Lenovo ThinkPad T480

The T480 that I got is the worst laptop purchase I have done in years. The m2 port is not bolt in but you will need to buy an adapter if you want to install a second drive if your configuration is only 1 drive. The USB-C charging port had problem quickly after a year where it don't receive charge unless you put it in the JUST the right position and pray to god that it will keep charging. And the USB-C card is part of the mobo so you are looking at $700-800 mobo swap to fix the problem.

sadly my t480's usb c port is no longer able to charge the device, do you know of a way to fix it without replacing the mobo / getting god tier soldering skills? i'm kinda attached since i did a bunch of upgrades like two heatpipes and glass touchpad, sad to see my laptop from college die for a reason like the port dying

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 switched to a T480 from a crappy macbook pro 2017. I enjoyed the switch to use linux fulltime but ultimately I was let down by the Intel processor that would throttle very badly. Compiling code was a nightmare. Ive since switched back to the M1 macbook pro which I plan to keep as long as possible and probably switch to linux when macos inevitably decides my hardware is too old to support. I would love to have a non-apple future, though.

On a T480 secondhand with a wonky keyboard. Where are you guys sourcing keyboards from?

I have a T420. A few years ago I switched to a slightly used T480, keyboard was a huge downgrade and the whole series can get really stupid USBC issues. After half a year or so it didn't dock anymore and I got an X1, basically the same laptop glad I found it without touch and the 'bright screen' because the screen is barely good enough, keyboard is the same and USBc already started to get finicky. Meanwhile my T420 still runs like on day one (which was already 5 years old when I got it, and travelled 1+ years with me in a backpack), the screen works in direct sunlight and it's not even the best of its series, hardware still perfect. Fat SSD + 32GB Ram and you can barely tell how old it is.

Yeah there are at least two X230's powered on in my home as we speak. To me that was the last good keyboard. I got an X250 and it's not even close. Same with T480… really disappointing. Using the X230 (and X220) is always a pleasure with the solid-feeling keyboard that makes it easy to type accurately on. I mis-position my fingers on the newer keyboards and make typos on them frequently because it's just one big flat surface (or feels as such).

Quite possible the trackpoint was genuinely worse in 2007 than in 2001. Like Windows 95 itself, huge amounts of human factors research went into making it worthwhile when it was new and unproven, with usability studies deriving the optimal curves and constants. People described it as feeling like telepathy. And like Windows itself, some time between then and now, everyone seems to have forgotten that it's a hard problem and just started YOLOing whatever random stuff "feels right". Rant: On my T480 - an extremely popular, flagship Thinkpad - the trackpoint is unusable out of the box on Linux - it crawls at a snails pace unless I manually max out the sensitivity in sysfs, and also fiddle with xinput (no configuration is possible on Wayland). What is worse, infuriatingly, the curve seems to frequently change whenever libinput is updated, requiring me to go and find another set of fiddles to bring it roughly into line. This is clearly not the output of a structured, empirical, research-based approach to the issue, but of someone just fucking around with the constants for one reason or another. It does not feel like telepathy, and it makes my wrist hurt in short order if I overuse it (luckily the laptop also has a generous touchpad). I dunno, maybe it's better on Windows. But I'd be amazed if anyone cared enough to make sure that 90s usability research was still valid, on modern variants of trackpoint sensors and modern high resolution screens.

In their three-year existence (during COVID, no less), they've shipped five different 13 inch laptop models: three Intel generations, a Chromebook edition of their latest Intel generation, and (most recently) an AMD variant. That's incredibly impressive by itself for such a new company, but on top of all that the parts from these systems are interchangeable and readily available at reasonable prices. Someone with a first-gen Intel Framework can upgrade to the latest AMD model for as little as $449.00, or around $500 for a bundle with RAM and the wifi module that you'll likely also need. If you're willing to stay a release behind (not possible with their AMD variant yet), you can remain almost current for much less money, at least judging by their pricing on their previous-gen Intel motherboards. I just ordered an AMD Framework 13 to replace my Thinkpad T480. My previous personal laptop was a Thinkpad T410, which lasted me for seven years. My T480 Thunderbolt controller died due to a firmware bug that I didn't update to fix in time. In addition to the loss of Thunderbolt, it's lead to some other issues (such as a ~30-second pause resuming from sleep) that make it annoying to use. Fixing it would require a motherboard replacement, which iFixit rates as "difficult". [1] https://frame.work/products/mainboard-kit-amd-ryzen-7040-ser...

I got my dad a Mac about 10 years ago, and never got into the experience. I mean I got it for him, used a couple of days to tell him where was everything, delivered and then came back to my trusted thinkpad with i3. About a year and a half I got a macbook from my employer even as a replacement from a T480 which was awful because of thermal throttling. After a couple of months, I got the m1 macbook air as my personal laptop. I guess the experience with the software I commonly use got better, but I feel like the biggest reason is that the experience with other laptops just became worse.