I’m not a big owner of things, but the finest laptop I’ve always owned is a roughed-up 2015 Thinkpad X250.
For the flex, current it is operating a GUI casing sat on top of the microkernel I’m currently working on (blog article concerning this incoming… eventually).
Here’s a catalog of things that I think create it brilliant. I don’t desire to feign that any of these things are uniquely exemplary: far from it. It is the confluence of them, and not any one in particular, that makes me affection using it.
Size
It’s beautiful tiny. Its form-factor fits snuggly into the footprint of an A4 part of paper, so it sits alongside books and folders whenever placed in a small rucksack without risking damage.
It weighs nearly nothing too: equal alongside the additional capability battery, it’s lone concerning 1.45 Kg. Light adequate that you nearly don’t notice it whenever travelling.
Performance
Mine has an i5-5200U: 4 logical cores, maxing out at 2.7 GHz. I upgraded it to 8 GB of RAM a during back: additional than adequate for several ray on-the-go programming.
Even at complete pelt, I’ve never heard the fan kicking up much of a fuss. Now that I think about it, I’m not equal certain that it works.
Battery
The X250 has the two an inner power division and an external power division slot. I’ve opted for the largest after-market external power division I could find. When doing informal activity the laptop will effortlessly last for north of 10 hours without a charge, stretching to 12 hours if I’m careful.
Repairability
The X250 was fairly famous and replacement parts retailing extremely cheaply on ebay. It’s not the easiest to disassemble Thinkpad by any method but I can tear it distinct entirely with the pocket phillips I keep on my keyring. I have earlier replaced:
- The inner battery
- The lid camera
- The keyboard
- The motherboard
Every period you open up a laptop you run the hazard of damaging item crucial either via a stumble of the hand or merely the accumulated toll of loosening and tightening dozens of small screw threads. Despite that, my X250 has proved remarkably resilient and has never sustained any important damage notwithstanding additional than additional than a dozen tear-downs.
Keyboard
As alongside most Thinkpads, the keyboard feels beautiful to use. When you expend a lot of time writing code the reliability and sensitivity of a keyboard starts to matter a lot. Coupled alongside my text editor, the cognition of penning code on the thing is beautifully snappy.
Operating System
I opted for Endeavour OS. In the customary Arch Linux tradition, it favours native package installs complete sandboxed applications. As a outcome my instal sits at about 30 GB. A 128 GB M.2 SSD raided from another second-hand device is additional than adequate to cover that and everything I’m operating on.
I’ve slimmed downward my systemd setup as much as imaginable and the item boots from chilly in about 8 seconds.
Cost
Here’s anywhere the X250 strikes out most competition. I bought quarry second-hand for about £100 in 2018. They’ve lone got cheaper since then. I’m not fearful to obtain it anywhere because it’s barely value stealing and would be cheap to substitute equal if that were to happen. Its value is extremely much not in its on-paper specs and alternatively in how I use it.
Conclusion
I get a certain glee in keeping older or second-hand hardware operating as a regular driver. It appears silly, but it feels akin a quiescent revolt against bigger-faster-costlier consumption culture. Come the end times, this is the device I’ll be riding it out with.
