ThinkPad T430

At this point, the T series has been an ultrabook for longer than its traditional format. There's just no demand for a T420-type laptop nowadays, and it's also completely unnecessary to make a laptop that bulky now. Back then processors were socketed, used more power, PCBs were less compact, everyth

I've said this a few times already, but it's such a tragedy that the T420/T430 were the only high-end ThinkPads of those generations to not be configurable with a decent display from the factory. The X220/X230 as you can see here, could be configured with a 1366x768 IPS display. The T420/T430 got ei

I've had about 10 of these TN screens between the T420 and T430 laptops I've had/used/sold. I'm sure most responses will say how awful all these TN screens are and they are more or less correct. In my experience there are God awful ones (best described as someone having sprinkled curry powder over i

No! Absolutely not! I've been using ThinkPads since the 90's. I had some hand-me-down used IBM ThinkPads growing up, and have bought quite a few new ones over the years myself. I've also bought them as dedicated work laptops. ThinkPads were always the geek engineers laptop. They always had every IO

Not a stupid question, but the T430 will mostly be a lateral move from your x230 - similar generation CPU, just heavier - capable of installing MORE storage drives if you sacrifice the Ultrabay. But i'd anticipate ~2/3 hours on battery with that very inefficient CPU gen. I'm not totally sold on the

Honestly, even at a "Student" level, neither of these systems - machines built for businessmen in suits to frantically massage Excel spreadsheets - are a terribly good fit. A P series workstation would be far more suitable - or if you're a real masochist/equipped with incredible patience, an older W

"Am I losing a lot compared to the regular T430" The main thing you lose is the ability to upgrade the CPU because the CPU in a T430s is soldered whereas in a regular T430 it's socketed and can be upgraded. The only thing you really gain in a T430s is a slightly lighter weighing laptop (1 pound less

The L line is focused on "economy and value"...that already indicates adulteration and cheapening. There are some already here gaslighting you. These computers are not "Toughbooks" either, but they're better in the suburban/professional use they're intended for because they don't screw up the power

With apologies for taking the lazy way out: ThinkPads are deified for what's essentially no good reason. I recently wrote: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1qe3oj9/comment/nzuqxua/ and in that thread I linked: The Myth of the ThinkPad – Innovintage - every single word of this post is corre

If you're not interested in pain olympics or being the type of person who defiantly claims "I am successfully using an even older computer than you!" then the oldest you want to run is an intel core 8th generation or amd ryzen 2nd generation CPU. In ThinkPads specifically, that means the #80,#90, #9