Nobody answered yet so I'll try :D
Grab whatever best deal you'll find, because prices on the used market, especially for 5+year old devices, don't always follow a logic. So make sure to look out for the X390, X13, L13 yoga, etc, as well. Newer but they might be cheaper!
Personally I never bought Yogas so cant comment on that vs regular thinkpad. I had a touch T480 but the display was too dim to use outside (so I put a bright 1440p panel on it).
They are talking about removing the obligation to pedal, not the option (which I agree with you, it's a good option to have)
I think it's a very sensible decision, I'm from a EU country with 250W limit which is very anemic for the dangerous city streets we have in my town. A throttle is much safer especially when starting from a stop, but it's currently illegal to have on.
Best of luck to the devs, very exiting! Here is the link to pmOS wiki to follow the progress. Caleb is working on it apparently, one of the main people we have to thank for sdm845 (like Oneplus 6) mainlining effort
Web bloat, ads and trackers is an example of inaccessibility that I can think of for the treasure trove that is iFixit especially since they started accepting full guides by external contributors (which means also guides that could have ended up on a more accessible website). Videos should be backed up and not simply embedded youtube that can have georestriction or be down for any reason. We should have the guides distributed like we would wikipedia..in general, they/we can do better.
My other gripe with iFixit is their sponsor aspect, pretty much any big company outside of Apple has a big fat logo on their website, as an Ally to repair. It's cheap PR while they continue to produce massive amounts of ewaste. Why promote them indefinitely for a single collaboration if they don't apply those principles to the remaining 99% of their catalogs?
But I still read their blog (via RSS) and use and suggest their guides, contributing when I can. They have been and still are a big catalyst for Right to Repair.
Ahah dude I love your fender :D
What's the screen like? I upgraded the panel on both my thinkpads so I can help if you have questions :)
E14 are pretty modern so I can't think of many useful mods, maybe ugrading the speakers? It's something I want to try on my T440S
Anyway congrats on your lappy, hope you enjoy it for many years to come
I agree, and despite maybe too many competing flavors it looks like a great recipe to pick up some tricks for a newly veg. So thanks :) and congrats I guess OP, you're clearly skilled and unafraid lol
I think they're the same thing as cable holders/organizers
I've found that L and E series seemingly mirror the T line but with a couple of years of delay, so overall with time it gets worse repairability wise, but gets better with things like 16:10 screen aspect ratio.
I haven't researched the 2024 T series, is it noteworthy other than having some models with ram slots? Feels like some hype is going on. In any case, expect ~2026 L,E series to have similarly constructed models.
Long story short: nowadays 65W-capable USB C powerbanks make more sense in my opinion, than multiple Thinkpad batteries. And they work with all laptops.
Yep just like the S versions they have a double battery. This is great because the total can get close to 100Wh (when using the 72Wh external) but hot-swapping requires an internal battery in good shape which is not so easy to come by. From Lenovo they can be very expensive or not available. From third parties you're always gambling that those batteries will play nice with the proprietary Thinkpad EC.
I bought both (3rd-party) batteries for a T440S, and the internal would suddenly show up as 0% every couple of weeks, and had to be "reset" by opening the base, unplugging and plugging it in..in the end I just put the original internal back; the external has been amazing instead, and it does basically all of the work since it's the 72Wh version. Fun fact: these laptops work perfectly with only one of the batteries attached.
I'd say no more than 200$ for the T480. Since you mentioned portability, it's not very portable compared to the S models of the T series and even less to the X series.
One advantage of the t480 is having two memory slots for easy and cheap ram upgrades, with all others you have to make sure they have at least 16gb (or 8gb soldered on one side)
The portability carries a big bump in price, if you see a cheap T480S, X1 carbon 6th, X390, you might be happier with those.
We also have to consider that from 300$ upwards we are talking Ryzen Zen 2 (used) prices, maybe from the L series but you might catch the occasional T14 AMD for 400$ which is a considerable upgrade in every metric.
The're right, another thing you notice in a dry house (like Swiss homes in winter pounding crazy heating) is that you can get even painful (to the hand) mini electric shocks just walking around with slippers/crocs and then touching the metal kitchen vent, chargers..unless you ground yourself once in a while. Never happens in a humid climate/house.