Thanks for sharing. This is a fun coincidence - I did a very similar overhaul on a Lenovo T440p recently! Picked one up on eBay for $60 USD and its current specs (old and new) are very similar to...
Thanks for sharing. This is a fun coincidence - I did a very similar overhaul on a Lenovo T440p recently!
Picked one up on eBay for $60 USD and its current specs (old and new) are very similar to what’s in this post. I opted to get an oversized battery cell but didn’t change the charging port itself - it still uses the old cable and jack but is a lot more healthy.
The whole thing was a fun pet project and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to swap everything out. Biggest pain was the touchpad and keyboard by a long shot. I followed this “tutorial” on YouTube which is already quite dated, but for only a couple hundred bucks I have a little workhorse that does a perfectly passable job in 2026.
Thanks for sharing! While I haven't done any overhauls, I recently started using a Lenovo T490s, a considerably newer machine, but still a Thinkpad. My main laptop for the last 4 years has been an...
Thanks for sharing! While I haven't done any overhauls, I recently started using a Lenovo T490s, a considerably newer machine, but still a Thinkpad. My main laptop for the last 4 years has been an M-chip Macbook Pro but I lent it recently to my mom as she needed a computer and I have a desktop I can use. However, I quickly realized that I prefer using a laptop to a desktop so I dug out this T490s, which was previously my brother's laptop, and moved in. I've installed Ubuntu and after some experimentation, I landed on stock GNOME for my DE.
I'll be honest, I am incredibly spoiled by my MacBook. It was hard to get used to the Thinkpad at first as the screen, speakers, and trackpad just aren't as good as the Macbook in my opinion. Obviously, given the price difference between the machines, this is an unfair comparison :). However, in the 3 or so months since I started using this, I've gotten used to it expect for the speakers. These speakers are genuinely terrible. Overall, I like using the Thinkpad. I sorta get the old Thinkpad + Linux hype now. I'm not a big customizer of my tech anymore so the endless possibilities of Linux are lost on me. The simplicity of GNOME and its Tweaks/Extensions system is enough for me. The machine does bog down a bit from time to time, especially on some heavier websites, but for my generic web browsing its perfectly fine.
I'll keep using this for the short term. The only two things I do miss from my Macbook are its speakers and the ability to develop iOS/macOS apps. I often tinker and write my own little apps that I abandon after a few weeks and I miss being able to do that. There's probably some ways to do this on Linux but I haven't had the time to figure that out. Rumors are that Apple will unveil a new cheaper Macbook tomorrow (March 4th) so I'm keeping my eyes on that announcement and will decide if I do want to get that in the near future. As my parents are moving, I don't think my mom will give me back my Macbook any time soon.
I have a Thinkpad A485 I plan to try to keep as long as possible as my laptop. I gave up a much more powerful Dell laptop because I wanted to go more lightweight / silent / etc and it's been...
I have a Thinkpad A485 I plan to try to keep as long as possible as my laptop. I gave up a much more powerful Dell laptop because I wanted to go more lightweight / silent / etc and it's been great. Did have to rollback BIOS to find one that worked well with Linux though. They've got some weird battery/power bugs in some versions. But it's rock solid now.
That’s why Lenovo’s newest ThinkPads are such a big deal: the new T14 Gen 7 and T16 Gen 5 score an eye-popping 10 out of 10 on our repairability scale. It’s the first time the T-series has ever earned our top rating.
Pleasantly surprised at that on a mainstream product.
LPCAMM memory is so nice to see in use. I hope these models get some attention from CoreBoot. At the moment the newest T series that can run FOSS firmware is the T480.
LPCAMM memory is so nice to see in use. I hope these models get some attention from CoreBoot. At the moment the newest T series that can run FOSS firmware is the T480.
Thanks for sharing. This is a fun coincidence - I did a very similar overhaul on a Lenovo T440p recently!
Picked one up on eBay for $60 USD and its current specs (old and new) are very similar to what’s in this post. I opted to get an oversized battery cell but didn’t change the charging port itself - it still uses the old cable and jack but is a lot more healthy.
The whole thing was a fun pet project and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to swap everything out. Biggest pain was the touchpad and keyboard by a long shot. I followed this “tutorial” on YouTube which is already quite dated, but for only a couple hundred bucks I have a little workhorse that does a perfectly passable job in 2026.
Thanks for sharing! While I haven't done any overhauls, I recently started using a Lenovo T490s, a considerably newer machine, but still a Thinkpad. My main laptop for the last 4 years has been an M-chip Macbook Pro but I lent it recently to my mom as she needed a computer and I have a desktop I can use. However, I quickly realized that I prefer using a laptop to a desktop so I dug out this T490s, which was previously my brother's laptop, and moved in. I've installed Ubuntu and after some experimentation, I landed on stock GNOME for my DE.
I'll be honest, I am incredibly spoiled by my MacBook. It was hard to get used to the Thinkpad at first as the screen, speakers, and trackpad just aren't as good as the Macbook in my opinion. Obviously, given the price difference between the machines, this is an unfair comparison :). However, in the 3 or so months since I started using this, I've gotten used to it expect for the speakers. These speakers are genuinely terrible. Overall, I like using the Thinkpad. I sorta get the old Thinkpad + Linux hype now. I'm not a big customizer of my tech anymore so the endless possibilities of Linux are lost on me. The simplicity of GNOME and its Tweaks/Extensions system is enough for me. The machine does bog down a bit from time to time, especially on some heavier websites, but for my generic web browsing its perfectly fine.
I'll keep using this for the short term. The only two things I do miss from my Macbook are its speakers and the ability to develop iOS/macOS apps. I often tinker and write my own little apps that I abandon after a few weeks and I miss being able to do that. There's probably some ways to do this on Linux but I haven't had the time to figure that out. Rumors are that Apple will unveil a new cheaper Macbook tomorrow (March 4th) so I'm keeping my eyes on that announcement and will decide if I do want to get that in the near future. As my parents are moving, I don't think my mom will give me back my Macbook any time soon.
I like to disable the trackpad entirely and just use the trackpoint. It’s really very good and better than most laptop trackpads.
I have a Thinkpad A485 I plan to try to keep as long as possible as my laptop. I gave up a much more powerful Dell laptop because I wanted to go more lightweight / silent / etc and it's been great. Did have to rollback BIOS to find one that worked well with Linux though. They've got some weird battery/power bugs in some versions. But it's rock solid now.
Related: https://www.ifixit.com/News/115827/new-thinkpads-score-perfect-10-repairability
Pleasantly surprised at that on a mainstream product.
LPCAMM memory is so nice to see in use. I hope these models get some attention from CoreBoot. At the moment the newest T series that can run FOSS firmware is the T480.