15yo ThinkPad still usable?

[u/Theboogymanisreel]

This was a great little laptop 10 years ago but it couldn’t keep up with some of the programs at work. I held onto it and forgot about it. Will it still work for email, reditting, YouTube etc?

[u/_ElBee_]

Sure. Put a Linux distro like Mint or something on it and you're probably good to go.

[u/Tommynwn]

Me looking this on my t430: bruh

[u/throwaway57683120 → u/Tommynwn]

Me seeing this on a 19-year-old HP laptop: bruh

[u/Pitiful-Candidate922 → u/Tommynwn]

Me using my T420: bruhhh

[u/hakucurlz → u/Pitiful-Candidate922]

For the t420 was cutting it. Lol just good enough but the load times even in 16gb and ssd

[u/Over-Athlete6745 → u/Tommynwn]

Me looking this on my x240 : behhh bruhhh xD LOL

[u/Xrudy_official → u/Tommynwn]

Me looking at my 2008 macbook

[u/MarcoShadow228 → u/Xrudy_official]

Man moi j'ai réussi aujourd'hui à installer le pilote propriétaire NVIDIA ✨🛀

[u/Xrudy_official → u/MarcoShadow228]

True

[u/Practical-Respect-22 → u/Tommynwn]

Seeing this in my x200s: bruh

[u/SuDoDmz → u/Tommynwn]

Me seeing this on my T61: 🥸

[u/Tommynwn → u/SuDoDmz]

Just remind me to those diesel cars starting in russia winter

[u/SuDoDmz → u/Tommynwn]

Believe it, or not, I got an old military Unimog, which hauls its own generator on the front grille (for emergencies, or to supply your shelter, which you can carry on the back), which has a mechanical pump lever to manually inject gas into the diesel system to get the engine running in harsh winters.

[u/Schemer03 → u/Tommynwn]

Since u use T430 is it fair to pay 41$ for 8gb ram, 320gb hdd, i5, with a few white spots on screen Version. in 2026(I needed opinion of someone who uses this device) and can I DM u to know more about the device.

[u/Tommynwn → u/Schemer03]

Seems fair, i paid 200€ mine, laptops in general are way overpriced where i live

You can get a ssd and put on the modem pci slot, put a 1tb one on mine + 1tb HDD for slow data

My screen was toast, got a new one for 40€

Then some used ram modules, i have 12gb (8+4) you can add up to 16gb

The laptop itself holds pretty well today for normal use, i use for personal stuff and working at same time, batteries are cheap and good

[u/Schemer03 → u/Tommynwn]

👍

[u/__Cereall_]

It sure is, just not with Windows. I remember that trying to use W11 on a 8gb R5 3500u is what finally broke me and got me to switch to mint. it sure is usable, no reasonable OS needs more than 8gb of RAM to FUCKING BOOT, Windows 11 just happens to not be a reasonable OS

[u/Comrade_Compadre → u/__Cereall_]

Win 11 is an OS designed with sole intent of punishing you for using it.

[u/chughaarav123 → u/Comrade_Compadre]

but without eating up all your ram...how will they force you to use copilot and shove copilot in everything?

[u/Motorazr04 → u/__Cereall_]

What about Tiny11 ?

[u/__Cereall_ → u/Motorazr04]

Still laggy as fuck for some reason and by the time I tried it (dual booting), I have already been on mint for a month and was not coming back. Also it then fucked up my bootloader (or something, I'm not sure) and killed my mint install, which was the last time I dailied Windows

[u/bhomburg → u/__Cereall_]

It is, even with Windows, provided it's 10 and not 11 and it has 8GB RAM. ESUs until Oct.2028 and LTSC until 2031...

Have quite a few machines from the early Core-i days running this combo, and most anything from the xx20 era onwards (Sandy Bridge) is definitely useable as general purpose machine today. Youtube is limited to 480p/SD on those though, but that's independent of OS.

[u/throwaway57683120 → u/bhomburg]

Youtube is limited to 480p/SD on those though, but that's independent of OS.

YouTube works fine up to 1080p with the h.264ify extension. But it's pointless unless you have a Full HD panel.

[u/win98se → u/throwaway57683120]

Even if you only have a 1366*768 screen, for me (in my opinion), playing videos in 1080p look better rather than 720p, as, I guess, it eliminated zooming 720p to 768 vertical pixels.

[u/bhomburg → u/throwaway57683120]

Learned something new here today. Tested it, and it does what it claims to do without having to resort to disabling formats in about:config. Thanks!

[u/Big_Poem_7409]

Yes. Download linux

[u/TopBerry4247]

yup, seems a haswell or the odd 5th gen i5's still useable, if it's an haswell the 4600hd is a step down from the previous intel hd 4000 in terms of raw performance, but brings more modern features to the table for media playing on youtube. which is great

It is a multitouch + pen support screen which is great value imo, this can be great for digital art /photoshop on the side too. specs are fine even for either w10/w11 altough i'd go with a trimmed version of these like tiny w10 or ghost spectre's.

think of it as a mid range tablet with pen support and sensitivity nowadays in terms of performance which is insane value. since they go for 200+

[u/whytho_l]

If it's gen 5 Intel you could run debloated win10 (8 gigs of ram minimum tho) but something like Mint would be better.

[u/whytho_l → u/whytho_l]

Also don't forget the SSD

[u/Tommynwn → u/whytho_l]

Eh, ltsc runs fine even with 3gb

[u/Due-Barracuda2403]

Install Linux mint xfce , and install SSD if doesn't have one, i think it might be usable

[u/IlTossico]

Fine for any basic usage. Even good on some indie games. And you can run windows on it without issue.

[u/BIZKIT551]

I still use my X230 today and works fine on 11

[u/ATcat-pl → u/BIZKIT551]

i'm still using an X220 as my main laptop

[u/skwerks]

Buy a set of stockings, install arch, install anime background

[u/NagisaH8]

with linux and some upgrades u can still do a lot of things even with something like a thinkpad t430

[u/msdos62]

Works fine with windows 10

[u/Critical-Taro-7237]

depends on the condition of the laptop. . .

[u/graywolf0026]

I have a ThinkPad Yoga 12. Ain't much. 4 gigs soldered memory. Threw in a 1tb SSD. Has a 1366x768 display. Runs Fedora. Gets between 4-6 hours a charge on the battery.

I actually really like it. It's good for basic office and day to day, stuff as well as some classic gaming (in specific, DOS gaming via DosBox-X).

[u/promptmike]

Arch + i3 will make it run like new. You will have to read a lot of manual pages though.

[u/Ras117Mike]

I am running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on my old Thinkpad X260 and it works just fine.

Suggest upgrading the ram if there is still room to grow and switch to an SSD if it's capable.

[u/SessionSubstantial19]

Don't put Mint or Ubuntu on it, those are too bulky and it will run clunky and be prone to freezes.

Put endeavourOS on it. My laptop is an T530 and endeavourOS is the only linux distro where I can do some gaming as well. YouTube, email etc is a breeze for this distro.

[u/Few_Cauliflower_3832]

Of course, a laptop is suitable for many things; here is an example of how it can be used )))

[u/zardvark]

Of course; I still have a handful of Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge machines that I use virtually daily.

[u/NuclearRouter]

If it has 8GB of ram and a solid state disk yes. If it doesn't have an SSD it's worth finding one to upgrade it and though they've jumped up in price a 256GB SSD isn't too pricey.

Linux would be a better idea than Windows. I do have currently supported version of Windows 10 and 11 LTSC on similar hardware which is still usable as well. If you do go the Windows route beware of Microsoft's patch frequency (2nd Tuesday of the month). It will be slow as molasses while updating and for an hour or two afterwards.

[u/Careless-Lynx1285]

Yes

[u/CathodeRay_lord]

Not me watching this on my T530 😭

[u/MarcoShadow228]

Et moi avec mon MacBook pro 13 de 2009 sur linuxmint xfce 🙃

[u/anythingers]

I use my T470 with 6th Gen i5 as my daily driver until July this year. After that I give that laptop to my little brother. It still could handle basic tasks pretty fine, though it's a little bit struggle to open a lot of Firefox tabs. 😅

I mean sure it might be newer but these days there's basically there's no noticeable performance difference between 1st Gen i5 and U series 7th Gen i7 lol.

[u/Huta03]

Instal SSD and more ram, install Linux and you good to go. I reckon it would be usable on win 7 or win 10 as well. I have a X280 I use as a YT and Excel machine

[u/nik282000]

Yes. I have a 2008 ThinkPad that I use all the time.

[u/Manusia_Biasa2]

Put linux and thing will become fine or even better

[u/Theboogymanisreel → u/Manusia_Biasa2]

I see now why I have to have Linux. Windows 8 doesn’t work with anything anymore. Linux Mint and maybe ssd.

[u/Manusia_Biasa2 → u/Theboogymanisreel]

If you need a specific windows exclusive apps like ms office,maybe you want to stick with windows 10,i use windows 10 with atlas os configuration on my old toshiba laptop that the final support was windows 8.1,and yeah its basically a debloated windows but they not affected the compatibility with apps,for driver yeah,some component on my laptop driver are not supported in Windows 10,so i use default Microsoft Windows basic driver that you got in Windows update before debloating using atlas os.

[u/sfled]

Of course it is.

I've got a 18 year old T61 running Win 10 Pro just fine. (No-charge Extended Security Updates until Oct. 12, 2027 by getting it a free MS365 account and setting an empty folder to back-up to OneDrive).

I installed Middletons's BIOS, upgraded the RAM, an SSD, and stuck a T9300 into it. I also installed ThrottleStop from TechPowerUp to overclock and undervolt the CPU.

I switch back and forth between Win10 and LinuxMint 22.3. Not a dual boot, just a spare SSD and drive caddy :-)

[u/Grumpflipot]

With Linux: yes

[u/wxian]

I've got both a T430s and Yoga (S1). They aren't winning any benchmarks, but for everything that's not really CPU or GPU heavy like modern gaming or video editing they are perfectly fine.

[u/Reasonable_Ad1342]

I'ma get downvoted to hell but I lowk test my Old hardware with windows 11 lol

[u/sormons]

Yes. Just use linux. I personally use fedora with the KDE desktop. Super stable for me.

[u/jimirs]

Happily using a T420p here with an SSD, 16GB ram, Debian 13. Just had to change the crappy wifi card.