Lenovo ThinkPad T60p

I'm on my 3rd thinkpad. First one was a T30 that I got 12 years ago. I used it for 4 years and my mother for 4 years after that. I still have it and it still runs but it is now made out of parts from two T30s, the original, whose screen died, and another that had a bad hard drive. My T60p I used for 4 years and then my mother for 4 more years, it had to have its cpu fan replaced once about 6 years into its life, otherwise it is sitting here next to me in perfect working order. I'm 3 years into a first gen X1 Carbon, it runs perfectly. The only annoyance is that I can't get at the battery to replace it. I'd be a bit happier if it had a 2560x1440 screen since then there would really be no need for an upgrade ever again, but as it stands I expect to be able to use it for at least another 5 years. Build quality on the newer T series feels like shit to me, but I haven't spent enough time with them to be able to judge and they are so new we don't really have any data yet. edit: seeing the link to the potential retro thinkpad, that I would get without a second thought

I did that long ago with an IBM T60p, which had a 32bit Centrino, and only 3.25 or 3.5GB usable RAM out of 4GB. While the ATI FireGL had 256MB. At the time there was no ZRAM, but its predecessor compcache . IIRC I only needed about 2MB VRAM for the stuff I did, any capability the FireGL had wasn't supported by MESA/XORG/DRI at the times, apart from useless GLXGEARS. What can I say? After much fiddling it worked stable, resulting in running into the limits of that POS much later. Extending its usability. Not that much, but noticeable. Even Google Earth ran. Probably because it did anything in software anyways, on that combo of supported and exposed capabilities of the GPU at that time.

My experience has been that there is only two reasonable ways to buy a laptop for personal use: 1. Buy an Apple device new. 2. Buy a Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude refurb/used via their outlet stores from their business line-ups With #2, you know exactly what you're getting, but you're getting it cheap, and the parts are possible to find (e.g. eBay) to fix it yourself. With #1, you know exactly what you're getting, and you're paying for a premium experience that you'll actually receive and isn't a sham or bait n switch (like it is with "premium" PC products). I have a stack of laptops on my desk because I physically separate the different types of work that I do (for many various reasons). 2 are Thinkpads, 2 are Apple, and one is a Dell Latitude. All of have been solid for years. My newest laptop in the stack is an M1 Macbook Pro 14" with the M1 Max, and it's FANTASTIC, it's easily the best laptop I've owned since I retired my /IBM/ Thinkpad T60p. There is no reason anyone should ever subject themselves to the torture that is buying a laptop "intended" for "consumers". There is no reason anyone should ever pay full price for any non-Apple laptop, because they all make annoying trade-offs that are only acceptable when you buy them cut-rate.

I used the T60P before upgrading to a W520. The drawback of the T60P is that you're capped at 4GB with a CPU that shows strain if you want to do heavier lifting, but if you are severely budget constrained then it's a decent choice. I think the price difference between the T60P and T42P is negligible at this point too. If going with the T60P or older, then a good SSD is an absolute requirement, IMO.

Primary: Thinkpad W500. Core2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6M cache), 4GB memory, 15" 1680x1050, Ubuntu 10.04. I only have a couple complaints about this machine. The big one is that the screen can't compare to the 1600x1200 IPS panel of my old T60p. Yes, I did prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audio ports being located on the front is also annoying. Secondary: Mac Pro (borrowed). Two dual-core Xeon 5150s, 5GB memory, headless most of the time. I use this machine to do the heavy lifting for my text classification work. My experimental data set fits in memory on my laptop, but leaves uncomfortably little free space. It also makes my lap warm. The Mac being about 50% faster in practice than my laptop is a nice perk.

The Thinkpad T60p is superb. I have an excellent screen that is 1600x1200 and large enough to run a 2x2 grid of SSH sessions. And the ultrabay is great for a second drive, second battery, or DVD. Very highly recommended.

You're making me miss my Thinkpad T60p. Compared to my new W500, it wasn't especially fast, ran annoyingly hot and didn't waste any time burning through its extra-capacity battery. The screen was vastly better though: IPS with a 1600x1200 resolution. I don't actually need color accuracy, but I find myself slightly shocked by how bad other laptops look after getting used to the T60p. Laptop manufacturers: I'd pay extra for IPS (don't invent your own cute name for it or I won't know you have it) and I'd pay extra for high-res 4:3.