Anything here will be Anecdata at best, but I've bought 3 refurb t420 and t420s; these are 8 years old now and still daily drivers for all my family members. The t420s in particular is my all-time favourite laptop of last 20 years, as it's thin and portable, but still modular (t420 is significantly thicker and more old-school portable), easy to upgrade and maintain, and with great keyboard with standard layout.
I have also used regularly a t450 and t470 for work, and last year bought an anniversary t25 as a Xmas gift for myself :).
Prior to that, I've used T530, T410, T60p, T41, T30, etc.
My boss has been put on notice that a Thinkpad is a "condition of employment" for me - I cannot imagine using anything else.
All of them have been absolutely positively rock solid. No issues as daily drivers for a travelling consultant - lots of plugging and unplugging, moving, backpacks, etc.
Mostly various Windows versions, but T450 and T470 are RHEL full time, and I have a T61 with Lubuntu as well.
That being said, for any brand, there'll be people with good and bad luck/experience. You have to look at your preferences, and stats...
Same here. Although for work I prefer a workstation with enough cores for compilation.
Just bought an X230, put OpenBSD in it and it is just perfect in the summer house. Put a SIM card in it and connect to the internet from everywhere. Superb keyboard, fast, small, durable, everything replaceable.
I also have a T25 at home for development and can't say anything bad from that either, albeit a bit too big for carrying around.
X220 and X230 always seemed like smaller than modern T25/T480, but far thicker, almost as thick as the T220 of that generation. Can you comment on that? I'm extremely interested but not willing to trade width for thickness :|
(my ideal complement to current stable would be a 10" or 11" think 8GB linux-compatible... and while dreaming, with a trackpoint. The whole netbook market seems to have bloomed than disappeared - but if ever there was a place to use the little red nubbin instead of tiny trackpad, that was it I think:)
They are thick and sturdy. That's what I like about them. Thick, but with a 35W CPU that can do miracles. Utilitarian piece of hardware so far away of thin modern laptops, I just like them a lot.
Thx! I agree with utility part,I just found t420s so much more usable than t420, while retaining modularity and maintainability. Feels easier to lug around than x220/230,if it's less heavy etc. Hmmm...!
I have one of the supported cards[0], so it's quite straightforward:
Check the APN from your operator's settings.
- Try the card first in a phone. Preferably turn on the SIM lock and change the PIN code.
- Insert the card to the laptop, boot.
- `doas ifconfig umb0 apn your.apn.com`
- `doas ifconfig umb0 pin XXXX`
- `doas ifconfig umb0 up`
- Confirm the gateway from `ifconfig umb0` when it appears, should say inet and it's the second IP.
- When gateway is visible, `doas route add -ifp umb0 default XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX`
- Confirm the DNS works, but you should now be able to access internet.
Sometimes when you turn off the power or suspend, you might need to enter the PIN to the card, turn the device up and set the route again. A player automates this with a script. :)
You can store the settings to `/etc/hostname.umb0`.
I have also used regularly a t450 and t470 for work, and last year bought an anniversary t25 as a Xmas gift for myself :).
Prior to that, I've used T530, T410, T60p, T41, T30, etc.
My boss has been put on notice that a Thinkpad is a "condition of employment" for me - I cannot imagine using anything else.
All of them have been absolutely positively rock solid. No issues as daily drivers for a travelling consultant - lots of plugging and unplugging, moving, backpacks, etc.
Mostly various Windows versions, but T450 and T470 are RHEL full time, and I have a T61 with Lubuntu as well.
That being said, for any brand, there'll be people with good and bad luck/experience. You have to look at your preferences, and stats...