> My X13 AMD, for example, has a powerful 32-core AMD APU, 32GiB of RAM, and a superfast 1TiB NVMe SSD.
The X13 does not have a 32-core APU. The highest spec available is the 4750U with 8C/16T.
> By the way, the latest MacBook Pro comes with an Ethernet port. We loved the jokes about iDongle; how about ThinkDongle?
The latest MacBook Pro does not come with an Ethernet port. It is however very annoying that Lenovo requires a proprietary dongle to use the built-in Ethernet controller.
> The removal of the SD cards slot and Ethernet port has made recent ThinkPads a suboptimal choice for traveling photographers and some IT professionals.
The removal of the SD card reader on the X13 AMD Gen 2 is bizarre, but they can and do still offer Ethernet via a dongle.
> would you read about the update procedure after you’ve done multiple BIOS updates for the same machine already? Even if you would, would you pay much attention to the Notes section?
Yes, but I'm probably weird because I like to know what the vendor fixed and whether the firmware update might remove features that I use (shakes fist at Dell).
I own an X13 AMD Gen 2 (20XH), and I think it's a great laptop with some small caveats.
Pro:
- 1600p matte display looks amazing
- proper support for S3, very low S3 power consumption
- super quiet, I never hear the fan and the laptop is never uncomfortably hot (even doing heavy things like compiling buildroot)
- amazing performance for a laptop (5850U)
Con:
- no SD card reader (seriously, why?)
- proprietary dongle for Ethernet
- Ethernet is only GigE
- Came with MediaTek 7961 WiFi, which while supported by mainline Linux, the performance is trash (~30MBit on 802.11ac). Luckily it's only M.2 so you can replace it with something like the AX201
The Framework laptop has the best idea, IMHO. It just gives you a bunch of USB-C ports, and enhanced "dongles" that are designed to be physically secured to the case rather than dangling from it - hence avoiding wear on the ports themselves.
Another vote for this. I purchased a framework to replace a surface product and have been really happy with it running windows 10 ltsc. My only beef is that it lost a lot of battery life while in suspend. For a regular consumer this would be unacceptable, I tinkered and eventually just gave up and have it hibernate with the lid closed. Also the surface dock with it's magnetic connector spoiled me.
I'm hoping the second iteration of the Framework has more options. If I'm going to buy a laptop that's all about hardware customization I'm not going to settle for a chiclet keyboard and no mouse buttons.
I'll probably get an MNT Reform when the LS1028A SoM is available[0]. Though I mean, it's tempting regardless. I picked up a couple super-cheap old ThinkPads in the meantime to tide me over, especially to "plan ahead" for my MNT Reform setup haha :)
Love it! I've really, really wanted one of those for a couple years now but it would be a huge break from my policy of buying used machines after the depreciation curve flattens out. With the limited market and designed longevity of the Reform I'm not expecting to find them on the used market any time soon. (Plus I'd really love to get the kit and put it together myself!)
given the target market, and the ubiquity of the thinkpad supply chain, it's a somewhat baffling decision not to use one of the models of thinkpad keyboards. Given they're already in production I'm sure if you went to one of the factories and said "we want 100k keyboards for the X230" or something that you'd get turned down. It's not like Framework is going to sell 100 million laptops anyway, I'm sure it's something that could be accommodated.
You can't just go to a factory or manufacturer contracted to build ThinkPad keyboards and ask them to build some of those for you, as that's proprietary Lenovo IP which can't be sold to third parties without their permission.
Same how you can't go to TSMC and be like "hey, you guys are making millions of M1 chips for Apple, ca you sell us some of those pls?"
I don't particularly think all the random chinese factories producing aftermarket Thinkpad parts are licensed to do so, but you might be correct that designing a product based on them might be a bridge too far.
Just because some shady factories are managing to fly under the radar building a handful of unlicensed ThinkPad keyboard clones without approval from Lenovo, doesn't mean it's something that Framework, or any other reputable HW maker who wishes to not get sued into bankruptcy, will want to touch with a 10ft pole for their own sake.
Or how did you imagine such a scenario would play out for Framework?
They recently started selling in some EU countries, but not yet in the one I reside (NL). It contains an Intel 11xxx, while 12xxx (Alder Lake) is vastly more superior and also there's no AMD option (5 nm ARM like M1 would also be very power efficient). That said, it is a great first iteration. I wonder if it could pass QubesOS certification?
Great idea, but the cost in space and weight is not insignificant. I really hope that future Frameworks package things a bit better, I would even forgoe the USB-C connector for a smaller proprietary connector (I feel disgusting saying that) as the modules are not meant to be used elsewhere. They could still use USB-C signalling under the hood.
Is there any movement for a smaller standardized connector? Even small phones could benefit.
USB-C is a standard and would be better understood by 3rd parties than a custom connector developed in-house. I hope the physical form factor for Framework's modules/adapters becomes a standard in itself because I think it would essentially solve the dongle problem for everyone.
USB-C goes to great lengths already to minimize "space and weight" costs. The easiest way to address those would be introducing "modules" that provide multiple ports when practical in the space that's designed for a single connector. Smaller designs though would inherently be more fragile.
If you're worried about the weight and don't mind how it affects the looks, you could just leave the dongles unplugged and use the recessed USB-C ports
I'll use one as my daily driver the second they get a decent refresh-rate and video card on top of the already awesome specs. An OLED panel would probably also suck me in without those additions.
There has been a sea change on this in the last year or so. 2.5gbe is really starting to hit the market in a big way, multi-gig has gone from "why would you need that" to "in systems by default", and it did it all of a sudden. I did a mITX build on a B550 board last summer (so, not the super premium high-end boards) and all of the options I was looking at had 2.5gbe ethernet.
Going forward, both AMD and Intel have built 2.5 gbe controllers into their cpus and chipsets, so if partners want to use it, it's there. As such you will see it start to be rolled out even in consumer products over the next couple years. The initial rollout was hampered by a few "light errata" with intel's controller implementation (basically it didn't work at 2.5 gbit speeds at all, oops) but we're a couple gens into it now and it's going forward. AMD has one on their chips as well (if not faster, I want to say AMD has 10gbe in their dies for Ryzen Embedded usage).
(expecting it in a 2020-era product, however, is perhaps not reasonable, like I said this is something that has changed mostly in the last year or so. Although granted a Thinkpad is not a consumer product so maybe it should have been ahead of the curve. But I don't think multigig had penetrated even professional spaces that well in 2020, except perhaps 10gbe in certain high-end segments.)
The gotcha with multi-gig has always been switches, very few cheap switches existed and the ones that did were mostly SFP+ and not 10GBase-T (i.e. you either need new wiring anyway, or you pay $50 a set for SFP+ adapters). This is somewhat better with 2.5gbe, there are now some 8-port switches under $200, but it's still a long way from 1gbe where you can get a nice 8-port for like $25. Hopefully it is a matter of volume and prices come down over time.
I'm a little miffed that 10gbe got passed over - 2.5gbe seems like a half-measure, and the wiring argument isn't very compelling to me. If they implemented 10gbe you could always allow fallback to 2.5gbe if that's what the signal quality can support (many <10 meter Cat5e runs are good enough for full 10gbe anyway) and it's a much more significant step than 1->2.5gbit. And the economy of scale here is significant, if consumer stuff goes 2.5 then that's what gets made and 10gbit remains expensive.
Anyway currently I am eyeballing the Netgear MS510TXM - this does pretty much what I want in terms of giving me a few SFP ports for fiber links (or server usage - SFP does have lower latency), a few 10gbase-T links for consumer PCs with Aquantia 10gbit nics, and a few 2.5 gbit ports for consumer junk. At $500 it would be nice if it was a 12-port, but it checks most of the boxes at least.
I had know idea it was finally starting to appear on the scene - with even some WiFi adapters pushing past 1Gb, it's about time!
Still, as much as I'd like it myself, I can't imagine there is any push at all from consumers, and very little from prosumers. I guess it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing.
Yeah, to put it another way, consumers aren't going to notice the difference, and prosumers probably would rather have had 10gbe. 2.5gbe is an awkward compromise imo, where the only real argument for it is strict observance of the cat5e rating over very long runs (that aren't super likely in consumer usage anyway, and could be accommodated by 5gb/2.5gb fallback speeds).
It's not every day you need multi-gig, but it is very nice when you do end up doing something big that hammers your network hard. You do need to be serving from a SSD or a NAS, neither of which are particularly unusual anymore, but I guess for most consumers they don't really work with "their media" at all anymore, everything has transitioned to the cloud for average consumer. Everything is streamed, and if you want to back up a steam game or something, you just delete it and re-download it if you want it later.
Bet that kinda sucks for people in Canada or australia on super limited data caps though, it's kind of a weird US- and euro-centric perspective.
As a prosumer, it's a bit of a mentality change, but for things like photo or video editing, you don't need to have tons and tons of fast storage on your local machine, you can push it off to to your NAS and just manage it like the rest of your data, which is a huge convenience thing (in terms of backups, and in terms of capacity). 4-drive or 8-drive NAS can push a ton of data even if random isn't quite as fast as a SSD (and that's why files get cached in RAM anyway).
> Bet that kinda sucks for people in Canada or australia on super limited data caps though, it's kind of a weird US- and euro-centric perspective.
What?!? I live in Canada and have not had a data cap in over 10 years. They might exist for some ISPs but they are generally high enough that I've never heard anyone complain or get charged.
I wonder how practical it would be to have SFP+ slot in a laptop. I guess they are bulky comparatively, but you'd get great flexibility wrt. 10gbe. Power consumption might be bit of a problem though?
of course, but then you don't get the power advantages of copper SFP+ cabling. The 10gbase-t spec is the same spec either way, the reason it takes so much power is due to the length of the cables and the signal quality required of base-T cable, so it doesn't magically take less power because you run it through an adapter module.
(SFP has a limit of 7 meters for copper cables, I think it can go higher for active cables, but most people use fiber for longer runs)
If you just wanted to plug into a switch that was like 5 feet away, SFP copper cabling would actually reduce power a fair bit. Not really sure where fiber falls, but as far as copper, the problem is specifically the 10GBase-T leg, and if you include a 10GBase-T leg then you pay that power penalty regardless of whether it's via a native NIC or whether it's a SFP NIC with a module.
I do totally agree it would be a nifty idea though. It actually would bring down power for short connections, and a lot of laptop ethernet connections are "plug me into my desk switch" type use-cases anyway. Meanwhile, if you do want a longer connection, it doesn't limit your options because you can use a module.
But I suppose a lot of that has been subsumed into docks anyway. Thunderbolt 3 is absolutely fine for that hop to your dock. Related discussion but as a weirdo, I would actually rather have a more robust connector with longer distance support than Thunderbolt natively allows - if I could plug a cable and get 10 meters or so, that would solve some use-cases for me. Currently the only option is Optical Thunderbolt cables and everything I've heard is that they are absolutely flaky as hell and usually die after a year or so. I would love if I could use QSFP copper or something.
(my use-case is I want to have an external PCIe enclosure with the adapter for my Vive Wireless so the PC doesn't have to be in the room, but that would involve at least a 10 meter run for me realistically. Being able to run HDMI 2.1 over QSFP would also be neat because I could have my desktop run a 4K120 TV properly without having to have a dedicated HTPC there...)
Anyway back to SFP in laptops - you're right that it's pretty bulky. Even the "box" is big but it's also a very long connector physically, and the tab that protrudes even farther. The other thing that may not be immediately apparent is that it's not rated for all that many plug/unplug cycles. My QSFP cables have a "10 cycles" tag on them. Obviously they don't instantly die after 10 cycles, but still it's not something you are going to plug and plug every day for years. I don't remember if my SFP cables have one but I don't think it's significantly different. The SFP series are not a "consumer" connector, they are for servers that get racked once in a datacenter and then sit for 5 years, maybe have the cables re-organized once or twice.
It might well be something that you could fix with a "micro SFP" connector though. Slightly smaller box, much shorter, try to aim for higher cycle life. I think you would still retain a lot of the electrical benefits of SFP.
It's not very relevant for laptops, but SFP adapters also have an order of magnitude lower latency than base-T adapters. For things like your fileserver, it's preferable to use SFP if possible, that's why I mentioned I liked the Netgear MS510TXM above, 2 SFP links gives you one for your fileserver and one for a fiber link (to another switch perhaps), or you could do two SFP links and bond. There's some nice flexibility there.
These days 2.5GbE is becoming much more common, as is 5G and 10G to a lesser extent. A bigger driver of it is actually Wifi 6 and newer that actually need better than 1G to be able to give full theoretical speed over wifi.
I have the same X13 Gen 2 AMD 5850U w/ 32GB RAM, and generally agree it is a great laptop. Much quieter than my previous X270 where I even had custom fan curves.
> - Came with MediaTek 7961 WiFi, which while supported by mainline Linux, the performance is trash (~30MBit on 802.11ac).
It works perfectly for me on Fedora 35 (kernel 5.15), with consistent speeds around 800-900Mbps. The AP is an ASUS RT-AX86U.
Also somewhat surprisingly, while Intel AX200/201 is faster as it supports 160MHz (I had it before), the MT7961 has been more stable for me, both speed-wise and bug-wise, so far anyway. But YMMV.
> Luckily it's only M.2 so you can replace it with something like the AX201
According to the hardware maintenance manual: "Wireless LAN card (for selected AMD models)" [1]
I can confirm from the internal photos I have of my X13 AMD Gen 2 (I swapped the stock SSD for a SK Hynix P31 Gold 1TB) that the WiFi is indeed M.2 socketed.
Huh, you are absolutely right, my MT7961 is M.2 too. I too have swapped my SSD but I guess I didn't look at the WiFi chip at the time because I "knew" it was soldered.
I was originally looking to buy one of the X13 Gen 2 Intel models that have it soldered, I must've thought it applied to AMD as well.
I guess I'll try out Intel AX210 then, to see which one actually works better for me.
> The X13 does not have a 32-core APU. The highest spec available is the 4750U with 8C/16T.
> The latest MacBook Pro does not come with an Ethernet port.
Thank you for catching all this. Fixed.
> - 1600p matte display looks amazing
I agree, matte display is great. And as I said, I calibrated mine.
> - proper support for S3, very low S3 power consumption
Strange, I've seen reports on the Lenovo support forums that Gen 2 laptops are also susceptible to the battery drain in S3. Was it always like this? Or was it fixed with some firmware update?
> Strange, I've seen reports on the Lenovo support forums that Gen 2 laptops are also susceptible to the battery drain in S3. Was it always like this? Or was it fixed with some firmware update?
I am not sure. The first thing I did when I received my X13 AMD Gen 2 (20XH) was update the firmware to the latest available version at the time (1.14) and I haven't had any issues.
I thought we moved past whatever technical limitation it was that required matte surfaces on flat displays? It's like having Vaseline smeared on the screen, diffusing all the colour - why would you actively want that?
It's the other way around, I think, there are technological challenges to using Matt coatings
The issue is, like you said, the smearing and contrast, which was a bigger issue with newer, high DPI displays.
That being said, I do believe there are solutions - I have used 4k Matt displays that don't have the aforementioned issue, I think most glossy displays are there for there as a form over function thing.
Glossy displays are still annoyingly reflective and good antiglare coatings are exceedingly easy to damage
I disagree with that. Take a look at MacBooks for example - excellent screens that are glossy but not very reflective. Never seen anything better on a laptop.
If by outdoors you mean coffee shops and so on, it's fine. But yeah in the open it is bad, like most cell phones etc. I don't consider that a common use case. If you do field work, get some shade behind/over you. Plenty of reasons for that.
Exactly what I wanted was a MBP2015 13/15 inch with "retina display" ie. 2560x1600 px glossy with anti reflective coating (the first iterations would have the coating get loose but I was able to get free replacement on both). Not matte. Its what I got (both 13" and 15"), though they're showing their age. With brightness on full, there's barely any reflection (I get easily distracted and I don't notice it). If Mac ecosystem is a must, the spiritual successor would be a M1-based laptop. These have, on paper, even better screens.
For me, I prefer to keep my screen brightness at 50% or so. In that case a glossy screen is just a distracting mass of reflections, where a matte display is pleasantly usable. Color accuracy isn't an issue for anything I deal with, so the more comfortable appearance of the matte display is a clear winner.
For my digital-artist friends, they do prefer the over-bright glossy displays since it's actually a critical need for their process.
As someone who wears glasses, I can attest that wear-resistant AR coatings are a mature technology. They can be applied to plastic and to glass. I suspect the only problem is that they’re not particularly cheap, and an extra $30 BOM cost is a big deal.
All recent MBPs have this, and these are known for their fantastic screens. Nothing Windows (nor Linux) comes close to it. But of course, you are entitled to your informed opinion. Please share with us, which specific laptop screens you prefer.
There never was a technical limitation, matte coatings were a deliberate design choice and continue to be. Maybe some people like the "pop" of a glossy display but the rest of us don't like to suffer from glare and reflections while we work.
I don't understand why you'd want to deliberately diffuse the output of your screen? Like if you wanted it blurry you could have done that in software.
> I don't understand why you'd want to deliberately diffuse the output of your screen?
I already said why: reflections and glare make for a terrible work experience. That's why matte is the default preference for most people.
> Like if you wanted it blurry you could have done that in software.
The "grains" (for lack of a better word) in a matte coating are truly microscopic. They don't make anything blurry. I get the impression that either you're just trolling or you've never actually seen a matte display.
> Came with MediaTek 7961 WiFi, which while supported by mainline Linux, the performance is trash (~30MBit on 802.11ac). Luckily it's only M.2 so you can replace it with something like the AX201
yep, those mediatek cards aren't just slow, they's complete trash (see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30248380). i swapped it out for an Intel AX210 on my P14s Gen2 (Ryzen 7 Pro).
on linux you need Kernel 5.15.13+ for AX210 since the bluetooth side (connected over M2's usb bus) fails to come back up after waking from sleep or soft reboots. i dont think that patch was in 5.16.0 when i tried.
Yes, but I'm probably weird because I like to know what the vendor fixed and whether the firmware update might remove features that I use (shakes fist at Dell).
I learned to very carefully examine and in most cases wait for community feedback on BIOS updates after an HP update (that could not be rolled back) introduced a massive touchscreen delay on their 608 G1 tablet rendering mine effectively useless.
In newer models they stopped doing that (xx50 and up, I thing). Must have been relaxing of some FCC requirements or something.
Previously I've read that this whitelisting was due to the fact FCC would certify the laptop with the particular adapter as a whole, and replacing the wifi/wwan adapter, or adding WWAN where there wasn't one, would make the whole device "uncertified".
i dont think they do it on these models. i have an AMD Ryzen Pro Gen2 P14s and replaced the wifi+bluetooth M2 card with an AX210.
the mediatek card was garbage; not just slow (ping times were 3x normal), but caused my machine to insta-reboot under git clone of a large repo in Windows 10, and simply dropped the wifi link in Manjaro during same op, so it's unlikely to be driver related.
kinda bizarre that they don't offer this card as an option on AMD builds and force mediatek upon you. the AX210 is a great card which supports monitor mode & packet injection.
A T420 was my daily driver through undergrad, and then collected dust during grad school when I was issued a Macbook. When I returned my Macbook I dusted it off and was surprised by how usable it was (and how usable and well-supported it was running Arch compared to debian in the early 2010s). I finally gave in and upgraded the memory (DDR3!) to 16 GiB recently, and am considering getting a third-party 9-cell battery, as my 9+ year old one has gotten long in the tooth (i3's battery "widget" reports ~70% fully charged).
I dare say it's my most usable travel laptop outside of my work-issued Yoga, which it still trounces in terms of keyboard ergonomics. It absolutely dunks on the bargin-bin laptops I've tried out over the past few years, I think in part because of ergonomics but also because Arch on old (but well-supported) hardware feels snappier than Windows 10 on new (but low-cost) hardware.
Do your homework before ordering that battery, there is a ton of trash out there that is unsafe to use. Make sure there are quality cells in there (Samsung, Sanyo, LG) and that the original BMS is in there with all of the protections enabled. This is not something you want to take any chances with, and aftermarket counterfeit batteries with incredibly dangerous guts abound.
If the manufacturers only provide batteries for at least ten years, don't lock it with dongle chips and provide specification requirements for third parties.
Well. Lenovo doesn't sell new batteries after fives years, uses dongle and doesn't provide any specs for third party manufacturers.
It is not possible to get an battery for X220/230, T420/T430 which is manufactured after 2017. At least I don't get anyone but Lenovo prints on the label "2020" :angrysmilie:
I've successfully refurbished batteries for items that were no longer supported, it's a bit of work but doable and dirt cheap ($5 / cell, and about an hour of work).
You open them up, carefully document how they are put together, remove the cells, put new cells in and then put the whole thing back together. I've done this now for laptops, cameras, a couple of drills and a vacuum cleaner and they all work 'better than new' because the new cells have far more capacity than the cells that were in there originally.
I was under the impression that laptop batteries usually have on-board memory for holding charging parameters and such, and if you remove the cells, the memory contents gets lost and you cannot charge the battery anymore?
EDIT: More questions: Do you need a spot-welder for this? And how do you get the battery pack open, since they are usually glued shut?
> I was under the impression that laptop batteries usually have on-board memory for holding charging parameters and such, and if you remove the cells, the memory contents gets lost and you cannot charge the battery anymore?
Some do, most don't. I've yet to see one that was that tricky, though I would suppose there must be manufacturers paranoid enough to put that in.
> Do you need a spot-welder for this?
If you want you can buy cells with strips already spot welded on so not necessarily. But it certainly doesn't hurt, they're not expensive though. K-weld is one of the better ones.
> And how do you get the battery pack open, since they are usually glued shut?
That can be a bit tricky depending on the manufacturer they may have the whole rim glued shut or maybe only a few strategic spots. I've yet to find one that I could not open, but some do take a bit of patience. And once you know how a particular model works the next one usually goes ten times quicker.
I realize that what is easy for me may be hard for others, but this being hacker news and the fact that there is a substantial intersection with the maker scene here I don't think such a subject is out of place.
> I realize that what is easy for me may be hard for others, but this being hacker news and the fact that there is a substantial intersection with the maker scene here I don't think such a subject is out of place.
Absolutely, your answers are much appreciated! I usually stay clear of fiddling with Li-Ion cells, as I have quite some respect for them, but I agree with you that replacing them yourself is probably safer than buying dubious clones.
I have a large article about Li-Ion safety in the works, but because of the material I have not yet published it yet, it needs to be bullet proof first.
I've replaced on my X220 the screen (TN->IPS), keyboard, bluetooth chip, memory and drive. But I really respect that cell replacement thing! Please share your knowledge! Maybe it is above my level but it can help everyone :)
I tried this with a laptop battery where I guess the undervoltage protection of the BMS cut off the power. I was successful in replacing the cells but wasn't able to reset the BMS. How do you deal with this?
A policy worth taking on anything handling electricity IMO. Cheap desktop PSUs and laptop/phone charging bricks are similarly dangerous, and although less commonly a problem cheap charging cables can be too. It’s just not something that’s a good idea to pinch pennies on.
> Yoga, which it still trounces in terms of keyboard ergonomics
As you seem to care about the keyboard, beware the T-14 laptops now. The keyboard looks like any other ThinkPad keyboard, but it is beyond cheap. The plastic feels paper thin, the keypresses are stiff then bottom out suddenly, and the keycaps wobble. I've seen better keyboards on Asus laptops.
If you like t420 try the t420s. Same laptop but slimmer and makes it much more transportable. Still has ultra bay, great keyboard, and easy access to everything. I have 3 around the house for various family members and it works great :)
I t420s fell out of my opened backpack a couple of days ago. Not the first time it fell, once I even stepped on it - but after the last drop the display has some problems and i have to push on a certain point to get it working, which made me put it to it's well deserved retirement.[*]
In need of an quick alternative I bought a Dell XPS 13 9343. I like this a lot - it has a way nicer display, the form factor is just great for my needs, build quality is good and even the keyboard feels right (missing a trackpoint tho).
Unfortunately it supports Microsoft's "Modern Standy", which is a fancy name for s2idle - which just doesn't work using Linux, at least I couldn't get it to work . When in s2idle it looses power and does not reliably wake up, in s3 it goes to sleep but needs a hard reset to wake up.
Waiting for my t470s now, as far as I know the latest Thinkpad generation stat supports classic s3 sleep.
*: Actually it lives on as a small NAS/Homeserver. It even packs three disks (M2 SSD, HDD in the HDD slot and an Ultrabay-HDD adpter).
haha, a number of years ago I stepped on my W510. It fell out of bed and under the covers without me noticing, it fell screen down and I stepped right on the display flat against the floor. I didn't put my full weight on it before I realized it was there, but I figured it was toast anyway, surprisingly it was fine!
I really miss the Ultrabay as well. I did the same thing, used to use it for a second HDD for extra storage.
Really though I miss the old old days when you could get an ultrabay battery. What do I need in a laptop more than storage? Battery life. I had a Fujitsu Lifebook which had an "ultrabay" (their version of it, at least) and that was the feature I used most for it.
It seemed to disappear all at once, I wonder if it was FAA regulations around flying with batteries that killed it or what.
I cracked the screen on my T430 a few years ago. Stepped on it, much like you. I am far from the handiest guy when it comes to hardware but I was able to pick up a replacement panel online and the replacement was quite straightforward. I ended up handing that laptop down to my son and he got another 3 years of daily use out of it. He'd still be using it now in college but the performance was finally starting to drag too much for some of his software needs.
> Really though I miss the old old days when you could get an ultrabay battery. What do I need in a laptop more than storage? Battery life. I had a Fujitsu Lifebook which had an "ultrabay" (their version of it, at least) and that was the feature I used most for it.
Well, nowadays you can get a power bank with Power Delivery and charge your laptop via USB-C port
It’s a nice idea on paper, but I don’t think there are many power banks that support 100W+ discharge.
Moreover, that’s a relatively recent technology and there was a good decade (or more) between the point when bay batteries disappeared and usb-c charging became any sort of commonplace occurrence outside Apple products.
I have a X1 Carbon that is a few years old now.A couple of years ago I dropped it (lid closed) from about 2 feet up (70cm). And it hit the tiled floor, pointy corner first. I thought "welp here go $2000". But no! A 2x3 mm part of the black surface finish chipped of and I see the bare silvery metal now. Oh and the tile cracked.
Have you checked the display cable connections? I have a x240 and the connection to the panel has come loose twice due to bumping/dropping the machine. And I do mean the connection on the panel, not on the motherboard.
But I'm kind of glad, that it finally had an error. I wanted to buy a newer one for a long time, but I didn't want to toss out a perfectly functioning notebook and it was too beat-up to sell or even donate it.
I had to upgrade my i7 T420s with maxed out memory and solid state, because work video calls brought it to its knees, and it couldn't push 60 frame videos in the browser. I had to use streamlink for practically all live video consumption. (Linux Mint)
Don't get me wrong; I'm proud of how far I stretched it (and it remains a respectable machine for what it is), but I just want to put this out there if anyone's thinking of trying to dump heavy modern web processing on the T420/T420s dinosaurs.
Is it just me, or did old laptops have better keyboards that the new ones have today?
My first laptop was Acer Aspire One (this one [0]). I still have it and I still use it, it's currently running Debian with Xfce. And the keyboard is still the best I've ever used, I genuinely prefer this keyboard over any desktop keyboards that I've tried and I've tried many mechanical including Cherry Brown switches. I get that the very low profile keyboards on modern laptops look nice, but I personally don't use the keyboard for its looks. Not to mention that my cat stepped on the "Enter" key of one of the newer laptops (Acer CB3-431) and she broke the butterfly shaped keycap stabilisation thingy making the button feel very inconsistent. I can't the replacement for just the bit that broke, I have to buy an entire new keyboard for it (~55€). The cat wasn't fat and she has walked over pretty much every keyboard that I've used, but that was the first one that broke...
It is this line of thinking that I personally think is the reason why a good number of people like and still use ThinkPads today.
I am guessing that is the old 2.5mm key travel Keyboard. Which is practically speaking extinct. Even 1.8mm is on the verge of disappearing. Most now ship with 1.5mm or 1.3mm. But some people somehow liked the butterfly keyboard with only 0.7mm but later reverted back to 1mm.
Personally 1.2mm was the minimum amount of key travel I could handle before a pain signal constantly sent to the back of my brain.
But the world loves to follow Apple, rightly or not. Hence we are getting thinner keyboard.
It's not just looks - newer keys likely use less plastic, because the market is inevitably obsessed with cost-shaving. Less plastic -> increased fragility -> more faults.
The market is even more obsessed with shaving thickness, and the keyboard must typically sit above the mainboard, heatsinks, speakers etc. which leads to ultra-thin designs for that part. There's no way to make that properly ergonomic, the best you can do is let users cope with a "low travel" design that still provides some feedback to the fingers.
I had a 2015 thinkpad, and even on that model the keycaps were so thin that two keys split in half due to normal use after 5 years. They were so thin that I couldn’t glue them together, and lenovo as it turns out will not sell you replacement keycaps, only replacement keyboards. Luckily there are third parties which sell the keycaps.
Didn't read it all, but regarding the battery and sleep issue: I can totally relate to such issues with my Dell XPS 15 9550 (2015) and 9510 (2021).
Windows has this setting "When I close the lid" which is set to "Sleep". In fact it should be renamed as "Drain the battery and heat the bag".
Being a happy MacBook user since they were called PowerBook, I never ever had any such issue with an Apple laptop. Not even, when they were using the same Intel CPUs.
Worse, some months ago I even found a Dell support forum post where they said, to not use sleep mode when putting your laptop away.
With the current ACPI S0 implementation ("modern standby" in Microsoft parlance) there are a huge set of devices and events which can cause the system to wake. This is in theory a good thing, because it allows the system to perform a lot of background tasks while sleeping and allows "instant" resume in response to user input. It can cause a lot of frustration with "mystery wakes" though. I haven't found this to be especially common on my ThinkPads running Windows although it does happen from time to time, which I eventually tracked down to the Bluetooth controller causing a wake whenever my wireless earbuds connected. Under Linux it's been much more of a problem, presumably due to the Linux drivers having a poorer/less validated understanding of what various device events mean. A frustration is that Linux does not offer as good of tools to diagnose this as Windows does (powercfg). That said you can do a lot of tweaking of the Linux behavior using the acpi sysfs, and on my X1 running Fedora I ended up blacklisting just about every device from causing wake because the USB controller seemed to be generating almost constant mystery wake events.
The short story is this: many devices are now active in a low-power state during sleep and can generate a huge variety of events that the OS is expected to receive and make a decision on. Sometimes the OS doesn't understand the event or there's a requirements issue (implementers did not understand/foresee the use case) and these can both result in the system waking for seemingly no good reason. For example, my issue with Linux seems to be the USB controller generating an event the driver did not understand or handle correctly. My issue with Windows seems to be more that a well-intentioned decision (newly connecting Bluetooth devices should wake up the system, which tends to make sense in the case of a mouse/keyboard) had an irritating implication in real-world use (BT headset that connects to multiple devices simultaneously would connect to and wake up my laptop when I was using it with my phone). Unfortunately the way events are implemented on Linux and I assume on Windows as well, there isn't really any support for "if the lid is still closed the system should stay asleep" and so once the system wakes up for an event, and there's no handler that causes it to go back to suspend, it tends to just sit there awake even though the lid is closed. There's no "new event" for the OS to handle since the lid state remains the same. I'm not sure if it's practical for the system to check the lid state in real-time instead of waiting for ACPI events about it.
For what it's worth I'd say my touchbar MacBook Pro does this more often than my Windows ThinkPads do, to the extent that pulling it out of my bag and discovering that the battery has gone completely flat overnight is probably a weekly experience. I haven't put much effort into diagnosing this so I don't know if it's a result of some odd software I'm using or something.
>> Being a happy MacBook user since they were called PowerBook, I never ever had any such issue with an Apple laptop.
My early 2020 16inch required lots of tweaking to prevent complete discharge every night and battery is sub 7500mAh now. It still happens several times a year and I am not sure why.
I am probably not paying over 4000 EUR next time.
User since the 2006 MB Pro.
I still don't understand how Windows could possibly have become so bad at sleeping. Both desktops and laptops have a tendency to wake up at weird times and then never go to sleep. This stuff used to work. What happened?
I believe, although I'm not 100% sure, that in addition to turning on the computer without the user consent, it also puts the machine in a strange state where it's neither on nor off.
According to the spec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InstantGo, it's allowed to suck up to 7.5% of battery every day. As a matter of fact, my Surface device would lose more than 5% every day, and I'd find odd periods of wakeup in the sleep log (when the machine was supposedly fully shutdown).
My old iMac was constantly waking from sleep for online tasks because of the (on by default) Power Nap feature introduced around the same time as InstantGo. By the time I paid any attention to it my HDD had ~500.000 head park cycles which also lead to its early demise. Ended up using it with an external SSD which was a massive boost in performance anyway.
The introduction of S0ix, a.k.a. pretend to sleep.
Why? So that apps can communicate with the Internet while the machine is in sleep mode, or do periodic wakeups for other reasons. Another attempt to shoehorn the smartphone paradigm into desktops/laptops.
"Modern Standby" requires that power draw (and thus thermals) is comparable or lower to S3.
It's less about telemetry etc. (you could do it with age old ACPI timers), it's about people complaining laptop doesn't boot immediately from sleep when they open the lid - but also that on a system where power management support is heavily tested (read: not Linux) "Modern Standby" has less moving parts and is harder to break.
I used to review laptops for a living and it's baffled me for a decade how Windows is still so bad at this. Last Windows laptop I had was an XPS 13 and I resorted to turning it off to avoid the "heat the bag" problem. M1 MacBook Air is basically the only laptop 95% of people should buy (assuming they can afford it)
I second the MacBook Air M1 and recommend it to about everyone that can run a Mac. What a great piece of hardware. Honestly it just works, is super fast and doesn't even have a fan.
Windows desktop refuses to even let the monitors sleep if it detects eg game controllers such as Heusinveld Sprints (pedals).
It's truly notoriously bad. I suppose it's designed that way to ensure a game won't black screen, but how hard would it be to make it a bit smarter? Ie when VSCODE or Terminal has focus, allow sleep.
Long discussion of these issues here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952, but the short version appears to be that Intel removed "S3 Sleep" from recent chips, at Microsoft's behest, in favor of a mode that is supposed to be able to wake up while nominally sleeping in order to get emails, texts, and that sort of thing. Except this mode doesn't seem to work properly and instead seems implemented in such a way as to frustrate people into choosing AMD or Apple.
I bought an XPS 17 9710 for my GF on Xmass. Horrible experience and definitely the last Dell laptop I get. From now on I will stick to MacBook pro's and Lenovo Thinkpads.
> Windows has this setting "When I close the lid" which is set to "Sleep". In fact it should be renamed as "Drain the battery and heat the bag".
That's still a thing? I thought they would have sorted that out a decade ago; my laptop from my first job (regular dell thing, I don't remember) was cooking in the bag and that's been over ten years ago.
Hear hear, nothing about Window's shutdown makes any sense. Other than "sleep" doing the exact opposite, I have a few more:
Sometimes an update is pending and the shutdown menu gives a choice "update and shutdown" or just "shutdown". So I pick "shutdown". It then updates anyway, including full restarts.
Sometimes there's no special options in the shutdown and upon shutting down, an update is forced. Even ones I did not postpone for too long.
Further, the "restart" option is really too close to "shutdown", especially on a very large screen. And there's no canceling once it starts.
I currently have to shut down my Mac mini every night instead of putting it to sleep because it routinely crashes and reboots in the middle of the night, lighting up the room
Oh the 9510 also has its surprises.
First the Microsoft bluetooth mouse constantly went sleeping for about 500ms when not moving it. This annoyed the hell out of me. After lots of research I found some guys recommending to disable all sleep features on all the drivers in the device manager. This sure fixed it.
But now, I have the exact same issue with the internal track pad, when running on battery power!
Meanwhile the MacBook Air M1 just works. For each and every feature.
It's sad, but as a Windows Dev, the XPS15 still is a great machine. You just have to know and adapt to its bad parts.
My favorite form factor ThinkPad was the small square x61 with the most amazing keyboard of any laptop I have every touched.
My overall favorite was the x230, whereas the x240 was unusable due to an erratic touch pad (the cursor would jump around while typing code).
Nowadays I use an X1 at home and a MacBook (M1) at work, and the Mac wins regarding weight, speed, interoperability (WiFi, sound), battery and raw computer power, but the x1 wins with respect to keyboard, Linux support. I think the MacBook makes the better travel companion but the x1 makes the better dev machine (Linux is a "less odd" UNIX than MacOS X, speaking of paths, command names etc. memorized from varies Unices over the years). I would be keen to try out the X1 Nano, but the 1st generation is too similar to my existing box to consider an upgrade.
There was a "reboot" by a modder called the x62. He brought he specs up to a more modern era and increased the resolution. I was lucky enough to hop on the pre-built line and snag one for a good price. Add it to you watchlist on ebay because sometimes someone will post one. https://www.notebookcheck.net/X62-Laptop-Review.211598.0.htm...
My daily driver is an X230. I bought my offspring an x240 a while ago, and it was terrible: the trackpoint buttons are built into the trackpad, rather than being separate physical buttons, and they're very unreliable. Thankfully, they broke the screen a few weeks ago, and we replaced it with an X270. In terms of the hackability and repairability ThinkPads are known for, it seems like the x230 was the last good one, but at least the ergonomics of the x270 are pretty good.
Yeah, I'm slowly amassing good-condition X230s... I've got two X230 and two X230T ... great machines IMO, even if they aren't perfect they're pretty close! I got a few since I know they won't last forever, but the longer I can avoid using new machines the better. Not a fan of "everything is one single tiny PCB and you can't repair anything" trend of today's systems.
By ThinkPad Classic, you mean, the ThinkPad 25 Retro Anniversary Edition? I think it was kind of popular, but for $2,000, it just wasn't very competitive even with other ThinkPads. You were essentially paying a premium for a 7-row keyboard.
I never liked the Thinkpads touch, and for some reason if I'm running my x250 in windows it just stops working after a few minutes (runs fine in linux, so ok), but in the end, I hate the concept of a trackpad and always carry a wireless mouse with me.
If you mean the anniversary model, aka T25, it was T470 with "large delete" keyboard attached and configured in EC, and was done as one off anniversary model.
No future plans for "classic" appear to be on the roadmap.
Regarding the micro SD card reader, is that really a micro SD card slot?
I think it's more likely a SIM card slot. Lenovo has included these for quite some time (under the battery in the T460, for instance). That's not something you change every day, so needing a pin to open it makes sense (plus, it prevents against theft somewhat). Also, a lot of modems do not like you removing it while they are powered on, so having the lid prevent its opening sounds like a feature.
My 5th or 6th gen X1 Carbon has a microsd tray just like that in that same spot. I actually use it so I know it definitely is microsd.
The utterly inconvenient access makes me think it must not have been intended for frequent swapping.
IE, it's probably not there to support photographers or drone pilots or any other activity that involves frequently swapping cards, and so it's not quite right to criticise it for being terrible at that. About like complaining that the trackpoint is terrible for CAD.
I have no idea what it's intended function IS though either. I just put a big card in there just because I could, and used it as shared space that both linux and widows could both access. It wasn't necessary nor the best way to do that. That can't be what it was meant for either.
> it must not have been intended for frequent swapping
Don't attribute to intent what can be adequately explained with LSD laced vodka enemas. For the last decade the design language of ThinkPads is an atrocious [and successful] process of making their users suffer.
I wish there would still be a left company making laptops for professionals.
I would throw decent money to anyone not subscribing to the current form over function trend. I want thick, sturdy, long battery live, proper palm rest, good old LAN port. Is that too much to ask for a modern laptop?
No AMD and no matte screen is a showstopper for me on the framework. Especially the processor - AMD thermals are in another class. It makes no sense to buy Intel laptops right now.
I bought a Framework laptop hoping to get macOS running on it, and it "works." Other users on the Framework Community forums and myself have found that you can get macOS booting, but all the things one might expect to have from a laptop just don't work [0][1].
Primarily, graphics acceleration doesn't work. Since Apple has never made a computer that uses Intel 11th Gen CPUs, the integrated graphics are borked. I suppose a tremendous effort to reverse engineer and inject a working driver /could/ work, it's probably not feasible.
With the move to ARM, I feel the time has come and gone for hackintoshes. The x86 versions will die, and then what use is a laptop with swappable components if I end up having to emulate ARM code in a VM?
I would love for companies to spend money on desktops and permanent work spaces - at home and / or at the office.
But they don't want to do that, because leaving hardware at the office translates to much higher insurance costs and makes them a bigger target for theft.
But like, 32 core, 64-128GB workstation with all the ports and storage you'll ever need is very possible and attainable on a fixed workspace, along with 4K 120Hz matte color-calibrated displays and the best keyboards money can buy.
Laptops are an unfortunate compromise. I get it, and I can work with it, but I'd rather have a desktop.
I get where you're coming from. But my company issues laptops because that's what developers want. I personally like being able to pick up my laptop and go work in a common area, or a cafe, or take the thing home with me and work from home whenever I want.
> because leaving hardware at the office translates to much higher insurance costs and makes them a bigger target for theft.
Not sure I buy that. Laptop loss and thefts resulting from being out in public must be way higher than the incidence of thieves breaking into locked and alarmed commercial office buildings just to steal computers.
actually, any half decent gaming laptops nowadays, matches the old standard for "professional laptop", usually required ports and bays, decent battery life (4-6 hours for 13-14' models even with nvidia), superb displays (not that big in brightness / nits maybe - 300 at least - but 120 mhz is almost a standard).
Most gaming laptops nowadays also, sport a sober look (full black gaming laptops ala Thinkpad are usual), not the previously common "RGB-everywhere".
The lost upgradability in Thinkpads is even fully available in many gaming laptops, even some 14' ones have one-two RAM slots available.
The performance required for a professional laptop is fully there too, fast processors, lots of ram, several internal storage devices (in 15' gaming laptop is quite common one -upgradable - SSD plus a 2.5 bay sporting a much bigger HDD, accouting for several TBs in internal storage, almost unthinkable in most current "professional" laptops, specially if you want NOT to pay U$S 2000+).
And the guarantees usually span 2 years.
I think my future work laptop will be one of those amazing machines.
Are there any gaming laptop manufacturers that you could recommend?
My only concerns would be:
1. Paying the "gamer" tax. I assume these are going to be higher priced because they're targeting a culture big on edgy aesthetics and with plenty of disposable income.
2. Do the GPUs on these come on discrete cards that can be removed? I have no need for a gaming GPU... On my current laptop, I removed the nVidia GPU it came with and just run the laptop on the integrated Intel graphics. Zero problems with it ever.
(another disposable account), I see a lot of MSI and Asus gaming laptops with good specs and reasonable pricing. The Asus TUF series has some of those cheap but good laptops. Also, Gigabyte gaming laptops have good specs, pricing.
Regarding the discrete GPU, I actually don't know if you can remove it from budget gaming laptops, I'd think you usually can't, but there are some expensive Alienware gaming laptops which I think could allow this.
As it was mentioned, the brightness could be a pain point, I'd double check about it in notebookcheck (the site).
The lack of brightness is a problem for me personally. I had a G15 Zephyrus for a bit, and its screen was great (1440p 144hz IPS) except its brightness was low, which made it less than pleasant to use in a well-naturally-lit room even with the light being indirect. I ended up returning that laptop for other reasons (mainly, finicky GPU driver behavior and its nosiness compared to a desktop), but its screen’s brightness didn’t help matters.
My X1 Nano and M1 Pro MBP are vastly better in those departments, hitting 450 and 500 nits brightness (with the larger going all the way to 1600nits for HDR content) which is usable in a much better range of environments. You’d have to be sitting in direct noon sunlight to really have a problem.
I wish the minimum bar for screen brightness would increase, 200-300 nits really just doesn’t cut it with fewer of us working in artificially lit offices with almost no sunlight.
I am also looking for a similar robust laptop with Lan Port, headphone jack, good battery life and decently competitive CPU.
I have been using multiple Macbooks from past 10-12 years and have seen the machine degrade over time both in term of software and hardware (with the exception of latest M1 series)
I don't really understand the fuss about lan port. If you are using a cable, you are probably not anymore in a mobile situation and most of the time you connected the laptop to a usb-c docking station as you also want to plug a screen, keyboard, external pointer, etc.
A lot of ethernet port use is diagnosing/configuring devices in the field - servers, networking equipment, etc or just plugging in occasionally when you have to download a big file.
I wouldn't call that "a lot". It is more niche use nowadays and for these kind of use one usually prefer a dedicated tool. Nowadays the datacenter guys would favor a mini laptop like the GPD Micro PC (which also comes with serial port by the way) for example, people working in the field would rather use Panasonic Toughbook lines that also kept serial ports and ethernet. It would be nice if Lenovo still had one or two sturdiers models available with similar I/Os but it makes no sense to have them on all models.
For us occasionnal users just having one of those 5 in 1 adapters in the laptop bag is enough. The thinner/lighter form factor is more comfortable most of the time and said adapter can be shared accross different devices. If I do the count I have 5 laptops in my own, 2 personnal, 1 professionnal, the other 2 are used by my partner and kids. I am very unlikely to need to hook a RJ45 cable on all these laptops at the same time.
I'm currently firmly in the same club as you. I have a 13' work laptop with two USB 3.0, plus one USB-C, but the thing weight is just about 2 pounds (1 kg). Booting SSD + not so much ram, but the thing flies even starting from hibernation.
Sometimes I miss having the damn LAN port, but you're right, for datacenter and field work, heavy hardware is a no go. I do know a number of people in the field using macbooks air for the work.
What’s funny is that you’re describing the latest MacBook Pro models aside from the LAN port.
It’s thicker than the previous generation with more ports, with batshit crazy 20 hour battery life.
Or, if you’re my cable installer, you can still buy Panasonic Toughbook and similar jobsite laptops that have those features, but they’re a niche.
What do you need a physical LAN port for? In my experience that need is incredibly occasional, especially when compared to the need to actually go somewhere (these are laptops after all).
Modern Wi-Fi speeds are so fast and reliable there truly isn’t a need to use a wired connection regularly even if you are “professional.”
You want long battery life and a dedicated LAN port but why do you need long battery life if you’re just gonna sit connected to the wall?
We used to lug around laptops that had empty space inside just in case you wanted to pop in a PCMCIA card, which seems pretty insane when you think about it from a modern perspective. Empty space in a portable device for the chance that you might want to add an expansion card. Obviously, USB has long since decimated the need for something so, dare I say, crazy!
I think what you want is to go back in time for nostalgia’s sake. These old school features are gone because they’ve been supplanted, not because some big bad evil laptop OEM removed it to save a buck.
The biggest issue for me (and many others) is that it's not an x86 machine. This is fine if your entire workflow revolves around delivering web experiences or performing platform-agnostic media-encoding, but the moment you step into things like Docker management, cross-compilation, 32-bit library support... the premise just falls apart entirely. Apple is doing their own thing now, and I think it's fine if they want to segregate their market so they can focus on what they do well, but I frankly fail to see how an M1 Mac would do anything but bring more headache to my current position where I deploy to and maintain x86 machines.
Some of the classic ThinkPad features just aren't relevant anymore today. For example hot-swappable batteries feel outdated to me in the age of USB-C PD power banks, as those are easier to recharge and not tied to a specific laptop model.
Other features such as user-replaceable RAM and storage, and a great keyboard, are dearly missed and make me feel like we've gone in the wrong direction. I love my M1 MacBook Air, but not _because_ of the thinness and the things that have been sacrificed to achieve it.
Hot-swappable batteries may be less relevant, but easily-user-replaceable batteries are sorely missed. I still do some work on a T60 (from 2006, I think) whose battery was obviously toast. It took $15 on eBay and ten seconds to pop the old one out and get a brand new one in. Meanwhile my wife's MBP's battery is also about dead and figuring out how to replace it is just enough effort that we haven't made it happen yet.
While I'm here: other features I miss include the Thinklight, literally everything about the keyboard (layout, not being chiclet, key depth), dedicated trackpad buttons, the lid latch, …
aftermarket batteries are AWFUL though, I played that game with my Thinkpad for a number of years before sucking it up and buying an OEM replacement. I was lucky to get six months out of an aftermarket battery and sometimes they were out of balance and dying within a matter of weeks. And once the OEM supply is truly gone (or aged out of existence) you're done anyway, unless you crack open the pack and replace the cells yourself.
The way you replace a MBP battery is you take it to apple and have them do it for you. It makes absolutely no sense to pay to have it cracked open and serviced and then put a $30 ebay shit battery in it that will fail in 3 months - which if you're not going to an apple service center, is probably what you're getting. $200 isn't cheap but a genuine lenovo OEM battery (one which even still may have been sitting on a shelf for years and the cells are no longer at their best) will cost you about $125 from a legitimate source. $200 for a fresh battery with installation isn't really all that bad. For something with a 3-5 year lifespan, that's just the cost of using the device, same as a phone.
I like serviceable devices too, and I think the parts should have to be made available to the market, but batteries and screens are two areas where I "get it" in terms of the protectionism around parts supply. There's a huge difference between the OEM and the aftermarket parts in these areas, and customers are going to want to know why YOUR device is draining THEIR battery in 30 minutes all of a sudden. Don't you know they just had the battery replaced last month!? It's YOUR fault! Regardless of whether it actually is, you've got a lot of extra service work and a lot of upset customers. Louis Rossman is a cool guy and I'm sure he personally is careful to only use legitimate parts (or at least be upfront that it's not an OEM part) but he's only presenting his half of the story there.
Absolutely. I replaced the battery on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15" myself with one I bought from iFixit, who I thought were a reputable dealer, and one year / 150 cycles in it was swelling to the point where I felt it was dangerous to continue using the computer with the battery inside. I had a similarly bad experience with third party batteries on my iPhone 6S.
I'm all for keeping things as user replaceable as possible, but personally I'm only using OEM batteries from now on.
> Most of the ThinkPads' unique features, as I’ve realized upon writing this article, are long gone.
I was always under the impression that Thinkpad fans specifically sought out the older laptops (obviously people do buy the newer ones, but people who are specifically fans of Thinkpads rather than it just being another laptop). I know thats certainly the case for me. I never even considered that someone who considers themselves a thinkpad fan, or even collector, would rush out to buy the latest one.
I recently bought an E14, and it still does have an ethernet port. I've been happy with it, although I'm not too fussy about the keyboard compared to the old ones.
>Keeping something as it is may not seem such a significant achievement. Still, under marketers' pressure backed by various polls and data (I imagine), Lenovo kept the signature part of the ThinkPad line. And I celebrated this decision of theirs with every model they released over these years.
I am also very glad they kept the trackpoint, although I never use it, because I love having physical mouse buttons, and especially a middle mouse button for opening new tabs, which I use constantly (despite more and more fancy SPAs thinking that opening things in a new tab is not a necessary functionality for a website to have). I hate tap-to-click and drag and drop operations are also just a million times nicer with physical buttons
My X220 is like the grandpa’s axe. Over the decade that I have owned it, I have replaced everything. What I like the most about that design is that it’s easy to disassemble it to bits and reassemble it back non-destructively.
The biggest build quality problem on it (and x230) is the top bar made of plastic, at the top of the back of the lid, for antennas.
It's held so weakly that even a 10-20cm drop will break the plastic clips.
Did you replace the screen somehow ?
I have a X220, replaced a lot of stuff, but I barely use it today because the 1366x768 screen is not enough anymore...
At least a 1080p display is the bare minimum today.
The S3 / S0ix sleep state power consumption fiasco is completely unacceptable. I have two T480 laptops with usable S3 that I regularly put to sleep for a week.
I will not be upgrading them until after I can confirm that this mess has been fixed.
I no longer care whether blame lies with Lenovo or with Intel's reference platform. The product is so broken that it is fundamentally unfit for my use case.
I bought a T14s to bridge the MacBook Pro gap before the M1. I expected more and am frankly looking forward to return to Apple, as soon as they sort out their supply-chain backlog.
It could have been better: firmware issues (as mentioned in the article and other posts, power management is a joke), very poor Windows performance (UI lag during network streaming due to the NT kernel only hammering CORE0), embarrassing Linux desktop experience (after so many years it's still such a massive train-wreck).
I just don't have the time to deal with all this, all while attempting to get some work done.
This is funny as I was just thinking to myself this morning, "My X13 is the worst Thinkpad I've ever owned". The S3/S5 issues aren't limited to Linux, they exist in Windows too. I've set my laptop to just hibernate whenever I close the display to get around the issue, though it's very annoying.
I also made the mistake of optioning mine with the PrivacyGuard screen, but that's on me. I actually can't wait till I can justify upgrading.
Performance is great on the "original" AMD one, 8 cores, 32GB of RAM!
We unbricked a Lenovo T570 once by flashing a working BIOS into the EEPROM chip. It was a rather nervewracking experience. I wrote down the steps in this Arch wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T570
Allowing myself a slightly off-topic question: For the people having old Thinkpads (X220 for example), where do you buy replacement batteries?
Are you buying many from different providers hoping to land one good in the pack? How can you have a kind of minimal confidence that it will not be a security hazard?
I wonder the same thing, with the added asterisk of "...in Canada?"
I think the answer is that many don't, including me. I don't really need to use my laptop on the go as much, so I just carry around that giant ass power brick.
Had a 220. Looooved it. It probably even had the substandard screen.
But my X1 Carbon Gen4 (I don't upgrade too often) was terrible. I never thought I would be one to say this: it was probably the keyboard I disliked the most.
Now rocking a Dell XPS 13 (7390) and it's great. The light keyboard is fine. I've tried colleagues Apples of varying styles and never like the keyboard or trackpad. (Included because I consider the Dell design to be superficially similar, or at least both are in contrast to the IBM/Lenovo nice keyboard philosophy of yesteryear).
I hear more negative reports about more recent XPS 13s than mine but I'm still not going back to Lenovo.
I switched briefly to a Thinkpad from Macbook for about a year. It was all fine until the RAM started failing. No problem, just pop it open and find what kind of SIMMs it takes...oh, RAM soldered in. And now it's a brick.
> The removal of the SD cards slot and Ethernet port has made recent ThinkPads a suboptimal choice for traveling photographers and some IT professionals.
This might be true of the x series, but the T series still has an RJ45 and a microSD
Some of the issues in the article seem to have been caused by the push to make laptops smaller: internal battery, fewer ports. A natural solution would be to change the series you use to a larger one — e.g., go from X to T, etc.
I owned T440s (note the "s" for slim version), but later switched to T490 exactly for this reason. The non-slim T490 is actually thinner than the T440s was, because of the miniaturization trend, and has all the right ports (alas, still no external battery). Absolutely no power, suspend, etc issues at all under Arch.
> Until Lenovo sold me a lemon — ThinkPad X13 AMD.
Lenovo has sold us lemons in the X series since they started fucking up their keyboards after the X220. The X230 is still usable, but - X240 and later - not really. The poster does note this fact, but still claims the thinning of the chassis over the years is a good thing... Wrong :-( This sentence:
> it’s easy to argue that the X220’s design from the top picture is the least practical.
is the opposite of the truth. For a decent keyboard you need key travel, and for key travel you need travel height. Now, could you save a bit of height by battery improvements or rearrangements? Or by display thinning? Sure, but the Lenovo killed the keyboard for an extra 6mm or so.
> X270 ... just looks so much more pleasing to my eye
Come on. Really? Are you a fashion model?
> Proprietary charging port
It's true that the switch to USB-C allows for more flexibility. However - I personally liked how the port was round, and thick, so you could very easily get your plug in without having to lean in and take a closer look. But can't really complain about that I suppose.
> Touchpad
This may be the most controversial take I have on Thinkpads, but personally, for me, this is mostly and annoyance and something I tap by mistake. And something which takes space away from the keyboard... I'm perfectly fine with my trackpoint.
I've tried many times to get something else, but I stick with thinkpads because they're easy to service, and the trackpoint. The trackpoint is a big deal for me.
The more recent ones without the battery slots are pretty horrendous to service. They are a complete mishmash of absolutely standard laptop design the same as all the other vendors. Screws yes, but then a layer of fragile clips on the chassis. Then tape. Lots of tape. I’m not a fan.
The best part of the thinkpads is the sheer amount of corporate corpses on the market which keeps the parts available and cheap.
Clips are not so fragile. I have disassembled my P14s gen 2 wtih AMD on first day because i wanted Intel AX210 wifi instead of realtek. Two fingernails broken, because i don't have tools, but with plastic tools it should be easy (here is video https://youtu.be/K_lJcciszsw).
Big problem for me is USB-C. I don't like small, fragile connectors directly soldered on motherboard. USB-A is on separate board. I don't know why USB-C has no separate board.
Trackpoint on AMD models has terrible in linux support. Sample rate of trackpoint is max 40Hz, because it's in fallback mode (PS/2 protocol). Touchpad can't be disabled in BIOS and low rate is because is muxed with trackpoint to single PS/2 interface.
S0ix don't work. No opportunistic sleep. Minimal power usage on battery with AMD-5850u, LCD at minimum brightness (4k panel) is 3W. Standard power usage while i am working is 3.5-4.5W.
I still have a x260, but yes, I believe that's the trend. If frame.work manages to get a decent keyboard with trackpoint, I'm probably in. I don't know about the build quality yet.
I went from a ThinkPad (T61) to MBP and have used these ever since (except I bought a second hand T61 a couple of years ago, still liked the trackpoint but hardware too slow and 32 bit). The Apple Magic Trackpad 2 (not the big one though it might also be great) is an amazing trackpad (on macOS). It made me not miss the trackpoint (which is very useful given its size, indeed). If frame.work's touchpad comes close to it, it'd be my main concern for non-Macbook laptops.
I travel semi frequently with my laptop by Train, and use it often in outdoors. I can use a trackpad, but honestly the trackpoint is a bless in such situations. It's way more smooth experience, even though that trackpoint has its buggy stuff.
The times I tried other laptops it felt so much different and difficult, I carried a wireless mini-mouse for that.
Every couple of weeks these come up. I am glad they do and eat them all up. :)
Maybe the market research from posts like these are anecdotal, but it still screams that there is a market for old ThinkPad-style designs. Is this request too niche? I am not sure, but I would love to think that manufacturers should just see from these that good, old designs work well for people and people will want to buy those designs. I would and I would be excited over that.
I've been thinking about getting this laptop. I am a little hesitant because it is far more of a project than other laptops, but it seems to give me that Thinkpad x200T vibe.
I am a web dev, and I've been considering pairing this with an Apple Ipad as a sort of second screen / browser.
I have had the same thought when it comes to the case where I will need something for the future. The price is not a surprise for the amount of production for this. I am personally waiting to see what comes of the SoM being worked on to support 16gb.
the preference of older thinkpads is strong and common enough that there is even a cottage industry of custom motherboards with newer components made to fit older chassis, see e.g.
https://www.xyte.ch/mods/x210-x2100/
it looks like framework managed to do a fine macbook clone; what would it take them (or someone else) to clone thinkpad next?
I hope so. I think there's plenty of people waiting for that, including me. A modern x220? Good keyboard, trackpoint, decent screen with good outdoors brightness, backlit keyboard, and good linux compatibility? I'm just dreaming, I know.
Still working on an X1 carbon 5th. Screen isn't very good and the processor feels pretty slow. But it sleeps properly and the battery life is great (Ubuntu 20.04).
Holding out until Framework gen 2 comes out, either with AMD or Intel 12th gen.
Feels to me like framework is going to take all the Linux users. Wouldn't be surprised if they release a keyboard with a track point too.
Hope they put attention into proper S3 sleep. What a massive industry regression in the last 5 years.
The part about power usage is interesting. I work on a T14 AMD and yes, I had the annoying wake-ups when closing the lid. But this was fixed by the firmware upgrade.
I cannot relate to battery drain when sleeping. I can leave the laptop asleep for 4+ days and it still retains enough battery to use it (maybe 20-30%).
I also have an X220. An X220 Tablet though. An all-around embarrassing device. Sure, the form factor was correct, but everything else was not. Should’ve just returned it. The keyboard is not firmly seated inside and bounces around, resulting in audible vibrations. When switching to tablet mode, TrackPoint no longer deactivates. The screen moves it, moving the cursor in turn. 3G card was mediocre at best. The pen digitizer does not work properly at screen edges no matter how much I calibrate.
Add to this all the general ThinkPad problems like locked-down Wi-Fi card slots, mediocre battery life and fans that are running all the time.
I’m not sorry at all I jumped ship back then. I still use the Late 2013 MacBook Pro now. It’s certainly not perfect but just so much better. But that’s just for me.
We've got four X1 Carbon's in our house - the oldest is a gen2 and the latest is a gen 9. They're all amazing but share the design quirk changes noted in by the OP. My biggest issue remains that the keyboard layouts are slightly different.
I tried out a new thinkpad recently. I had heard, here and on other sites, that they're the best laptops for running linux, but I experienced a number of issues when trying to run recent versions of ubuntu and pop os, including:
- Hotkeys, like brightness adjustment, not working on some versions
- Wifi not working (I found a driver on github that I wasn't able to get working)
- Really short battery life, even after fiddling with sleep mode in the bios
- Choppy touchpad controls
I might have had better luck with an intel model (this one was AMD), or with a slightly older model that's had more time to be tested and supported, but it definitely wasn't the "just works" experience I was hoping for
I used to obsess over the Carbon X1 when it was new. I have a smaller Carbon now but man nice computers. I also like that I can take it apart pretty easily to replace stuff. The keyboard is nice too.
>Most of the ThinkPads' unique features, as I’ve realized upon writing this article, are long gone.
It’s painful to admit, but I came to the same conclusion for similar reasons.
I’ve owned ThinkPads off and on since 2000, most recently an x280. I still have a rock solid T400 in my workshop, and a modded T440s (added trackpad buttons), but I’ve sold off all the rest and am now pondering whether to buy some version of the X1 Carbon. I've given up collecting old gems like the x230 because, despite all the wonderful features, the screen and battery just don't cut it for me anymore.
It was my second decade and definitely worse then the first one. They went from being able to use those machines long after the three-year cycle to them barely lasting those 3 years. The cherry on top was me not being able to replace a faulty keybord due to the zif connector breaking on a light touch.
This is not entirelly lenovo's fault though - the latest T-series are eyeing 1 kg and with the laws of physics not having changed, it is impossible to deliver the same sturdiness. My next one is going to be a P-series. Let's hope it still has some quality.
I've been working on a P50 since 2016; It is holding up.
Flaws:
- There is cosmetic degradation
- The laptop is gradually losing hassle-free hardware support from the latest popular Linux distributions. (Trackpoint crashes randomly in Ubuntu; Sleep/power management has never worked properly).
- I had to replace the keyboard after 3 years (the keys mechanically wore out and became loose). I had difficulty finding new replacement keyboards recently (although this is more an indictment of the UK's trade situation).
- The buttons on the main touchpad are slowly failing; Near as I can tell it isn't possible to replace these without replacing the entire "top case". I use an external mouse to slow the decline.
> The laptop is gradually losing hassle-free hardware support from the latest popular Linux distributions.
That's disappointing. How well do Debian and Fedora hold up from that POV? Even if support has also regressed there, those are probably the distributions where tracing and reporting that regression would be easiest.
Fwiw I’ve used a P50s and dislike the keyboard and track point greatly. The keyboard isn’t as stiff, and the track point feels imprecise. There is much more flex in the frame than older (t450, t500, x61) thinkpads that I’ve used, as well. This is only one datapoint, though, and that particular machine was a hand me down that could have been a lemon.
ThinkPadding for 22 years. From the A21p or A31p (I think that was my first, but it has been a while) to the Nano now. Thinkpads are not the same any longer. My nano spontaneously overheats and shuts down out of nowhere when Windows runs the built in antivirus scan for too long. I got the motherboard replaced but it did not fix the issue. But what else is out there if you need a stable solid workhorse? My only requirements these days is 16GB, 1TB and a beautiful display (waiting for affordable OLEDs).
One major complaint (of mine) is the small size if the arrow keys. Macbook pro is even worse with up/down keys smaller than left/right. I don't know why but they all keep a huge right shift key that I never use. They should cut it to half and give more spaces to the arrow keys.
Sadly the new Macbook pro keeps the design. I'm getting sick of hitting page up/down accidentally when navigating code.
Pick up some Vim skills, your future self will thank you. Vim bindings are available in every editor worth using. You’ll never touch your arrows again.
If your last try with Debian was about 10 years ago, maybe give it another try? I find Debian stable exactly that: rock stable. Support for older HW is also great, offering enough Desktop choice.
I'll second Debian. I toggled between Ubuntu and Fedora for 10 yrs. Too many dodgy updates on Fedora, too much "is that package a deb or a snap" on Ubuntu. After working in RHEL based companies for many years, I switched to Centos and fought the out of date packages (sometimes building stuff from source) until the IBM takeover. Debian has been a good middle ground with newish packages that I rarely have to fight to get my work done.
The battery drain while lid closed and the firmware brick issues are totally unacceptable.
Also, it seems as if AMD based laptops in general have been crippled compared to Intel based ones. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel forces the laptop makers to cripple AMD based laptops, with the choice of discrete GPU, screen sizes, quality or resolution.
I'm happy to move to ARM Macbook M1 Pro, leaving AMD and Intel behind.
This has been improving greatly. I never owned an AMD based laptop before 2020, but when Ryzen 4000 came out, I got excited. Then I waited... and waited.
In that first year, discrete GPU maxed out at RTX 2060 while Intel laptops would get RTX 2080 (mobile, of course.) Screens were all 1080p while Intel laptops paired with 4K, and they were often lower refresh rate (i.e. the 240Hz gaming ones were all Intel). Brightness was often 250-300 nit with any AMD laptop, but Intel offered some with 500 nits. Keyboards were lucky to be backlit, let alone per-key RGB! Those were some of the most recognizable differences (specific to my shopping), but others were here and there.
In 2021, things shifted. The highest end gaming laptops were often available with the AMD CPU (APU), with 300Hz screens, higher brightness, etc.
Intel still makes Thunderbolt an effective Intel-exclusive, even though it's technically feasible on AMD laptops. But laptop OEMs have started taking AMD much more seriously in the past couple of years.
(Eventually I got a Lenovo Legion 5 - just over $1k with a Ryzen 4800H, 16GB, 512GB, 144Hz 300-nit 1080p screen, RTX 2060 6GB. Of course the options are a lot higher end now, but also a lot more expensive!)
Recently bought a X270 to take on travels and I love it. It's a breath of fresh air compared to the modern laptop world. All the ports you need, exchangeable battery and indestructible. Performance isn't great, but alright for light development work. My biggest gripe is probably the screen, that definitely shows its age.
Nice, just last week I got my x200 out of the closet. Now I have to replace the CMOS battery and probably repaste the CPU to get it back into a somewhat working condition, it seems like my SSD died as well in the meantime. It's always been my "oh shit I need a linux laptop to fix my network" laptop, really handy :)
I brought a T450 and the screen hinge snapped off after 2 years literally a week after the warranty was up.
I missed the heyday of IBM Thinkpads but the apparent blind brand loyalty and cult like following they have now is unneeded and allows Lenovo to get away with crazy things like 1368p screens is crazy.
If it makes you feel any better, I am facing EXACTLY the same battery drain issue n macOS since last three years and found no solution or support from Apple who pretend the issue doesn’t exist in the first place despite forums shouting loud.
I still like my T460 too, especially because Ubuntu works completely flawlessly.
Also as I was able to buy a warranty for over 5 years where they came in my office and replaced stuff without shipping and long waiting :) Had to use this once after a year when the mainboard broke (cpu freezed)
Battery time is still ~6h (bought the extra large second battery and was ~12h initially)
The keyboard + display are great (the display is now after >5 years a bit white in certain spots but nothing critical).
The CPU speed isn't that great but ok.
The sound is really really bad :)
I really wish manufacturers still understood there are people out there who don't mind a bit of extra weight or adjusted form factor for more battery. Sure, with new charging standards I can just use an external backup battery to charge the laptop but it's annoying to have another extra separate thing to carry around when it used to just be an optional part of the system.
Im on my t460 right now :)
With Ubuntu I honestly don't see much drama. It kinda a bummer in some regards. It just keeps working so I have no good excuse after 5 years to get another laptop.
I've broken it a few times dropping it. And being able to download the manual, order parts and then repair at home has been really nice. I hope lenovo understands that this is a big feature of thinkpads.
I was also looking bor replacement, but I just couldn't justify it to myself. With 16 gigs of RAM and 512G SSD it works like a charm. I think that the fan will be the first thing that I'll need to replace...
I have been using ThinkPads for 20+ years. By far, my favourite is the X23 (IBM, not Lenovo), such had a 4:3 display and an excellent keyboard with proper home/pg up/pg down/arrow keys. It was a wonderful machine.
I'm not a long-time Thinkpad user at all; but used a 2011 Macbook before I bought my X1 Extreme g2 a few years ago. Mostly because I've heard so many people rave about the excellent build quality of Thinkpads. After reading the article, I want to share some of my experiences:
By far the biggest advantage of Thinkpads, not mentioned at all in this article, is their spill-resistant keyboards. When I just had my X1E, I accidentally spilled an entire mug on tea over it. I turned it off, watched the tea spill out of the bottom, let it rest for a while just to be on the safe side, opened it the next day to check it and dry it off, and when I turned it on, everything worked fine as if nothing had happened. I suspect I could just have continued working with the tea in the keyboard, but I'm not taking that risk.
A kid once spilled lemonade over my Macbook, and that was an expensive new motherboard.
The battery life of my X1E is absolutely terrible. There are probably good reasons for that: it's a very powerful laptop in a very thin body, so little room for battery, lots of power, which also needs to be cooled. And on top of that, I've got a 4K OLED screen that probably eats a ton of power. 4K on a laptop is a mistake. Too much power in a thin laptop is also a mistake; it's either noisy, overheats, or throttles.
My battery life really seems to be just 2 hours. I can take it places, but I have to plug it in if I want to do anything at all.
About screens, the article says:
> However, 1920×1080 of their recent 13-inch display model yields a lousy 170 PPI. It’s enough for me, but it is just an average offering even for 2020 when it was released. What’s terrible about this is that Lenovo does not offer better options.
I don't know about 13 inch models, but Lenovo definitely does offer much higher resolution for the 15" X1E. But 4K is way overkill. For 13 inch, HD should be plenty.
My biggest frustration with my X1E, however, is my laggy mouse. I think it's tied to the hybrid graphics (it can switch between builtin graphics and an nVidia GPU, and is supposed to do so cleverly, though I question that). Screen sometimes (but rarely) flickers rapidly between cooler bluish whites and warmer reddish whites. Switching graphics modes is done automatically and turns my screen black for a second. It does this when I plug/unplug power, for example.
Lenovo's onsite support has already replaced the motherboard for this, but that didn't fix it.
The mic is also often too quiet, but I think that's Windows. I keep finding weird mic settings in Windows (that are always hard to find) that keep turning down my mic to 20% or so for no good reason. Windows 10 mic support clearly sucks and should be much easier to find.
The high power intel chips prior to Alder Lake are unable to be sufficiently cooled in a laptop of 2kgs or less. The result is excessive throttling, terrible battery, and heat.
The Ryzen 4x/5x chips handle these chassis nicely however and I'm unsure about new Alder Lake ones.
Mine is probably pre-Alder Lake, so this certainly fits my experience.
For my son, I got a Thinkpad E495 with a Ryzen 3700. It can go forever on a battery charge, but it lacks the spill-resistant keyboard as far as I can tell.
Same, I've been getting on really well with mine after upgrading from an X201T last year.
I do think this is going to be my last ThinkPad though, user-replicable RAM has been jettisoned on all subsequent X series machines, and the loss of the SD card reader is another kick in the teeth.
The new keyboard layout is garbage too, I miss the 7 row keyboard a lot. At the very least, I just wish I had my page back/forward keys back.
After reading a lot of praise on Thinkpads on HN, especially by Linux users, I decided to but a Lenovo X1-Extreme (gen 1) for work. Specs basically maxed out.
Here is my experience with the X1E:
# Business use & warranty:
For business use, Lenovo offers on-site repair. Lenovo will come to you and repair or replace a broken device. At a reasonable cost (~300 eur) you can extend this to a 3 year contract. Compared to Apple (who have zero options for on-site repairs, and zero extended warranty options for small business) this is infinitely better for professional use. Regardless of how many 'pro' titles Apple slap on their products, you basically get 0 service from them, even if you pay.
# Hardware:
- Coil whine. So. Much. Coil whine :-(
- Laptop comes with 2 M.2 slots, one occupied by the factory SSD. This allowed me to install a second SSD for a Linux/Windows dual boot. RAM is also user upgradable.
- Fans are noisy and ramp-up is very aggressive, might be able to tweak this.
- 4K display is gorgeous, though I am kind of bummed that there was no matte finish option when I ordered my gen 1 (matte OLED became available in gen 3).
- Keyboard is really good.
- Audio (speakers) are quite bad compared to a Macbook of any generation.
- After first month of use, the display started showing signs of damage (not just dirty) by keyboard imprints, even with careful use.
- Ethernet uses proprietary connector, you must buy a Lenovo dongle (though they are inexpensive IIRC)
- Charger has proprietary connector, X1E cannot charge via USB-C
# Linux support:
- WiFi, webcam and function keys work out of the box. Fingerprint reader does not, but have not made any effort to use it.
- Audio output switching often leaves driver for internal speakers in a weird state, causing a weird delayed noise/crackling effect during playback.
- The (insanely expensive) Thunderbolt dock (AN40) is unreliable under Linux. Most notably when laptop goes into standby. Hot-plugging almost never works. Even after all the firmware updates (which require a windows only utility btw). With an external display attached (DP, via TB3 dock) and the laptop in stand-by, the dock starts emitting some stray interrupt that will eat 100% CPU, ramping the fans up to maximum.
- The Linux ACPI driver is quite bad. Battery status is almost always 'unknown'. If battery status does display 'full', it usually reports $random percentage between 60 and 80%. Wake-up after stand-by has endless other problems.
- USB ports (internal, or on TB dock) regularly become unresponsive after stand-by. May be related to ACPI issues.
- The dual GPU (Intel + nVidia) situation remains a nightmare under Linux, though this is not Lenovos fault obviously.
# Windows:
- Lots and lots of bloatware out of the box
- Laptop regularly wakes up from sleep while in my backpack, burning 100% of the battery of you don't notice it.
- Otherwise works fine under Windows.
# Conclusion
So, concluding, my first-time experience is mediocre. Linux support isn't great, though the laptop mostly works as promised under Windows. The service and support of Lenovo is (in my experience) on-par with Dell, and light years ahead of Apple.
Due to the praise for Lenovo here on HN, I had high hopes for proper Linux support, but that was disappointing.
In 2019, when I bought the X1E, the offering by Apple was really bad, which made me look for other brand laptops. But if I was to buy a new laptop today, I'll probably go back to Apple. With M1 support shaping up (thanks Marcan!), it might even become a good Linux machine.
Yes I've had some real issues with my dock (autocorrect there was not good). It's an AMD machine (so no thunderbolt), but had some real issues with an external monitor. Ethernet flaky at times and asymmetric connection speeds. I have no desire to trouble shoot it - it kinda works enough for me, but the older docks seemed far more reliable.
I love ThinkPads. We've four in the family. Reasons:
* Haptic feedback of keyboard
* TrackPoint
* Maintenance Manual and spare part available for at least five years (ten would be better)
* Linux Support and Certification
Sadly the blog reflects some of my findings, I'm using myself an X220 with Linux. I want to buy a new one but Lenovo makes it hard. The old seven row keyboard has a better layout, RJ45 is available, a nice palmrest, the battery is replaceable and the main-memory not soldered. Right when four core CPUs where available, Lenovo decided to remove the card-slot on the side and the RJ45. Luckily there are some improvements, they put a gap between [HOME, END, INSERT, DELETE] on the six row keyboard, X13 Gen2 finally provides a 16:10 display again (Wohoo!) and it is more sturdy then the X220. And finally decent AMD-Models are available.
Lenovo seems to follow the bad industry pratices from other manufacturers instead of looking closely why ThinkPads are superior. Internal batteries, solder main-memory, awkwardly placed card-slots, missing RJ45 are problems. They keyboard is still the top of the industry and more comfortable than many desktop keyboards, because of the precise haptic feedback and concave shaped key-caps. The substandard keyboard from Apple on the other side does provides only flat (cheap?) key-caps, no TrackPoint and has a lot of longstanding quality issues.
I'm also happily using and ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 AMD here with Linux. But from systems certificed for usage with Linux I expect more. I therefore also blame the lax requirements of Red Had and Lenovo. IBM (Red Hat), how about enforcing actual good support by Lenovo? I'm aware that all of that awkward, specially patched drivers on Windows are actually workarounds. And Microsoft enforce the sticker/label program. Maybe the complete industry should question there quality standards. I think most of power-management shall not be the duty of the operating-system but the firmware. Broken ACPI-Tables should thing of the past.
I've some Lenovo representative is reading. Most customers wont' tell you why the bought your product. But in long term the will notice the things. The will buy again if it was good. They won't tell you "keyboard has feature x" and "card-slot is placed nicely", they will just like it or not. And the server stats of ThinkVantage will most of the time not tell you anything about the Linux-Users. Most of the time not even for Windows within company networks. It is quality what make a company running for decades and not hoping on the the next industry trend.
The X13 does not have a 32-core APU. The highest spec available is the 4750U with 8C/16T.
> By the way, the latest MacBook Pro comes with an Ethernet port. We loved the jokes about iDongle; how about ThinkDongle?
The latest MacBook Pro does not come with an Ethernet port. It is however very annoying that Lenovo requires a proprietary dongle to use the built-in Ethernet controller.
> The removal of the SD cards slot and Ethernet port has made recent ThinkPads a suboptimal choice for traveling photographers and some IT professionals.
The removal of the SD card reader on the X13 AMD Gen 2 is bizarre, but they can and do still offer Ethernet via a dongle.
> would you read about the update procedure after you’ve done multiple BIOS updates for the same machine already? Even if you would, would you pay much attention to the Notes section?
Yes, but I'm probably weird because I like to know what the vendor fixed and whether the firmware update might remove features that I use (shakes fist at Dell).
I own an X13 AMD Gen 2 (20XH), and I think it's a great laptop with some small caveats.
Pro:
- 1600p matte display looks amazing
- proper support for S3, very low S3 power consumption
- super quiet, I never hear the fan and the laptop is never uncomfortably hot (even doing heavy things like compiling buildroot)
- amazing performance for a laptop (5850U)
Con:
- no SD card reader (seriously, why?)
- proprietary dongle for Ethernet
- Ethernet is only GigE
- Came with MediaTek 7961 WiFi, which while supported by mainline Linux, the performance is trash (~30MBit on 802.11ac). Luckily it's only M.2 so you can replace it with something like the AX201