I bought a t460s i5 model with 20gb of RAM and replaced the second internal battery for a total of $180 in the US. Other than the screen not being the best (but I mostly work in terminal so it wasn't a big deal for me), it has been a great laptop with great battery life.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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got a t450s for 100€ and its pretty amazing!
Gonna drop Novacustom/System76 here. Laptops with open firmware are key
I'm a fan of the t14. However, the keyboard has increasingly gotten shit
T480 or Framework
I hear a lot about the t480, how does it hold up compared to a p50?
I have no personal experience from any P-series, but my friend has a P50 or P52 as his work machine and he has daily drive that for years in CAD and he loves it everyday. The chsssis is same qaulity as T-series.
If you want to support Linux devs and continued development, I would buy from System76, Tuxedo Computers, or even Framework.
If you're going to buy used then yeah the Thinkpad is fine.
Framework laptops are op buy it once use it for ever
They're also significantly more expensive than ThinkPads and might be a bit much for what OP plans to do
But it'll arrive with Linux and it'll work. You also don't have to spend a week googling wifi chips to see if they'll work.
Just throw in a $20 Intel Wi-Fi card if necessary, and don't buy the first models of the latest CPU, as with any manufacturer, and Thinkpads are some of the another for Linux.
Thinkpads are locked down, the bios will refuse to boot if you install a non-Lenovo wifi card.
This is a prime example of why we should be supporting manufacturers that ship open source firmware like coreboot and not the proprietary junk Lenovo ships.
I have been very happy with my X1 Extreme. I did have an issue with the keyboard and later the touchpad, but I paid for onsite support so it wasn’t a big deal. They came out a day later and fixed it right there at my dining table.
I would say buying a ThinkPad is worth it for their paid support options alone. When I had a keyboard problem on my old MacBook, AppleCare took like 10 days to fix it. Lenovo’s premium support is reasonably priced and they don’t mess around. A person picks up the phone when you call and they treat you like you are important. If it’s a hardware problem, they are not fucking around. They don’t care how it happened or ask a bunch of questions. It’s covered and they are fixing it. Fast.
The X1 is also super easy to work on. It’s easily disassembled with normal tools and upgradable parts like SSD and RAM are right there when you open it up. They don’t do dumb things like solder in the RAM or leave you without an open slot. This thing is designed to be repairable.
Linux support is flawless.