Lenovo ThinkPad X220

Indeed. I know of two "best laptops ever made": Drew DeVault says it's the X200: https://drewdevault.com/blog/Fucking-laptops/ « The best laptop ever made is the ThinkPad X200, and I have two of them. » He has a very strong case. I own one. It is certainly one of the best ever. On the other hand, Brad Taunt says it is the X220: https://btxx.org/posts/x220/ « The X220 ThinkPad is the greatest laptop ever made and you’re wrong if you think otherwise. » Ulaş Türkmen agrees: https://okigiveup.net/blog/why-thinkpad-x220-is-the-best-lap... I also have two X220 machines, and I use them more than the X200 now. They still work perfectly, while my X200 is getting flakey. (Although with its SSD and 8GB of RAM, it runs Alpine very well indeed and could be a daily driver.) The X220 has a slightly shallowed screen; that's a weakness. But mine are 100% usable: between them, I run Haiku, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, and Pop OS, and all of them go like stink and are daily-drivable on this 2011 hardware.

I have an X201 (15 years old) and X220 (14 years) that I regularly use, running different flavors of linux. they've both been repaired and upgraded a few times. I'm spoiled by having an M2 Macbook as a daily driver - they can't match it for speed - but I love the ruggedness and resilience and I always will.

Case in point, if I was running Apple hardware from 2011~2014 I would be out of support for quite a few years already with massively outdated hardware, Apple puts their customers on a MUCH faster treadmill to keep upgrading often. But instead my _daily drivers_ 13 year old Thinkpad X220 and both my 10 year old 4th gen haswell i7 PCs keep trucking along. It's easy enough to fix, upgrade and have access to ALL current software. Not only that but one of those machines perform just as good if not better than a PS5, so I can still play any game I want at a respectable fidelity and performance. Also, not running Windows helps keep the bloat overhead at bay.

ThinkPad X220 here. From late 2012 until late 2023 in service with Linux. It is still usable but finally replaced it by an X13 Gen3 AMD with Linux. The magnesium body is a bless and feels a lot better to the skin than aluminium. The HiDPI display is the biggest upgrade. The six row keyboard is sturdy but a downgrade from the seven row keyboard. I miss the notch to open the lid. It got worse with Gen4/5 which now have an awful hump (reverse notch) like a smartphone. The long usage of the X220 depends on the built quality but also on the five year replacement part support. New batteries and a new palm rest (cracked during a journey). It not just quality you pay for, it is this support level. And of course more memory. Apple still fails in this regard and barely does something when forced by the European Union. Anyway - Apple doesn’t officially support Linux therefore I cannot buy them for work. This is the part wich saddens me, they do good work and the next MacBook will also not run fully with Linux. This kind of catchup things by hackers cannot be won - until the vendor decides you’re a valuable customer. Therefore, don’t buy them that you can run Linux. You maybe can. But these devices are made for macOS only. But if you want to run Linux on a MacBook? Talk your politicians! And send „messages“ with your money to Apple. Like buying ThinkPads, Dells Developer Edition, Purism, System 76 and so on :)

For regular users with a consumer laptop, a damaged key or keyboard means: Laptop defunct. Use an external keyboard if not affordable. Used my X220 for ten years, handled it with care, but after ten years a new keyboard was a nice uplift. You can also switch languages but especially also the layout between ANSI- and ISO. Buying an Apple device with ANSI in Europe? Pain. ThinkPads? Buy anything. 30 EUR and new keyboard.

I was using a ~2011 x220 as my personal laptop until 2021 or so, when I replaced it with an X1 carbon. This lasted almost 2 years until it stopped charging, and Lenovo wanted more than the laptop was worth to repair it. I've since switched back to the x220. Whilst I miss the extra memory and CPU grunt, it gets the job done. When this one finally dies I'm not sure what will replace it, but it certainly won't be another Lenovo.

x220 was amazing, can confirm. had it for 10 years and finally sold it after the 2nd battery that i replaced needed replacing. one of the best keyboards in a laptop, great solid case that was dropped countless times without an issue. i even took it for djing in clubs. what a machine.

I use a ThinkPad T14s after my X1 Carbon fell apart. The thicker chassis makes it more reliable for travel, and the Ryzen CPU can play most Xbox games pass games fine. If you don't need Linux then the new Macs seem pretty amazing though. My all time favourite laptop is the X220 though, lasted 10 years or more. Only got rid of it because I messed up replacing the screen.

I'm a not out on the road a lot, need mostly just good CPU performance to compile one or two big projects and some "normal" things. I don't play games usually. But: 1. IPS, 1080p at least (and I think I prefer 1080p or may be the 4:3/3:2 variants) 2. Good keyboard with trackpoint. If the keys must have low key travel, no mushy keys at all. Prefer the security of knowing liquids can drain out if something were to happen. 3. Touchpad just needs to work without odd skips or pauses, which I have seen on a couple. 3. Linux supported hardware. 4. Good case, not fond of aluminum, particularly after seeing the shape of one really good macbook pro from a former colleague. 5. Good hinges with good support. No screws in plastic at all. 6. Matte screen. No touchscreen. My laptop is not a phone. 7. Good range of ports to not have to worry about ports. 2 USB, 2 HDMI, at least one USB-C to get new things and dedicated power. 8. Just enough power to take it from my desks for a few hours. I am always near a plug though. 9. I can use it for the next 10 years or more after getting it (writing this on my x220, and despite the screen, everything else is OK to me for a 10 year old computer). That means it must be repairable and have part supply for a long time. 10. SSD (250 GB is more than enough), 16 GB RAM These things pretty much describe my t430s now (except a small points). I hope that framework can be that replacement.

Like the author, I've found the perfect old ThinkPad for me and it works brilliantly. I have a nice efficient GNU/Linux install, all my local software runs smoothly and I've used it for my day job for 9 years. But the damn worldwide web keeps marching on their mission to make the most bloated software in the universe. I should be able to keep using the machine forever with unchanged software, but the web demands more and more, it's running away from me. The day we fix that issue will be great. So much less e waste. Computers were fast enough for most reasonable tasks years ago.

My old ThinkPad X220 is the laptop I miss the most. My employer at the time replaced laptops after 4 years and sent the old ones to be destroyed for compliance reasons. I begged them to just destroy the SSD and let me keep the laptop, but "company policy..." In a sensible world I would still have that machine.

I personally don't. A lot of the same crowd that uses ancient Thinkpads uses Coreboot or Libreboot. I used an x220 for 3 years before buying an x230 last month, and I flashed Coreboot (plus me_cleaner) on both of them.

I have been using GuixSD on my Thinkpad X220 for about 2 years now and it is has been good overall. I have fairly simple needs: GNOME 3, Emacs, Firefox (called IceCat in GuixSD). The full system rollback feature has been very handy at times when I do something terrible to my OS configuration file and just want to move on to other things.

A year ago I sold my beloved MacBook Pro for $950 and purchased a ThinkPad X220 (circa 2012) via eBay for $300. Installed Arch and xmonad. Learned how to use xmonad. I love it now, and I might just continue buying used X220s for the rest of my life or until I'm unable to source decent batteries for them.

I've been running mint on my x220 for about a year with absolutely no issues. Prior to that I was running ubuntu on an x61 for 3 years, also with no issues. I use an external monitor every day and unplug it every night and don't have to change a thing. It 'just works'.

Very nice, I've got an X220 with an i7 and, agreed, the keyboard is so good. No generation since has been as good, though the xx30 ones are a close runner-up. Downhill ever since IMO.

It would be amazing to have somebody put together a modern laptop kit build around the x220 keyboard with a modern screen. it didnt last long, but the dimpled texture on the x220 trackpad was something I really liked, and i still miss having a middle click scroll button on trackpads. it was so nice to hold down a button and put slight pressure on the trackpoint to slowly scroll a webpage. I'm not 100% on it but I believe an ips x230 is considered the pinnacle. the x240 is slower than the x230 because it was when strong optimization for power savings started to occur.

I find my M2 Macbook Pro so much less pleasant to use than my x220 thinkpad (running Debian) that I only use the Macbook for CPU-bound activities to which the x220 thinkpad is unequal. I find the Apple offering's keyboard worse to type on, its enormous touchpad is a chore to engage with compared to the venerable Trackpoint, and the operating system feels contrived to make simple things difficult. The x220 thinkpad is 14 years old now. And has a 500 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM. Perhaps in another 14 years Apple will be able to match it feature for feature. One might well ask why I own Apple hardware at all. The answer is to buy entry into their walled garden as a developer.