Lenovo ThinkPad T430s

I used my ThinkPad T430s for 12 years. I got it second hand from a developer I looked up to when I was in college and it carried me through a large part of my career. Loved that machine to death. When I finally replaced it with a Framework a few years back I've regretted every second of it. The ThinkPad still lives. I refurbished the batteries and slapped ChromeOS Flex on it and donated it to a Ukrainian refugee who needed a Chromebook for school. It'll probably live another 10 years. I loved that thing to death. And I'm just happy it is still being used.

I have a T430s which was handed down to me by my boss 10 years ago. It has i5 from that time, 8Gb RAM. I'm still doing web app development on it same as 10 years ago and i don't feel any need to change it. I'm actually afraid there is no better laptop i could change it for when mine dies. Also i can't imagine no better keyboard :(

We have a 2008 Macbook (aluminum body, I forget if it's a pro), which my wife passed along to my three-year-old son. He is not the gentlest with it, and it's still running strong. We have a 2013 Macbook pro that's been nothing but flaky. Living far from any Apple store, it's a pain to deal with. We fully expect the 2008 to outlast the 2013. Apple hardware is great when it works; it just feels like a crapshoot whether you get a good model or not. My 2013 T430s is still going strong, and I expect to use it another 3 years. I'll upgrade to a larger SSD and more RAM at some point, but I love the hardware. I take care of it well, and it's holding up as expected.

I know you are being facetious that there are a few that are a little bit too persnickety with old ThinkPads, but if they used a known distribution on the said 13-year old ThinkPad (that would probably be in the T430 territory), would it be better? I have a T430s and that is still a fine computer, even if my primary one is an 8 year old ThinkPad. Maybe those same people can just prefer using OpenCode. It's at least free software, particularly if that old computer is running only free software with free firmware, and OpenCode can run free models.

I loved my T430s. I swapped the keyboard out for a backlit one, and took out the DVD drive and replaced it with a hot swappable second battery. I was running Ubuntu MATE on it, it worked very well for me. The ThinkLight was also great. I now have a second hand T480s which is also a wonderful machine, but not as amazing as that T430s. I gave my T430s to my mother who uses it to run software (albeit via Windows now) for her sewing machine.

I appreciate all the innovations that him and his team brought to the ThinkPad, since this is my main set of laptops. Lenovo, on the other hand, has been a hit or miss for awhile. I had a T570, which was horrible; one problem after the next. It's just a source of parts now. There are some design issues with the T480 (no center screw in the front/bottom). Also with the T480 is, what it seems to be, the slightly flaky USB-C connectors. The external keyboard (non-bluetooth), while very useful for 2 years, has always been a struggle with the flimsy micro-usb, leaving me to hack that. But now, I somehow now lost an important key on it, I just gave up and bought a nice Tex Shinobi. The only stable-ish one is the one I am on now, a T470p. It's not been perfect, but it's the best designed TP I had (my T430s is overall good, except for battery power, but the internals for those old machines are a chore to get through.) I have a P14s at work. It's OK, but nothing to write home about. If all these TPs die, and Framework has a trackpoint version + delivers to my country, I would like to get that instead.

I recently installed NetBSD on a Thinkpad T430s, it is surprisingly snappy and usable, except when firefox is running. With i3wm, tmux and helix with clangd it is a capable development machine with a surprisingly modern feel, only the compile times give away that the machine is from the early 2010s. Even WiFi is working, and pkgsrc is fast and well-stocked with the newest software.

I second this as a owner of a bricked 2013 MBA with a dead logic board. Bought a Lenovo T430S for $450 a few years back and couldn't be happier with it. Never buying Macbook again.

I've used the same approach for my last two laptops. Currently on a T430s. Only thing I'd add is to get a laptop with a integrated Intel Graphics card if you're not doing anything that's graphics intensive. You won't have to fight with proprietary drivers, and the built in display manager / keyboard shortcuts will work properly.

I have a thinkpad t430s that I love. I got an ssd, and traded the DVD drive for a bay battery. I run ubuntu 12.04, and the only issue I have is that sleep stops working every 10-20 days. I restart it about that often anyways, so I haven't even tried to diagnose the issue. I had read complaints about the screen, but I do mostly web development and I like the screen as well as any other laptop I've had. I am not a gamer at all, if that affects people's evaluation of screen quality. I like the trackpad just fine, and don't have any issues with the keypad.

I ordered it with the stock DVD in. I think I ordered the bay battery from amazon. I'll check when I get home. It was an easy swap. If you haven't heard this advice, I highly suggest you order the cheapest configuration you can from lenovo. Then order memory from crucial or newegg. You can save upwards of $100 over upgrading with lenovo. I like the t430s form factor much better than my wife's MacBook Pro.

Thinkpad T430S, running Ubuntu 12.04. I use emacs for the most part and focus on django development. I had been reading mixed reviews about Thinkpads for a long time, but finally jumped in and bought one. It's easily the best computer I've ever owned, and it makes me want to work. I love the keyboard, the display is exactly what I need, it's easy to carry around. If you go with a Thinkpad, buy the bare model that you want from Lenovo and then buy upgrades from crucial.com or another supplier; it's much cheaper than building the machine you want on Lenovo. I replaced the dvd with a bay battery, and happily get enough battery life.

Other than some Macs, the screens all suck. I am fond of Lenovo other than the screen resolution - matte is important to me. I swapped my 2007 vintage T61 for a T430s. Everything works fine out of the box. I did replace the DVD drive with another battery since this model doesn't have the stick out batteries like other models do. The specs are a dual core/quad threaded i7-3520M, 16GB of RAM, 500GB 7200rpm spinning disk and a 250GB mSata SSD stick. I got the version with a Thunderbolt port although I haven't tried using it. IIRC you have to get the i7 and no Nvidia to get Thunderbolt. Memory, drives and msata are cheaper anywhere other than Lenovo. For Lenovo stuff I highly recommend the forums at notebookreview.com.

I've got the Lenovo ThinkPad T430s (The i7 edition that includes a thunderbolt port). "stock" Ubuntu 12.04 runs great, bar an issue with suspend/resume.. But - Grabbing the official test packages[1] for the 3.5.0 kernel have sorted everything.. I don't have any Thunderbolt devices to test with, but DisplayPort monitor's certainly work on the Thunderbolt port.. EDIT: I should add.. avoid ANY laptops from ANY brand that include "dual" graphics eg NVidia "Optimus" etc. I've got the Intel HD 4000 card, it runs Unity perfectly.. [1]: http://packages.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/223/build...

Thinkpad is a good choice. If you live in the US and you budget is $300 you can easily get a T430s (s is thinner than non-s). If you are patient and willing to spend some time on ebay you could find X240 or T440 under $300. I would try to get FHD IPS display. If you can't find one, you can get one for ~$60-$80 and replace it yourself (very easy to do and manuals and howto videos made by lenovo are available online). EDIT: Many used thinkpads come with HDD. I highly recommend replacing it with SSD. I got the cheapest 120GB sandisk SSD from amazon (~$50) for a X230 I got from ebay and I am very happy with it.