Lenovo ThinkPad T480s

My ThinkPad (T480s) is turning 8 this year, and only got its first battery replacement last month. I've been carrying it with me everywhere, on every single trip (office or holidays alike), on all continents. In that same timespan, I used up 3 backpacks and 2 suitcases along the same routes. All I want for its replacement is not to cost an insane amount of money because of the made-up by AI components shortage, and maybe now that I'm older I would prefer a smaller form factor like the X1.

I suspect it has improved. I'm getting 8 hours out of my 5 year old T480s and I recall getting 4 hours or so when I bought it.

The Lenovo T14s Gen 6 with Snapdragon X Elite will be available next month[1] - I'd wait for reviews for how the Snapdragon performs, especially with emulating non-native applications. - If you can, wait for Lenovo ThinkPads to eventually get a 50%-70% discount (might have to wait up to a year or so?) Like this one: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/lenovo-thinkpad-l14-... - Avoid Intel processors. They are more expensive and get hotter than AMD CPU's for generally less performance. The ThinkPad T14 AMD Gen 5 looks decent: https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-real-ThinkPad-T480-success... https://frame.work also looks like a decent option, but avoid if you don't want to spend time dealing with little quirks. For example, (a small number of) Framework laptops literally start smoking because an input panel was wired incorrectly (mine included) and they only offer support via email, which is not very fast. --- - Until one of those laptops become available, I have been happily using my ThinkPad T480s for almost 5 years. - My ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which I gave to a friend, is still going strong after 10+ years. - (So a used ThinkPad can be a good option, too!) --- [1]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14s-Gen-6-wit...

tl;dr: Find a used T480s for like $500. Upgrade its RAM and replace its battery if you need. Install PopOS and Regolith PPA. You'll be a happy camper. ---- MORE: Librems looked pretty cool. I might get one next. But I've been running my T480s since 2018 and it is still going strong, I don't imagine I'll replace it unless I drop it on hard ground... wait I've done that. or spill coffee on it... wait I did that too. Did I mention they were durable as heck? For software: I run PopOS for ubuntu-easy software and compatbility with a Regolith PPA because i3 window managers are amazing. Since its a thinkpad, you can swap out and replace most parts easily including the battery when it eventually wears out (literally takes <10 minutes).

I'll be the guy to recommend/shill Lenovo's Thinkpad range, I've been using my T480s for three years now, struggle with a reason to change to anything else. The trackpad isn't as good, goes without saying as Apple have a faustian deal on their trackpad tech, but apparently some folks have replaced the T480's trackpad with the glass one from the the X1 [1] with great results - something I'm thinking of once my T480s goes out of warranty. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/fo6hrc/i_replaced...

Reading about so many people daily-driving laptops built around a decade ago, if not more (which includes myself, happy owner of a T480s), and not suffering any major penalty in terms of overall usability and battery life, it really shows that the returns of having more CPU power/smaller lithography have been marginal for a very, very long time (CPUs haven't been an enabler for new use-cases/a major incentive to upgrade a laptop in recent history, AFAICT). That's not to say there hasn't been progress in this space, but I'm also amused by the many comments along the lines of "my 2020 M1 is so revolutionary that it's all I need in 2026" in every other Apple thread. Probably all we've been needing has been some 14/10nm 8th/10th Gen Core i7 in a decent package? And about package, how come that this era's ThinkPads and pro Dells/HPs get a bigger "love-factor" than their contemporary intel MacBooks? Now, reading more into it¹, it appears that what Intel was shipping 8th-generation Intel Core i5 8257Us (i.e. a 2017 Coffee Lake chip) in its MacBook Pros for as late as 2020, before switching over to the M series. No wonder they weren't getting much love! ¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro_(Intel-based)#Tech...

My t480s is also very light as is the framework 13. I was actually surprised how heavy the m1 pro was when i got it, much heavier than the intel 13 before it, but more like the macbook from 2012.

You are right... I personally own a T480s and it is a remarkable device, which can be repaired just like the framework (although most parts are no longer available new). I added a glass trackpad (which is way better than the original) and ordered a WQHD Display + Cable to upgrade from FullHD to WQHD (2560x1440?). Batteries can be replaced, RAM can be upgraded (in a way, part of it is soldered) and everything has a unique part number that can be easily researched. However, newer Lenovo Devices (like the Lenovo ThinkPad X9-15 Aura Edition which I would love to buy) are not that repairable any more. Sometimes I think it is for a reason, sometimes I think it may just be no longer reasonable. Even Framework claimed that their Desktop Ryzen 395+ RAM timings were to tight to allow using LPCAMM2 and if you'd like to get the last bit of performance out of a machine, short traces and soldered connections may be the only remaining option, even for SSDs. Additionally, OLEDs didn't make it into Frameworks notebooks yet and that might be a similar reason - harder repairability. Whatever the reason is, I like Frameworks philosophy of LISTENING to customers and maybe their success has changed the way bigger vendors produce there stuff (if only a little bit). I'm not expecting Apple to do this, but at least HP and Dell seem to have slightly changed their path of vendor locking to be more repairable again. I would bet that this story of a failed BIOS update reaches the support anytime soon and…

Framework seems pretty popular here in general, but nobody really seems to talk about how repairable enterprise laptops are. Some laptops have clips around the edge of the bottom panel to hold it in place, which frequently break. On my brother's T480s, those clips were made out of metal and held in with screws, meaning they were themselves replaceable. More recently I worked on a Dell Precision 7550 laptop, and if you crack it open everything is labeled just like a Framework. Also, before selling it I ran the onboard diagnostic. I was surprised when it told me to check the touchpad cable, because the touchpad was working fine. Took it apart again and yep, the touchpad cable was loose. Framework really caught everyone's attention with the fun DIY repair angle, but Dell/Lenovo/HP have been selling repairable laptops to IT departments for decades. In addition, they're a much more mature product -- been selling laptops for much longer at much higher volumes. Thinkpads are the prototypical example but I actually like Dells better. Many of them are Ubuntu-certified as well.

After this Eee PC I bought a 2014 MacBook Pro, again amazing machine. Used it through out my CS studies and beyond. After that I had some different machines from my employers but my personal laptop is a ThinkPad t480s, nice machine for Linux.

I've got a T480s that has 40GB of RAM (32GB SODIMM + 8GiB soldered). Works fine. Is the T480 different?

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 had a Thinkpad T480s that was absolutely perfect with Linux (Mint), although very underpowered, but that was due to Intel CPU. This year I got a T14s Gen6 AMD as a replacement, and it's essentially unusable on Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Mint), but works fine with Fedora and with Windows. On Ubuntu and Mint, X just locks up every 80 seconds or so, and I have to hard-reboot it (or switch ttys and restart X). Nothing in syslog, nothing in dmesg, nothing in X.org.log to show what might be going on.

I had a work-issued Dell Latitude for several years (2021 model, 11th gen Intel). Overall it was a mediocre machine, but battery life really sucked (like, max 2 hours of light browsing). Several years older Thinkpad T480s gave me way longer usage. Older Dell models had better general build quality IMO, but also problems with expanding batteries. For personal stuff just dual boot my old Thinkpad, at work I use Macbook.

go for it (upgrade to linux). My T480s is still my goto laptop when I'm travelling (if I lose it, no biggie - encrypted home dir, meanwhile it can last for 5-7 hours playing videos, running webapps etc), versus my work laptop on windows 11 dying after 2+ hours.

Correct. I've got a ThinkPad T480s. Hibernation is disabled, but suspend works great. Keeps charge for at least a week. Running recent Debian. I think that Lenovo, for all their faults, just does better with Linux than Framework.

I did a lot of research regarding the trackpad situation on modern Linux and there are several reasons the macOS experience feels better for most people. The most important one is indeed SOFTWARE/DRIVER implementation. Using a hackintosh, the feeling is not the same as a MacBook, but close (depending on which Hardware is used). Furthermore there is ONE UI framework (AppKit?!) which makes implementing things like inertial scolling and rubberbanding pretty easy in one Place. On Linux you have multiple App Frameworks (GTK, QT, ...), which is significantly harder to coordinate and the backwards compatible X11 stuff. Did you know that libinput has only one permanent maintainer (Peter Hutterer)? Of course the amount of Hardware to support is significantly lower on apples side, which makes optimization easier. Still, all in all I think the Linux touchpad experience is very close to macOS on my Lenovo T480s with a glass touchpad from a yoga 7 in Arch / GNOME. The only thing that really is not as good and what bothers me From time to time is Palm detection.

And even the T14s (gen 1) has a "cheap" trackpad with a plastic foil on top instead of a glass surface. The day before yesterday I did the upgrade from foil to glass on my T14s and it isn't the big leap I was hoping for. Sure, friction went down a bit but precession and gesture detection were good before already. The same upgrade on a T480s was a bigger improvement. Compared to my MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) the trackpads of my ThinkPads are always worse. Overall I'm in the same situation as the author of the article (if you substitute Arch for pop!_os with Cosmic) and totally agree with him.