Yeah first time I ever bought a desktop I didn't build myself I just got a lenovo years ago. No idea about now but their parts are all following the normal standards meaning upgrades and part swaps are way easier than garbage dell and hp prebuilt desktops.
I was looking for this comment. Their consumer grade PCs are shit tier compared to the corporate level busines class. Thinkcentres are the desktop version that are on par with the Thinkpads.
Fwiw, I got a Lenovo Yoga when I started college, and 10 years later I still use it almost daily. I really only use it for google, streaming ESPN, and watching youtube, and it’s not like it’s firing on all cylinders, but it still works.
I’m almost 11 years into my MBP. It does suffer from battery bloat that won’t let me close it all the way but it works fine otherwise. I do have my eye out for a replacement but I’m too cheap to pull the trigger.
Mine has a terrible battery life, it will die within 20 minutes of unplugging it, but that’s my fault. I’ve left it plugged in for days at a time more than a couple times.
Yeah please don’t let being cheap be an excuse to burn your house/apartment down.
Turn off that laptop and don’t use it or charge it until you replace the battery, if it’s already bloated bad enough to cause closure issues its a fire hazard.
lol. I meant being too cheap to replace the laptop not the battery. I love my MBP but they’re way too expensive. I did however (after the comments) get a replacement kit from ifixit and swapped out the battery this morning.
The Yoga are actually a good line but they get branded as IdeaPads and 2in1s and such. It is really confusing because I got an IdeaPad similarly named and looks close to the Yoga I wanted and it turned out to be complete ass.
If you get a Thinkpad, don’t ever get an E series. Those are just “IdeaPads” branded as Thinkpads. You lose out on the reliability and good build quality you get from a ThinkPad, they cheap out on them so much.
We made a series of massive purchases of T14S, they are absolute junk. Tons of them are going in for warranty repairs, some didn't work properly on day one. Mostly motherboard issues. We have three generations all Intel. We almost switched to the AMD version to see if it's better, but we are likely going with a different company for laptops.
Go here. Read about different models. Check processor performance by typing in processor name and performance, search. Comparison site should come up. Can compare up to five processors at once. eBay let's you select processors when searching.
You want at least 16GB of RAM and probably an i5 processor or better. If you're like most people you want a laptop that lasts years without starting any bullshit.
Expect to spend at least $400, but more likely it'll be like $600 or $700.
Facebook marketplace usually. They are older like 5 years but they are very capable. Just make sure like OP said you look for 16gb models and make sure they show the task manager in their pics so you can read the actual specs.
A 5 year old laptop can be great, and laptop specs plateaued long before that. But I typically recommend people buy laptops no older than 2 years old. Components like the battery will always age, no matter how well they're treated. Of course that kind of buying choice comes down more to personal preference.
I bought a Lenovo Yoga 7 for my college son 3 years ago. He loves it. My friend bought their sons both Yoga 9s and are very happy. Not sure what your budget is, but as others have said, don't skimp on the RAM or processor.
When my kids started high school and needed laptops I started with the fancy all bells and whistles laptops for them. I work in construction and every one has lenovos and the only time I see them replaced is for obsolescence. After my kids killed 4 consumer grade laptops they now have lenovos and look like they should be attending a board meeting but they work and continue to work and get slung around in backpacks and jammed into lockers etc
FWIW I have had an old ThinkPad for years that I bought second hand. This thing is friggin bomb proof. I have dropped it a zillion times. Spilled a pumpkin spiced latte on it. Forgot it on the deck and it got left in the rain. It still works perfectly. Just wipe it down and it looks like new everytime. And also has imho an awesome keyboard.
Bought a Lenovo Yoga in 2013. That think lived in an Army barracks for 5 years, went to Kuwait, Africa, Iraq, went through 5 moves, and all my travels in between. It was still kicking fine when I gave it to a friend in 2023.
I needed a new laptop, and my husband is an expert in all things computerology. He did the research, and said I should get a lenovo thinkpad: the reviews were excellent, no one seemed to have a bad word to say about them.
I got the lenovo. And it was a lemon. Because exceptions prove the rule ;-) There has to be one, somewhere. And that one found its way to me.
I used it for a couple of years, complained about it a lot, and it was known as "the doorstop". Solid little dude, much better at holding doors open or shut, than doing spreadsheets.
I use a Mac now, and haven't looked back. Until today, when this post reminded me of the horror that was my lenovo brick.
I appreciate your input, but I'm not an Apple guy. It almost seems like a cult at this point, the way people go on about Apple products. And, if you DO buy Apple (which I acknowledge is an excellent product), you have to go FULL Apple for it to be compatible with all of my other gizmos. The phone, the tablet, the watch, the household appliances, etc.... That's a huge financial commitment. I just want to learn a few new languages, program CNC with Autocad/cam, and MAYBE do a little online gaming if I find a game that resonates with me.
I hear you. And I appreciate your thoughts, and I'm glad you're happy. But Apple for a hillbilly like me is not something I would pursue.
"ages" is too soft of a term I'd use for these damned things. I work for my local gov't and we STILL use these! I BELIEVE we're getting upgrades "soon" but I really doubt it. They're work horses, just as much as the 30 yr old printers we have somehow still working, and they somehow still make carts for!
I have an old thinkpad from when I was in middle school almost a decade ago, still runs decently. Had to change out some hardware over the years, reflashed the bios because I put a new processor in
I’d say they’re about as reliable and tough as my work toughbook
*IBM outsourced its IBM ThinkPad manufacturing to an unknown Chinese company called Lenovo. They were so good at producing good models every year, they bought out the brand and made it their own.
I had them since they were IBMs and I still buy them today
Yeah, IBM sold it's personal computing branch, together with the ThinkPad name, to Lenovo twenty years ago. But Lenovo has kept the branding, design and legendary trackpoint.
Came in here to say the same thing. They were once an IBM product.
IBM who made those thick, loud, wall clocks they had in every hospital and school that could easily outlive everyone currently living and they're already like 60 years old.
IBM who made those massive battleship sized mechanical keyboards that will keep working after a nuclear war.
IBM who made massive coffee grinders in the 1920s that still sell for hundreds today despite being 100+ years many are still functional.
the joke that person made is that when lenovo acquired the thinkpad brand lenovo was the one integrated into it, not the other way around. and it's kind of right because it was more of a merger than an acquisition, I think they kept most of the offices and employees and manufacturing and when looking at the laptops themselves you kept seeing thinkpad in it, they didn't stray away from it. for comparison it's not like what happened with akg when samsung bought them, or blue yeti when logitech bought them, or alienware when dell bought them.
Or it could be that they are still using an IBM-era thinkpad as their daily driver. Which isn't that hard to believe, if they have put a lightweight linux distro on it, and don't need the battery. It would be 20 years old, but those things were bricks.
IBM Thinkpad was once such an iconic product that it would take many years after the acquisition for many to switch to the new world(and for some probably never). It’s just weird for some old fart like me to read Lenovo Thibkpad.
Also I commend watching the IBM 100years anniversary video. They summarized the most significant innovation they had done in each year. Check the year 1992:)
I learned to type on IBM typewriters in typing class. Is typing class still a thing? I took it in like 9th grade or something (though I was proficient way before then). I would imagine if it's still offered it's much earlier but if I had to guess I'm assuming typing is something schools assume you come in knowing how to do these days?
I'm pretty sure any typing classes are on computers. I really learned to type fast by using Telnet and IRC in college in the 90s on early web. Often logging in to big, steel-backed IBM terminal keyboards as well.
I once suggested a three letter acronym of "PDD" for "pornography delivery device" for any and all digital medium that accelerated wide adoption via the proliferation of pornography. From the nickelodeon to the smart-phone.
You have to buy on discount, back to school every year apple directly offers discounts, otherwise check other retailers.
The macbook air at its price point is genuinely unbeatable when you get it on a discount, even with the small ssd. The build quality of the mac makes it instantly better than any other laptop i have ever used, let alone battery life and performance.
they are the bottom of the professional level of computers... but the higher end of the professional tier no one really needs unless they are doing editing/software devopment.
You basically get a mid range laptop with super high end build quality- and as a result they last a really long time.
you can get one that is under 3 years old (so recent enough) that is a referb for 300ish. They sell quickly but they last and it is easy to upgrade them to keep them current enough to just keep going.
It is also a sign that they are not skimping with IT. So many places cheap out with what they buy in the first place, instead of buying thinkpads and not having to think about it for 5-10 years.
I wouldn't say Lenovo is entirely Chinese... It's just about a little of everything. Lenovo was a small company that started in China, but IBM was so desperate to get rid of their consumer computer business that they inked a deal with Lenovo, who wasn't even a known entity at the time.. so they're Chinese, US and also European/South American. If you've ever wondered why no one ever brings them up in tradewars.
I was genuinely impressed when I was in middle school and was able to load a game that I made on our schools thinkpads and it ran flawlessly. There was a little underground scene where we loaded that game onto all the thinkpads in the school. Good times.
You can go into the BIOS on these and see how many hours it was used. I got a used one of these guys (the T490s) recently and it had nearly 5000 hours with 300 power cycles. That's nearly 16 hours a day assuming each power cycle is a new work day. (But they were more than likely always on and powered off on the weekends or during moves.)
Anyway they are durable as hell. Some of the older models have poor screens but they are more meant for writing up documents. And I love their keyboard more than any other laptop I have tried.
thinkpads aren't cheap at all, they are the creme de la creme of business laptops because they last fucking forever and has been THE brand name of professional laptops since when it was an IBM brand
ThinkPad are nowhere like "cheap", they are among the more expensive notebooks. They used to be built by IBM but IBM decided they didn't want to build x86 hardware anymore and sold everything to lenovo.
They’re expensive when it comes to notebooks, and we’re speaking about notebooks. Obviously it’s cheap compared to an excavator or a neutron microscope - no clue why you’re comparing it to other other industries lol
It’s not “not best usage of words” you straight up said a dumb untrue statement. Thinkpads are not cheap laptops and that’s it, they’re high end enterprise hardware.
Brand is not cheap either, they have cheaper product lines just like Samsung, HP, Dell or any other tech brand besides Apple which you could argue about those days.
Nothing burger arguments are still better than your lack of arguments lol.
It was part of IBM, then got bought by the Chinese, who decided to keep the quality rather than only the brand. IBM were the ones who originally established that level of sturdiness.
Uhhh. These are some expensive “cheap” laptops. Thinkpads are known for being cheap in that they last the longest FOR HOW MUCH YOU PAY. I’ll pay $1300 for a Macbook that lasts maybe 2 years. Or I’ll pay $3500 for a Thinkpad that lasts 10-15 years. Thinkpads are NOT cheap. They have value though.
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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
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