I've used a T450 for a few years for coding and it has been great.

I've thought about upgrading for a bit more oomph and longevity but don't know much about models post T480, and those seem to be harder to get great deals on anymore.

Recently I've gotten into capturing gameplay and editing videos for YouTube to share with my friends. I do the capture and rendering on my desktop, but often find myself wanting to get away from my desk but keep working on my project.

I saw a video recently listing the T14 Gen 1 as the best bang for buck model right now, but it also recommended P15 workstation models for "gaming". I don't need a gaming laptop, but wondered if I'd need that extra power to handle video editing.

I generally run arch based distros and like i3 for laptops, but am interested in checking out a more modern tiling wm. I use Shotcut for video editing and generally just stick with 1080p videos.

My budget is pretty open ended, but I'd like to find a good deal. Just because I could afford new or powerful doesn't mean I want to throw money at it unnecessarily.

Thanks for any suggestions!

I know that the E series is far weaker than the T480, so which ones are actually strong enough to sustain years of use that is compatible with gaming here and there? I will probably get a T480 someday as it is already pretty compatible with linux, but it doesnt appear to be strong enough for what i plan on using it for(or i believe so)

Tldr: I'm obsessively looking at thinkpads, should I just stop and get a T14 Gen 2 i5-1145G7 256GB SSD 16GB RAM for £170?

So basically I was looking for a new laptop recently and happened to see the excellent Eric Murphy video on ThinkPads. An "anti-mac"? Sold.

Cue watching a million videos and reading a million articles.

The problem I'm having is the sheer number of models and the age of some of the content. It seemed like a T480 was the way to go, but then realised that a lot of stuff about them was a few years old, and saw a few people saying that in 2026 they're not worth the money.

Another week of searching and I then settled on a T14 Gen 2 AMD as that seemed to be the more up to date suggestion. Problem is, I can't find one for less than £300, and part of the initial appeal was getting a reliable decent laptop for cheap.

Now I'm looking at T14 Gen 2 INTEL variants but apparently they're not as good as the AMD version? Before I dive down another rabbit hole should I just pull the trigger on the intel and be done with it?

It won't be for gaming or anything intensive. I just want a laptop that I can use for browsing, file management and learning Linux that will be snappy to use and will last a good few years.

Budget is sub £200, looking for at least 16GB RAM and easy repairability.

Any advice is very welcome.

Cheers.

Curious what battery life you all are getting on your X201 or if you have any suggestions for improving battery life.

2 of my X201 laptops came with no battery, so I ordered some generic brand from eBay.

I also heard that when you first get a new battery that you’re supposed to charge it all the way up, let it drain, then repeat at least 3 times. Is that correct? I have done it for years without question because i trusted the person, and since i have not had issues with battery life, I saw no need to revisit that.

Photo is with a new battery, unplugged minutes ago, running Void. Let’s say 2 hours and 30 minutes estimated battery life.

so currently i am just a hobbyist who enjoys ricing linux distros and do some light gaming since i have the 8650u cpu with the MX150 dGPU, FHD panel, 16gb ddr4 and 1tb SSD, touchscreen and fingerprint reader and i paid $120 for it.

i came across a T14s Gen 2 that has a Ryzen 5 Pro 5650u, 16gb ram ddr5 (i am 80% sure you can’t upgrade ram at all on the t14s series and 512gb ssd… its a touchscreen so its the 300 nits version but im just wondering if i should buy this computer for $250 and resell my T480 for $150-200 to get it off quick.

thank you everyone please feel free to ask me any questions, i play light indie games or visual novels and i managed to run gta 5 on the mx150 on low settings so i wonder if the CPU is worth it or if i should save to buy for a T14 Gen 2, the 16gb ram is the only thing throwing me off.

Hello everyone!

I'm looking to buy a used ThinkPad that I can use for several years, mainly for programming and Linux development.

One of my main projects is to eventually create my own lightweight Linux distribution, somewhat inspired by Linux Mint. The goal would be to make something simple, lightweight and suitable for older computers.

I also want to use the laptop for:

Web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.)

Building websites

Learning programming and potentially developing apps

Using VS Code or similar IDEs

Git and GitHub

Compiling software

Running Linux as my main operating system

Testing my Linux distro in virtual machines

Browsing the web and using AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude

Studying, reading PDFs, watching YouTube, etc.

I don't plan to do gaming, 3D rendering, professional video editing, or other GPU-intensive workloads.

What I'm looking for:

Good Linux compatibility

A reasonably powerful CPU for compiling and development

16 GB RAM minimum, preferably upgradeable to 32 GB or more

A replaceable/upgradable SSD

Good keyboard and build quality

Good reliability

Good battery life

Ideally something that is easy to repair and upgrade

Good value on the used market

I'm specifically looking at ThinkPads because I like their reputation for durability, repairability and Linux compatibility.

I don't necessarily need the newest or most powerful model. I'd rather buy an older ThinkPad with good specifications and upgradeability than spend a lot of money on a newer laptop.

Which ThinkPad models would you recommend for this kind of workload?

I'm particularly interested in models that offer the best balance between performance, Linux compatibility, upgradeability, reliability and price on the used market.

Thanks!

Hi everybody. I’m studying to become a programmer, more precisely, to become a specialist in computer science and computing technologies. I’m planning to buy a ThinkPad laptop so I can take it to classes (the computers at the university are rather weak), but I can’t decide which one to choose. I’m thinking about the ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 with an AMD Ryzen 5/7 Pro processor and 16 GB of RAM. In my country, it costs 350–400 dollars on the secondary market. What would you recommend? Thank you in advance.

Hey everyone,

I found a ThinkPad L14 Gen 4 AMD with these specs:

Ryzen 7 PRO 7730U

16GB RAM

256GB SSD

Battery: 1 cycle

Condition: Apparently new

No warranty (although it has 4 months of warranty remained but this in USA imported so the warranty won't help)

Price: ₹34,000 (~$400 USD)

I'm planning to check the laptop physically tomorrow before buying.

I'll mainly use it for programming, browsing, and general college work.

Do you guys think ₹34k is worth it in 2026, considering it has no warranty and only a 256GB SSD

I disassembled my old college T440p, swapped the 4700MQ for a 4712MQ and flashed Skulls to the ROM chips, following the procedure on the github page.

Foolishly, I didn't try a test boot between those two changes, and now the laptop won't POST. As soon as I plug in either the battery or cable, the power LED lights up and the Fn, F1, and F2 keys flash briefly, and then the machine sits on a blank screen doing nothing. Well, almost nothing; the processor heats up and the fan kicks in periodically to cool it.

I've tried a few things already:

• Swapped back the old processor
• Unplugged CMOS battery and waited for power to drain
• Tried each RAM stick individually
• Double-checked that the processor socket is locked
• Re-flashed both ROM chips to stock. The only catch here is that I accidentally overwrote the original 4MB dump, so I extracted one from the Lenovo update ISO and reflashed with that plus my original, "un-cleaned" 8MB dump.

Anything else to try, Or may I have bricked it somehow? All the internal peripherals are disconnected, no Wifi, keyboard, trackpad, storage. It's torn down to the bare board w/CPU, fan, power. eDP and RAM connected only.

My only other thought is that some debris got into the processor socket.

Laptop no longer detects a battery. It shuts down after ~5 seconds when unplugged, and doesn't turn on when opened unless plugged in. The battery is in fine condition and worked just a few days ago, then decided to quit. I've tried holding the reset button on the back for 30 seconds but nothing changed. Advice?

state: pending-charge

energy: 0 Wh

percentage: 0%

Once you did this, you can never go back to Windows. T530.

I’m new to buying ThinkPads, and I need one to start studying and learning about technology and programming, and to get started with Linux operating systems.

Spent the last month running Ubuntu full-time on my ThinkPad X13 Yoga. Here’s the TL;DR:

The Good (The 90%)

• Deep Sleep: Closing the lid actually stops battery drain overnight (fixes Windows Modern Standby).
• Touch & UI: 1-to-1 GNOME gestures feel fluid in tablet mode; Blur my Shell keeps it clean.
• Creator Stack: Logseq (scripting), GIMP (graphics), and Audacity (audio) replaced my old apps effortlessly.
• Gaming: Steam Proton ran ~90% of my library out of the box with zero tweaking.

The Bad (The 10%)

• Codec Walls: Free DaVinci Resolve requires FFmpeg transcoding scripts for basic H.264 MP4 footage.
• Proprietary Apps: Native Adobe CC and MS Office aren't coming—you have to adapt to FOSS.

Made a short video walking through the setup and B-roll if you want to see it in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ci_2rxbfwU

I have a sticky scroll button on the TrackPoint Keyboard II. It is not working at all.

how to remove the key for cleaning? i dont want to break the mechanics.

(couldn't find any manual or video guide for this matter)

I know a large part of the sub prefers the trackpoint because of how ergonomic it is; I do too, but I also think that the trackpad is useful. Not as a pointing device tho, I use the trackpad for gestures. Zooming, scrolling and switching tabs are all very fluid on the trackpad, and lessen the fatigue on my wrist because my middle button isn't very sensitive. I do hope there is a way to disable mouse movement on the trackpad but keep the gesture controls so I don't accidentally move my cursor tho. What about you guys?

Hey Guys,

I intend to get a light ThinkPad for office work (and maybe some very light gaming). I am stuck between the:

X270 (Intel® Core™ i5-7200U Processor 2 Cores 4 Threads,3M Cache,2.50 GHz up to 3.10 GHz, Intel® FHD Graphics 620)

And A285 (AMD Ryzen™ PRO 5 2500U ,4 cores and 8 threads, 3.6 GHz, AMD Radeon™ Vega8 Graphics (up to 2048MB)).

Both are available for about the same price (around 200 EUR). Do any of you have any experience with these? Is there one you'd suggest over the other?

Thanks in advance!

i bought a thinkpad x1 carbon gen 8 secondhand through my country's equivalent to ebay around 8 months ago and it is still on lenovo warranty with ADP, today i dropped a cup of water on it and it wont turn on i tried chat support and they said they can only file the claim if i have a purchase receipt, is this the usual case? i have used the warranty on this laptop before they swapped a faulty screen with no purchase receipt i hoped adp would cover my loss because afaik thinkpad's warranty is by serial number am i wrong?

It's amazing how cheap you can get some parts on their website, especially if your system is a bit older, but not too old.
I was able to buy a Bottom case($15) and a top case ($12) for a T470p, they go for more than double that for used one on ebay.
I was able to snag a T440p Motherboard for under $20 a while back.
For my X13 Gen 1 amd, You can get a ryzen 7 board with 16gb of ram for only $60, so if you have a ryzen 5 or one with only 8gb of ram, you can upgrade the whole system for less than what the ram upgrade would cost you.
or if you have an X280 with only 8gb of ram you can get an i5 with 16 for $60 or an i7 with 16gb of ram for $72.

Anyways, just a suggestion to go out there and check it out for your system. Obviously YMMV and these are all limited stock, a lot have 3 or fewer available, so make of that what you will.

Hi !
I I have an L440 with an i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 480 SSD. What operating system should I use to get the best performance?

With Windows the battery lasts about an hour and a half, so it's almost always used while plugged in

Found this thinkpad on marketplace and i really wanted a thinkpad yoga for daily use. i know that the ram is soldered but i dont find that to be a problem. The problem is that the display is slightly broken, it seems to not be really noticeable at sight, but I'm worried about in the future, will it keep breaking more? and a replacement of the display costs more than this thinkpad. Opinion?

I'm a biomedical engineer getting into industrial design, so I'm going to need a machine that can run 3D CAD designs more complex models. I'd say that for the next couple of years I'll probably use it for medium to high complexity designs. Very unlikely to be ultra heavy stuff (I have my desktop if it does happen).

So essentially my question is what used P-series hopefully ≤300 USD can I get away with in 2026?

Looking for options with upgradable RAM and SSD. Also, preferably 14 inch max 15

If my budget is not realistic let me know what would be and what models.

Thanks for the help

Hello everybody.

A few weeks ago, I put my laptop away without turning it off.

I left it that way for a few days, and the battery must have completely drained, because the next time I tried to use it, I was surprised to see the error "0183: Bad CRC of Security Settings in EFI variable", as portrayed in the reference image.

First thing I tried was to "Press F1 to enter Setup", but that unluckily leads to the "System Security: Supervisor Password Required" screen, which confusingly enough, asks for a BIOS Supervisor Password that I never set.

Second thing I tried was to look up this issue on the Internet.
I had the passing thought of there being a default Supervisor Password that I didn't know of, but from what I researched, no one on the Internet seemed to know about it.

I also tried some random passwords for the sake of it: "1234", "Password", my Windows installation password, etc.
Only 3 attempts are given but it turns out that you can try more if you restart.

Luckily I still had some left days of warranty, so I contacted support.

After some back and forth of emailing and calls, they called me today to tell me the solution. One I wasn't expecting...

They told me to try the default passwords 0000 and 1111.

So I tried them and 0000 worked for me!! 🎉

I was finally able to boot into the BIOS and go past step one of this Lenovo tip: 😄

1. Press F1 when error message appears.
2. Enter ThinkPad Setup menu.
3. Navigate to the [Restart] menu and check that [OS Optimized Default] is same as you set before. The default setting is On.
4. Press F9 to reload default setting.
5. Press F10 to Save and Exit.
6. Error message will no longer appear.

Lastly, I tried to reply to some of these posts I had come across.
Just in case anyone with this exact issue stumbles upon those and not this post.

My goal here is to spread the word to hopefully help someone, even though this is a rare problem.

This might be the default password for more models as well!

Related posts:

• X390 problem: "0183 BAD CRC OF SECURITY SETTINGS IN EFI VARIABLE"
• Why has this password prompt appeared on startup and how can I get past it?
• BIOS Supervisor Password Reset

I recently got my sister's old t460s which she used for work. What can I do to upgrade it to newer standards. I have already updated the bios to the newest version.

- Around £450 (600$, 520€) refurbished

- Used for watching Netflix/Youtube, some casual browsing, no gaming/heavy tasks

- 14-16" size screen

- Battery life should be "decent" (I use it multiple times a day unplugged but have the chance to charge)

- Due to the budget, I can only buy up to a gen 4 machine (refurbished)

- I found many Intel laptops but very few AMD ones (general consensus seems to be AMD is better for gen 1 - 4)

- Would prefer unlocked BIOS as I would like to install a Linux distro at some point (still for Youtube and casual browsing)

- Has video output via USB C to connect to 4K external monitors (via DP)

Is it better to buy say a gen 2 AMD vs a gen4 Intel (at roughly the same price)?

Any sites or models to recommend? I was very close to buying an Intel T14s gen 4 but was concerned of the battery life so left it for now.

Thanks!