alt Hacker NewsI maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
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>Despite their age, these business-class laptop are still serviceable and useful for web browsing, ‘office work’, and light coding.
In the world of Javascript frameworks where you download and execute 100 MB for a web application?
In the world of desktop applications written in Javascript?
My W530 is 13-ish years old and it's still my daily driver. It doesn't travel anymore (now wired into my desk) but still works great running Win 10. I code on this thing all day and so far have only had to replace a fan and give it an SSD upgrade.
I have bought laptop in 2013 asus rog gaming one i suppose before it as well. Still rocking with i7. But it can still work with windows 11 but tpm makes it useless. So I have tried windows 11 but it hangs a bit linux runs smoothly.
I still drive a Dell Precision M6600 from 2011, and liken the build quality, robustness and modularity of that era of the product line to the Thinkpads being discussed here.
I'm overdue to upgrade, but know I won't love its replacement anywhere near as much.
Respect! I still run x230 with Linux for fun and so my kids can smash the keys on the keyboard (btw imho the keyboard feeling is better than in any laptop I used since then) and they feel good about themselves that they do the same thing as dad
I used my T420 up till 2021.
I upgraded the screen to a 1920x1080 IPS panel.
SSD.
I have a full-fledged workstation for anything that needs heavy lifting and I primarily used the laptop as a device to remote into my workstation.
It was perfectly fine for standard web browsing and youtube.
X220 owner here. You will have to pry it from my dead cold hands. I don't use anything that can't run on it well, my workflow is mostly shell based. Even Firefox don't do that bad when JS is disabled.
I have a 14 year old T420, I upgraded the processor, ram, hard drive, battery, and wifi chip several years ago which really sped it up and gave it more usable life. Still runs great for most things.
As an E15 Gen 2 owner, I'm in awe of you wizards keeping these ancient ThinkPads alive - my modern entry-level machine suddenly feels inadequate despite having 4x the processing power!
This is a fantastic breakdown, and it nails something I think a lot of people feel but don’t always articulate: modern hardware is often objectively better, but not necessarily more resilient
What is the point of a reparable upgradable machine if the components are all ancient and a used m1 MacBook with just as much ram as the maximum on a x220 costs 500 dollars?
I have a stack of T40 and T60 series in my shed. All 32bit processors, but man what beautiful machines. I kinda feel like the guy with the classic Thunderbird in his garage.
My coworkers understand and envy my Lenovo e570, they just wish Apple or Dell sold one like I have new at a reasonable price.
I can not fault them. I wish GM still sold the S10 pickup.
> I continue to use my MacBook because I like using proprietary software like ... Alfred
Is this like saying you still boot Windows occasionally to use the Start menu?
I have an ASUS laptop that is borderline unusable in three years, the only saving grace is the RTX 3060 which I use for gaming and occasionally ollama.
My primary computer, the one I'm typing on right now, is a 13-year old 2012 Mac Mini.
It couldn't be more fine. It does everything I need it to do.
My last laptop, dell 14r i3 2nd gen, retired after 12 years.
It still works fine but the processor was slowing me down. New one's i3 12gen cost me $300
This article compares two deliberately-different platforms.
One is vertically integrated and designed for thermal performance, lightness, thinness and attractiveness.
One is modular, and sacrifices thermal performance, lightness, thinness and attractiveness in order that the user can replace their own battery / RAM / etc
IMO the latter is a false economy. Yes, you can upgrade your RAM, but what about the bus speed, and limitations of the motherboard and CPU? You end up with a Frankenstein's monster of new and old parts, which are constrained by the lowest common denominator, and only useful for basic tasks.
Apple devices have high resale value. Far better, IMO, to sell your laptop after a few years, as a cohesive, intact package that retains some residual value, and then buy a new one with wholly modern parts that make sense together.
My X201t still works fine, only replaced it because I found newer desktops in a dumpster. Still no laptops in dumpsters though.
Wish there was a company that would build upgrades to old ThinkPads. A new main oard that would fit snugly in my x230 for example.
I can still run my X60 from 2006. Still, I am not sure about the premise here. My Macbook Air from 2013 also runs very solidly.
I always have a Carbon x1 lying around (old one) just because it's a great design to me being slim and nice keyboard
Writing this on my 16GB RAM i7 X230... but I really miss my X61s w/SXGA+ LED mod, perfect keyboard for my sized hands.
I still use my X1 carbon gen 1. 8gb ram is getting a little bit tight these days though. Sadly not upgradable.
On a T480 secondhand with a wonky keyboard. Where are you guys sourcing keyboards from?
Hm, I find that comparison a bit off. As a lover of both, Thinkpads (original IBM and Lenovo followups) AND macbooks, I would like to say that it IS possible to maintain macbooks, at least the older ones. My 2012'er MacBook Pro is holding up, parts like the sata-cable and worn out fan were replaced and the ram was upgraded. My Powerbook 530 hat replacable parts, even the G3 Pismo(?) one and an white ibook g3 is also serviceable if you're patient. Same happend for the thinkpads 360, 570, 600, X41t, X61s, T60, T61... hell. We even had chinese colleagues ordering for motherboards for us from china with changed firmware to run 201'er boards in X200 tablets. I became frustrated on thinkpads when Lenovo tried to mimick Apples lightweight AIO design and their first chicklet keyboard frustrated me. I changed all to apple then, because if both do weird things, why not using the more power efficent M1 (imho, maybe that has changed.)
Do you remember the old thinkpad bios? Where the pointer was a flying duck? Do you remember opening a thinkpad and everything was labelled with colors and had small handles to change components quickly? Do remember changing ram on a powerbook? And do you remember how hard it was to find a new scsi disc drive for them?
Recently, I got an nearly mint T420 at work as I needed something for a mobile job and I just felt my love for the black boxes again. Damn, I miss those days but I also would miss my retina (apple) or 4k screen (Lenovo) if I had to decide between either an old machine or a new one. Luckily, I can keep a few
Same but with my desktop computer. Its going on 16 years and still runs like new.
My computer is about that age as well, didn't know that was abnormal or special.
I still have my T61 thinkpad from 2007. Other than the dead battery, it works great.
I have an x31 from 2003/4 I'd love to rescue but the bios won't boot.
Meanwhile an old pentium processor still operates nuclear plant in india ..
the most annoying thing about new laptops is how difficult is to find replacement batteries that can be trusted and work well. The battery situation is a downgrade compared to the previous pluggable ones.
If everything is modelar and can be replaced is the think pad just a box?
Mine is 12 years old, battery is dead but I use it as a server.
Something about the font on this blog is not friendly to my eyes.
Reading this from my t420s, it's only 11yrs old.
Same, but just because I'm lazy and cheap.
Here's what happened to the thinkpads I've owned... R51 - sold R50p - died (bad VRAM) X201 - Ethernet chip died, speakers died, bad keyboard - sold X230 - died X230 - sold in relatively good health X1 carbon gen 4 - best laptop I've owned out of all of the previous thinkpads by far
People go on about thinkpad reliability, but I've had two straight up die on me...
To be frank, I don't get the hype for the older models. They're slow and clunky. The newer chiclet keyboards are fine once you get used to them.
damn that green indicator is really sexy
ha! I have one of those at home. I think it still works too.
I mean I know people who are still using 2010 MacBook Pro's with modern macOS versions. Just about any problem is fixable, it just depends on your skill level or how much money you wanna put into it. Another reminder to use whatever computer you want. All it has to be is the best for you.
WALL OF TEXT WARNING - SORRY! :-D
Recently pulled out a fairly modern Dell XPS that had a great OLED screen to read this thread and it was having some type of software or hardware issue.
Booted up my old reliable Thinkpad T420 (bought it from a Russian kid in SF years ago who upgraded it with an SSD and 12gb of ram when it was close-ish to new - it even has Cyrillic on the keyboard since he bought it in Russia originally!!). Besides a few windows updates and requiring a new battery (25$ aftermarket) the thing works great.
Forgot how damn nice those old Thinkpad scissor switch (I think that's the term) keyboards were - it truly feels almost mechanical keyboard like with a lot of travel. Did anyone ever sell a thin compact desktop keyboard with these style switches ? I could actually see it being very popular with people who like very low profile keyboards (like Apple desktops come with) but want something with more feedback.
I considered briefly upgrading the mainboard and internals to something more modern (there's an aftermarket Chinese company that sells replacements) as I think the T420 is the last Thinkpad to have the nice keyboards and key layout. Then again it was handling everything I threw at it without issues (even plays 4K YouTube fine!) probably because it has a decent i5 CPU from when they still had hyper threading and dedicated Nvidia graphics (the old semi "Quadro" NVS line 4200m). So many little features on these that are unique - instead of a complicated backlit keyboard for example it has a little downward facing LED light on the screen that can be activated by a hot key and illuminates the keyboard nicely at night. It's not as pretty or fancy but I love the simplicity and the fact you can also use it to illuminate a paper notebook or anything else.
One thing that does worry me is that Nvidia hasn't released updated drivers for this ancient chip since 2021 and I suspect eventually compatability will be an issue. I did have to disable hardware acceleration in the latest version of Libre Office (on Windows 10) to get it to work at all. I noticed in the BIOS it has options for Nvidia Optimus (meaning it also technically has an integrated intel GPU - currently disabled) so maybe worst case I will have to one day rely on that.
Thing is a real brick and battery life sucks but I also forgot how nice it is to have so many ports - it has dedicated eSATA (still super useful with an external SNES cartridge like enclosure to quickly read internal 2.5" and 3.5" drives) and a slim card slot where I had added two USB 3 ports. CD player wont see much use these days but a dedicated full size Ethernet port is great and an empty (I think they called it Ultrabay?) slot means I could theoretically throw in another battery or some random accessory. Also has full size display port for modern TVs and displays and oldschool VGA for legacy stuff. There's a fingerprint read I've never used (wonder if this even works with modern Windows?). Forgot I had even upgraded the WiFi chip in this thing (no soldering!) so it was getting great internet speeds as well.
I will say the cooling and fan situation though really suck - I forgot how damn loud the thing is with the fan even at 2/3 speed. I remember re-pasting the heat sink years ago thinking it might improve the situation and it didn't do much. Laptop was hitting 95C under load at first but after a little tweaking in the BIOS and the 99% trick to disable Turbo Boost it idles around 45-50C and hits about 85C briefly for high loads.
Would love a modern version of the T420 with a nice 16:10 OLED, the exceptional keyboard, tons of ports and expansion and repair-ability, a modern cooling solution, and less power hungry CPU. I really don't care if my laptop is thicker or a little heavier - the screen size is what restricts what bags I can put it in and the 14" diagonal format is pretty ideal. 13" I find too small and 16"-17" is getting way too big. I kind of even have grown to like the thicker bezels in a world that seems obsessed with minimising them - they really don't add too much overall size and I suspect it must contribute to the durability of the laptop and screen in general.
And of course gotta love a good track point mouse! With the mousepad disabled and my thumbs on the track point buttons you can transition from typing to moving the cursor around without ever needing to remove your hands from then keyboard - always loved the efficiency. I've had Dell and HP business class laptops with track points that also worked well but Thinkpad always had the best feeling thumb buttons.
Seriously though - why are there no slim scissor switch external keyboards out there ?! A compact 87 key format one would be the perfect travel keyboard (bonus if it had a track point and thumb buttons)!
I mean sure, being able to keep a 17 year old laptop is alive, is awesome...
but why?
I get special hardware needs to live for a long time, like, an arcade machine, specialized equipment or something. but some random laptop?
what can it do, that a modern computer cant, apart from being repaired easily (lets ignore framework laptops for the sake of argument)
if his point is he just wants a framework laptop, it already exists.
Sorry but rifling through your weblog there is a ton of freak shit posted dog
hell same
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I don't understand why anyone still buys Apple products now? They are designed to fail at a certain age and cost a fortune and can't compete on tech specs.