ThinkPad X280

Same wagon here. I have moved from a X230 then to a X260 and since many years now I am on a X13 gen 1 as my daily driver and it has already started showing its age. Anyways, I miss the sturdiness of X260 it was really top and the 12" screen size was right on the sweet spot. Also from a keyboard stan

As a fellow tech lover and ThinkPad enjoyer, this sounds like a fun little Franken‑laptop project. If you want something inexpensive but still very moddable, I’d look at older T or X series (T480/T490, X270/X280 tier) – they’re common in the refurb market, have plenty of parts available, and tons of

I bought this display from a local seller in India for the X280. There is no sticker, and Lenovo Diagnostics doesn’t show anything, but Linux edid-decode shows this. Hope this helps someone. So far, it’s superior and sharper compared to AUO

X290/280 are gonna be nearly identical, if they both exist. They're both intel 8th gen systems and they're both 12/12.5-inch systems. They might even literally share a motherboard. X290 will use second-wave 8th gen CPUs, the ones with "5" at the end, otherwise they should perform identically. X390 w

If you’re looking at that size I’d probably also consider X280, maybe X13 G1/2? (most of these should give you the same if not better performance margin, X13 does have the guarantee of high colour displays for Gen2 and some Gen1 configurations)