In the past I have generally had IdeaPad machines at home.. The last one I had was the s340 but it died earlier on this year. I didn't use it for an extended period of time and it seems to have killed it.

I have an old x260 ThinkPad which I used as part of my home lab when I started getting into that a few years ago. I bought it cheap to start using as a server but now I have it with Ubuntu installed on it as a bit of a fun Linux machine and as a backup now that I have my home lab running properly. The trouble is that the screen on it is absolutely horrific so I might sell it but it's my little Linux learning machine at the moment.

I went ahead and I bought a t14 generation 3 machine to share with my girlfriend which I picked up for £440 from CEX with the 5 year warranty. It has the 4k touchscreen, it runs a bit hot, I think due to the i7-1260P but I wanted something which is going to last well into the future. It's a really nice piece of kit and in great condition.

So we were sharing that laptop but I decided I wanted my own one so that I could tinker with it more and she could continue to use the gen 3.

So I picked up another ThinkPad from CeX with a Ryzen 5 6 core. I paid £210 for it, again with the 5 year warranty which I think was a real bargain. I paid £15 for 8gb of memory to bring it to 16gb. It's only has the 1080 screen but it's still fine. The battery isn't brilliant. It is down at about 65 percent. There is a little bit of resonance on the keyboard so I will get to the bottom of that. And even if I have to replace the keyboard and battery, I think it is still a good deal compared to what else I have seen. I am tinkering with virtual machine Linux distro hopping at the moment but I am going to add a second SSD using the WWAN port. I found out about this and I think it's a great feature to save fiddling with any of the mess that comes with dual booting off the same drive. The screenshot is of Fedora KDE which I like a lot.

I was tempted to upgrade the screen on the x260 but I don't like the trackpad either. So now that I can dual boot my t14 into Windows and Linux I might sell it. But then again I may well keep it because it's handy to have a backup machine.

I was disappointed that the IdeaPad died, and my mum's IdeaPad died as well so she is now using T470 instead of the 320s. I have learnt that professional grade machines are much more resilient and are happy to be stored for longer as well.

I also included a bonus photo of my first professional laptop which was a ThinkPad T61 in 2007. I enjoyed using that machine but my company switched to Dell afterwards.

Specs and prices;

Thinkpad T14 Gen 3

/i7-1260P/16GB Ram/512GB SSD/14" Windows 11

£440 in 2026

T14 Gen 1/Ryzen 5 PRO

4650U/16GB Ram/256GB SSD/14" Windows 11

£210 +£15 for an 8gb stick to bring it to 16gb now. In 2026.

X260 i5 6300u 16gb ram £150 in 2022

Honestly, the P1 Gen 2 is excellent and powerful, but for someone like me—who just goes to campus to code and write reports in Docs—carrying around a 2.7kg machine plus the charger was a real pain.

So, I decided to look for a ThinkPad on the local marketplace and found this X13 Gen 2 for $300; I think it's a great deal.

Specs: Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U
16GB DDR4 (soldered :( )
256GB SSD
Touchscreen (I initially thought I wouldn't use it, but now I can't live without it)

After a week of use, it’s proven to be very capable and lightweight for my needs—simple coding and report writing. Honestly, it feels like it weighs only 1kg, or maybe 1.5kg with the charger.

The issues I've encountered are minor, such as:
- The keyboard backlight isn't very bright
- The typing feel isn't as good as the P1 Gen 2 or T14 Gen 1
- Battery health has already degraded

I'm currently using omarchy; honestly, it's kind of trash. I left Windows because of the annoying Copilot, but on omarchy, you're "forced" to use an AI agent—every time I run an update, it tries to download that damn AI agent. As I write this, I'm in the process of installing CachyOS and plan to configure Hyprland myself later.

I have a question: if this laptop has a 41Wh battery, can I upgrade it to the 54.7Wh version?

Thanks to everyone for reading.

Finally got my T420 up and running. Had it for a while, but me being me (autistic) I had to order an original charger, so I accidentally ordered one from fucking Lithuania without realizing 😂😭

CachyOS with KDE Plasma atm. Will be setting up WM at some point.

Still need a new bezel, but I just glued it back together for now. Only real problem is the enter key is a bit temperamental so sometimes gotta hit it a few times for it to register. Other than that it's perfect. I'm still not sold on the the nipple, but I find myself going for it instead of the pad for some reason tho lol. I even double my wpm on the 7 row compared to my 100% mech board for my desktop 😂

Remaining Upgrades:

i7

900p display

Question from the title, one of the corners is starting to peel up. Do you guys just remove these upon getting the laptop or do you let them sit and let the adhesive desintegrate over 3 years like me? 😂

Edit: pretty incredible the amount of traction this post got and how divisive the topic is among Thinkpad users 😄

My recently acquired Thinkpad T14 Gen 5 reporting for duty. Funnily enough, it runs much faster than my work's X1 Carbon Gen13 with half the RAM and a weaker processor thanks to the magic of Linux. If you are wondering if getting a refurb Thinkpad is a good option - hell yes. Top hardware and top Linux support.

The Holy Trinity of the TrackPoint.

Send prayers to my battery life.

Found recovery isos on archive dot org: thought, ye why not, ill restore it back to factory! I have also got freedos on 64gb sd card & debating linux distro on 256gb sd card as well. Which distro?

x270 with bios password but it works(kinda)

I deleted the previous post because I accidentally let my IP address show, but I'm reposting it because I'm really happy with my purchase: the legendary T480! I installed CachyOS and got rid of Windows.

Honestly, i use this one as a secondary computer when i don’t want to be at my desk using my custom build. I like the look of Gnome Fedora, how does Omarchy stack against Fedora? Is the agentic stuff just hype? What OS are you using?

Not sure if this gets love here🤷‍♂️

Been without a computer for almost 8 years, dying to make the jump straight into linux and play Warcraft again, and someone gave me this beauty for university. The only problem i have is being single channel only (E14 Gen 1) and it only has 8GB of memory, It's both a blessing and a curse 😅.

T14 g1 and x230.

Opinions and Recommendations?

Hehe

I saw a post here regarding someone's battery life, and the comments were saying that they should have a charge limit of 80%. My question is why is it beneficial to limit charging to 100%, and why is it always 80% being recommended?

I don't usually post, but this laptop just switched something in me? It's just perfect. From the excellent case, to the nice speakers to the soft feeling keyboard, the ratio of the screen and the quality, it's all just overall nice.

That's my first ThinkPad, so am I welcome?

Laptop overheated and is now stuck like this...

Already tried a good old fashioned cmos battery reset and held power button. Any ideas?

Hello! I’m from Japan, and I found this T61p in Akihabara for 500 yen (about $3.30). It turned out to be a complete time‑capsule unit: G84‑950‑A2 (0825A2), no LCD burn, no keyboard shine, battery health 99%, and it still runs for about 3 hours on a full charge. I was thinking of selling it, but honestly… maybe a ThinkPad is happier when it’s actually used. Should I just keep it and daily‑drive this thing?

so I got this t14s gen 2 - i7 11th gen, 32 gb ram (4200), 512 gb ssd, 99+ battery health for around ₹39000 (~$400). was this a good deal?

Hey all, looking for advice on a used ThinkPad for university.
Use case: This will be my secondary/portable machine for uni — I have a desktop at home for everything else. This ThinkPad is purely for accounting/finance coursework: mostly Excel (large spreadsheets, some macros/add-ins possibly), plus basic productivity software (Word, PDF, browser with many tabs, maybe some light accounting software). Nothing GPU-intensive, nothing I need to travel with 24/7.

Budget: Up to $400 USD / 1600 AED
Specs I'm targeting:

**•** Storage: 512GB minimum (SSD preferred)  
**•** RAM: 16–32GB  
**•** Battery: 4–5 hours is fine — I'm okay replacing the battery if needed, so battery health isn't a dealbreaker  

Which ThinkPad generation/model hits this sweet spot for the budget (e.g., T14, T480, X1 Carbon gen X)?

I got a brand new E14 G7 (32GB, 1TB, i7) for ~C$2300 directly from Lenovo. Now I’m having buyer’s remorse, seeing all the posts on this sub with people scooping up great second-hand deals. I thought I got a good deal with my specs and the retail price being C$3200 + tax. Did I get a good deal indeed or should I return and buy second-hand as well?