Is it worth buying a Thinkpad?

[shahidt]

My first Thinkpad was an IBM 600, which was still working really well when I got my next, a T60. Since the first, the feel was not that good because of the plastic, but meh. The thing that really felt lacking was the Sound. The sound from the TP 600 could be heard all over a large room, but from the T60 barely from where I was sitting next to it.

I may need to buy a new laptop sooner or later. Now, you don't get 4:3 and the keyboard's changed. Are there any other unwanted surprises that I need to consider? Will the 4:3s ever make a comeback? Is it worth the money to buy another ThinkPad? If so, when?

I like to keep my computers well maintained and last for 8-10 years. Should I go for a Touch Screen, or will it be a fad that will not last much?

[RealBlackStuff]

Check your "Private messages" at the top of this page.

[TonyJZX]

It is hard to say how the world will work in 8-10yrs time.

Like if I go back to 2005-2008 we were with Core 2 Duos and Vista. So would a laptop from that time work ok with Windows 7/Windows 10.

It can if you know what you're doing. Can you make the same prediction for 2023-25?

To me there is nothing that lasts longer than the Thinkpads from say the T61-T420. I *think* any person here who knows what they're doing can make a T440/T450 last 10 yrs given budget for upgrades but if you have to ask that kind of question its doubtful you could make a Thinkpad last 10yrs.

[RealBlackStuff]

FrankenPads come to mind (15" T60 chassis with 14.1" T61 mobo (Intel graphics, or get a NOS nVidia NVS140M from TuuS), a T9300/T9500/X9000 CPU,
up to 8GB RAM, Middleton BIOS for Slic2.1, SATA II and a few other goodies, and if you can find it, an UXGA IPS 1600x1200 screen.

People who still have such a Frankie, especially ones with UXGA and LED-backlight, will hang on to them for dear life!
Those machines will support W7 (and W10, or any Linux) until well into the 2020s.

[Summilux]

Some of us have been holding out for the "Thinkpad Retro" project announced last summer (which is better named Thinkpad Classic) but with really faint hopes given Lenovo's lowly track record.

The computing world in 10 years will be much more different than between 2006-2016 IMHO. That's because the CPU silicon limits will soon be reached (Intel just announced it had to elongate its traditional tick-tock cycle), VR is being hyped and demands massive GPU resources, 4K video is not too far from becoming mainstream whilst 8K is already trialed, neuromorphic chips are being sampled and pitched for integrations into consumer devices such as smartphones, etc.

Though for classic laptop applications, nowaday's hardware should still be good. But it shall feel long in the tooth comparatively faster.

[brchan]

A maxed out frankenpad like RBS pointed out would be ideal and serve you pretty comfortably (web browsing, video, word processing) at least until 2020. It may be a stretch after that, though. However, if you have the middleton BIOS installed, you can use throttlestop to enable dual-ida and get an extra 200mhz clock speed on the T61 motherboards with higher end cpus. For example, the T9300, T9500 will then run at 2.7ghz, 2.8ghz, respectively. The X9000 doesn't seem to support dual-ida, so a T9500 would be cheaper and faster with the mod.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=95312

[Worzyl]

I guess that all depends on what your going to use it for. I still have my T60p and it's one laptop I'll never get rid off as I plan to connect it to a couple of speakers and will use it for music. The only reason why I stopped using it is because it doesn't have the power to run the applications that I use. I upgraded to a Samsung 770Z5E after reading how good the screen was; even that to was second hand and came out 3 years ago.