I have a T490s from last year for work. I just had the keyboard (well, entire top assembly) replaced today via the on-site warranty because the touchpad was ghosting and the physical buttons had stopped working, i.e. it was basically impossible to use without an external keyboard. This also meant that the left shift key no longer comes loose all the time, which it started doing soon after I got it. It also has a couple of dead pixels, though I don't care too much about those. Battery life at this point is less than one hour, after which it cuts out with no working. That might be a Linux issue, but the battery reports its charge state at ~25% when it cuts out. I had hoped they would replace it as well, but my work didn't get the extended warranty for the battery, which is a separate thing. That means that the warranty is only one year, and as such Lenovo want 300 EUR or so to do the replacement, and that's if I send it to them (onsite I imagine it'll be even more expensive). All in all, I'm not very happy with the machine. Overall feel is OK (not fantastic), but the random shut-downs and keyboard wonkiness are extremely off-putting, as is the development in the battery life - it barely works as a laptop anymore. My personal laptop is an almost antique X200, I've gone through a couple since 2008, but they always feel dependable in a way that this just doesn't, and I can't see myself getting a new Lenovo now based on this experience. In my personal life I don't need the extra sp
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The latest ones are really terrible. The T490s was still passable, decent key travel. But the T14s gen3 I have now is super shallow and lacks feedback. It's like an apple keyboard :( I've had it for 2 years now and I still hate typing in it when it's not docked. It's horrible. I wanted to keep the 490s but my work didn't let me, couldn't buy it either. The stupid thing is that the 14s isn't even thinner. The base is thinner yes but the screen is almost double the thickness as before which wastes all the gains. Besides, the X1 carbon had a decent keyboard and was thinner and lighter. Not sure about the latest models of that though. I think Lenovo just stopped caring about making good hardware.
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Yeah us too. Just keep using the same hardware for a while longer is what they're saying. That's fine for me, 3 years was too short a cycle anyway. And lenovo's ThinkPad range have been getting much worse. My T490s still had a great keyboard but my T14s gen3 is terrible. Almost no travel and no feel to it. If it were up to me I would have kept the 490s but they insisted on replacing it :(
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A newer guide would be good, as some of the information now is a bit outdated. But I love the concept. My main laptop where I do lots of programming and writing is an old T490s, i7 8th Gen, 16 gigs of RAM, running FreeBSD, that I paid around 150 euros last year. :)
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Ahh, a topic dear to my heart. > Thinkpads are repairable [...], durable [...]. What's not to like? > Thinkpads are “Cheap” because nobody who worships the things buys one new. Confession time: over the years, I've bought 4: x200s, x270, t490s t14 (gen5). All were new when purchased. All were purchased for work + personal use. All run Linux. All are still in my household and still work - the x200s is old enough to drink in some countries. For context, I also bought me one Macbook Pro (at a weird time where PC laptops were more expensive than an equivalent Mac), so it's not like I haven't seen the grass on the other side. > [IBM and Lenovo] are typical companies, who just happen to have some good designers and engineers. That sounds like a good thing. > Yes, Thinkpads are good laptops. I agree. > -A saccharine twenty something. My oldest, still working, ThinkPad is almost older than the author of this blog post?!? Get off my lawn! I'm not sure what the author aims at: maybe "TPs are good if you buy them old, and nobody buys them new". Besides myself, I know a bunch of people who have bought new ones (and no, we're not in some crazy TP fan club). I only have experience with X and T lines, though. Maybe others are crap, dunno.
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Ya for me that was the major selling point. My T490s still had a decent keyboard. My T14s gen 3 really sucks though. Almost no travel and very bad tactile feedback. And these laptops are made for enterprise users who actually work on them and aren't dicking around on tiktok all day.
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Dells age really horribly though. Unlike ThinkPads (especially the IBM and early Lenovo days) I used to love my T490s even. It was a really recent model but still not bad for me. But now my work gave me a T14s and it's horrible. The keys have way less travel. The body is thinner but the screen is way thicker than the T490s's. I don't know what they're smoking but ThinkPads are dead as decent laptops.
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I'm happy to see it go. I don't like them at all, and they're in the way of typing. It feels awful when I hit it by mistake because it has no 'give'. I always remove the little red hood to make it easier but you're still stuck with a hole in the keys. What I find much much more of a problem is the awful keyboards on ThinkPads these days. My T490s was the last with a serviceable keyboard. My new T14s has too little travel. It's awful to work on. Strange enough it hasn't become thinner due to the crap keyboard because at the same time they made the screen a lot thicker. Ps I don't like trackpads either. They're ok in emergencies but usually I just bring my mouse.
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I'm using NixOS 22.11 with a Thinkpad T490s and it's basically flawless. Everything works as expected, including the fingerprint reader. My best Linux laptop experience yet.
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They're not. A company like Chuwi makes $300 laptops that are just as thin :) https://www.notebookcheck.net/Chuwi-GemiBook-CWI528-Laptop-R... Of course you're not getting the same specs or build quality for that price but it's comparable to MacBook thickness. I think the other players you mention just have less desire to make them as thin as possible. I really prefer my work T490s ThinkPad to my work MacBook Pro. It's got more ports, a phenomenally better keyboard, upgradable internals and more. All for a few millimeters extra thickness and no extra weight. They've made the right choice IMO.
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I use a Thinkpad T490s and it works great with Ubuntu out of the box. Only thing that doesn't work is clicking the touchpad for right click, but since the Thinkpad comes with physical left and right buttons that was a non-issue.