Comment by t312227

Comment by t312227 2 days ago

16 replies

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hello,

as always: imho (!)

i own a x200s ... bought it in march of 2009 =?> so its approaching 17 years ...

it was a really great device with one of the best keyboards for a small notebook. and i still use it multiple times a week for example to browse hackernews, reddit, ... or watch some video etc.

buuuut: its nearly 17 years old ... everything is starting to wear - i wouldn't invest a dime into it right now.

what do i mean by that: keyboard has faulting keys, case starts breaking at heavily stressed regions - for example around the cursor-keys -, display is (slightly) mechanically damaged, batteries are beyond usefull etc.etc. ...

just my 0.02€

E39M5S62 2 days ago

I also have an x200s that I got new in 2009. I've replaced the keyboard, battery (multiple times), palm rest, upper shell, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting about. I haven't put new parts on it for a few years, but as recent as ~2020 they were very easy to get and affordable. My little x200s is a dedicated HaikuOS machine now and I hope it keeps running for another two decades!

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  • webdoodle 2 days ago

    Props too you. We should only buy new when repairing isn't viable. Our throw it away and buy a new one mentality is destroying our planet.

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    • E39M5S62 2 days ago

      A mobile core2duo system struggles under the weight of the modern web. If you live outside of that though, it's more than adequate for virtually anything. These days it's basically an SSH terminal with a fantastic keyboard that floats around my house and boots up quickly.

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neilv 2 days ago

I don't know about the X200S, but I had several X200 non-S, with Coreboot, up until recently, and they were worth repairing, as evidenced by resale value.

(New keyboards are inexpensive (at least before tariffs), the replacement palmrest plastic part can be found and very easily replaced, you can still get batteries for them. And if you have a pressure mark on the LCD, apparently that's not a showstopper. Add a $20 SSD and max. the RAM, and it's better than new.)

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mushufasa 2 days ago

My understanding with this project is they also replace the screen and battery with newer parts e.g. higher resolution, or at least that's an option, and all the ports are new (it's a new motherboard). So really the only 'old' parts are the keyboard and chassis. My understanding is there's lots of cheap replacements for the keyboard floating out there given the mass production and the original intention for this device to be easily serviceable by IT departments instead of "RMA everything."

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walterbell 2 days ago

What's a good alternative to 2010 Thinkpad X200 series, with potential for coreboot support?

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  • backscratches 2 days ago

    Can't recommend starlabs enough, fully replaceable everything, coreboot, modern specs, Linux compat, firmware over lvfs

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    • walterbell 2 days ago

      Thanks for the rec, didn't know they had moved on from Clevo designs to their own board design made by Quanta/Compal/Wistrom etc.

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      • backscratches 2 days ago

        Didn't know they were rebadging in the past, they've been using their own hardware designs for at least 6 years.

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  • onli 2 days ago

    I looked into that category (of small and lightweight laptops, for travel) earlier this year, without the coreboot requirement. I ended up with a Panasonic Let's Note SZ6-CF. Also cheap - imported from Japan via eBay - I think it is better than the X200 series in almost every way, newer, faster, lighter. It might also have a better display than the default of the thinkpads. Only drawback: soldered memory (a crime against the longevity of those machines).

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  • ux266478 2 days ago

    If you're interested in something of an even higher degree of robustness and are fine with an ARM device, check out the MNT Reform Next: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next

    I really wish we could get an MNT device with upstream support, if not an x86 processor. Having used the Pocket Reform, I think about it quite often. It's almost perfect.... but the ARM chip and all the warts that come with SoC crap basically is the one single thing that keeps me from using one.

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    • walterbell 2 days ago

      Open Arm devices sadly live in the shadow of closed Apple Mac Mini perf and battery life, and Asahi is stuck at 2022 M2 SoC. Some older Arm Chromebooks have mainline Linux support and also run coreboot. Qualcomm and MediaTek/Nvidia are "maybe next year" Linux and closed firmware.

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      • ux266478 2 days ago

        "Open" is a misnomer, I really wish people would stop throwing it around with regards to ARM systems because it's a serious problem. Apple's devices are no better or worse about this. It's just the nature of the SoC ecosystem.

        > Apple Mac Mini perf and battery life

        Battery life? You mean the macbook, not the mini, right?

        Speaking candidly, if both MNT devices and Apple's devices had perfect upstream support, I'd choose MNT every time regardless of battery life or performance. On a trivial level, I like the design language more, I prefer to buy boutique, etc.

        For actual material considerations, MNT overbuilds their stuff to a ridiculous degree. That's what I want out of a laptop more than anything. There's a sense when holding the pocket reform that you could yeet it full send onto the pavement and you'll just scratch the shell. I like that. It might not necessarily be true, but there's a sense of solidity I get from an MNT device that I don't get from an Apple device. I'll take almost any drawback to have something that's overbuilt to hell, and I'll pay a pretty penny for it. The one thing that keeps me away is being locked into a specific distro. If the distribution was minimalist like KISS or Void, or if it was FreeBSD or OpenBSD, this qualm disappears. MNT unfortunately runs a Debian fork, that's a non-starter for me.

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ahoka 2 days ago

Yes, also had one and it was decent for its time, but it’s not great, especially compared to anything you can get today.

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