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Offline juner

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ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« on: February 20, 2015, 06:49:15 PM »
Uh, no. My ThinkPad X201 (Core i5 560M, 4 GiB RAM, in a convenient 12-inch form factor) cost me under $300 on eBay. I replaced its HDD with an SSD, so overall it cost a bit more, but that's optional. Finding a decent cheap laptop is dead easy.

While I don't think something like this would be a good solution for Sean, as he is a noob, I like this model for exploring OpenBSD. I just ordered one for myself, since the PC I built in the other thread won't be around for long and I don't want to invest too much time in it. I got an X201 refurb for $300. Could have gotten one cheaper, but this is fine. I will upgrade it to 8GB of RAM and throw in a SSD as well. This should let me continue my OpenBSD journey more conveniently as the big desktop is not portable and doing it in a VM can be a little clunky on my MacBook.

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Offline Particle Person

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2015, 07:18:46 PM »
I think Sean would feel right at home with something like this.

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Offline beardo

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2015, 07:27:04 PM »
Dunno. Looks kinda advanced.
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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2015, 07:27:56 PM »
I think Sean would feel right at home with something like this.



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Offline Fortuna

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2015, 08:16:26 PM »
Even after the Superfish fiasco, you're going to support this company? Their laptops have always been subpar to begin with.

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Offline juner

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2015, 08:21:20 PM »

Even after the Superfish fiasco, you're going to support this company? Their laptops have always been subpar to begin with.

It's a refurb from a 3rd party so it isn't supporting Lenovo. I don't care for their laptops overall, but this is about the best model for this particular use case for the price.

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Offline xasop

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2015, 12:57:43 AM »
Yeah, they don't make the X201 anymore, but it's well regarded among *nix users as being a very solid and reliable machine. That's generally a valued trait when your OS isn't designed to encourage you to buy a new computer with every new release. With the glacial pace at which CPUs and memory are improving these days, it doesn't matter for most use cases if a laptop is five years old.
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Offline Rushy

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2015, 02:49:12 AM »
With the glacial pace at which CPUs and memory are improving these days

Thanks to Intel, who patents the shit out of their fab processes and will only license it for a shitton of monies, leaving everyone else working with fab processes that are ancient in computer technology years. At the same time, they can't even use it because it'd crush the competition badly enough that they'd get broken up by anti-trust laws. They just sort of sit on it for years and years. It also happens to be the reason Nvidia and AMD are still printing 28nm GPUs.

When AMD has the upper hand its sunshine and cupcakes, when Intel has the same it goes all "rule with an iron fist" mentality.

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Offline Fortuna

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2015, 10:21:39 PM »
Or maybe it's because everyone uses a tablet now.

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Offline Rushy

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2015, 10:45:48 PM »
Or maybe it's because everyone uses a tablet now.

A tablet would benefit the most from having a smaller die size, exactly the thing Intel prevents competitors from accomplishing.

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Offline juner

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Re: ThinkPad X201 Laptop
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2015, 11:42:09 PM »
I received my X201 today. I just put in a 256GB SSD and will get to work installing OpenBSD. It is in great physical shape, not a scratch on it. Well worth the money.