Repost from OSnews.
FWIW, I don’t agree just because of the screen but it’s still better than anything on the market today.
Agree, but I think the X230 is slightly better as it runs cooler, has a better iGPU, has USB 3 and you can classic keyboard swap anyways :)
I snagged one in decent condition for £60 recently and plan to mod it up when I can, namely:
- Quad core/i7-3612QE mod
- 16G RAM DDR3L/2133Mhz
- AVC Fan (quieter/cooler)
- X220 Keyboard mod with X220 Palmrest
- 720p IPS Screen (can do 1080p but that requires soldering)
- Libreboot/me_cleaner (already ivyra1ned it).
- A new 9 cell battery from Greencell.
- Intel AC/AX wifi
- A nice 1TB ssd!
I have a T450s with an i7 and 12GB RAM. It’s never felt slow to me apart from when my RAM broke and I was stuck with 4GB for a while. I can afford a new laptop but I just don’t want one. I only use it for work so the low res screen is fine.
I had a libre-booted X220 through college, and absolutely loved it. BUT it eventually couldn't keep up with my desire to be able to use Blender, Code::Blocks, and other more demanding software. Still miss that laptop.
My nostalgic laptop is the X200/X201. I owned a couple of them and from the pile of parts put together my dream machine with AFFS panel and deleted palmrest i7 with maxed RAM and Thai keyboard. Running OpenBSD.
I owned it and it was my sidekick for years. Took it to four different countries. At some point, I don't know why but I sold that thing for like $75, 7 years ago.
I have another one now, same AFFS panel mod and all, but it was built by someone else so it's not the same.
Similar situation here. I held on to mine until it couldn't run Godot 4 then finally moved up to a newer Thinkpad. I still miss that keyboard…
