I’m talking abundant I/O, great repairability/easy to open, maintain. A laptop from back when laptop manufacturers didn’t hate us.
The closest I got was a dell latitude 5500 which has decent I/O and a pretty modern processor.
If Lenovo were to make a modern T42 or something like that, not sparing the ports.
I have a framework laptop which is built around repairability, and for I/O they have swappable ports where you can choose whatever I/O you want (I have 2 usb-c ports, an HDMI, and 1 usb-a, which is all I ever use at once anyway). The 13 inch model I have only has 4 of these ports though, while the 16 inch has 6 I believe.
Framework, as someone else said: https://youtu.be/drxOpMsr6sM
It feels a little more on the closed source side to me. They have modular parts, but it is using their proprietary parts.
MNT reform is more open and modable https://youtu.be/_DA0Jr4WH-4
The MNT might be what you mean when you say old laptops. This thing is a huge slab.
Framework seems like the ideal choice but right now it is out of my price range. For long term however it does seem like the best choice right now.
That MNT laptop sure looks fun to use (and modify to my liking). However it is expensive. But I do like its open mindset
That Framework one is really neat.
Got a Thinkpad T460 for cheap, that I initially did not want. Quite surprised at the build quality and performance. Quality nearly up to my TP 440, but that, with the big dock, had quite a bit more I/O, even with a PCIe gpu slot. You should probably look at used Thinkpads, but not the s(lim) versions. These have whining fans and less I/O.
Have you used Dell laptops recently? A long time ago they were great, but I don’t think they’re great anymore. I have a latitude 5411 through work and I hate it. The track point is junk, battery life sucks, it doesn’t go into standby properly, and notably the battery failed within three years. Maybe it’s not Dell per se but instead the fact that lots of stuff is getting crappy, but every other computer I own now is Lenovo. They are far less bad.
I actually never used a dell, but it looked like a decent laptop with a decent price (used, 160$ with 8gb ram + nvme) plus notebookcheck were pretty positive about it.
Do you recommend any particular lenovo?
The T and X series Thinkpad are good in my experience. P series seems good too. They’re all quite expensive, but I have an X220 I personally bought some time around 2010 that I still use regularly. It’s had almost not problems. A year or two ago, the cooling fan broke, and I bought a new cooling system for a reasonable price on eBay. It was fairly easy to replace that. I replaced the hard drive twice because I’ve had hard drives fail on other computers and I just replace them regularly now. I use the original battery. The life is not as good, but it’s still fine. I also have another X220 and a X230 I used for work, and they’re still fine but I rarely use them due to some work policies. New hard drives due to the previously mentioned concerns. One keyboard replacement because it was used outside in wet conditions: incredibly easy to replace. These things last a long time. Parts are easy to find because they’re popular. Which Thinkpad you’d want is a matter of preference. They come in various sizes and capabilities.
The Thinkpad Edge line, despite the name, is not the same line as Thinkpad. They’re a lot cheaper in cost, but they’re notably less nice, although still pretty good . They seem like a reasonanle choice if you want to save money. A family member has one where the case and a metal frame broke at the hinge after 8 to 10 years. You’d need to take everything off the case to replace it, so not something I would care to fix, but if one really wanted to fix it one could. It’s still fine in other regards. They have a lot of other laptop lines and I don’t know them all, but of the other lines that I’ve used, I’d say they’re not worth buying. They’re the same sort of cheap construction as other companies.
Thank you for all your advice! After digesting just about every Thinkpad T and X model I think I’m going to settle for a T440p as my main work machine and a X220/X230 (with keyboard swap) as an ultra portable. Just waiting for the right deals on used thinkpads in my country.