Hello everyone. I’ve been looking for a new laptop recently, and I was wondering what your thoughts were. This is what I want in a new lapop:
- Decently powerful processor for virtualization, compilation, and BitTorrent
- Easily replaceable/upgradable battery
- Upgradable RAM
- Upgradable storage (preferably 1 TiB+ NVMe SSD)
- Webcam
- Microphone
- Hassle-free Wi-fi (I’m tired of fighting with proprietary blobs that need manual installation and want something plug-and-play)
- Hassle-free Bluetooth
- Ethernet port
- USB ports
- Hardy frame (nice but not required)
Important note: Ideally the laptop will be compatible with Linux Libre, as I want to run Guix System on it. But I’m not opposed to using the normal Linux kernel if necessary (and probably will anyways due to security protections like Spectre).
I’ve been eyeing the ThinkPad T480 (specs link) for some time. What do you think? It seems to tick all the boxes:
- Powerful processor: i7-8650U (a 2018 model I think)
- Upgradable battery: 24 Wh internal + 72 Wh discrete battery
- Upgradable RAM (up to 32 GB)
- Upgradable storage
- A webcam
- A microphone
- Wi-fi
- Bluetooth
- Lots of ports (3 USB Type-C, 1 HDMI, 1 Ethernet, 1 headphone)
I do have some concern about the additional storage though. A Reddit user said this:
Just note that the T480 has only 2 usable PCIe lanes, so it’s half the rated max speeds (ie, for most of the premium performance pcie3x4 drives, it’s about 3500/3000MBps reads/writes respectively), so half that because it’s only 2 lanes.
Found this out the hard way, ended up selling the T480 and going for a T14 AMD instead, because for that particular use case I had, high speed reads/writes were important. Was wondering why my 970 Evo Plus was so slow, and thought I had a faulty drive for a moment.
Lenovo acknowledges this limitation at the PSREF: “Installed M.2 SSD is PCIe 3.0 x 4 but run at PCIe 3.0 x 2 due to M.2 SSD adapter limitation”
https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad\_T480/ThinkPad\_T480\_Spec.PDF
I’m not sure what to think about that. I don’t like the idea of getting half capacity, but 1.5 GBps doesn’t seem so bad, even if it could theoretically be higher.
Has anyone here used this laptop? Am I understanding the specs correctly?
This isn’t specific to this laptop, but how do you determine which NVMe to get? I see lots of numbers and am not certain how to interpret them.
If you think another laptop would meet the above qualifications, feel free to point it out. But my budget is rather tight (250 USD max for the computer, preferably under ~200 USD if possible), so I probably don’t have a lot of options with regards to newer computers, which is why I was considering this slightly dated model.
Bonus: I found this article while browsing. Looks like the Wi-fi and Bluetooth don’t work…
I have a T480s with arch on it and it is my favorite computer to use. Its far worse than the one you posted tho.
Practically, the speeds on the NVME matter but not that much so just get what you can afford. At your price range you’re pretty much going to have to deal with something and those ThinkPads at least offer good outer hardware compared to other cheap ass laptops.
It should do alright with your specs though if you are doing a lot of reading and writing you might want to take that reddit user’s advice. I personally dont use the USBs hardly at all on mine, as its a lightweight setup I made to take with me when I move around the office (from salvaged equipment about to be thrown out).
So keep my light use case in mind with this comment as my little guy basically browses webpages, gets riced, and hides Caves of Qud for me while I’m at the office.
Thanks for the thorough response. It helps a lot.
How is the Wi-fi on your laptop? Did you have to do something hacky to get it to work, or did the Arch kernel just recognize everything nicely?
I had to setup NetworkManager, and the first setup is documented really well on the arch wiki. Its practically painless. But does require command line.