ThinkPad X250 ode sparks big HN/Lobsters thread on laptop longevity
A blog post praising a decade-old second-hand ThinkPad drew hundreds of comments trading stories of long-lived laptops and diminishing hardware returns.
What to know
- A personal blog post praising a 2015 ThinkPad X250 became a top Hacker News post (176 points, 134 comments) and was cross-posted to Lobsters.
- Dozens of commenters report daily-driving similarly aged or older laptops (ThinkPad X230, T420s, T480s, X280, even a 2005 X41) with minimal performance complaints.
- The thread surfaces a debate between those who see this as evidence that CPU/hardware gains have plateaued for typical use, and those who say heavy workloads (gaming, ML, compiling) still justify frequent upgrades.
- Practical sub-thread emerges around sourcing trustworthy replacement batteries for older ThinkPad models.
The dispute Whether the widespread satisfaction with decade-old laptops shows hardware progress has plateaued for everyone, or only applies to light users while heavy workloads still demand new machines. · positions read across 77 posts and comments
Keeping old or second-hand laptops running as daily drivers is satisfying, practical, and still fully capable for everyday work.
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“My favorite laptop has consistently been the one that I can buy off the second-hand business surplus market for cheap, and has a plethora of replacement parts available on ebay.”
bityard · Hacker News ↗
CPU and hardware performance gains have been marginal for a long time, which is why old laptops still hold up.
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“the returns of having more CPU power/smaller lithography have been marginal for a very, very long time”
ezst · Hacker News ↗
Heavy workloads like gaming, ML, or compiling still justify buying new hardware regularly.
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“As a person who plays games as a hobby I'm pretty much buying a new GPU/processor anytime there's something affordable that will double my frame rate”
Grombobulous · Hacker News ↗
jsbarretto Blog authoribobev Hacker News submitterezst HN commenterGrombobulous HN commenteramatecha HN commenter
How it unfolded 6 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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6
Thread turns practicalBattery sourcing and favorite ThinkPad models
Later comments shift to practical advice, with users asking where to find trustworthy non-OEM replacement batteries for X230-X270 era ThinkPads and comparing favorite models (X230, T420s, X280, X250), while vlowrian notes still running an original 2015 X250 after battery and Wi-Fi upgrades.
“the aftermarket world for these seems rife with super-sketchy knockoffs that I'm certain will not be trustworthy…”
— amatecha -
I have a mid-range used ThinkPad and I love it. It's not the fastest machine but it's built like a tank and it feels nice to carry my dev environment along with me when I'm traveling.
2 more of the top 3 · 58 posts in this stretch
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When I saw this headline, I thought "I bet it's an old Thinkpad" :)I have 3 personally, one for work. My T470p is probably the best one, given some tradeoffs (some annoying pressure points on the screen which happened on two replacements and some occasional flakiness with power) I got a cheap T480 when I thought the T470p was a lost cause…
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> I'm talking about the atrocious TN panels. For those of us who used greyscale passive-matrix LCDs in the 1990s, they are more than good enough, they are fine. Features like mouse pointer trails, pointers that get bigger when wiggled, circular ripple-circles when you press Ctrl, and other ways to find your mouse pointer are because on '90s…
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ezst argues CPU performance gains have been marginal for years
A commenter contends that the prevalence of people happily daily-driving decade-old laptops shows that CPU power and smaller lithography have delivered only marginal real-world returns for a long time, rather than being a major upgrade incentive.
“the returns of having more CPU power/smaller lithography have been marginal for a very, very long time…”
— ezst -
Reading about so many people daily-driving laptops built around a decade ago, if not more (which includes myself, happy owner of a T480s), and not suffering any major penalty in terms of overall usability and battery life, it really shows that the returns of having more CPU power/smaller lithography have been marginal for a very, very long time…
2 more of the top 3 · 6 posts in this stretch
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My daughter has the same laptop (I bought it for her a long time ago). When she brought it with her when visiting me in Canada from Australia this summer, she asked me to look at it because Win10 wouldn't let her in and she needed her files and pics.So, I booted a Fedora USB and backed up her files. When I asked her if she wanted me to install…
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I had a fujitsu lifebook that was 10 years old when I bought it and it lasted another 8 or so after that. I'd maxxed out the ram to 8GB, replaced the missing stylus and bought a new battery. It had a fantastic display that was brighter and had a wider viewing angle than the system76 gazelle I replaced it with. And the swivel hinge connector was…
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Post cross-posted to Lobsters, opening a second discussion thread
bahlo submitted the identical post to Lobsters, where it gathered its own smaller thread (score 19, 6 comments) alongside the larger Hacker News conversation.
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Grombobulous counters that heavy workloads still justify upgrades
A commenter pushes back on the thread's pro-longevity mood, arguing that gamers and other heavy users regularly justify buying new hardware when performance gains of 50-300% appear.
“As a person who plays games as a hobby I'm pretty much buying a new GPU/processor anytime there's something affordable that will double my frame rate…”
— Grombobulous -
I’m happy to see more pushback against consumer culture, and I’m happy this system meets the needs of the author.Of course, the other part of this are people who use computers to do much heavier workloads.There are a pretty large list of activities where every time you have some significant gain like ~50-300% performance gain, there may be…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
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I've owned an M1 Pro since its release and it's still going strong. I was going to see how long I could run it for. My bet was that by staying on Sequoia and/or installing Linux, I could run it for a ridiculous amount of time. I've met developers in the past with 12 year old Macbooks.But due to personal circumstances, my previous employer and I…
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Not exactly the same model, but I really like the X280. I've bought a couple of refurbished X280s to give to friends and family whenever they need a working laptop for light office/internet/email use. Really nice laptops, super lightweight and durable, yet incredible affordable.
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Commenters list their own decade-old daily-driver laptops
Multiple HN users (kstenerud, egeozcan, vdombr, bityard) describe running ThinkPads and other machines from a decade or more ago as primary computers, citing cheap second-hand availability and ebay parts.
“My favorite laptop has consistently been the one that I can buy off the second-hand business surplus market for cheap, and has a plethora of replacement parts available on ebay.”
— bityard -
1 outlet My Favourite Laptop
first by HN Frontpage, 8d ago
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My "desktop" machine is actually an old T450 I bought used over a decade ago, running Linux Mint (Mate).Weak processor, 16gb ram, but good enough for browsing and running daily tasks, and it's simple enough to connect to more powerful machines when the need arises. And the docking station has HDMI and displayport. Hardware H.264 codec, and also…
2 more of the top 3 · 8 posts in this stretch
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My favorite laptop has consistently been the one that I can buy off the second-hand business surplus market for cheap, and has a plethora of replacement parts available on ebay. Up until the whole PC market got stupid about a year ago, anyway.My current daily driver is a Dell Precision 7550. It has a nice 15" display, touchpad buttons with a…
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I originally bought my MacBook Air M1 just as a transitional computer because my old, incredibly expensive Intel MacBook Pro had been stolen, and I was waiting for a newer MacBook Pro model. But I grew so fond of the Air that I couldn't bring myself to part with it again. It's lightweight, has incredible performance (more powerful than the most…
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Developer's post praising his 2015 ThinkPad X250 hits HN front page
ibobev submitted the blog post 'My Favourite Laptop' to Hacker News, where it reached score 176 with 134 comments; the author details the X250's small size, weight, battery life, repairability, keyboard, and £100 second-hand price.
“it feels like a quiet revolt against bigger-faster-costlier consumption culture…”
— jsbarretto (blog author)
What people are saying 13 voices from 2 sites · best of 77 · verbatim
- Where can people find trustworthy, non-counterfeit replacement batteries for X230-X270 era ThinkPads?
- Nov 6
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> For those of us who used greyscale passive-matrix LCDs in the 1990s... Wow, that brought back some neat memories; thank you! > ...I don't need retina displays, HDR, any of that: a 15Y old full colour flat panel LCD is still amazingly good. Yeah, maybe its my age and because of what you noted earlier, but kinda basic displays are more than enough…
- Nov 3
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I think the sweet spot in that family is the x270. Same form-factor but obviously more recent hardware, up to a i7-7600u with 32GB of RAM, Full HD touchscreen, 2 nvme slots and very conveniently it can be charged by Usb-C when their 2 batteries are low at the end of a long day! They're so great I have accumulated way too many.
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i used my old x220 for many years beyond anyone else would have used it, even still reached for it from time to time after i got my 2020 MBP... but w/ my current M3 Air, it's too much of a leap forward... battery life is important to me and the power you get w/ this battery is unmatched
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For traveling, I don't just mean the daily commute but also longer trips. I prefer carrying just one USB-C charger and cable. Also, replacement is ubiquitous if the cable or charger breaks. I'm not talking about pixel density, I'm talking about the atrocious TN panels. Terrible colors, terrible viewing angles. Black-on-white documents display as…
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eBay is not a good source. In the UK, I use Morgan Computers, and regularly check Tier1 Online and Bargain Hardware, just in case. These are enterprise boxes -- you want depreciated ex-corpie-fleet machines. I know of Gigacomputer in Czechia. I am sure there must be other such places. I have never lived or worked in North America and don't plan…
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The battery life means that USB-C isn't an issue (it only needs a charge when I get to where I'm going, at which point I don't care about transformer. It's pretty tiny anyway). The screen feels like a matter of perspective: I'm used to 96 dpi screens, and I'd rather see the pixels than suffer the performance implications of not seeing them.
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I don't know how you put up with it: - No USB-C (always need to have separate brick to charge, especially annoying when traveling) - Crappy display (depends on the model, but Lenovos are notoriously bad if they don't have the IPS option) - Very old CPU and GPU - Low RAM Don't get me wrong, I have a bunch of ThinkPads myself, but I find myself not…
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I still daily an X280. RAM is soldered so it's days are numbered (though that number is still high) and this one does not have the bridge battery setup, just an internal one. The size is great though, and the keyboard is top notch. This also charges over USB-C which is a nice creature comfort.
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not surprised to see a sibling of my x250. Got it for 160 € refurbished in 2023. Now with FreeBSD. Nice.
- Nov 2
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My favorite laptop is a $90 Samsung Chromebook I bought around 7 years ago from Walmart clearance section during Black Friday.I used it to remotely connect to hpc cluster to monitor my machine learning experiments.It was unused for a while, then we had a baby. He used it to watch videos, absolutely battered it. This thing is indestructible. He…
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I had one for 10 years, through high school and uni. After that I tried the new-ish models and my god, Lenovo does not know how to make laptops anymore.
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For anyone still running these older ThinkPads, where do you get new batteries from? I've not yet replaced any of mine but the aftermarket world for these seems rife with super-sketchy knockoffs that I'm certain will not be trustworthy. Any recommendations for known-good manufacturers of batteries for X230-X270 era? I'm in NA but I don't really…
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Ah no way! I figured it might be an old ThinkPad, but coincidentally it's the exact laptop on the desk next to me at this very moment! In my case running OpenBSD rather than Linux, but still. Oh and I've got i5-5300U vs. the OP's i5-5200U. 8GB as well which as OP says is plenty. Good times :) My only real criticism on this machine is the display…