Honestly I wish more “gaming laptops” were more straightforward like thinkpads. I don’t need rgbs, it to be super thin, or fancy cases. Just matte black, a fat power brink, and a solid build

ThinkPads are the Nokia of the laptop world.

DDR5 Ram had to be soldered in for higher speeds than 4800MHz. But now they created a new Standard for swappable RAM, and a Thinkpad is the first laptop to support this new standard.

0:27 Hey, that's my stack of Thinkpads :D Thanks for including me in the video.

ThinkPad aren't a cult. MacBook are. ThinkPad are workhorses.

Every like this comment gets I will buy one thinkpad

My dad is still using his Thinkpad T420s until 2021 where it basically unusable (battery died, speaker not working, overheating issues, super slow hard drive). I managed to fixed all the issues and installed an SSD to it, now it still working even though i rarely using it.

If your company gives you a thinkpad, your job is secure. If they give you a mac then be prepared 😂

My friend used to crack walnuts with his Thinkpad and used is as a chair while waiting for a metro

If an end user wears gloves on the workplace, like protective padded gloves, the nipple track button is *crucial* for use on a thinkpad. It lets you control the cursor without needing the trackpad that tends to not work so well when you need to go back to welding or whatever.

I hate the "thin and sleek" look that laptops try to go for these days, especially since it usually means it has worse specs or durability or some other random inferiority. As someone on the internet also said, I need my laptop to be "heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death" thanks to the huge-ass battery inside it, with every practical port imaginable plus a CD player.

I did my whole engineering major with an old Thinkpad I got from my neighbor's work. It was a beast and I had a much better computing experience than my friends with new shiny laptops. One time I even managed to kill the keyboard and screen just before finals, bought replacements and got the computer back again in 30 minutes😅. Loved that beast.

IBM was the GOAT of PC hardware, present day IBM tech would've been amazing

I keep forgetting how big IBM was and the fact that they were everywhere

With all the crazy "gaming laptop" shapes and "futuristic-looking" cases, no one can still beat the classic "compact rectangular brick" look. It's simple, not atrociously huge or disappointingly small. Just a reliable piece of brick.

I grew up in a major mining centre, and my grandfather was a mine boss. Everyone who needed to use a laptop on the property used a ThinkPad. Those things could handle the rigor of usage thousands of feet underground with dust, moisture, explosive jolts, and of course drops as major hazards. It had a knock-on effect in the community with ThinkPads being easily serviceable and a laptop of choice for the local businesses and university. Fun fact: The ThinkPad's original design was meant to evoke a modern bento box.

It's worth pointing out *some* new Thinkpads have soldered memory, but not all. They have quite a few different models.

I ignored the red trackpoint for ages. Seemed annoying. Then i worked a while at a small desk with no mouse space and forced myself to use it. Now I'm lost without it. I guess I'm now in the cult and won't be able to change brands.

"They don't make X like they used to" is a meme but its genuinly true for thinkpads. They were the last laptop brand that let you fix everything. Btw I dont think the T480 is the last true thinkpad, really the T530/T570 are. I've had a T570 for years now, the 27 hour battery still works like new and if it ever goes bad, I can just buy a new one. Worst case scenario I open the battery and put new cells inside. It came with a german keyboard, I installed an aftermarket backlit english keyboard in 5 minutes for 20 euro. I added an extra 1tb M.2 drive and a 2TB SDD along with 32gb of DDR4. Oh and it had an extra slot on the side that let me install a USB-C connector. Its an absolute workhorse for all of my needs. I dare you to find a new laptop under 500 euro that has those specs. And yes, the thing is damn near indestrucable. If Lenovo ever goes back to the old style of thinkpads, I will happily shell out more than a grand for a new one. But until that happens, my T570 will keep on chugging.

I bought used Thinkpad T440, worked flawlessly through my university years, later I gave it to my father, who upgraded it even further with bigger SSD, bigger battery and higher resolution screen. Nowadays sadly it rare to see one device working for so long.

We had a kid at my high school who was constantly getting in trouble for being on his ThinkPad during class lol

One thing not directly mentioned was IBM's support OF repair / upgrade culture (not just designing the hardware to be easily upgraded and repaired but the first party support of it). For example, I remember enthusiasts appreciating the subtle differences between a Thailand sourced keyboard or a Japanese LCD... and you could call IBM up and ask for the specific part from the specific source and they'd send it without issue (no second guessing why or claiming they couldn't know or distinguish). The support site provided full illustrated documentation along with videos for just about any disassembly or install task. So it was like car tuner culture with the manufacturer backing you up. Many of the modular things Framework is being praised for today were standard issue for the Thinkpads. I remember being able to swap out my disc drive for extended battery or additional IO.

Ok, I'm 2 minutes in and I'm fucking sold. Was this video supposed to be an ad?

Lenovo ThinkPad SL510... Found it in a NYC ewaste bin in the basement of my apartment building. Microcenter had a heavy-duty battery in stock. I installed a 256Gb SSD and I had 8Gb of DDR3 RAM in my inventory. Put Linux Mint: MATE Edition on it. It's fantastic... I love it....

I have a ThinkPad for close to ten years now the thing still works like a champ. All i do is clean the fan from time to time.

ThinkPads are so water resistant you can even pee on your keyboard and it'll still work.

Been rockin' my trusty W541 ThinkPad for a solid nine years now. Survived the wild ride of undergrad and the maze of grad school architecture projects like a boss. From sketching out dreams to bringing them to life in 3D, this beast has seen it all. It's been dropped more times than I care to admit, but it's tougher than a tank-just a little screen hiccup from all the adventures. One slap on the screen, and it's back to working again.

looking from a old thinkpad e55o, a broken student from south america, loving this old laptop

In my region Pakistan, Thinkpads is still the most popular to this date because how affordable and easy to upgrade

I remember in the past every NASA mission when the cameras show the room where engineers watched the mission progress, all the laptops were ThinkPads, perhaps one or two Dell’s, not the case in latest missions, but ThinkPads had a good run.

I would love to see a "thinkpad skin" for framework laptops. Just imagine that absurd flexibility combined with a thick, resistant, and timeless design like that.

There is a T410 downstairs from me right now thats in use by my neighbor. It started life as a standard corporate lease, made its way into my hands as a work machine that I consolidated 4-5 other computers into (cheapo company). I used it for ~4 years and then IT guy gave it to me. Finally, having no more daily use for it, I donated it to my neighbor so he could plink away in a word processor. Absolute unit of a machine.

Recently I bought a T480 and I genuinely think it was the only right decision I've ever made XD

If ur job gives you a mac you will get fired in a week If you get a thinkpad you have a job for life

It may sound weird, but I love my 2017 Dell XPS for most of the same reasons people love ThinkPads. It's really quite durable, has exactly every port I need and every part is replaceable. Mine is now coming up on 7 years old, and with a fresh battery and a fresh install of windows 11 it's a perfectly good regular use machine and ready for at least another 5 years. It wears its faint scratches on the aluminium case gracefully after years of heavy use, surviving being carried around daily (and not so carefully) for the first 4 years and even being dropped a few times. And it still has room for improvement too! I could still upgrade the original 16gb of ram, or the 512gb m.2 ssd. A desktop PC has replaced it for the heavy lifting like CAD and gaming, but I bought my XPS second hand for a good price in early 2018 when it was barely half a year old, and it remains as my trusty old portable machine.

Such a fun AND serious video. Congrats.

My Thinkpad was the ONLY laptop that had the exact specifications I was looking for (at the time). Without even knowing that there was a cult following (except amongst the Linux guys I knew), I came to *really* like my laptop. It's got a certain... je ne sais quoi. 🤷‍♀️😊

I got a ten year old think pad for free as some neighbors were moving out and left it behind. I installed Linux onto it from locked windows seven professional and it works amazing

My first job in tech was being an asset manager for IBM. I'm bad with tools but I've been able to replace the LCD, keyboard, hard drive, ram and do it in an afternoon.

I had a brief stint working at a mom-and-pop computer repair shop about five years ago. The ThinkPads were always the easiest to repair and I loved them. I think the most memorable ThinkPad I saw though was one brought in by a Korean couple. I think it was the oldest laptop I saw brought in that still worked (not the oldest-there was some insane 90's Toshiba laptop that a customer brought in for ewaste recycling.) If I had to guess, it was from about 2005-2007. It just needed a keyboard replacement, which, due to the design, I could just unscrew and lift out, rather than having to go from the bottom and remove every component inside it to get there. The thing was in miserable condition, but sure enough, to a slightly incredulous me, it booted up Windows 7 (this was about a couple weeks after the official end of life). I have a MacBook Pro these days-yeah, definitely not counterculture, but they brought back enough ports and I just can't ignore that power-to-efficiency ratio. Still, there exists an alternate timeline where I went with a modern ThinkPad-something in the T-series. I really admire them, and they're still on my shortlist for if I ever need an x86 laptop-them and the Frameworks.

I love ThinkPad for the KEYBOARDDDDDD...

I bought t480 in last December it's beautiful, Strong and Upgradable. Perfect

I was first issued a Thinkpad 10 years ago when working in IT at my university. I dropped that laptop so many times off bunk beds and ladders and it never broke. Been a customer ever since and I always push Lenovo Thinkpad to all my clients. I'm glad Lenovo continued the build quality and still modernized.

Framework would be a worthy successor to take the thinkpad torch.

My father's work gave their employees the laptops they were replacing, got a p51, been using it daily for YEARS, 64gb of ram and a nice undervolt and it still runs windows 10 and games like a champ. Better specs than the t480 but still has great build and keyboard. 10/10 laptop, could not recommend enough.

Now which thinkpad should I buy for coding?

Nice to see my fav tech/privacy youtuber alive and well.

This video will be my response to anyone who asks about my dear 50$ laptop.

Lenovo sells 2000 USD Thinkpap laptops that the screen touches the keyboard leaving permanent marks to the screen. And they say that it's because we carry the laptop around... Also the battery life when in stand by for laptops like T14, T14s, P14, X13 is ridiculous poor. The consume more power in standby than other laptops when idling. But the worst thing on those laptops is the BIOS. OMG the BIOS... It is probably written randomly by a bunch of kindergarten kids. Just have a look at the Lenovo community forums...

Using it right now to watch this video, the typing is really satisfying and it serves me for a long time even if it fell a few times

I had 5 Thinkpads in my collection. X61 (MSDOS 6.22/Windows XP), T61P (Windows 7), X220(2 of these, I've given them away to family), X230 Tablet with a dock and/or a slice battery for 14 hours use. My 11 year old X230 Tablet runs Windows 11 23H2 just fine. I use it almost every day.

Thinkpad + Arch Linux. These two will never separate no matter what even if the end of the world, their user going to keep on hugging their thinkpad with Arch Linux installed init.

Last year I bought a refurbished T480s and I honestly think it's by far the best laptop I've ever used.

Great video. As I was studying about these topics, I arrived at the same conclusions: - have Proxmox on host as a supervisor isntalled on a seperate cheap SSD (or SSDs in RAID) a - have a seperate NVMe powerful drive (or in RAID) for VMs - have TrueNas in VM and HDD storage passed through HBD controller with SATA drives connected to it. Clean optimized.

Watching on my 2013 W540. ive kept this thing going for so long. The Y key actually snapped off so i jerryrigged a fix by just applying some double sided tape and it worked, and managed to withstand time too. Even though im a filthy windows user this laptop is everything ill ever need. Does the job perfectly.

The Thinkpads with Core i-series from 2011-14 were always a treat when I worked in computer maintenance. They really are built tough, are plenty versatile and pretty straightforward to repair. And they still look pretty good, if a bit bulky. But the chonk means I don't have to be concerned about whether or not my laptop screen is fucked if shoved into a tightly-packed overhead bin in a particularly bumpy plane ride. A Thinkpad that retains what made it great, just include a dedicated GPU and it's the perfect laptop.

I almost was worried that it may be time to think about moving away from my T520, but this video reminded me just how cool it is and how much I'd miss it. I've essentially fully upgraded it, so it's still quite usable for most of my use cases

Lenovo is the first company that’s using LPCAMM2, which is a new RAM standard called CAMM (compression attached to memory module) for laptops and they are super easy to switch out so hopefully thinkPads go back to their former glory

I have used 3 Thinkpads since 2010. They might not have the flashiest hardware, but have kept me from headaches my friends having with their laptops, including broken hinge, poor heat dissipation, noises in the 3.5mm audio jack, broken power jack, etc. Would definitely buy another one.

I'm on my 4th ThinkPad right now. Went from a T41, to a T400 to an X201 and now a T480

I have one of the newer ThinkPads, the one made by Lenovo, and boy is it still a beast. It can run Minecraft with mods and simple shaders at stable 30 fps, it survived being dropped from a desk a couple times, it’s drive is quite fast, AND IT’S YOGA SERIES (3rd gen), meaning it has a touchscreen which is very handy to me as a student. As for a roll cage - the body itself is one, being around 60% metal. Absolute unit of a laptop.

Bought a T460 in 2019, still rocking it today without problems!

Watching this video on a (very flattered) ThinkPad, I can remember all the times I spilled water in it, dropped it, and filled it up with dust over time. The only things that broke were the 'B' key (which always falls into the nub and slowly moves the mouse) and the trackpad not clicking anymore. Also, btw, this model is from 2015 and is still competitive to modern computers. Great laptop!

I didn’t know you had interests other than PRIVACY

watching on my Thinkpad x270

I had no idea there was a ThinkPad cult out there. My dad worked in corporate for over 30 years and had multiple. He often got to keep his older models, and would hand them down for me when i was old enough to have a laptop of my own. One of them specifically I believe he got it in 2006 or 2007, it was mine for a bunch of years, and when I had to get a better one for college I gave it to my mother. She still uses it to this day, and it works very well still! It even has it's original dock attachment!! I've never seen another brand that it's this durable

I absolutely love the nipple pointer thingy. It's so much easier to use than a trackpad. I wish more laptops had them.

nothing better than installing linux on a old thinkpad

Cause of Luis Rossmann talking about what he liked about his og IBM ThinkPad

I have a T400 that fell on the stairs from 4 ft down and hit the edge of said staircase. Which was made of stone. The T400 was hit on the trackpad physical buttons, and the internal cage cracked. The T400 was still fine and said "That tickled. Now bring me electricity". Any other laptop would have broken. Sadly after too many power surges and the battery giving out, it does not want to power up anymore (although it tries and some times does power on). I decided to retire him after 5 years of uni work. I still miss that keyboard.

When I was a kid an old ThinkPad T60 was handed down to me. I loved the rough buildquality and the "click" sound it made when I closed the screen. Recently, after years of using a desktop PCs, I fell back for the ThinkPad-Love. I bought a T450 and a X1 Carbon Gen 4 and yes they are old, but theres just a thing about these Laptops what makes me happy :)

I got an old T420 as a hand-me-down from my mom's work. It had windows 7, and I remember installing arch linux for the on that thing. I now use it everyday! (It also took a while to get into the BIOS because of some weird security stuff?)

I fell for the meme recently. E16 gen 1. Ryzen 5 7530u. Upgraded the RAM to 40 GB with a 32 GB stick of DDR4 3200 to accompany the 8 GB of soldered on RAM. I put KDE Neon on it. Compared to a lot of laptops, it's still decently serviceable, with most parts being sold straight from Lenovo. Mine was missing the RAM RF shield, and it was easy to get a new one shipped. I've been enjoying tinkering with running LLM AI models locally on it.

The first big thing I bought with my first big salary was a refurbished T480, I swapped the keyboard and both batteries and applied a leather skin on it, it's a beauty.

i now unironically use the trackpoint nipple for any thinkpad (or thinkpad-related design) laptop i use. this includes my own personal thinkpad t470s and my work t14 laptop. yes, it is even good for gaming as a joystick for some reason

I thought I was alone in my love for my ThinkPad.

At the beggining of the year I got Thinkpad T490s. Pretty nice but when my VM capped my RAM, I wanted to upgrade. Bought the RAM, I found out RAM is soldered in. Thankfully I could return that RAM quickly. I knew that Thinkpad will be a stopgap for Framework, which I got recently. The biggest things I'm missing is the middle click on touchpad and fingerprint reader next to the touchpad. FW is much quieter and I can upgrade it obviously.

I bought a ThinkPad E14 some time ago for my writing gig as well as other miscellaneous tasks. I bought it because my dad used to use a ThinkPad when he was working as a scientist at a national research institute in my home country. He used to tell me how rugged the machines were, even claiming that some of them survived volatile material spills and radioactive environments. He's not one to exaggerate, so I bought the E14 since it was one of the cheaper ThinkPad options in the market. I've been blown away by it's build quality, and absolutely enamored by the design. It's one of the best laptops I've ever owned, and I've owned quite a few Dell office laptops that didn't fare well to my constant travel. This was a very interesting video. P.S: English is not my first language, so please excuse any errors in my writing.

This video convinced me to buy a Thinkpad myself, and I’m loving it. I have a T430s and I instantly fell in love with it. I definitely fell for the meme. It has Arch Linux and all, and I just use to code on my projects. I just recently bought another one the T440p. All dirt cheap. Definitely worth every penny

i do have to say one thing on the un-upgradable CPU part. its not lenovo, its AMD and Intel not selling socketed CPUs for laptops. As for ram there are some new developments that might give it back to us.

T460 with 68+ and 22 internal battery. It spends 4 days away from a charger and still goes.

I used to own a very old thinkpad (it was very thick) which my mother previously owned, and I only used it for school for like a year before I stopped using it because it was completely broken. I sometimes miss that beast

Watching this video on my T490 that I bought last year for around 200€. Chrome was pushing the RAM just beyond 8GB, but after upgrading to 16GB, it feels like a new laptop and is my daily driver, despite the gaming pc next to it, it just saves so much on electricity and feels basically the same 99% of the time

Last year I bought three T430 Thinkpads in a lot for $175. No batteries, no drives, came with power bricks, and all three in great working condition. My purpose was to A) finally have the writing machine I've always desired, and B) be able to run multiple different Linux distros at the same time for comparison purposes. Missions accomplished, but I have to CONSTANTLY force myself to not shop for more of them! I am crack-addicted to their upgradeability mod potential. It's a badge of honor to carry my thic-n-chunky pal around lol. I think that I'll probably hold out on buying any more until I can find a top-spec T480 and stop there. Maybe.

It’s funny I didn’t know there was a cult around thinkpads til like a few weeks ago but I instantly understood why. My dad had one growing up. That thing could take a beating and it lasted for years. I remember getting to “play” with it as a kid. Basically just typing in MSWord and I remember the keyboard being sweet. Great quality machine.

I just upgraded (2) Lenovo Thinkpads. A T400 and a G560. I installed 8 gigs of ram in each, and both with Baracuda Seagate sata hard drives 7200 speed. For some crazy reason I could not install the Brave browser on the G560 after installing MX 23.2 Libretto so I just copied the same operating system for the G560 hard drive from my T400 hard drive using the new Sabrent cloning device. Now the G560 has the Brave browser and it works quite well on both laptops. I really like the T400 keyboard the best. These things are pretty easy to work on and built like tanks. Both of my Lenovo laptops were found in dumpsters. Now they are excellent Linux machines.

I'm using Thinkpad E440 since 2015, it's a gift from my office. Since then, i never fall in love with other laptop. At 2018, i purchased E480 and use it until 2023. Then i bought used T14 gen1 and use it until today. Because i'm a programmer, having best keyboard is preferred than having sleek, thin, and colorful laptop.

I've used Thickpads at work for almost a decade and I think they are well made. That's why I bought one used for myself as well.

Still code on my T450s nearly every day. 10 years going strong!

I have a small amount of hope for the modern Thinkpad since they've become an early adopter and major contributor of the LPCAMM2 connector. I hope it's a vanguard for a return to repairable and upgradable Thinkpads. It probably isn't, but a boy can hope. Still a step in the right direction.

With the partnership of lenovo and micron, they were able to release a new thinkpad with a new ram standard, LPCAMM 2, that is just as fast as LPDDR and as upgradable as DDR without being too bulky. I think that is a good step in the right direction.

Got a T500 for $15. Maxed out RAM, installed SSD, run MX Linux on it and it works well. The keyboard is great. Has original battery and it still holds a charge. It just a beater but gets the job done. Also, it has the last Core 2 Duo wich is great because no backdoor in the CPU.

Aren't they also one of the few places you can run open source firmware? I'm hoping framework can become the new thinkpad, but I don't think they're quite there yet firmware wise.

Watching this with my X220 shown in 9:37 Thanks bro

I haven't bought into the Thinkpad craze, but instead I've actually grabbed the 14s Thinkbook. It was the only laptop I was able to find that was a 2-in-1 with an integrated stylus and 2 nvme slots so I can toss an Oculink adapter into one of them. Also has upgradeable ram up to 40gb, and a full metal body (even the keys!) which is pretty cool for a brand new 2-in-1.

Nice video ! Does someone has the ThinkPad buying guide showed at 7:02 ?

Don’t forget Steve Jobs used a ThinkPad for years at NeXT and even when he returned to Apple. The PowerBook G3 is his response to the machine he used at NeXT. I use a Mac now because Lenovo era ThinkPads took a huge drop in quality. I will never forget the time IBM overnighted me a whole slew of components for my X60. New fan, heat sink, battery. Truly amazing machines in their day. Sad to see the brand fall from grace.

I am typing this on a Thinkpad E 15. Upgraded the RAM and you can upgrade the storage so it is still ahead of some other brands even with the slim design and missing ports. Still have an X201T and a T460 which I also love.

Thanks Kermit, nice video 👍

While not all modern ThinkPads have soldered RAM, Lenovo definitely messed up their gen 4 lineup for the popular T-Series. I was looking to get a new T14 or P14s (which is afaik essentially a T14 with higher TDP) with a zen 4 AMD processor, just to find out they not only have soldered RAM, but also a soldered network card by MediaTek (or Qualcomm, if youre lucky to get a unit). On top of that they ship these with small batteries of only 51Wh for workstations meant to be portable. At least their gen 5 lineup seems to get extendable RAM again, hopefully replaceable network cards and bigger batteries as well. I was using a cheap E-Series ThinkPad for years before and i still love it, especially the keyboard and the physical mouse buttons. When i got to check out a recent MacBook Pro lately i was shocked by how crappy their keyboards are, very thin with almost zero travel distance, felt like typing on a sheet of cardboard.