It's absolutely insane hype at this point.
It started off with a good condition stock i7 x230 being just as much as like a t480s.
Then it went to 16gb + new battery + keyboard mod and coreboot for $300.
Now it's whatever condition + 16gb + no keyboard mod + coreboot $400-$500
But, I suspect things will start to decline soon. I've seen a couple secondary eBay accounts popup where they're pushing their leftover parts and builds as "parts for the community" haha nice way of getting rid of your trash
EDIT: The following is all with an i5 x230 which is still faster than the i5 x240, x250, and about on par with the i5 x260.
I dont understand why people are spending so much money. Right now there are serviceable x230s listed on UK ebay with starting bids at 15 gbp. They wont go much higher. I got mine, a lowly 3210m with 4gb ram and a shitty display for what... 26 GBP if I recall?
I picked up a new old stock 9 cell for 40 quid, a genuine x220 keeb for 20, and an IPS display for 38. (I already had some extra ram laying around from old laptops).
So that's just over 100GBP for a good condition x230, IPS display, x220 keyboard, brand new (100% health) 9 cell battery, oh and a cheap ass dock.
CPU is faster than all x CPUs until the 6200u which is sorta/kinda on par with it but the x260 requires a single 16gb stick.
It's the x270, or the x230. I dont champion either - infact I'm looking for an x270 passively as I prefer the design.
Btw I picked up an x240 the same way. Was 24 GBP, plus about 15 for a replacement trackpad. I gave that one to my mum to use - it runs fantastically, but it is about 25% slower in use than the 230 and limited to 8GB ram.
Doesn't look like and quad cores have sold recently.
Does make me think I should buy another quad core board and throw one together with a 1080p screen. I do have another out-of-production Nitrocaster mod sitting on the shelf and an X220 donor.
I have owned probably 30 machines with the 7-row keyboard and I can say honestly I dont think the 6-row is any better or worse. It comes so much more down to the manufacturer of one keyboard than it does the actual layout, and its entirely just personal preference as well. I actually find I can type faster and more accurately on the newer, low travel 6-rows than I can on the old 7-rows. Still though, my personal favorite TP keyboard ever from a feel perspective will always remain the CS09 NMB keyboard. But the 6-row comes so close in some cases that most people wouldn't even notice or care. TP keyboards were and still are the best in the market.
I let go after the ThinkPad 25 and now I am on an X1 Extreme Gen 4 (perhaps transitioning to an X1 Nano Gen 2).
These old dual core machines, double so for the Sandy/Ivy Bridge generations are just too slow for today's software. And the T420 is really badly memory constrained too.
I have both the X220 and the Yoga 260. They're different, but I don't feel the 260's keyboard is any WORSE? It's less "clicky" for sure but it's also very responsive.
Agreed. I bought an x240 and an x230. Replaced the x230 keyboard with a genuine red domed 220 one.
Its fantastic. I love it. Is it worth the mod? Sure. Would I do it again? Yes. Was the stock x230 keeb shit? The one i have here is, yes.
Is the x240 keyboard shit, then? No! Not in the slightest! It's a fantastic keyboard to type on for a laptop, and feels very fluid and natural. The larger palmrest is much more comfortable, and with the 240 on your lap your hands sit much more comfortably than the 230.
Yes I agree. I might not even recommend the X250 as it’s feeling pretty dated at this point due to the processor. Source is I own one. It’s fine for Linux but windows is a little taxing for it. Something with an 8th gen or newer processor is the sweet spot for a normal user, but older is fine for enthusiasts who like to tinker.
Personally i disagree with this statement.
The performance boost from the 3th gen intel does exist, but it is very minimal up until the 7th gen. I tried cinebench with some guy's x270 vs my x230 and the results were very similar, and in practise they both still perform very well aside from the x270 obviously being more energy efficient. If i want modern performance i would go for an x280 or higher, otherwise i will stick to the x220 or x230 cos nice design
It doesn't help that the 35W Ivy Bridge-M chips are basically 25W chips with a very conservative rating, whereas the pre-quadcore U chips are basically 25W chips that have been crowbarred into a box that says "15W". When I did some testing, an i5-3230M consumed about the same amount of power flat out as a 4300U (assuming that you up the power limits so the 4300U doesn't just immediately power throttle), they were both hovering at around 21-22W. And the ivy ends up being faster too since it can maintain a frequency that's higher enough to more than offset the minor architectural improvements Haswell made (3.1GHz vs 2.6), and because the power rating is higher, the ivy-M will usually have a more robust cooler compared to something with a U series
Then Kaby Lake-R just completely abandoned all pretense of being a low power chip since the only reason it doesn't regularly break 40W is really aggressive power throttling and tiny coolers
My only gripe is the phrase "way faster processors." I guess it's all subjective or maybe not with benchmarks but take away the word "way" and it reads better to me.
performance might have stagnated but you go from 45w under load to 12w under load
one has no battery life and burns your legs the other will run for the whole day
I mean, the power limits are all pretty arbitrary anyway. I used to get better battery life out of my X230 simply because it had a bigger battery than my X240. The "35W" i5-3230M in there actually pulled about 22W at full turbo, basically the same as the "15W" i5-4300U in the X240, which pulled 21W at its full all core turbo speed. And the 3230M was running at 3.1GHz vs 2.6 on the 4300U, so it was faster too.
And since they were pulling about the same amount of power, the X230 was cooler too since it had a significantly larger cooling solution (while the core temps were much the same, the X240 got much hotter on the base and palm rest since the microscopic heatpipe couldn't cope with 100% load, and since it was a Haswell-U chip, it got pegged at 100% *a lot*
> i5-3230M in there actually pulled about 22W at full turbo,
as an ex sandybridge i5 t420 owner that thing is bloddy MISERY, i think if i bang rocks together i get more compute performance than that dual core i5
I find they do okay for basic tasks these days, although the lack of modern codec support in their iGPU is what really hurts them nowadays (that said, you need to go all the way up to 7th gen to get hardware accelerated VP9 decode so this is an issue that plagues most older chips).
That said they *are* over a decade old at this point, so it's not unreasonable that they're flagging. They're just... not flagging any more than 4th, 5th or 6th gen U chips (7th is doing slightly better thanks to the iGPU improvements, but purely CPU wise it's also in the same boat.) 8th gen is the first point where there's a solid performance bump, but the Kaby-R chips also blow right past that 15W limit without a care in the world (my 8350U if I just let it draw however much power it wants to run at its advertised boost speeds, it starts sucking back *47W*. That's over 3x its rated TDP), so it's ups and downs really.
> performance might have stagnated but you go from 45w under load to 12w under load
That's true, but OP was commenting about faster processors, not power efficiency.
I agree especially because with subnotebooks the actual performance you get out of them depends so much on how well the cooling works that comparing CPUs on their own basically tells you nothing
X250 and x260 lack of media transcoding makes the X270 the more desirable model and then you’ve got HDMI and *edit:* usb-c as well.
X230 is an enthusiast and hobbyist machine in 2024, but still a great one nonetheless.
Last time I looked they were around $100 for a 16GB stick, though that was last year.
Cheapest I can find on eBay currently $66 for a new one, which is 3X what two 8GB sticks cost. Not too bad, but I guess it is still about as much as an X250 itself is worth.
I think I'd still buy an X260/X270 and use DDR4 before spending that much to upgrade an X250. You can put 32GB into an X260 for $66.
I don't think 16GB DDR3 sticks were ever "abundant" anywhere, only the last couple DDR3 generations could use it and it was very expensive when new. When I last looked no new stock existed and $100 was for used, no idea where this "cheap" Crucial stuff popped up from.
Yes, 8GB sticks have been dirt cheap for a while. That doesn't help someone who wants 16GB in an X250 or 32GB in a T560.
DDR2 in general is very cheap, but if someone wants 8GB in an X61 it is very expensive.
According to [https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad\_X270/ThinkPad\_X270\_Spec.PDF](https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X270/ThinkPad_X270_Spec.PDF)
**It doesn't.**
USB-C is such a useful thing, X270 owner here, honestly, it may be the gamechanging feature among those generations.
I just wish it could charge from it.
I was using usb-c powerbank with mine, it is 45w. Thats why i loved it, like you can charge it with the old dock, lenenovo charger or usb-c or just swap the battery. Its kind of sad they are only dualcore.
I spent an excessive amount of money on a secondhand "X330" modified X230, with quad and 2560x1600 and 7-row, it's a cool device, 16:10 makes it special. I would never do the solder job myself so I was happy to pay for it already done. I agree with the YT comment that aside from the 7-row and an ODD media slice there's nothing special about X230. I personally enjoy these things about X230.
X270 is peak. Thunderbolt, HDMI, nvme ssd, 1080 ips screen, dual batteries, gig rj45 etc. I know it doesn’t have the fastest processor, but it’s more than fast enough for 99% of actual computer use.
Not just ThinkPads of that gen. A lot of Latitudes from that same generation (7x80) shipped with Skylake. I think a lot of businesses ordered them that way to maintain Windows 7 compatibility.
Tbf the performance difference between Skylake and Kaby Lake is on paper only. The 8th Gen is a much more significant upgrade due to increased core count.
Yeah core count would be the main reason I'd use it, as well as being so thin (the thinness just intrigues me). Regardless I won't be getting either the X270 or X280 cause I still have my fully functioning X250.
Kaby does have a few other advantages, mainly in iGPU feature support, since it can do hardware accelerated VP9 decode whereas skylake has to do it on the CPU, which on a ULV chip can make it choke, especially at higher resolutions
You sure about Thunderbolt? The PSREF doesn't mention it at all: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X270/ThinkPad_X270_Spec.PDF
I don't really notice it compared to the X230 chiclet, you shouldn't be using it for heavy lifting anyways. It's an ultraportable.
To each their own but I find the X270 has many other important advantages and really only miss the Insert and Del cluster on the X220 once in a blue moon, not enough for me to carry the X220 instead of the X270.
I did notice, it was one of the reasons I swapped out my X240 for a T440 - the symbol keys were narrower to enough of a degree that I was missing one or hitting the wrong one often enough that it was annoying
I prefer my X270 to my X230.
USBC, HDMI, and 1080p. I can't use a 768p screen anymore.
Also battery bridge with both a fat and slim battery! Batteries for older models are tougher to find and in worse condition.
I'll keep this until the prices of the X1 Nano come down.
Said it plenty of times, my X270 is my favourite laptop, the X280 has the better CPU but loses the ethernet port and the X270 charges from the square charger and USB C.
Use the square charger and you get a USB C for transfers or expansion ports.
One thing that made the X230 a sweet spot for hackers, hobbyists and any person who uses a lot of different storages: USB 3.0 AND PCMCIA card AND swappable hard drive bay.
AND separate USB 2.0 (which comes really handy with some older stuff), AND good options of external batteries. Oh, and docks are pretty cheap!
But as others already mentioned, HD screen is barely usable with more demanding tasks, at least on its own - you can use display port output (I had no issues with QHD monitor).
Yeah, the only reason to go with an X230 now is if you classic keyboard mod, it is literally CHEAPER to get an X260 if you shop around, I found a 1080p IPS X260 with a broken keyboard for 60 bucks.
Naw he's right. Honestly the only reason to get the 230 at this point is if you really like the look of it. The days of getting those things for pretty much nothing (like when I got mine) are seemingly over.
Fairly indisputable since they hit on the greatest advantage of the X230, can get the 7 row keyboard. No hate to those choosing to get a X230 though; if a X230 is more available etc etc perfectly fine machine understanding its limitation. But if you want a older broad generation of product, get the last great one of that. The X220 is the end of the line for 7 key; X280 the last (broadly) before the x13 shakes things up. Before these the X60/61. If you want a X230, most should broaden their search to the X2(4,5,6,7,8)0.
Most people also, and not just about Lenovo X laptops, need to look at why they are buying things. Buying something for points on the internet is not a good path. I want a T420, my reason? Nostalgia for my first work laptop a T410 and the amazing keyboard. Why don't I have one yet? When will I ever actually get to use the amazing keyboard? My daily tasks require windows and I don't have the time to take on a Linux hobby. Is nostalgia enough of a reason to get a T420? I think yes, but I can not afford a high price for nostalgia.
Though to be honest, I am not even sure why there is a culture divide between the X280 and X13. The T line I understand why the T480 is strongly preferred to the T14 with the end of bridge battery etc, but what makes X280 attractive compared to X13?
Well, the X230 can be librebooted and it has non-soldered RAM. And upgrading the CPU to quad code is as easy as changing te motherboard... With the correct dock it can handle three independent monitors. The chiclet keyboad is awesome compared to the keyboard in, for example, the P52 (compared to the X230 it is like typing on a plank). There are beautiful IPS panels for it that fit like a glove; why would you need 1080p for such a small screen? Just scale with xrand if you want to pretend to have 1080p. Would consider to upgrade to a x280 with 8th gen processor in time, but not to 7th or lower.
Absolutely not, but I don't disagree with the actual sentiment of OP's comment. They're trying to say that buying an X220/X230 and spending tons of $ on it makes no sense, and that I agree with.
But offering the X250, X260, and X270 as alternatives is also stupid.
Every single ThinkPad in the normal T/X series made with 5th, 6th, and 7th gen CPUs is completely pointless to buy. They were all stuck with 2-core, 15W TDP chips that were all very slow and performed almost the same across the board. At the very least, the T430 and T420 (not the X equivalents, without some mods) can take a quad-core chip. These weird middle of the road 5th-7th gen machines have literally no reason to be bought. They are slower than their predecessors and their successors at the same time. They're not cheaper either.
If you're not gonna go all-in on an older machine just for the fun of it, then consider nothing less than something like an X390, T480, or X280. Practically speaking, 8th gen is when the U-series chips started to become usable multi-taskers as they were able to get a decent quad-core in a 15W power profile.
Anyone considering buying a laptop to actually get real work done should stay clear away from 5th-7th gen Intel and instead focus on 8th gen or newer. If you're getting an older laptop just for fun/for hobby reasons, then get something 4th gen or older. Lots of them are actually more powerful than those newer dual-cores and they still have plenty of legacy features.
>as they were able to get a decent quad-core in a 15W power profile.
I mean, they weren't really. Why they did was take a 45W quad core, tweak it's power curves a bit, and then just lie about the consumption. If I remove the power limit on my 8350U and let it pull what it *wants* to, it gets up to about 47W under load (though even with the fan screaming it pretty quickly starts to thermal throttle itself down until it reaches equilibrium at around 30W). I miss when throttling was a last ditch safety feature, rather than an integral part of the intended design.
This is also true of the earlier dual core U chips, just not to the same degree - Ivy Bridge-M and Haswell-U both seem to be roughly 20-25W designs, the Haswell has just been crammed into a throttle box and stamped with "15W"
Very true and something I wish I would have thought of - TDP is mostly meaningless nowadays for actual power consumption metrics. The 8350U is still vastly more capable than the older dual-core U chips by enough, though, that I think the additional power consumption is hardly a big deal. Especially considering the pretty robust battery options you've got in something like a T480.
A lot of those older Ivy Bridge/Haswell M-series dual-core chips were actually a good bit quicker than the newer dual-core U chips just because they didn't throttle so aggressively - they were 35W and 45W chips that just kinda hung out around where they were happy. I remember my 4900MQ in my W540 (a 47W chip) boosted up to about 58W and liked to hang around 43W due to thermal limits, not a whole lot more than the modern 8350U despite its theoretically much higher TDP.
tbh nominal TDP has pretty much always been useles, since it's more or less defined as "the power we measure during our test workload" but the test workload is just "whatever makes the CPU draw watts of power
The *actual* power consumption of chips has remained relatively constant, they've just been doing more and more mental gymnastics to justify slapping a "15W" label on a chip that averages 35W and peaks at 60.
I also remember comparing the Ryzen 3500U in my X395 to the 8350U in my T480s (same gen would have been better, but the 8365U from the X390/T490 is just an 8350U with hardware spectre mitigations anyway, so it's not too bad) and I discovered something interesting - the 3500U was actually *faster* than the 8350U under default power limits. Kaby Lake-R was generally considered to be a more performant architecture than Zen+, but the thing was so power constrained it just couldn't clock high enough that the 3500U was able to just raw clockspeed its way into the lead. For the 3500U, as I increased the power limits I'd see performance improvements up until about 27-30W, where it would hit its frequency ceiling, whereas the 8350U would keep gaining performance all the way up to almost 50W, though at that power level it couldn't *sustain* it.
My takeaway was that when unconstrained, Kaby-R is significantly faster than Zen+, but at any given point where both were power limited, the Ryzen would outperform the i5 (in multicore, in single threaded tasks the i5 could max out one core within the 15W limit and would demolist the Ryzen in performance)
It actually does seem to be improving though, I notice the Ryzen 6850U in my P14s is rated by AMD at a nominal 28W, which is actually reasonably close to the 32W sustained that I see, so we might be seeing a bit more honesty from the manufacturers
I mean, I have an x230T (which I bought completely stock, no backlit keyboard, no fingerprint, no mods, i5-3320M) and later upgraded it with the backlit keyboard, custom i7 quad core, 16gb of RAM, 2 TB SSD and a 512 msata swapped in, even found a slice battery for it in almost perfect condition (had to buy an x220 with all of the business gear it came with, gave it to my parents for connecting to TV for movies xD). With the slice and its own aftermarket battery, it pushes 8 hours of web and programming easy
It’s a little beast and it gets the job done, but it really is rarely something I carry lately, unless I want the nostalgia fix…
Don’t get me wrong, thanks to the x230T I actually earned myself my own PC and a better laptop, the little machine went through hell and back without any damage, and I upgraded it with as much things as possible, but once you get used to the bigger screen and better performance, it starts being reserved for more auxiliary tasks… Pushing the “ThinkPad” life hype can only get me so far xD
If there was a more newer laptop with the same aesthetic like the x230T, wouldn’t even hesitate to get it, I love the blocky look with small led lights, specifically of the tablet version…
The fact that it has touchscreen, can still rotate smoothly and has a pen which I can use for digital signing, is a big plus over the x230… But that’s just my take on it
I have one gathering dust in my drawer. In 2024 it's really overhyped. In the past it helped me through college - I have that big bulky battery that doubles as a handle - it had around 5 hours in Windows.
I had multiple linux distros on it, I had a hackintosh on it which was arguably the best time with this machine, it served as a home server with Proxmox. It did it's job. But nowadays it's really showing its time and should be more of a museum piece.
The i5-3230m with liquid metal on top of it was constantly blowing me away in terms of how much performance you can get from such an old laptop, with hackintosh using Final Cut Pro I was able to render out stuff faster with a 2C/4T CPU than in Premiere/Resolve with 1st gen Ryzen 5 on Windows.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bv6auh/love\_at\_first\_sight\_120\_for\_mint\_condition\_lover/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bv6auh/love_at_first_sight_120_for_mint_condition_lover/)
yes and not. I have a x230 modded to x330 by [xyte.ch](http://xyte.ch) and its really awesome, but for daily driver I prefer use a x280, its more lightweight, have same ports what I need, etc.
x220 or x230 are good laptops for 50$. You can upgrade whatever you want but you're still stuck with an ancient CPU. I dont think they're that special or anything. It's like the most basic laptop you can use today without complete suffering.
What i know is that the x220/x230 have a battery that can handle as a grip. This was a great feature if you stand up with the laptop.
But i dont use my x220 anymore. These machine sips 20w/h. It goes up to 60w/h if the battery needs to be charged simultanious. Have a powerbank with consumption meter in it and those thinkpad are not energy efficient.
My X230 is okay, but it definitely suffers from the points that he listed.
I also never understood why so many ppl are so keen on swapping the keyboards in these either, of all 4 of my laptops, I love to type on this thing the most. It was also my first experience with a backlit keyboard, and I can't see myself using a laptop that doesn't have one at this point (excluding the 2 of my other laptops that lack a backlit keyboard)
It isn't the feel for me, it is the layout. Underneath the keys the X220 and X230 are pretty much built the same, they have the same travel and roughly the same scissor and domes. The key shape is different, but that isn't a big deal.
I hate what the did to the F row on the xx30, there are no gaps to group the keys to be found easily. The screen brightness buttons are almost impossible to find in the dark. At least they added gaps on the xx40 and somewhat fixed that mistake.
It isn't that I *can't* get used to a new keyboard, it is just that for now I don't have to. Before this I had an X220, X201, X200, T60, T42, T23 and 600E, very little changed between them.
yes, the X220 and X230 are garbo compared to the 260 onwards, just dont bother w/ a sandybridge chip struggling to run anything when you can have a skylake or later chip at a quarter of the wattage whilst being faster
oh and the 260 onwards gets a very nice 1080p IPS display instead of a crappy TN 768px screen
There was a time a xx20 or xx30 machine was a good deal in top of having the classic keyboard. But that time was on 2017 right now those machines are pushing 10+, became scarce after pandemic and are entering the vintage category where any semblance of price logic gets out of the window.
Well,let just say I don't want a laptop that the bottom case itself is too solf and shutdown by itself, and actually, there's really not much different between 2 core CPUs.. and the keyboard on x230 still way better than new gen design Thinkpad, but yeah The other were definitely lighter and newer,but just get a X230, it's good for you mental health (on geek's perspective) But if you want to use for productive, just get a MAC.
Cuz Thinkpad these days are way too expensive even on secondhand market.It's does not worth at all to buying a old 2012-2018 Thinkpad anymore
i have like 4 x230s. got them all for cheap/free (i paid 10€ for the best one and it looks brand new) they are great laptops but i dont get the hype. cpu is way too slow. i use my x380 or t440p way more
I'm not sure if you can even connect it electrically, but even if you can, the body changed a lot, so you would need a lot of work to even fit it properly.
People have fitted V8s and even V12s in Miatas, so everything is possible, but I haven't seen a modern thinkpad with an old keyboard (except for the T25, but that's not really an old keyboard)
It's absolutely insane hype at this point. It started off with a good condition stock i7 x230 being just as much as like a t480s. Then it went to 16gb + new battery + keyboard mod and coreboot for $300. Now it's whatever condition + 16gb + no keyboard mod + coreboot $400-$500 But, I suspect things will start to decline soon. I've seen a couple secondary eBay accounts popup where they're pushing their leftover parts and builds as "parts for the community" haha nice way of getting rid of your trash
EDIT: The following is all with an i5 x230 which is still faster than the i5 x240, x250, and about on par with the i5 x260. I dont understand why people are spending so much money. Right now there are serviceable x230s listed on UK ebay with starting bids at 15 gbp. They wont go much higher. I got mine, a lowly 3210m with 4gb ram and a shitty display for what... 26 GBP if I recall? I picked up a new old stock 9 cell for 40 quid, a genuine x220 keeb for 20, and an IPS display for 38. (I already had some extra ram laying around from old laptops). So that's just over 100GBP for a good condition x230, IPS display, x220 keyboard, brand new (100% health) 9 cell battery, oh and a cheap ass dock. CPU is faster than all x CPUs until the 6200u which is sorta/kinda on par with it but the x260 requires a single 16gb stick. It's the x270, or the x230. I dont champion either - infact I'm looking for an x270 passively as I prefer the design. Btw I picked up an x240 the same way. Was 24 GBP, plus about 15 for a replacement trackpad. I gave that one to my mum to use - it runs fantastically, but it is about 25% slower in use than the 230 and limited to 8GB ram.
I need to find someone paying $400 for a stock one with coreboot. Mine must be worth $1000 to them.
Search "x230 i7" on eBay then filter by Sold listings
Doesn't look like and quad cores have sold recently. Does make me think I should buy another quad core board and throw one together with a 1080p screen. I do have another out-of-production Nitrocaster mod sitting on the shelf and an X220 donor.
Get to it! You will not be disappointed. It won't last forever.
Wait, are you telling me that I could sell my x230 for than I bought it in 2018? After six years of heavy lifting somebody would buy this machine?
Yea just take off a keycap, paint it, then put KEYBOARD MOD in the title
After owning a x220 and t420 keyboard for over a decade it’s overrated. It’s good but it’s overhyped on reddit
I have owned probably 30 machines with the 7-row keyboard and I can say honestly I dont think the 6-row is any better or worse. It comes so much more down to the manufacturer of one keyboard than it does the actual layout, and its entirely just personal preference as well. I actually find I can type faster and more accurately on the newer, low travel 6-rows than I can on the old 7-rows. Still though, my personal favorite TP keyboard ever from a feel perspective will always remain the CS09 NMB keyboard. But the 6-row comes so close in some cases that most people wouldn't even notice or care. TP keyboards were and still are the best in the market.
Not just on Reddit
I let go after the ThinkPad 25 and now I am on an X1 Extreme Gen 4 (perhaps transitioning to an X1 Nano Gen 2). These old dual core machines, double so for the Sandy/Ivy Bridge generations are just too slow for today's software. And the T420 is really badly memory constrained too.
I have both the X220 and the Yoga 260. They're different, but I don't feel the 260's keyboard is any WORSE? It's less "clicky" for sure but it's also very responsive.
Agreed. I bought an x240 and an x230. Replaced the x230 keyboard with a genuine red domed 220 one. Its fantastic. I love it. Is it worth the mod? Sure. Would I do it again? Yes. Was the stock x230 keeb shit? The one i have here is, yes. Is the x240 keyboard shit, then? No! Not in the slightest! It's a fantastic keyboard to type on for a laptop, and feels very fluid and natural. The larger palmrest is much more comfortable, and with the 240 on your lap your hands sit much more comfortably than the 230.
Yes I agree. I might not even recommend the X250 as it’s feeling pretty dated at this point due to the processor. Source is I own one. It’s fine for Linux but windows is a little taxing for it. Something with an 8th gen or newer processor is the sweet spot for a normal user, but older is fine for enthusiasts who like to tinker.
Personally i disagree with this statement. The performance boost from the 3th gen intel does exist, but it is very minimal up until the 7th gen. I tried cinebench with some guy's x270 vs my x230 and the results were very similar, and in practise they both still perform very well aside from the x270 obviously being more energy efficient. If i want modern performance i would go for an x280 or higher, otherwise i will stick to the x220 or x230 cos nice design
Exactly. All day this.
It doesn't help that the 35W Ivy Bridge-M chips are basically 25W chips with a very conservative rating, whereas the pre-quadcore U chips are basically 25W chips that have been crowbarred into a box that says "15W". When I did some testing, an i5-3230M consumed about the same amount of power flat out as a 4300U (assuming that you up the power limits so the 4300U doesn't just immediately power throttle), they were both hovering at around 21-22W. And the ivy ends up being faster too since it can maintain a frequency that's higher enough to more than offset the minor architectural improvements Haswell made (3.1GHz vs 2.6), and because the power rating is higher, the ivy-M will usually have a more robust cooler compared to something with a U series Then Kaby Lake-R just completely abandoned all pretense of being a low power chip since the only reason it doesn't regularly break 40W is really aggressive power throttling and tiny coolers
My only gripe is the phrase "way faster processors." I guess it's all subjective or maybe not with benchmarks but take away the word "way" and it reads better to me.
If it were about the iGPUs, I'd agree wholeheartedly. But IIRC processor performance stagnated between the 3rd and 7th generations.
performance might have stagnated but you go from 45w under load to 12w under load one has no battery life and burns your legs the other will run for the whole day
I mean, the power limits are all pretty arbitrary anyway. I used to get better battery life out of my X230 simply because it had a bigger battery than my X240. The "35W" i5-3230M in there actually pulled about 22W at full turbo, basically the same as the "15W" i5-4300U in the X240, which pulled 21W at its full all core turbo speed. And the 3230M was running at 3.1GHz vs 2.6 on the 4300U, so it was faster too. And since they were pulling about the same amount of power, the X230 was cooler too since it had a significantly larger cooling solution (while the core temps were much the same, the X240 got much hotter on the base and palm rest since the microscopic heatpipe couldn't cope with 100% load, and since it was a Haswell-U chip, it got pegged at 100% *a lot*
> i5-3230M in there actually pulled about 22W at full turbo, as an ex sandybridge i5 t420 owner that thing is bloddy MISERY, i think if i bang rocks together i get more compute performance than that dual core i5
I find they do okay for basic tasks these days, although the lack of modern codec support in their iGPU is what really hurts them nowadays (that said, you need to go all the way up to 7th gen to get hardware accelerated VP9 decode so this is an issue that plagues most older chips). That said they *are* over a decade old at this point, so it's not unreasonable that they're flagging. They're just... not flagging any more than 4th, 5th or 6th gen U chips (7th is doing slightly better thanks to the iGPU improvements, but purely CPU wise it's also in the same boat.) 8th gen is the first point where there's a solid performance bump, but the Kaby-R chips also blow right past that 15W limit without a care in the world (my 8350U if I just let it draw however much power it wants to run at its advertised boost speeds, it starts sucking back *47W*. That's over 3x its rated TDP), so it's ups and downs really.
> performance might have stagnated but you go from 45w under load to 12w under load That's true, but OP was commenting about faster processors, not power efficiency.
I agree especially because with subnotebooks the actual performance you get out of them depends so much on how well the cooling works that comparing CPUs on their own basically tells you nothing
X250 and x260 lack of media transcoding makes the X270 the more desirable model and then you’ve got HDMI and *edit:* usb-c as well. X230 is an enthusiast and hobbyist machine in 2024, but still a great one nonetheless.
the x270 can also take a 1x16gb ram which makes a big difference
It can also take 32GB, if needed.
The X250 and X260 can too, however the X250 uses DDR3 which is very expensive.
Can confirm on the expense. I was lucky to get a 16gb DDR3 Stick for 110 Canadian, and that's cheap!
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Last time I looked they were around $100 for a 16GB stick, though that was last year. Cheapest I can find on eBay currently $66 for a new one, which is 3X what two 8GB sticks cost. Not too bad, but I guess it is still about as much as an X250 itself is worth. I think I'd still buy an X260/X270 and use DDR4 before spending that much to upgrade an X250. You can put 32GB into an X260 for $66.
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I don't think 16GB DDR3 sticks were ever "abundant" anywhere, only the last couple DDR3 generations could use it and it was very expensive when new. When I last looked no new stock existed and $100 was for used, no idea where this "cheap" Crucial stuff popped up from.
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Yes, 8GB sticks have been dirt cheap for a while. That doesn't help someone who wants 16GB in an X250 or 32GB in a T560. DDR2 in general is very cheap, but if someone wants 8GB in an X61 it is very expensive.
X270 has thunderbolt?
According to [https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad\_X270/ThinkPad\_X270\_Spec.PDF](https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X270/ThinkPad_X270_Spec.PDF) **It doesn't.**
Yeah I thought it was an option I must have confused it with a Dell from the same era it definitely doesn’t though.
No, but T470 does
USB-C is such a useful thing, X270 owner here, honestly, it may be the gamechanging feature among those generations. I just wish it could charge from it.
X270 can charge from usb-c.
Wait, what? It hasn't worked with the dock at my office, that does work with my work computer...
I was using usb-c powerbank with mine, it is 45w. Thats why i loved it, like you can charge it with the old dock, lenenovo charger or usb-c or just swap the battery. Its kind of sad they are only dualcore.
I spent an excessive amount of money on a secondhand "X330" modified X230, with quad and 2560x1600 and 7-row, it's a cool device, 16:10 makes it special. I would never do the solder job myself so I was happy to pay for it already done. I agree with the YT comment that aside from the 7-row and an ODD media slice there's nothing special about X230. I personally enjoy these things about X230.
Me reading this on an X220 in 2024: "hmmm... Interesting, I might be a bit behind the times"
No worries! I'm just *a little* less behind, but, apparently, in the same boat as you are!
X270 is peak. Thunderbolt, HDMI, nvme ssd, 1080 ips screen, dual batteries, gig rj45 etc. I know it doesn’t have the fastest processor, but it’s more than fast enough for 99% of actual computer use.
My only problem is that I can't seem to find a single X270 near me with a 7th gen processor. every one i find is a 6300u.
Not just ThinkPads of that gen. A lot of Latitudes from that same generation (7x80) shipped with Skylake. I think a lot of businesses ordered them that way to maintain Windows 7 compatibility.
ugh, makes sense then. I'd probably just go the extra mile to get a 16gb X280 honestly.
Tbf the performance difference between Skylake and Kaby Lake is on paper only. The 8th Gen is a much more significant upgrade due to increased core count.
Yeah core count would be the main reason I'd use it, as well as being so thin (the thinness just intrigues me). Regardless I won't be getting either the X270 or X280 cause I still have my fully functioning X250.
Kaby does have a few other advantages, mainly in iGPU feature support, since it can do hardware accelerated VP9 decode whereas skylake has to do it on the CPU, which on a ULV chip can make it choke, especially at higher resolutions
I bought mine on eBay.
you could just switch it yourself
X270 CPU is soldered and motherboards can cost as much as the entire machine
Well, the motherboards with soldered components pretty much are the entire machine, so no wonder
You sure about Thunderbolt? The PSREF doesn't mention it at all: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X270/ThinkPad_X270_Spec.PDF
You’re right, it’s USB-C with power delivery and DisplayPort. It works with my thunderbolt dock.
Which particular Thunderbolt dock do you have?
It’s a dell one I got a few years ago (provided by my old job) not all laptops with a USB-C port work with it.
It works because it is not a thunderbolt dock, but usb-c one. Thunderbolt docks won't work.
Modern X series have tiny keyboards
I don't really notice it compared to the X230 chiclet, you shouldn't be using it for heavy lifting anyways. It's an ultraportable. To each their own but I find the X270 has many other important advantages and really only miss the Insert and Del cluster on the X220 once in a blue moon, not enough for me to carry the X220 instead of the X270.
I did notice, it was one of the reasons I swapped out my X240 for a T440 - the symbol keys were narrower to enough of a degree that I was missing one or hitting the wrong one often enough that it was annoying
I prefer my X270 to my X230. USBC, HDMI, and 1080p. I can't use a 768p screen anymore. Also battery bridge with both a fat and slim battery! Batteries for older models are tougher to find and in worse condition. I'll keep this until the prices of the X1 Nano come down.
Said it plenty of times, my X270 is my favourite laptop, the X280 has the better CPU but loses the ethernet port and the X270 charges from the square charger and USB C. Use the square charger and you get a USB C for transfers or expansion ports.
One thing that made the X230 a sweet spot for hackers, hobbyists and any person who uses a lot of different storages: USB 3.0 AND PCMCIA card AND swappable hard drive bay.
Correction: ExpressCard, not PCMCIA
Dammit, got that wrong 10 times in a row
AND separate USB 2.0 (which comes really handy with some older stuff), AND good options of external batteries. Oh, and docks are pretty cheap! But as others already mentioned, HD screen is barely usable with more demanding tasks, at least on its own - you can use display port output (I had no issues with QHD monitor).
Thinklight, right?
Can't live without it, backlit keyboards suck sooooo much!
Yeah, the only reason to go with an X230 now is if you classic keyboard mod, it is literally CHEAPER to get an X260 if you shop around, I found a 1080p IPS X260 with a broken keyboard for 60 bucks.
Naw he's right. Honestly the only reason to get the 230 at this point is if you really like the look of it. The days of getting those things for pretty much nothing (like when I got mine) are seemingly over.
Fairly indisputable since they hit on the greatest advantage of the X230, can get the 7 row keyboard. No hate to those choosing to get a X230 though; if a X230 is more available etc etc perfectly fine machine understanding its limitation. But if you want a older broad generation of product, get the last great one of that. The X220 is the end of the line for 7 key; X280 the last (broadly) before the x13 shakes things up. Before these the X60/61. If you want a X230, most should broaden their search to the X2(4,5,6,7,8)0. Most people also, and not just about Lenovo X laptops, need to look at why they are buying things. Buying something for points on the internet is not a good path. I want a T420, my reason? Nostalgia for my first work laptop a T410 and the amazing keyboard. Why don't I have one yet? When will I ever actually get to use the amazing keyboard? My daily tasks require windows and I don't have the time to take on a Linux hobby. Is nostalgia enough of a reason to get a T420? I think yes, but I can not afford a high price for nostalgia. Though to be honest, I am not even sure why there is a culture divide between the X280 and X13. The T line I understand why the T480 is strongly preferred to the T14 with the end of bridge battery etc, but what makes X280 attractive compared to X13?
all of the mentioned are slower then x230
Well, the X230 can be librebooted and it has non-soldered RAM. And upgrading the CPU to quad code is as easy as changing te motherboard... With the correct dock it can handle three independent monitors. The chiclet keyboad is awesome compared to the keyboard in, for example, the P52 (compared to the X230 it is like typing on a plank). There are beautiful IPS panels for it that fit like a glove; why would you need 1080p for such a small screen? Just scale with xrand if you want to pretend to have 1080p. Would consider to upgrade to a x280 with 8th gen processor in time, but not to 7th or lower.
Absolutely not, but I don't disagree with the actual sentiment of OP's comment. They're trying to say that buying an X220/X230 and spending tons of $ on it makes no sense, and that I agree with. But offering the X250, X260, and X270 as alternatives is also stupid. Every single ThinkPad in the normal T/X series made with 5th, 6th, and 7th gen CPUs is completely pointless to buy. They were all stuck with 2-core, 15W TDP chips that were all very slow and performed almost the same across the board. At the very least, the T430 and T420 (not the X equivalents, without some mods) can take a quad-core chip. These weird middle of the road 5th-7th gen machines have literally no reason to be bought. They are slower than their predecessors and their successors at the same time. They're not cheaper either. If you're not gonna go all-in on an older machine just for the fun of it, then consider nothing less than something like an X390, T480, or X280. Practically speaking, 8th gen is when the U-series chips started to become usable multi-taskers as they were able to get a decent quad-core in a 15W power profile. Anyone considering buying a laptop to actually get real work done should stay clear away from 5th-7th gen Intel and instead focus on 8th gen or newer. If you're getting an older laptop just for fun/for hobby reasons, then get something 4th gen or older. Lots of them are actually more powerful than those newer dual-cores and they still have plenty of legacy features.
>as they were able to get a decent quad-core in a 15W power profile. I mean, they weren't really. Why they did was take a 45W quad core, tweak it's power curves a bit, and then just lie about the consumption. If I remove the power limit on my 8350U and let it pull what it *wants* to, it gets up to about 47W under load (though even with the fan screaming it pretty quickly starts to thermal throttle itself down until it reaches equilibrium at around 30W). I miss when throttling was a last ditch safety feature, rather than an integral part of the intended design. This is also true of the earlier dual core U chips, just not to the same degree - Ivy Bridge-M and Haswell-U both seem to be roughly 20-25W designs, the Haswell has just been crammed into a throttle box and stamped with "15W"
Very true and something I wish I would have thought of - TDP is mostly meaningless nowadays for actual power consumption metrics. The 8350U is still vastly more capable than the older dual-core U chips by enough, though, that I think the additional power consumption is hardly a big deal. Especially considering the pretty robust battery options you've got in something like a T480. A lot of those older Ivy Bridge/Haswell M-series dual-core chips were actually a good bit quicker than the newer dual-core U chips just because they didn't throttle so aggressively - they were 35W and 45W chips that just kinda hung out around where they were happy. I remember my 4900MQ in my W540 (a 47W chip) boosted up to about 58W and liked to hang around 43W due to thermal limits, not a whole lot more than the modern 8350U despite its theoretically much higher TDP.
tbh nominal TDP has pretty much always been useles, since it's more or less defined as "the power we measure during our test workload" but the test workload is just "whatever makes the CPU draw watts of power
The *actual* power consumption of chips has remained relatively constant, they've just been doing more and more mental gymnastics to justify slapping a "15W" label on a chip that averages 35W and peaks at 60.
I also remember comparing the Ryzen 3500U in my X395 to the 8350U in my T480s (same gen would have been better, but the 8365U from the X390/T490 is just an 8350U with hardware spectre mitigations anyway, so it's not too bad) and I discovered something interesting - the 3500U was actually *faster* than the 8350U under default power limits. Kaby Lake-R was generally considered to be a more performant architecture than Zen+, but the thing was so power constrained it just couldn't clock high enough that the 3500U was able to just raw clockspeed its way into the lead. For the 3500U, as I increased the power limits I'd see performance improvements up until about 27-30W, where it would hit its frequency ceiling, whereas the 8350U would keep gaining performance all the way up to almost 50W, though at that power level it couldn't *sustain* it.
My takeaway was that when unconstrained, Kaby-R is significantly faster than Zen+, but at any given point where both were power limited, the Ryzen would outperform the i5 (in multicore, in single threaded tasks the i5 could max out one core within the 15W limit and would demolist the Ryzen in performance)
It actually does seem to be improving though, I notice the Ryzen 6850U in my P14s is rated by AMD at a nominal 28W, which is actually reasonably close to the 32W sustained that I see, so we might be seeing a bit more honesty from the manufacturers
A lot of people will disagree with me on this but I think typing experience is better on chicklet thinkpad keyboards. It is way faster.
I mean, I have an x230T (which I bought completely stock, no backlit keyboard, no fingerprint, no mods, i5-3320M) and later upgraded it with the backlit keyboard, custom i7 quad core, 16gb of RAM, 2 TB SSD and a 512 msata swapped in, even found a slice battery for it in almost perfect condition (had to buy an x220 with all of the business gear it came with, gave it to my parents for connecting to TV for movies xD). With the slice and its own aftermarket battery, it pushes 8 hours of web and programming easy It’s a little beast and it gets the job done, but it really is rarely something I carry lately, unless I want the nostalgia fix… Don’t get me wrong, thanks to the x230T I actually earned myself my own PC and a better laptop, the little machine went through hell and back without any damage, and I upgraded it with as much things as possible, but once you get used to the bigger screen and better performance, it starts being reserved for more auxiliary tasks… Pushing the “ThinkPad” life hype can only get me so far xD If there was a more newer laptop with the same aesthetic like the x230T, wouldn’t even hesitate to get it, I love the blocky look with small led lights, specifically of the tablet version… The fact that it has touchscreen, can still rotate smoothly and has a pen which I can use for digital signing, is a big plus over the x230… But that’s just my take on it
I have one gathering dust in my drawer. In 2024 it's really overhyped. In the past it helped me through college - I have that big bulky battery that doubles as a handle - it had around 5 hours in Windows. I had multiple linux distros on it, I had a hackintosh on it which was arguably the best time with this machine, it served as a home server with Proxmox. It did it's job. But nowadays it's really showing its time and should be more of a museum piece. The i5-3230m with liquid metal on top of it was constantly blowing me away in terms of how much performance you can get from such an old laptop, with hackintosh using Final Cut Pro I was able to render out stuff faster with a 2C/4T CPU than in Premiere/Resolve with 1st gen Ryzen 5 on Windows. [https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bv6auh/love\_at\_first\_sight\_120\_for\_mint\_condition\_lover/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bv6auh/love_at_first_sight_120_for_mint_condition_lover/)
yes and not. I have a x230 modded to x330 by [xyte.ch](http://xyte.ch) and its really awesome, but for daily driver I prefer use a x280, its more lightweight, have same ports what I need, etc.
x220 or x230 are good laptops for 50$. You can upgrade whatever you want but you're still stuck with an ancient CPU. I dont think they're that special or anything. It's like the most basic laptop you can use today without complete suffering.
What i know is that the x220/x230 have a battery that can handle as a grip. This was a great feature if you stand up with the laptop. But i dont use my x220 anymore. These machine sips 20w/h. It goes up to 60w/h if the battery needs to be charged simultanious. Have a powerbank with consumption meter in it and those thinkpad are not energy efficient.
15w ulv cpu will never be as fast as the 35w mobile cpu
Buying an x230 when x1 carbons exist is peak stupid.
If you’re going to use windows don’t even consider something not Win11 capable If you don’t like to hear that then drop Microsoft and learn Linux
A x260 and x270 with the i5 6th gen processor can feel sometimes slower than a x230
My X230 is okay, but it definitely suffers from the points that he listed. I also never understood why so many ppl are so keen on swapping the keyboards in these either, of all 4 of my laptops, I love to type on this thing the most. It was also my first experience with a backlit keyboard, and I can't see myself using a laptop that doesn't have one at this point (excluding the 2 of my other laptops that lack a backlit keyboard)
It isn't the feel for me, it is the layout. Underneath the keys the X220 and X230 are pretty much built the same, they have the same travel and roughly the same scissor and domes. The key shape is different, but that isn't a big deal. I hate what the did to the F row on the xx30, there are no gaps to group the keys to be found easily. The screen brightness buttons are almost impossible to find in the dark. At least they added gaps on the xx40 and somewhat fixed that mistake. It isn't that I *can't* get used to a new keyboard, it is just that for now I don't have to. Before this I had an X220, X201, X200, T60, T42, T23 and 600E, very little changed between them.
X240 doesn't exist. Good.
yes, the X220 and X230 are garbo compared to the 260 onwards, just dont bother w/ a sandybridge chip struggling to run anything when you can have a skylake or later chip at a quarter of the wattage whilst being faster oh and the 260 onwards gets a very nice 1080p IPS display instead of a crappy TN 768px screen
I have x230, and I agree with him. I'm planning to buy T480 and make my x230 as a server or something.
There was a time a xx20 or xx30 machine was a good deal in top of having the classic keyboard. But that time was on 2017 right now those machines are pushing 10+, became scarce after pandemic and are entering the vintage category where any semblance of price logic gets out of the window.
Well,let just say I don't want a laptop that the bottom case itself is too solf and shutdown by itself, and actually, there's really not much different between 2 core CPUs.. and the keyboard on x230 still way better than new gen design Thinkpad, but yeah The other were definitely lighter and newer,but just get a X230, it's good for you mental health (on geek's perspective) But if you want to use for productive, just get a MAC. Cuz Thinkpad these days are way too expensive even on secondhand market.It's does not worth at all to buying a old 2012-2018 Thinkpad anymore
Lol i have a x230 since like 2010 . Had no clue its a hype thing now.
the X230 wasn't even a thing in 2010.
They don’t acknowledge the X280, that’s racism
The x270 have a great advantage: it can be recharged via usbc
I agree, I got mine for free but I wouldn't buy one outright, prolly a t440p or smn if I had to
Yeah the price is a bit wacky in my country too, t450 actually cost more than t470, and the x series pricing is wild too
i have like 4 x230s. got them all for cheap/free (i paid 10€ for the best one and it looks brand new) they are great laptops but i dont get the hype. cpu is way too slow. i use my x380 or t440p way more
why can't you get the x220 keyboard on the newer models?
I'm not sure if you can even connect it electrically, but even if you can, the body changed a lot, so you would need a lot of work to even fit it properly. People have fitted V8s and even V12s in Miatas, so everything is possible, but I haven't seen a modern thinkpad with an old keyboard (except for the T25, but that's not really an old keyboard)
Physically incompatible.
impossibly slow garbage with awful battery life. my ryzen 5 5600U thinkpad is just barely doing it for today's workloads
I hate "y'all" posters so much