Reply 80 of 136, by keenmaster486
- Rank
- l33t
I got a Thinkpad X61 recently.
In many respects it is the last true "Classic" Thinkpad:
- 4:3 screen
- Classic keyboard (great touch feel)
- Trackpoint only (no touchpad)
- All the ports you need: USB, ethernet, audio, VGA, SD card slot and Cardbus, even has a freaking modem jack)
- Upgradeability! I've already bumped it up with an SSD and 4 gigs of RAM; will go to 8 gigs in the future. The WiFi and Bluetooth cards are easily accessible and replaceable. There is even a spare Mini PCIe slot.
The battery life is phenomenal; it has the 9-cell battery and though I haven't run it all the way down yet, it hasn't dropped below 70% for 1-2 hours usage at a time on full brightness, full CPU no throttling, etc.
This is pretty darn close to my idea for a Thinkpad 560 with modern internals. Of course the Core 2 Duo in this thing isn't new, but with enough RAM and lightweight OS (Linux Mint XFCE) it handles everything I can throw at it just fine. Modern web browsing works great as do any of the other apps I've tried to use (Spotify, Slack, Sublime Text, various software development environments - Node, Ruby, React, etc).
If Lenovo made a machine with this form factor and new internals, I would buy it. But they won't because it isn't trendy. Companies hate towing the line when it comes to fads and trends.
World's foremost 486 enjoyer.