There's more or less a cult around using Linux on older Thinkpads. They're so widely available for so cheap, and since so many people use and test software with them, pretty much every Linux distro works out of the box. The older models are coreboot and libreboot-friendly, the keyboards are amazing, and almost every single part is replacable (the older 14" models have socketed processors even).

Many still enjoy the old IBM models. I'm typing this on an X220 model, and I do understand the risks associated, which is why it's running coreboot, a stripped-down Intel ME, and GNU/Linux (as opposed to original firmware and Windows).

The X220 that I'm using has run every Linux distro I can think of with zero modifications, and I even had macOS on it as a hackintosh for a time. I've replaced the wifi card, I have two hard drives in it and two batteries for it, and it still does everything I need a computer to do with zero fuss.

Even without Coreboot and Linux, many still find the risks don't outweigh the rewards. Same reason people buy newer Macbooks that lack magsafe, sd card slots, USB-A, Ethernet, a decent keyboard, an escape key, replaceable disks/RAM, etc. For Macs, it's form over function. For Thinkpads, specifically the older ones, it's the exact reverse.

You don't buy the new ones. You buy at latest an X230 and put Linux or BSD on it. All the excitement around 51nb is that you can upgrade to modern hardware if you think the X220 is the last good notebook ever commercially produced. A lot of people (disclaimer: including me) think that, which is why you see them as targets for things like OpenBSD and Libreboot.

But you're right, I would never buy a "modern" Lenovo though. But in fairness, I don't know that I'd buy a modern notebook at all.

Still using the x220 as my every day personal notebook.

At work I have the x230 with the new keyboard - it's not as good as the old one still in the x220 but it's way better than let's say the new macbook keyboards.

The sad thing is that the x220 doesn't compete doing stuff with many VM's or consumer things like videos with high-res.

But I can totally live with that and use it for everything else with the following specs & setup: - 16GB RAM - 256GB SSD - i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz - extended battery (good for holding it while carrying around) - i3wm (it's awesome how much you can do with few resources) - programming/writing etc. with VIM (also saves a lot compared to an eclipse/intellij)

It's definitely not the PC you want a full fledged desktop environment on and you shouldn't bother doing video stuff etc. but for everything else it's just perfect and I wouldn't want to give it away as long as I can.

The x230 is ok but I don't have so much love for it, can't explain what exactly I miss most but it's not the TP experience I was searching for all the years.

My next project is an old x200 that will be refurbished and put to test with some BSD OS (I heard it's also quite interesting and easy on old hardware).

P.S.: The trackpads suck hell and I only use the red nub on TPs. The only trackpad I ever found useful was on a MBP (some time around 2016 I think) but they managed to destroy that experience like they did with their crappy keyboards :-P

I have an x220 on a shelf somewhere. You've convinced me to give it another look - or to sell it someone that would want to.

Honestly, because it has no relevance to me. I own a Huawei phone and a Lenovo laptop. I don't work any kind of government security related job and I run linux on my laptop so I don't see what I'm risking from the standpoint of a personal consumer and developer.

Those are both issues with running Windows on Thinkpads. The article's author is running Linux. Besides, there are very few options for decently built laptops with good keyboards.

It‘s mostly an issue with the decision makers at lenovo. Were linux as widespread as a desktop os as windows, it would have happened to linux too.

I agree and I wish they had some competition, but they really don't. I'm currently holding out hope that System76 will put out a nice Linux laptop as part of the Thelio line. I'm not holding my breath though and will probably have to get another Thinkpad once my current one dies.

The linked computer isn't meaningfully a Lenovo computer anyway.

Only a partial explanation, but Superfish was not installed on the business-grade laptops, i.e., the T, P, and X-series, and those are really the only ones that the HN crowd would use. LSE was definitely a major mistake though they at least relented and offered a removal tool for it.

Huawei has been the target of a pretty unprecedented effort by the US to eliminate their hardware from both US and US-allied countries. I doubt many of us have the knowledge of the necessary facts to evaluate the appropriateness of that action against Huawai, but either way, Lenovo hasn't been singled out like that.

Because Huawei is a Chinese company and still media tells people they are "the bad communists" though they are no communists at all since Mao is gone.

Same goes for spying: - The US spied on countries in EU by hijacking (network) hardware deliveries and installing intelligence offices near DE-CIX and many other actions we just don't know officially - China is suspected to do the same once in a while (I think there was some rumor about 500GB HDD's with pre-installed malware) and I'd wonder if any country with the necessary resources would do otherwise

These arguments are made to distract us from the fact that there is no real hiding place. It is made to try to convince us that one of those parties is "the good" and the other "the evil" because they want power.

exactly and thinkpads especially. they are usually used in critical places.