I love my X61s, but it does run quite warm to say the least.
I didn't know the X200 could boot from SD card, do you know of any other models that can?
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Classic ThinkPad Thread
- Thread starter RogerWilco6502
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I didn't know the X200 could boot from SD card, do you know of any other models that can?
I love my X61s, but it does run quite warm to say the least.
I didn't know the X200 could boot from SD card, do you know of any other models that can?
Since the x61s has SD card slot but wasn't listed on BIOS boot menu option I'm guessing anything x200 or newer. Or, possibly how SD card option was configured at purchase if it's basic reader or multi-reader. Haven't had access to newer models to confirm. It's very useful, though, if you multi-boot OS' since it's easier than repartitioning your primary storage and doesn't stick out like USB thumb drives.
For what I paid for it for him I think it's a terrible value and Nothing spectacular.Still a good machine!
I personally love both Macs and ThinkPads. My go-to pick for most any computer would be one of the two.
I guess, at its heart, the Air is an ultrabook. With ultrabooks I've noticed that you pay more for the thin and light form factor rather than performance.
I don't like the OS, keyboard or screen on it either. Not just performance. Add in the low specs for the price you pay for apple hardware, it's just an overall bad device. He wanted it for University however, so I could not sway him to a good windows device.
Ah, that's fair. I personally really like Apple's devices but my newest is an '09 MacBook, so I can't really speak for the newer devices.
For university I got a ThinkPad P53, given I want it to last me as long as possible and I need to do 3D modelling and such.
MBA is now more of a thickbook at 3# which is the weight of gaming laptops with dGPU. Ultrabooks like the Thinkpad X1 Nano and Samsung Galaxy Book Pro/Book Pro 360 are closer to 2#.
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Does it have Big Sur? I agree it is a nightmare. It's so bad that I am now reconsidering my next mbp purchase and if I do get one, it's going to be a 2020 model so that I can avoid Big Sur. Maybe I'll try to hackintosh this T530, which might be a fun little project.
I would not know. He has'nt had it home in over a year, last time I used it, it had high sierra on it. Again, MacOS, like iOS is stale and boring to me. the same since I had my 2007 macbook essentially. Nothing fresh or exciting.
And as crazy as it sounds. I returned an M1 Air and a XDR Pro Display.....to go back to my P17......
crazy? i guess thats subjective.
Gonna be getting a T42p in the mail in about a week. Then it'll be time to install Windows 7 on it and relive the memories!
Just got my T42p! I plan to replace the keyboard, get replacement palmrest badges, and upgrade the RAM as "day 0" upgrades
T42p Update:
The first thing I did was image the OEM install and swap out the hard drive. It's still running on spinning rust, but I do intend to upgrade to an SSD.
Next I (tried) to swap the keyboard from the German one it came with to a US one. That didn't work out and I'm still working on sorting that. I also want to replace the fan (as the one it has is a bit noisy) and re-paste the parts under the heat pipe. I also have some replacement palmrest badges coming in the mail.
Once I can get all of those upgrades done, I think this will make a lovely machine to mess about with.
It just occurred to me how blurry the picture with Neofetch is, so I'll be sure to post a better picture. of the specs when I update next. I have already upgraded the RAM to 2GB and the processor is a 1.8GHz Pentium M.
The first thing I did was image the OEM install and swap out the hard drive. It's still running on spinning rust, but I do intend to upgrade to an SSD.
Next I (tried) to swap the keyboard from the German one it came with to a US one. That didn't work out and I'm still working on sorting that. I also want to replace the fan (as the one it has is a bit noisy) and re-paste the parts under the heat pipe. I also have some replacement palmrest badges coming in the mail.
Once I can get all of those upgrades done, I think this will make a lovely machine to mess about with.
It just occurred to me how blurry the picture with Neofetch is, so I'll be sure to post a better picture. of the specs when I update next. I have already upgraded the RAM to 2GB and the processor is a 1.8GHz Pentium M.
Just to chime in here. I have used a X1 Carbon 6th Gen since 2018 (I5 vpro quad core chip, 16GB Ram, 512 SSD, built in modem), and still love it. I don't use it as much as my 16 inch MBP, but it is still a nice Windows machine to use as needed. The keyboard and screen are great (opted for the 2k screen option). The machine is still snappy 3 years later, and the only complaints are the battery life is crap (even with screen dimmed) and the 16:9 aspect ratio. Its my understanding they have made the newer generations 16:10. All in all, I can see why people love the think pads. When I am in the market for another windows computer in the future, I will consider buying another thinkpad.
Here's my latest addition...
A ThinkPad X250, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD. Purchased on eBay for $75.
The body, display, keyboard deck, and bottom are all in excellent condition...
...but the lid was was pretty rough. Discoloration from inventory sticker residue. A few light scratches but a deeper scratch left-side midway down.
I replaced the 160GB SSD with a 1TB SSD that I had laying around.
I purchased a skin for $10 on Amazon to cover the scratches and gouge. The fit and finish of the skin is perfect.
It arrived with Windows 10 Home which I immediately removed and installed Windows 7. Performance with Win 7 was great. The software that I rely on worked well but the because of the lack of support for Win 7, the version of Google Chrome that DOES support Win 7 was a bit older than I prefer. The system was working so surprisingly well that this could be a daily driver.
I then wiped out Win 7, and installed an early release of Win 10. I set it up with a local account (not an online Microsoft account) and locked down the system to prevent it from updating to the latest version of Win 10. The footprint of Win 10 is super small. Performance is even better than the Win 10 that it previously had.
Loaded up my usual suite of apps: MS Office Professional 2007, e-Sword, VLC, Notepad++, Paint.net and a few other odds and ends.
I then got a bit silly and installed a neo-classic theme....
I've still got a bit more tweaking to do and a little more physical renewing to do...
Until then, I'm going to nickname this system, "Randall" for obvious reasons. 😂
A ThinkPad X250, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD. Purchased on eBay for $75.
The body, display, keyboard deck, and bottom are all in excellent condition...
...but the lid was was pretty rough. Discoloration from inventory sticker residue. A few light scratches but a deeper scratch left-side midway down.
I replaced the 160GB SSD with a 1TB SSD that I had laying around.
I purchased a skin for $10 on Amazon to cover the scratches and gouge. The fit and finish of the skin is perfect.
It arrived with Windows 10 Home which I immediately removed and installed Windows 7. Performance with Win 7 was great. The software that I rely on worked well but the because of the lack of support for Win 7, the version of Google Chrome that DOES support Win 7 was a bit older than I prefer. The system was working so surprisingly well that this could be a daily driver.
I then wiped out Win 7, and installed an early release of Win 10. I set it up with a local account (not an online Microsoft account) and locked down the system to prevent it from updating to the latest version of Win 10. The footprint of Win 10 is super small. Performance is even better than the Win 10 that it previously had.
Loaded up my usual suite of apps: MS Office Professional 2007, e-Sword, VLC, Notepad++, Paint.net and a few other odds and ends.
I then got a bit silly and installed a neo-classic theme....
I've still got a bit more tweaking to do and a little more physical renewing to do...
Until then, I'm going to nickname this system, "Randall" for obvious reasons. 😂
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Wow, and I thought I lucked out hardcore with an IPS X230 (i5, 4GB RAM) for $120 CAD back in 2019! Nice find.
As to the OP, I currently own three ThinkPads:
- An X220 (i7, IPS, 8 GB RAM) that I got off eBay in 2016, which was my primary portable until Fall 2021 (~10 years after its release!). I swapped out the WiFi card for one that was macOS-compatible and ran it as a single-boot Hackintosh. Fantastic keyboard and general form factor, a really special laptop.
- An X230 (as mentioned above), which I was *planning* to do the 7-row keyboard mod to and use as a mild upgrade over my X220, but then my partner's awful HP laptop started having weird battery/charging issues so the X230 is hers now.
- An A21e (Celeron 700 MHz, 256 MB RAM) that I picked up locally for super cheap, which I was *hoping* to use as a fun machine for playing with old OSes that time forgot (e.g. BeOS, OS/2 Warp, OpenSTEP), but it's got a seemingly common issue called the "blink-of-death" where, thanks to a faulty power regulator chip, the laptop will decide there's a voltage problem and refuse to boot (when you press the power button the green light flashes for a split second then turns off). If you leave it unplugged for a long time it'll work again, but on the next full power cycle you get the blink again. Based on some posts from a German forum I got a friend to solder a resistor between two of the chip's pins which fixed the issue for about a month, but it slowly came back over time (the recovery time increased from hours to days), so not sure what to do next.
Nowadays my main laptop is a 14" MBP, which is a massive performance upgrade over the X220 (also it's nice to have speakers that can push more sound than a greeting card), but as much as I love it there's still a part of me that misses the keyboard and form factor of the X220. Shame that if you want something vaguely portable, there really aren't any modern laptops with a non-chiclet keyboard: the closest you can get is an T480 with a T25 keyboard hacked in, or an expensive, experimental, and warranty-free enthusiast special like the X2100.
I just picked up a T470 and it’s my first Thinkpad. I lucked out that it’s in excellent condition. Came with two batteries, I believe it’s the 9 cell attached giving it a small lift at the back. im on my third day of use and haven’t charged it, the internal just started being used last night. Suspend has been working flawlessly too when I close the lid.
I have always wanted a functional Linux laptop and Fedora works like it came from the factory. All the keyboard shortcuts work, firmware updates show up (I had two waiting) and power saving features work. It truly feels like a new laptop.
I have always wanted a functional Linux laptop and Fedora works like it came from the factory. All the keyboard shortcuts work, firmware updates show up (I had two waiting) and power saving features work. It truly feels like a new laptop.
Using that neo-classic theme on Windows 10 was fun. But I wanted something a bit more unique than even that.
So I installed "Windows 9". Actually, it is Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro with a few free add-on tools to make it look and feel more like Windows 7.
Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro defaults to the desktop (and hides the Metro UI portion of the OS), eliminates all of the telemetry and phone-home functionality, and just as important, will continue to receive security updates from Microsoft until July 2023.
The Zune desktop software works great, and because this version of Windows still contains the necessary codecs, the Zune software can transcode videos into a format required by the Zune portable media players.
I've run Windows 11, 10, 7, and now Embedded 8.1 on this system, and Win Embedded 8.1 is noticeably the best performing of them all. I attribute this to the streamlined nature of the OS.
Although I have an Office 365 subscription for my other systems, I decided to install MS Office 2007 Professional on this system. Even though it is old, it is still just as capable as the latest version (except for those specific advanced features that are only available on the latest version).
I was surprised by how perfectly forward-compatible it is with documents created with the latest version of Office. MS Office 2007 is more compatible than the latest and great versions of LibreOffice, Google Docs, OnlyOffice, and WPS Office.
I've installed Office 365 on this system and it works fine, but Office 2007 launches instantaneously and only has a 1.4GB storage footprint.
This $75 ThinkPad continues to delight me. I know that all the cool kids run Linux on their older ThinkPads, but I've never found a Linux distro that runs as well as Windows on them. This could easily be a daily driver and I'm finding myself using this more than my Lenovo Yoga 6 (which I am also thoroughly enjoying).
Link to "Windows 9" for those interested:
So I installed "Windows 9". Actually, it is Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro with a few free add-on tools to make it look and feel more like Windows 7.
Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro defaults to the desktop (and hides the Metro UI portion of the OS), eliminates all of the telemetry and phone-home functionality, and just as important, will continue to receive security updates from Microsoft until July 2023.
The Zune desktop software works great, and because this version of Windows still contains the necessary codecs, the Zune software can transcode videos into a format required by the Zune portable media players.
I've run Windows 11, 10, 7, and now Embedded 8.1 on this system, and Win Embedded 8.1 is noticeably the best performing of them all. I attribute this to the streamlined nature of the OS.
Although I have an Office 365 subscription for my other systems, I decided to install MS Office 2007 Professional on this system. Even though it is old, it is still just as capable as the latest version (except for those specific advanced features that are only available on the latest version).
I was surprised by how perfectly forward-compatible it is with documents created with the latest version of Office. MS Office 2007 is more compatible than the latest and great versions of LibreOffice, Google Docs, OnlyOffice, and WPS Office.
I've installed Office 365 on this system and it works fine, but Office 2007 launches instantaneously and only has a 1.4GB storage footprint.
This $75 ThinkPad continues to delight me. I know that all the cool kids run Linux on their older ThinkPads, but I've never found a Linux distro that runs as well as Windows on them. This could easily be a daily driver and I'm finding myself using this more than my Lenovo Yoga 6 (which I am also thoroughly enjoying).
Link to "Windows 9" for those interested:
Windows 9
www.eastcoast.hosting
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My MacBook2,1 is acting up and I think the GPU might be starting to fail, so I'm looking on eBay and I see a 15" T60 and a 14.1" T61 and the latter is an nVidia Quadro NVS 140M from August 2008, after the revision... and both for damn cheap.
I just wish I had another $100 considering tax and shipping... Fedora KDE is a pretty good experience even with my T7400/GMA 950/2GB combo, I can't help but imagine a T9300/Quadro/4 or 8GB combo would last me years still.
I just wish I had another $100 considering tax and shipping... Fedora KDE is a pretty good experience even with my T7400/GMA 950/2GB combo, I can't help but imagine a T9300/Quadro/4 or 8GB combo would last me years still.
I have had several T601 frankenpads. To this day, I have a one 15" T60 unit with a new BoeHydis UXGA screen hidden in nice shape in the cupboard. I replaced the thermal pads on the device, modified the fan speed table and added an SSD drive. I have Win 7 Ultimate installed on the device and use it to program the EEPROM and BIOS of the units :- )
I grew up on Windows. When I started buying my own computers I spent a few years using Macs (2008-2012) before switching back to Windows. Have been using ThinkPads as my primary computer ever since I switched back. X220 -> T440S -> Yoga 260 -> L13 Yoga (current main computer).
I guess the X220 is the only one that could be considered classic-ish. Tried a couple of Dells and Sonys along the way, but never really got on well with them and returned them soon after purchase. Next time I need a new Windows laptop I probably won't even bother looking beyond another ThinkPad.
I guess the X220 is the only one that could be considered classic-ish. Tried a couple of Dells and Sonys along the way, but never really got on well with them and returned them soon after purchase. Next time I need a new Windows laptop I probably won't even bother looking beyond another ThinkPad.
How does one obtain Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro? From Microsoft, I find only a 180 day evaluation. On the wayback machine I find this, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough. Just curious, I have an unused Win 8.1 Pro key which might, or might not, work.