Lenovo ThinkPad T520

Hm, just some data points: my private laptop is a Thinkpad T520. I replaced the battery four times now in some 10 years, I gave it a RAM boost a year ago... the marketing lettering is flaking off, and it has one small crack on a side where it made unplanned contact with a concrete floor - but the machine is working strong. They will have to pry that machine out of my cold dead hands should it not die before me. I run it under a debianesque Linux with i3wm. Work laptop is a 2017 HP Elitebook. This thing is utter garbage. I'm not talking about the funny idea to add a display port instead of HDMI for political reasons - but it keeps overheating, it's fan is loud as hell's airport approach, and every once in a while, it randomly bluescreens - and needs some funky key combination during BIOS to become workable again. Once Covid is over and we're back in the office, this thing will get replaced. Windows 10, and sluggish.

I'm using my ThinkPad T520 daily driver right now. With its non-chiclet keyboard, I type 12+ hours every day, never any discomfort. Last year, I bought a late-model ThinkPad, to experimentally try replacing the T520. So I could have some local GPU compute, and not have to stockpile dwindling rare high-spec replacement units, in my minimalism lifestyle. But I haven't yet felt motivated to try out the new one, and see whether I can move to a worse keyboard layout and a suspicious key action.

> When you can add "I like this tech because it helps me build an identity I aspire to" as an item in the pros column, you realize you no longer have to. But, for many of the cases of using-obscure-thing-instead-of-popular-thing, that's not a factor. Not everything divergent is hipster impulse. Nor is everything about slotting yourself into a clique category in high school. Which is why I asked for clarification on what was being said. FWIW, I use a vintage ThinkPad mainly because I can type all day on it without problem. The serviceability is also nice. I also own a sleek high-end last-year's P1 and an X1, both of which I think would look more attractive in cafes and in some ways fit my ideal self-image better than the T520 that I choose to use instead. Currently, due to the inferior keyboards, I might use the P1 or X1 only if I need to do a startup meeting with a 20-something who doesn't already know I'm good despite being over-30. That choice would be the image one, and it's not about validation or aspirational identity, but pragmatic gaining of acceptance despite prejudice.

Some person on Web says yes: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=133646#p864052 There's also the W520, which looks like a T520, but is set up for a larger PSU, and had quad-core and better GPUs as factory options. (I own a few each of T520 and W520, but don't like the huge power bricks of the W. So I'm using the T as daily driver, until I really need something in the W.)

Web, including JavaScript, should work fine on that laptop. Until recently, my daily driver was the T500 (the larger screen version of the T400 in the article), and it worked fine for everything except GPU. (I actually downgraded to the T500 years ago, because I was pissed off about the Intel Management Engine.) Recently, I upgraded from the T500 to the T520, which is the last ThinkPad with a non-chiclet keyboard. It works fine for everything except GPU and fitting inside many backpacks. With ThinkPads of this era, you want to get a high-spec variant of the model (e.g., top-res IPS display), and then make the following upgrades: * SSD * run Linux * run uBlock Origin (and block most of the third-party surveillance, which hurts performance) (JS runs fine, so long as you're not running multiple dueling adtech slimeballs' intimate mouse trackers) * max out the RAM (you don't need that much for Linux, unless you're using an exceptionally bloated desktop option, but it's cheap, and you can use it to keep filesystems like ~/.cache off your SSD ) * (optional) replace the CPU with a more optimal one for power draw or heat, or maybe for compute (these are socketed in most models) * (optional, not for the faint of heart) install Coreboot, and then you have more WiFi upgrade options

Under $100 - a gently used bike from the local thrift shop. Added a rack and crate and use it for local errands such as grocery shopping, dentist visits, mailing stuff at the post office, all within a 3-mile radius. Saves driving a car and I get some exercise. Under $21 - a refurbished Thinkpad T520 with SSD, also from a thrift shop. Not life-changing but I've always loved the keyboard and it works fine for web browsing.

Last year, I upgraded to a new daily driver: ThinkPad T520, manufactured in April of 2012. Linux (Debian Stable) runs great on it, and it has TrackPoint with a non-chiclet keyboard. And if you drop it on something, the something will probably get hurt more. It doesn't seem "vintage". My previous one, made in 2009, also still runs Debian Stable well, including when running 3 different Web browsers and a couple other bloated programs at once.

It seems to be pretty solid. Compared to the thinkpad extreme, - The xps 17 "feels" more solid and less creaky. It's probably less survivable, but it feels like a higher-quality machine - The wifi seems great, but lately I've been having problems with the microphone. It just stopped working in Windows a week ago, presumably after an update? - The keyboard isn't quite as good as the thinkpad, but the thinkpad extreme's keyboard isn't nearly as good as the keyboard in my old thinkpad t520. Lenovo are hell-bent on gimping their keyboards until they're no better than anyone else's, and reviews suggest that they've finally succeeded with the x1 extreme gen 4. The xps 17 keyboard is nice, but I notice a squeaking noise from the enter and right shift keys when I type. - The xps 17's battery life is a lot better. My thinkpad's battery life was puzzlingly bad, even under windows.