a dead laptop.
Battery had been disconnected, also the CMOS battery. I usually remember to hold down the power button for a few seconds. Dang.
Didn't chase this further, as I am clumsy with board-level repairs, and my friend didn't want to throw more money at the project.
Bridging the solder points of the blown micro fuse is a very easy job even if you're clumsy with such jobs (trust me, I'm pretty much a klutz).
It'll be a shame if you just leave the otherwise working laptop dead.
I replaced the terrible 1366x768 panel in my ThinkPad E530 with a FHD panel from a W530. Easy swap and it all "just worked". So even in the Lenovo era they're very easy machines to work on.
Edit to add: Obviously this is an i5 laptop from 2012, much newer than some of the other machines in this thread. Although it's not my daily driver anymore I do still use it for music production.
T500 owner here with (what at the time was quite expensive) on-board plus discrete graphic cards and 1600x1050 screen. After replacing the drive with SSD and upgrading to 6GB, it's working as good as when I bought it in 2009, even with Win10Pro on it.
I wish the multiple replacement batteries I got for it over the years were as performant ;o)
Yep and great battery life and the battery is swappable. So I carry a spare 9 cell which, using ubuntu/i3wm, gives me close to 30 hours.
About dying suddenly; that goes, in my experience, far more for new hardware. Old hardware (especially if we are talking ‘ancient’ hardware like before 1995) has a lot more signs of giving up and a lot easier ways of fixing it when it does. I have machines that dies that first started smoking so you could pinpoint what component gave out. The x220 is not quite that old but because I have a stack of spares but one favorite, I have been able to fix it after it suddenly died quite easily without just replacing the entire thing. That will not happen when your 2018 mbp suddenly dies.
T420s, same generation; I have 3 of them now, SSD + 16GB RAM + secondary large HDD: find it hard to get that combo/performance in a modern laptop, let alone the keyboard quality:)
It's not particularly hard. Just get a T480. Mine has 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD with a 1440p screen.
(I was sure I'd have complaints about the keyboard until I spent a solid month on one and then I raised that the old style keyboard just hurts my hands. It's a little less proof against spills, though the computer underneath is still fine about them.)
Sorry - when I said 'combo', one of the things I cannot easily replicate in modern laptops is small SSD + large HDD.
The other part is keyboard - I absolutely believe that if I used a T480 for a couple of weeks I could get used to them... as long as they were the ONLY thing I ever used. But that's not my use case. I have client laptop, and a lot of regular keyboards for my desktop and laptops. They all have the standard home row (Insert/Home/PgUp, Del/End/PgDwn). It's not that laptops have changed this pattern - it's that each manufacturer and even model changes it _differently_ (and seemingly needlessly), which makes it hard to have a consistent muscle memory for these keys:<
The T480 supports two drives by putting one in the 2242 NVMe slot (where the WLAN card goes if you have one; I just use my phone as a VPN+hotspot). You do need to find an NVMe m.2 2242 drive, but they're fairly easily found today. My personal T480 (I mentioned my work-provided one earlier) is outfitted as such: 1TB NVMe SSD in the 2.5" bay (Lenovo OEM adapter; if you buy the laptop with an HDD instead it comes with a SATA port there), 512GB m.2 2242 SATA SSD. You could put in a 2.5" HDD instead, though given how cheap SSDs are now I think it's probably unnecessary for most use cases.
As for keyboards--that's why I brought my machine to clients when I was a consultant, and specify the same laptop at my new job. ;)
I have a stack of X220s and parts which should last me the rest of my career, or at least until someone makes another laptop with an actual keyboard and a non crippled CPU.
Main thing that worries me is the bios, but coreboot seems to work.
It's funny the one I bought new direct from Lenovo in 2011 is still fine, but I was able to upgrade doubling the core count and getting USB3 by assembling out of I7 parts.
Same. I love it. The things I replaced in the 8 years I've had this machine: Stock HDD -> Samsung 840 SSD, Keyboard (failed within 3yr warranty, they shipped me a new one overnight), and the trackpoint cover. Oh, and the OS, from Windows 7 Pro to XUbuntu. I would love a higher density display but that's about it.
I am thinking of finally upgrading to an X280 or an X1 but I am afraid the keyboard will be too much of a downgrade.
I'm not a fan of the X280 due to some compromises in the form factor; the keyboard feels a little cramped, the screen is pretty low-res. I swapped mine for a T480 and it's been great.
If you were to use it primarily docked and with a Thunderbolt dock, though, I could see it being pretty awesome.
I bought the X1 Carbon Extreme. The classic 7 row keyboard layout is great, but the latest keyboard isn't as bad as I thought. The keys are fine, and I adapted to the layout: delete/home/end are independent from the f keys and easy to reach, page up/down are better than the old previous/next page keys in the classic layout.
Same here, 2010 x220. I've been wanting to upgrade really bad, but all the equivalent still can only take 16 GB, so I'd gain some battery life and some CPU oompf which has never been an issue, but would still have the same memory limit.
Sure the x220 has a good keyboard compared to its replacements but the other thing it has is superior mechanical design: you NEVER have to prye apart plastic pieces. Want to change me more? It's one screw away. HD? One screw. Keyboard? 3 screws. Battery? Push 2 tabs, pull the battery pack.
Sure it's a bit thicker, but I don't understand when that's an issue ever, at least I can use it on trains, cars and even airplanes as long as they don't have those space-invader-reclining-seats.
Every new laptop I look at is just worse design, less upgradable (note: I only look at laptops with track points, the other ones are useless to me). What happened? Why have laptops gotten worse?
Up until last month I used a MBP from early 2011 daily. I did get (over time) 16 GB ram, an SSD, new battery, GPU replace (by Apple for free due to an issue) and a new charger. Lost month it really died though, no idea what it is (not the ssd, not the ram).
I'm still rocking a 2008 Lenovo X200. It's just fine for home use but it's pretty hot, slow (the blame is split between the slow CPU and the slow HDD) and noisy. Also at this age the battery is mostly good for power spikes and the screen is in permanent "night shift mode" (backlight is yellowish). Still chugs along.
TPFC has been my best friend since the T41 (my all-time favorite TP). The noise is also a side effect of replacing the failing original fan with an aftermarket part a few years ago.
I didn't replace the HDD because the longer load times aren't really an issue. It's the parts that require some processing power that are a bummer. And this is also where the noisy part comes in, given that it's in high load for longer stretches. I prioritized lower temps over lower noise, this may have helped with the longevity.
I might throw in an SSD just to show the little workhorse some love.
Apple's replacement program for the 2011 MBPs with bad GPUs just swapped in another motherboard with the exact same faulty GPU. All the 15" 2011s eventually die of the same problem. The clock is ticking on mine.
Yup, I had an official replacement about 5 years in, then a few years after that the replacement died and I paid for another replacement (long story).
Now I'm just waiting for this newest one to kick the bucket. There are already some stability issues. Once it goes, I'm going to try fixing the thermal paste myself (https://www.ifixit.com/Story/20939/MBP_2011_GPU_Nightmare). I have all the parts and tools in my desk drawer ready to go for when it's game time.
I don't really know what I'll do if that doesn't work. I've considered getting a refurbished 2015 MBP.
I like this approach. Sudden demise of older hardware is the always saddening when it occurs. The thing is, if you went old enough to be able to afford spares with the money you saved versus buying new, it is still the better and more frugal solution.
I also am still using a Thinkpad X220 from the same era and have had zero problems with it. I did replace the HDD with an SSD at one point just from a performance aspect. I am starting to use a 3rd gen X1 Carbon but still really enjoy the X220. I still have an X61s I occasionally use as well. The X61s also has an SSD now and upgraded RAM and it will handle most tasks I throw at it. Unfortunately the battery doesn't last these days. Interesting how many Thinkpads are listed here...
Lets see...my x201 still works, my t520 still works (gorgeous screen), t420 still works, my t60 works, my t40 still works, my t23s still works, my very first, a t600[1], _might_ still work.
My X220 does the exact same thing. Usually pretty fine though, but definitely noticeable, multiple times a week. I keep my display timeout pretty low and have a blank screen for the lock screen (slock, i3lock, swaylock).
> 16:9 for a work machine is a bad choice, and the resolution is horrible.
I found a way to turn 16:9 into an advantage: if you go for 70-character columns, you can get a 3-column display in a tiling WM or Emacs if your resolution is 1280 or more pixels horizontally (there are 5-pixel wide fonts out there, but none of them are very legible).
People say this, but it honestly doesn't bother me in a laptop. Longer and thinner is easier to carry in a backpack and if I'm actually working it'll be docked and with external monitors, one of which is rotated to 9:16.
Tell me about it. I still rock my old cracked x220. Most new alternatives (that I'm willing to pay for) would give a much worse keyboard, in exchange for an only slightly better screen.
x86-32 bit though, which is getting dropped more and more lately...
I had that very machine with 1 GB RAM (though with a SSD, its SATA1 (!!)). Couldn't run GNOME 3 on it, but more lightweight stuff like XFce ran great.
It also can't do VMs well since it lacks the hardware extensions, and it can't do Docker either.
The only good about it was the rfkill, the chasis, the ThinkPoint, the detachable battery, the price, the keyboard, and Coreboot.
It has more USB ports than my current MBP which also lacks rfkill and doesn't have a detachable battery though the trackpad is the best (2015 version).
They came in both flavors depending on rev level -- mine is a 64-bit / Core2 Duo version (can't see exactly which CPU at the moment 'cause it's at home) -- it's currently running CentOS 7.6 x86_64 like a champ with no compatibility limitations in re : modern software
Total agree with regard to hardware design / ergo superiority over the MBP -- that's exactly why I made the switch
I do have a spare ready to take over if needed. Old hardware could always die very suddenly. It's a frugal solution, both cheaper and more ecological than buying new.