Linux

If you want to support Linux devs and continued development, I would buy from System76, Tuxedo Computers, or even Framework.

If you're going to buy used then yeah the Thinkpad is fine.

Framework

I wouldn't buy thinkpads anymore... Recent models are not good quality. Mouse pad broke on my first one, and keyboard on the second one. This was ThinkPad Carbon 8 and T14 I believe.

They used to be great but no longer, even though notebookcheck keeps giving them top marks in reviews.

T480 is the last good Thinkpad. Even T490 is a huge downgrade.

T430 or X230 if you're into modding. The opportunities for modding them are endless. Keyboard from xx20-series (best ever made for laptops), FHD IPS panel, re-celling the battery with 18650-cells, second storage drive with mstata mod.. If I remember right, T430 cd bay can be replaced with secondary battery too.

The old models are compatible with FreeBSD too.

I went away for a few hours, wow, all the replies! Thanks all!

I ended up going with a refurbished T480s. Wanted something I could upgrade memory/storage on. The form factor and the metal case also sounded appealing. Should have it in a week.

FWIW ThinkPad is not IBM anymore. I assume it's obvious but just in case it's not 100% clear, a Chinese company (Lenovo) bought the brand 2 decades ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad

I'm not arguing that the quality or Linux support changed since then, just make it explicit in case somebody might ride on the nostalgia of once great hardware devices.

PS: I rocked an X31 with ratpoison a while ago, before the times of MacBook Air and I was convinced I was pretty cool.

If you go web browsing and text editing just get a 2nd hand one. Most laptops can do that. I would just replace the HD with an SSD if it doesn't have one.

I have an old hp laptop of 12+ years. But hp is a bitch to replace the HDD. So that was an adventure.

T480 is solid. I think those still had fully upgradable RAM slots, the T490 series started having soldered single slot so you could only upgrade one of them. T470s are starting to be a little long in the tooth, but still solid for the kind of tasks you are looking for.

On eBay they can be had for $200-$300 depending on model.

I don't recommend thinkpads. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, they don't allow you to replace your own wifi card. Latitudes have great Linux support, and as a business class machine they're as reliable and easy to work on as thinkpads

I got a used ThinkPad T480s and installed 40 GB of RAM in it for Qubes OS. It's modern enough to charge over USB-C, so one plug for everything. I also have a MacBook I use for school and both are solid.

T480. Still good availability. It was popular with companies that put them back into th e market a few years ago.

Last model without glued RAM. So it's upgradable and you can install two M.2 drives. One with 2240 length and a full-size 2280 in the main drive bay.

The battery setup is great as well. One internal battery plus an external you can choose depending on your needs. Either small and light for a bit more juice or big and heavy for max runtime.

I got one 6 months ago and couldn't be happier.

I use a t480 for my carry laptop with Gentoo. It's been solid. Replaced both batteries pretty easily, replaced thermal paste, and it's good to go again. I paid about 160 got it. I had a t460 as well, but gave that to my gf. Either of those were good and not too expensive for a semi modern computer for general usage.

Your use-case says "ARM laptop" to me.

Pros: Get some kind of SoC laptop, and never worry about battery charge again. They're also lighter-weight and better at thermal management. Right now, Linux on ARM is still kind of fledgling so there's not as many apps made to run on ARM natively; the upside is that since there's not as many possible combinations of hardware, there aren't nearly as many edge case bugs and issues.

Cons: If you want youtube in 1080p+ and 60 fps or if you want to use Visual Studio (instead of something lighter-weight), you'll either want the most powerful SoC laptop on the market (probably something by Apple), or not SoC at all. Same goes if you want to have like 5+ programs opened at once and 10+ tabs open on firefox. If you're on the opposite side with me and don't mind if the video is 30 fps or the resolution is 720i and using vim as an IDE, you can get away with something dirt cheap. The other downside of course being the inability to upgrade hardware, which goes hand-in-hand with the reduced hardware combinations aforementioned. Also, since it's not as widely adopted/developed, there are more standard case bugs/issues.

It does force a more minimal approach to computing—it's not powerful, and it's on the lower-end of ARM laptops—but my Pinebook has only done well by me. The security/privacy factor of Pine was also a big plus.

T or P series refurb from eBay.

You looked at starlabs or purism?

got a t470 refurb for $150 last year and have been very happy with it.

Get a framework laptop. They're the new thinkpad

X1 Carbon is king

Personally just got a T15 gen 2. AMD version, and very happy with mine. Especially since it has the numpad included. Been running nixOS without any issues so far!

I've been on this hunt lately as well, but because I want to believe there could be a suitable option for a Linux tablet ...

Regardless, for just a new thinkpad the X1 carbon has remained a solid choice for all around work-flows (research, student, development, business, etc.)