I’m unemployed and my current laptop died. Is ThinkPad T480 still the goto and does it still work for software development? Thinking of getting a Framework but I don’t want to spend that much right now.
Check if https://freegeek.org/ works for you, they also have an eBay store
Looks like that site is dead and has being an AI slop domain squat.
Fixed the link, wrong tld, its .org Thanks for letting me know
I’m personally on a refurb thinkpad t14. Works great
Old Dells are cheaper and got great support
I’d check Ebay for HP elite books, one gen old still has good performance, and fwupd pulls updates for them
Framework is actually cheaper if you think long. I mean ownership cost
it’s fine but honestly there’s much better machines (performance wise) for better price these days, and the screen on T480 is usually pretty shit. i’d get something else if this is gonna be your primary machine.
For development? I’ve been using old Dell Latitudes. They are easier to work on than HPs, generally sturdy, and Debian runs great on them. You can get a used E7440 for next to nothing, and old RAM is still cheap.
Gen 1 X13 currently go for 100-150 bucks, they are the best value but compiling time is gonna be pretty trash
Last I checked the highest spec of thinkpad t480 only has i7 8th gen with 4c8t, if you do a lot of compiling you probably gonna have to wait for a long time for medium to larger size projects, get anything with ryzen 6 cores or more instead
Yeah that’s my biggest concern
I don’t think you need to limit yourself to a Thinkpad specifically. Linux should work on almost any laptop these days. I would look around for secondhand business laptops. They tend to be reasonably priced and often gently used when they are coming from business environments.
Sure but other brands tend to have a lot of issues in general and the Linux support is worse, whereas a T480 was like $200 last I checked and has a huge Linux community behind it and supposedly they last a long time
I think OP is right that most laptops run Linux fine and the business lines are best. I did have to flash my HP laptop BIOS/firmware using Windows as HP has no Linux tools for this yet. But with that said, I own seven or eight Thinkpads and run different distros (Mint, Cachy, Solus, etc). All work very nicely. I could not discourage you from buying a 480 at all.
Linux runs on almost anything these days. I’ve installed Mint on Lenovos, Dells, and HPs without issue (even media keys all worked out of the box). As others have suggested, I’d probably look into used business workstations from the last five years to ensure you’ll get a solid five to ten years out of it.
I can sell you a 15” dell with a quad core and 32gb of ram.
Just picked up this Lenovo Ideapad for $640 for my kid . Nothing amazing, but I’m hoping it matches my previous Thinkpads in durability and longevity.
Basic detail - not great, but will probably suit your needs if you’re not doing game development or high-end data analysis:
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Laptop 2025 15.6” FHD 1920 x 1080 Touchscreen, AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, 8-core, AMD Radeon Graphics, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 720p HD Camera, Windows 11 Home
Those specs look fine, I don’t really do anything GPU intensive but I use NixOS which tends to compile a shitton of stuff
The Ideapads are consumer grade laptops. The build quality and repairability are usually worse than the business laptops.
If you want to go really cheap, you can get a used Chromebook for like 50€ and put PMOS on it for full blown Linux 😂
Do NOT get a think pad. They were good when they were IBM, but Lenovo got caught putting a rootkit in their BIOS. So even if you flash to Linux, you run the risk of the Chinese government or any dedicated hacker having full access to your machine.
If you’re on a budget, Acer is good bang for the buck, if you’re not, HP has quality builds.
Lenovo got caught putting a rootkit in their BIOS
The model I mentioned supports coreboot though?
HP has quality builds
Lol I find that hard to believe
