Had a T530 for a while. Very similar to the T520 except for the keyboard. It was my first daily driver ThinkPad, and it had the 900p screen, 8gb of RAM, backlit keyboard, and fingerprint reader. Gave it to my brother to use for college when I got my P53s, and he still using it.
Dad has a T430 for work and he got it like end of 2013. Has a i5-3220m I think 2.6 and 4gb ram with a 320gb hdd. The weird texture on the trackpad hasn't worn since, but the keyboard keys are very shiny. Cool laptop, kinda like a bigger version of his.
I have a 2 T520s that I picked up from a school I was working at that was going to recycle them. Here it is 2023 and both are quite usable, I have Linux on both of them though I will admit I only use one that I have upgraded to 8 gigs and an ssd. The other I am hanging onto as a parts machine.
I have the same thinkpad, just upgraded the hdd to an ssd and 8 gigs of ram instead of 4gb. This is one of the last good thinkpads. Replaceable battery, replaceable cpu / keyboard. Has a umts modem built in, metal hinges etc. Glad that i bought this 5 year old laptop last summer used in a perfect condition for 240 dollars with the docking station. They start to sell these laptops refurbished or used for a high price in europe what i saw.
$240? That's a pretty good deal. I sold mine for $220 and within 2 months I had to buy another one it's a great laptop. I bough one with an i7 2760QM processor and I plan on upgrading the RAM to 16GB and an SSD. Which SSD did you use?
Very nice machine man, it's the big brother to my T420 although with lower end specs (mine has an i7, a higher res display, fingerprint reader etc...). This should be a fantastic laptop to take somewhere where you're not comfortable taking the MacBook, it won't matter if it gets a little roughed up since it's already been there and done that.
Dell0304 Well maybe you could get a new keyboard and palm rest for it but idk if you want to do that. The i7 isn't worth it unless it's a quad-core i7 (mine's only a dual-core i7) and the screen will be a pain in the ass to upgrade since it has a chip which locks it to a specific computer so putting in high res displays can be a real pain in the ass. Most OEMs do that these days which is so stupid imo.
I have the Lenovo ThinkPad T520 that's like brand new even the battery is only showing a 5% wear level and I am upgrading as I can afford it. It's a great laptop so far. Spec's as of now Intel i7-2670QM 2.20GHz Quad core 16GB DDR3L 1600MHz Samsung EVO 860 1TB SSD Windows 10 Pro Creative Sound Blaster G3 Portable External USB DAC ASUS USB-BT400 USB Bluetooth Dongle Lenovo ThinkPad laptop bag
@@renzohoriguchi7659 the T520 already has one and it can't be replaced my version has 2 the iGPU on the i7 and the The NVIDIA NVS 4200M by what I have seen not all versions of the T520 come with this option
No track point is a deal breaker for me. I wont even get the 4th gen models because they have the huge offset pad. I don't mind the keyboard of the 530 models but the older keyboard is the form I like best. An SSD can make even a T500 seem fast and load applications like like a champ.
Cool think about the Thinkpads, most of them have the ThinkLight, which is pretty damn cool when you need to work at night in the bed next to the wife lol and don't want to turn on a light.I have a T420 which i love.....I wonder if the newer ThinkPads have the ThinkLight? Great video by the way, learned a little more about my 420. Thanks! Cheers Mate!
@Blackowtz, me too. Mine is 10 years old. I never had an issue with it. It actually a little bit slow, i am looking forward to upgrade the RAM and put an SSD Memory.
Are you going to do something to fix that wrecked USB port? You might be able to solder on a new connector or at least remove the pins to avoid it from shorting out in the future.
A hundred dollar? Gosh... that is so cheap! Even for the base model! although yap, so many sides are completely worn off.. even some letters are not even there anymore..
Oddly, My Thinkpad's Power USB doesn't work when the machine is off(even when the AC adapter is plugged in). Instead, my regular USB was behaving like a Power USB instead.
Solol Black My ThinkPad X130e has a powered USB port, but it's only supposed to work when the computer is asleep, not turned off. Maybe that's how they are all set up.
***** Yup, that's how it's supposed to be. My T420 has the powered port too and it only works when the laptop is in sleep mode, which is fine. I can keep it in sleep mode in a bag and charge my phone or something like that, which is great.
