Lenovo ThinkPad T61

I still have my T61 thinkpad from 2007. Other than the dead battery, it works great.

'Looks over at stack of T61 15" display refurbished laptops' Yup, the are awesome, I'm on my second decade of driving them, should be able to get another decade out of the supply.

I used my T61 for 6 years and had to give it up because the graphic chip busted. Since then I have used multiple laptops Dell to Apple. I even installed Ubuntu on my Apple mac Pro, but it would not suspend and heat up inside my laptop bag.. finally shit blew up. I have been using Xiaomi notebook pro for the last 8 months. Even with a hefty customs, it was cheaper by 80% for any laptop of the same configuration. The build quality feels like Macbook Pro. Ubuntu works out of box.. It suspends and everything works except the fingerprint reader. The xiaomi notebook pro is as heavy as high end macbook Pro and the build quality is brilliant! The config is crazy and haven't faced a problem yet. I check the quality of a good laptop by the how much the lid oscillates if you chuck it a little. Macbook Pro and xiaomi don't oscillate at all.. Dell, compaq, Asus oscillate a good 10-20 degrees.

I feel like I have to chime in whenever the newer Lenovo keyboards get mentioned: I've owned a T61 for over 6 years now and I bit the bullet and bought a W530 when it came out this year despite the complaints about the missing top row of keys and the chiclet-style keyboard. It's been almost 6 months now and, honestly, these days when I got back to do stuff on my T61 it's a world of difference. The W530's key presses are much more substantial and have a better feel; the quality of the keys seem much better; and the seemingly awkward placement of they keys (excluding the Print Screen key) seem highly justified to me now. And more importantly, the chiclet-style keys are grew on me almost immediately. I've used the MBA and other chiclet-style keys and the main difference to note is that the Lenovo keys are slightly concave. This, to me, makes the keys feel less chiclet-y and more normal, though they do have the visually noticeable spaces between each key. Compared to the MBA, the MBA's flat keys just don't feel right and I feel make typing less accurate.

I agree the discomfort, or after a while, even the pain when using the trackpoint, is something very noticeable on modern thinkpads. I don't recall being this annoyed with the older thinkpads like T61, x200 and all. Or maybe we are just getting old and more fragile haha

There's some mis-information here: Yep on battery - I rarely use mine while traveling (and rarely travel) and set max charge to 60% so it should last a good long time, but it can be replaced when I need too. I replaced 2 in my black Macbook and once in my iPhone 3G (but I got 8 years out of the phone). When my work MB Pro had a battery bulge, the whole machine was replaced and presumably recycled since it was not repairable. Internal, yep, but nvme > SATA any day. They are usb-c yes, but the ports are adjustable (can mix usb-c, usb-a, display-port, hdmi, network, storage, etc) so it's not as restrictive as you seem to be implying. On video, I am not sure if you think it's some kind of DisplayLink thing but it's alt-dp over usb, directly connected to the GPU. My 13" has a headphone jack (and passable speakers) and a built in Mic (and both the camera and mic have switches to disable them). 2.5GB Ethernet is available as an expansion module. I find the keyboard and touch pad okay! I don't really need a touchscreen. On ports: I don't use the finger print reader (but it has one). I don't need SD card slot all that often (but is available). I don't have any FW devices (and 400Mbs vs 5-10Gbps). Don't need a modem or an IR Port I don't use a dock (I do at work for my MB Pro - but it's mostly a permanent desktop configuration so I don't mind that it's connected via usb-c). The one I got IS compatible with my Framework 13 though. I had a t61 for work and I loved it... in 2009…

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 that I absolutely LOVE! It is running the latest Xubuntu (24.04) with no problems. I have maxed out the RAM, installed an SSD, and even upgraded the CPU. I like it even more than my Dell E5440. No, I cannot play Minecraft on it that well, but it is a SOLID laptop and it feels good to hold and type on.

Having used a few different sizes, I agree, for portability 14" is perfect, but I would add 1 thing. The screen should be 16:10, not 16:9. I have a Thinkpad T61 and its screen size is 16x10, to me that is the perfect Laptop. One more thing, no number pad. It should have a keybord like the old thinkpads.

I like seeing all these NetBSD articles ob various sites. That OS, especially 10.0 seems to work great. I recently started using NetBSD again because I finally got a couple of free "older" thinkpads. My old hardware failed about 5 years ago and the Laptop I replaced it with has troubling hardware for both Open/NetBSD. The 2 "new" systems (T430, T61) runs NetBSD without any issues. FWIW, if running a BSD you may want to add your dmesg here: https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/ Also curious, what is that file manager in the print ?

Ha I just finally stopped using my ~2008 T61 with similar specs (now acting as my pfsense router). Was a great machine, but realistically a core2 duo is just too under powered these days. I had 4GB ram and a 128GB SSD and even looked into upgrading the cpu for a bit. You could get the highest spec CPU from ebay, but cost for such little gain made it not worth it.

I use Debian on my old Thinkpad T61 beater. I use it for everything. Coding, browsing and multimedia. I am no power user so it kind of just works. My wife is using Debian on desktop as well and for years now has been no-fuss-it-just-works...so I recommend Debian.

I have two options fo ron the go. Depending on how heavy I travel these are: Thinkpad T61 or Packard Bell dot-s netbook. Both run archlinux with i3 as window manager so I usually don't really notice perforamnce issues on the netbook. For an editor I was always a fan of vim but I recommend using what you are comfortable with. IDEs like Eclipse are nice but if performance is at a premium I recommend jsut sticking to an editor and a shell. Version control i would recommend git.

Yes swap my 129GBP ThinkPad T61 running debian for a more expensive, less capable device with a pissy screen that falls over if you let go of it, rubbish keyboard, short shelf life, non replaceable battery, subscription based, lock in promoting glorified vt100 terminal that only works if you have an internet connection available. I can't take this working methodology seriously, nor anything which contracts out every last egg to one basket. It's trendy but entirely batshit. Ignoring the cost model which is broken, if all shit breaks loose, which it does in real life regularly then this is just going to screw you properly then.