ThinkPads 2005 – 2009

For years people have been using the ThinkPd buyers guide from ktgee. This website was supposed to be an updated database of ThinkPad prices. But its relevance became redundant due to me going dumbshit on other computer prices. There are two other websites that forked the ktgee guide, yttrium & trueflame… However these guides weren’t shitposted on 4chan or leddit, because it stopped being a simple 1000 x 1000 image. This is the start of a new era, in 2019 I will personally be updating ThinkPad prices every four months with a picture guide. Rather than me doing prices all in one page for 10+ years of ThinkPad, I will be doing batch posts which will consist of laptops group together by a few years. e.g 2006 – 09 | 2010 – 2013 | 2014 – 18 |

Buying used instead of brand new

• Used ThinkPads are cheap thanks to businesses always buying new equipment every 2+ years.
• The old laptops become tax write offs by sent to local recyclers or IT groups.
• An abundance of laptops eventually flood the market on eBay, sellers start to list them off at low prices, 99 cent auctions or offers in bulk
• Some of these used laptops can come out to a 1/3 of the original price when a new model arrives & may still have a warranty.
• Since these are 8+ years old, some of these are practically given away.

Why choose these (old) ThinkPads

• Spill proof keyboard
• Greatest keyboards made, save the T25 for an honorable mention.
• Great durability & functional matte black design
• Great battery life vs competitors at the time, substandard nowdays
• GOAT pointing stick, removes strain on wrists from trackpad
• UltraBay, flexible media drive that can be a battery or second HDD/SSD
• ThinkLight – A little LED prior to illuminated keyboards that can help you read a comfy book
• Great Linux compatibility, various guides, programs, & scripts specifically for ThinkPads
• Well maintained due to being business laptops, most are written off & auction starts at low prices due to so much inventory
• Easy serviceability, abundance of parts, wealth in repair guides.

What are you looking for?

• Medium Size – T43, T60, T61, T400 ~ R52, R60, R61, R400 ~ Z60t, Z61t ~ SL400
• Big Screen – T500, R500, Z60m, Z61m, SL500, G50 & select T43, T60 & T61
• Small & Portable – X32, X41, X60, X61 ~ X200, X200s ~ X300, X301 ~ SL300
• Wacom Tablet – X41, X60, X61, X200 (Tablet) or t
• Workstations – T43p, Z61p, T60p, T61p, W500
• Desktop Replacements – W700, W700ds ~ Dock 2503, 2504

Where do you look for once this cheap?

• eBay, Offer Up, Craigslist, Gumtree, electronic recyclers
• Schools, businesses, churches having auctions
• Sellers needing cash instantly, clearing inventory, local ‘as is’ or untested
• Hard mode – Laptops listed without model numbers, local auctions in bulk.

Pricing Guide

The following is what you should expect with what you paid for. If some of these things are missing, its not recommended to pay that price.
Low     – Broken, ugly and/or laptop only without RAM/HDD/AC/BATT
Mid      – May have HDD, & AC adapter.
High     – HDD or SSD w/ OS, high/max spec’d, mint condition.
Absurd – Modded, new in box, Libre/Coreboot, reputable seller, & total price considering parts or upgrade to perfect it.
# Sold   – How many sold in the last 3 months. The higher the better (300 great) or 0 means very uncommon or rare on eBay.

Socket 479 – Pentium M (2GB DDR/2 RAM)
Socket M    – Core Duo, Core 2 Duo (3GB DDR2 RAM)
Socket P    –  Core 2 Duo 800MHz FSB (8GB DDR2 RAM)
Socket P+  – Core 2 Duo 1066MHz FSB (8GB DDR3 RAM)
S – Soldiered CPU
Q – Quadcore support

Mainstream ThinkPads (14″ & 15″)

Best 16:10 – T400 | Libre/Coreboot support, DDR3, Lighter & best battery life
Best 4:3 – T61 | Intel GPU models preferred, & Modding capabilities.
Best keyboard – 39T0958 NMB
Wat – T400s can be configured with a touchscreen
Worst – SL400(c), crap internals, DDR2 RAM lol
Confusion – Z60 is T43 + Widescreen & SATA. Z61 is T60.

Workstation ThinkPads (14″, 15″ & 17″)

Desktop Replacement – W700(ds), or the big dock 2503
Best 16:10 – W500 due to DDR3, WUXGA option & best heatsink
Best 4:3 – T601 Tie between thinner T43p or T60p cause winkey
Worst? – T61p can have the nVidia BGA issue unless built after 08/08
Good in 2018? – Obviously the T430 outclasses all of them, but they are ok for older games & good with a SSD.
GOAT? – UXGA T43, T60, or WUXGA T61p, W500

Portables & Sleek (12″ & 13″)

Oddity – X41 uses 1.8″ PATA drives & can utilize 2.5GB RAM
Best 16:10 – WXGA+ X200s w/ AFFS mod
Hottest 4:3 – X61 w/ T9300 & stock WiFi
Wut – Edge 13 had C2D, i3 & AMD Options

Tablet convertibles (12″)

Performance – X200 Tablet, DDR3 flexibility, & Libreboot option
Best LCD – X60 Tablet SXGA+

Buying these in 2019

These ThinkPads are possibly some of the best to start a classic collection. All of these all support booting from a USB, a lot of these work with Linux very well. With the T43, PAE can give some headaches during installation. Windows 7 works well with all of these laptops but it is only supported until 2020. Windows 10 runs o k on these systems but Linux much much better, as you’ll come across driver issues, and just it being so much bloat sometimes. Core 2 Duo is viable so long as you don’t depend on the laptop, I genuinely don’t recommend these for day to day work or school use, get the DankPad T420 instead.

These ThinkPads have the best keyboards to use, trackpoint buttons are solid, & of course, none of that 16:9 shit ratio. As I stated these are great to start a collection because you can still use them with a few caveats. I could write more and more about these machines, but I’ll let you all decide what is best.