Wanting to buy an old Thinkpad. Opinions.

[Laszlo_3]

Hi there guys.

I want to buy an old thinkpad and I need some opinions. I will use it for work mostly, mostly working in excel, and running some java programs, and when I'm really bored some youtube.
How are this laptops working, I hear they are really resistant and that would be a huge + for me I am aslo on a budget and don't wanna buy a new laptop.
I could add some rams and I hear they have an SSD slot except for the HDD you can add. What is the best model of thinkpads? I was searching for the T61 15'6 inch ones.

Thank you.

 

[Saga Lout]

I just checked my records and I find that Thinkpads are the least likely to come into my business for problem fixing other than Windows related issues.

I've had three in for screens and one for a keyboard, compared to HP which are over the hundred in the last three years.

IBM - now Lenovo - made models which they dubbed Ruggedised for used by workers onconstruction sites and the like.

That said, I can't say they don't come in for repair because they didn't survive in to old age but I do believe they are still pretty viable. I can't say the same for Ideapads. and some nearly new Flex models are already coming my way for screen changes..

 

[jaguarskx]

My ThinkPad T40 from 2003 still functions properly. Though I did have to replace the CMOS battery and the lithium ion battery is more or less dead now. Not a surprise given that it is 13 years old. I also upgraded to a larger HDD. Too bad the Pentium M CPU and the DirectX 8.1 Radeon 7500 GPU are too weak even to surf the web.

I actually recommend going for something a bit more recent than the T61 model. While a Core 2 Duo CPU would still suffice for surfing the web (unlike the Pentium M), you will likely run into problems using it to watch videos. The reason is because Youtube and other sites uses far more advanced video codecs to encode videos. The graphic cores of old laptop will lack the these newer more advanced video codec which means instead of the graphics core decoding the video for playback, the CPU is going to have to do and that can cause CPU usage to go to 100% and you can still get dropped frames. Like what my T40 does.

I recommend something like the ThinkPad T420. It still uses the traditional style ThinkPad keyboard before the market shifted to the chiclet keyboards. They come with 2nd generation Sandy Bridge CPUs with the Intel HD 3000 graphics core that will not have any problems decoding video using more modern codecs like H.264 and H.265 (allows for smaller video sizes, while maintaining good video quality, but requires a lot of processing to decode).


ThinkPad T420 - $300 (Refurbished)
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T420-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B00W4AMWCI/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1475855778&sr=1-3&keywords=Thinkpad+t420


Better yet ThinkPad T430 - $320 (Refurbished) with 3rd generation Ivy Bridge CPU and Intel HD 4000 graphics core. Uses traditional keyboard.
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T430-inch-Notebook/dp/B00U912V34/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1475856424&sr=1-3&keywords=Thinkpad+t430

 

[hang-the-9]

As above, the T61 is getting pretty old, but for a T420, you can find them cheaper on craigslist than $300, can probably find them for 200 or so, and also on ebay. You may want to look at the T420s model, it's quite a bit slimmer and easier to handle. I've been working with the T420s and T430s models and when I see a T420 it looks like a giant compared to them. My main laptops are a couple of T420s, with a solid state hard drive and 8 GB of ram they are fast.

 

[jaguarskx]

As above, the T61 is getting pretty old, but for a T420, you can find them cheaper on craigslist than $300, can probably find them for 200 or so, and also on ebay.

Yeah, but the T420 and T430 I linked to are certified by Amazon to have been refurbished by a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher and has a 1 year warranty.

 

[Saga Lout]

That shouldn't be a problem - you can still take all the Microsoft stuff out and put a decent OS in instead.

 

[1shado1]

As above, the T61 is getting pretty old, but for a T420, you can find them cheaper on craigslist than $300, can probably find them for 200 or so, and also on ebay.

Yeah, but the T420 and T430 I linked to are certified by Amazon to have been refurbished by a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher and has a 1 year warranty.

The T430 has a 90 day warranty. But I'd still take it over something from craigslist.