Why use a ThinkPad T420 in 2024?

The intro song is by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio; check them out!

While an upgraded Thinkpad T420 is not the best value for the money in terms of price-to-performance ratio, it’s still decently usable in 2024 and offers a great combination of classic Thinkpad aesthetics and modern usability.

This video was narrated by ElevenLabs AI voice.

[TheBlackSyders]

I once got drunk in a 48hours coding event, i blocked one of the two evacuation hole for liquid under my T420 and proceeded to drink a beer by pouring it on the keyboard and drinking from the evacuation hole, while shouting "Can you do this with your f$cking MacBook ?" It was 7 years ago. Since that i brought it with me on many bike roadtrip across europ, and this bad boy is still running, and i still have 4 hours of autonomy without ever replacing the battery, those PC were wild

[MattTheriot]

Great I/O, great keyboard, built like a tank. T420 is GOATED.

[HPeter-gpsk]

I watched this with my T420 in 2024 :P

[bobihun]

If you want to go all the way, then you can replace the BIOS with Coreboot.
This allows you to put a newer 3rd gen Core i CPU into the T420. I use mine with an i7-3540m. Compared to the i7-2640m I had in the laptop earlier, the newer CPU has lower thermals, but the most important thing is the HD4000 IGP which is much faster than the HD3000 or the nVidia GPU in the original T420.
Oh yes, coreboot also removes the wifi whitelist, so you can also put an intel ax200 wifi 6 card into the machine.

One final thing, if you flash coreboot with seabios on the Thinkpad, it allows you to dual boot Windows and Linux.

[RealSkillIssueWOTB]

I use my T410 that I got from my dad, and I have no complaint.. This laptop hinge is just amazing, the keyboard feels amazing, and I LOVE the old style looks this laptop offers. Shame how modern LENOVOs have decreased this much.. :(

[marcusathome]

Upgraded my T420 with the 8-core i7-2670QM, 16GB RAM and M.2-SSD, OS is Kubuntu 22.04. Nice machine, still used as my daily driver.

[consfual]

I got a T430 for free because it had no screen, no ram and no hard disk. I spent around 25 dollars for a new screen, I put an ssd that I already had and installed windows 10 in it, and well, I had many ram modules around so that was fixed as well. The only thing missing is the keyboard. After I was able to finaly make the laptop function, I noticed that keyboard flaw, but with an external keyboard everything seems fine. It runs so smoothly! And I can't believe I got it for free (someone gave it away because it was "not convenient" to fix it). All I spent was those 25 dollars. I'll never regret it.

[DimNussens]

Crazy how small this channel is, but how excellent the quality is as well. Last channel I found like this was Action Retro, and I really hope you take off like that too.

I recently got into Thinkpads with a P50 as my first -- another P50 and a P51s are on the way thanks to some lucky eBay wins, and I'm *definitely* interesting in modding and the "Frankenpad" concepts. I'd love to see some exploration about what parts are compatible across generations, if that's something you've ever got time to investigate.

[nikolaidisharalambos]

More to t420 I love the T400 it works so fine for me. It is so quiet, and have massive copper in heatsink that is almost passive cool instend of other laptops noise fan. I love that suck the cool air from beside and not from buttom, that make more relaxing not to thinking if i block the air flow with my legs or if i put it in not steady surface. I hope new thinkpads make it better. Thank you for your video.

[ablokenamedgeorge]

Terry Tibbs knocked it out the park with this one! Nice vid 👍🏼

[tamoozbr]

"Science isn't about why, it's about why not" - Cave Johnson

[anthonyelectrical]

I like these older machines .. currently im using a t440 with the i7 4710mq and 16gigs of ram .. works great for programming plc's and radios .. works great for all the everyday stuff like youtube and email .. so its my favorite for work laptop

[sashahenriksen]

this is the video that convinced me to buy one. im a tinkerer at heart and i think the laptop looks cool. the options of the pciexpress card slot, the ability to upgrade the screen, ram, storage, cpu and even wifi card should make for a fun project that makes it feel more of a personal machine. i have a steamdeck for gaming but i wanted something for university work, writing, web surfing and youtube which given i use linux shouldnt be an issue. what a lovely machine with so many io ports, sturdy and dependable. they dont make em like they used to.

[Aaahjohneetoch]

I bought a T420 and want to upgrade it no matter what the costs . It's in mint condition. I love this machine so thanks for the info. I'm not familiar with Linux though. Might be an option in future.

[FinalVibes]

You sound a bit like Prof. Snape, and that's super cool.

[cosput]

I use mine as a sleeper server. It runs homeassistant VM, letsencrypt docker for the DNS, and I put 2 big SSDs in there for file server, the NIC on it is only 1Gbps but it's solid. Not only is it running perfectly, I put it on a nice stand from amazon and it looks great. I also added some extra USB ports to it with the expansion port for a zigbee dongle and for when I want to expand the homeassistant connections. There's lots of CPU and RAM to run more. It's an insanely useful laptop. I also put in the extended battery for an inbuilt UPS with a useful duration. Cost me 50eu minus the upgrades which weren't expensive. Sits in the corner of my room looking pretty on its stand. I've not even upgrade the CPU, maxed out the USB ports or used the esata yet, it's more like a PC with a battery than a laptop. Also, T420 blaze it.

[jonfreeman]

I've used it for work and it's an awesome computer back in the day and it's still good even today. It's not a gaming machine but for basic browsing and office work it's fine.

[RealTPFanatic]

T420 was the finest 14” thinkpad ive owned, i did the 2560x1440 upgrade but kept the i5 dual core. It gamed poorly including web graphics and even with my gtx 960 egpu at the time, but as a high-dpi desktop workspace fitting multiple browser windows, pdfs, documents, and explorer windows I was more productive with my T420 than any of my prior machines. The 7-row and palmrest on T420 were perfect for me, to date T420 was my greatest typing platform. I enjoyed watching my blu rays on it with the optical drive.

[aliboyaliboy]

i have 2 of this, picked up from the e-waste dumpster at work. 1 for the treadmill running Linux Mint and the other 1 for testing other distros

[Fantie_huts]

Really good fun, keep it up. Good luck.