Thinkpad Price Guide V2.10 5/30/2019

There was no V3.0 public post… 🙁 But here is the old guide which I’ll fix again. 🙂

Main page is here.

2005 – 2018 MegaList V2.10 5/30/2019
created by xsauc !!rCUKADYmg0+ | (saucey#1307) | @xsauc
This price guide is homage to ktgee, the original ThinkPad Buyers Guide poster. With ktgee retiring, others have tried to keep the information going, namely trueflame & Yttrium. As an antagonist I created dankpads to expand on thinkpads but never created a guide.

Google Spreadsheets (might sign you in, dont)
Megalist V2 (2019 Q1 ish)
2005 – 2009 V2
2010 towards 2014 V2
2014 to 2019 V2

Because these prices pertain to a wide range of laptops, I couldn’t call this image/post a buyers guide after hearing criticism from 4chan & reddit. Therfore it is a price guide, some info is given if you are new to ThinkPads but you’ll gain more information if you browse ThinkPad Forums, Thinkwiki (mostly abandoned since 2014), & the German ThinkPad Wiki.

One day Yitty will finish his ThinkBase project and it will be the new ThinkPadder Generation to give a modern take on ThinkWiki.

People asked if there could be a text version of the guide instead of a downloadable photo or PDF, lets just see how it goes.

So you want to get a used ThinkPad?

You are not getting a good deal if you buy a new ThinkPad.

Used business laptops are cheap because companies send off laptops for tax write offs. ThinkPads flood the market, so resellers started a trend with auctioning them off at 99 cents & then others then started to undercut competitors with cheaper buy it now prices. Because of the iconic black box design of ThinkPads, people tend to pass them up.

Why choose a ThinkPad?

~ really cheap when buying used or as is
~ spill proof keyboard (mostly til 2015)
~ best non-mech laptop keyboards
~ great to good durability
~ great to good durability
~ nice battery life & linux support
~ helpful community worldwide
~ Ultrabay – replace that DVD drive with a battery, or a HDD
~ ThinkLight – An LED on top of the display that shines light on your keyboard (mostly until 2015)
~ classic design – deters thieves from stealing them
~ mostly well kept due to being in a business environment
~ service manuals readily available & parts obtainable
~ comfy bed laptop to keep you warm but not hot
~ anime bios splash screens for maximum OWO & UWU
~ the older it is, the stronger/durable it likely is

Where do you look for one this cheap?

• eBay
• Offer Up
• Craigslist
• Cool Electronic Recyclers
• Bulk sales via Facebook or local ads
• r/thinkpadsforsale
• forum.thinkpads.com (mostly higher enthusiast prices tho)
• Don’t buy ThinkPads with BIOS passwords or not powered on
• Patience is key if you’re new to the market, a better deal will always swing by later.

What are you looking for?

• a medium sized 14″ laptop – see T400 Series, A4xx, & maybe R, Z or L Series
• a slightly bigger 15.6″ laptop – see T500 Series, & L500 series if too expensive
• an ultraportable (12″ & 13″) – See X Series, A2xx, and L380 series
  • cheaper & 11″ – See X100 series & 11e models
• a workstation – W500 & P50 Series – W520, W541, P50, P52, etc
  • 17″ big? – W700 Series, P70 Series – W701ds, P71, P72
  • 14″ size? – T460p, T470p
  • classic style? – T43p, T60p, Z61p, T61p, W700, T25
• an ultrabook (14”) – X1 Carbon
  • but not that thin & expensive – ‘s’ T Series – T420s, T450s, etc
  • for graphics work – P50s Series- W550s, P51s, P52s, P40 Yoga
• digitizer or pen support (11” to 17” ) – See X Tablets, some Yogas & W700 series with wacom palmrest
• a meh choice – E Series i7 dual cores, T4xxi, X2xxi & L Series sometimes
• not a ThinkPad – IdeaPad, Lenovo Yoga without ThinkPad in its name

There are three prices for each model in this guide!

• 1st– Great deal if fully working, but mostly these can be fixer uppers (needs more $$ parts). Not recommended for your 1st laptop, unless you’re confident with rebuilidng.
• 2nd – Mid/high average, my recommended price to newcomers. It can be complete & working, maybe with a warranty. Best for people who want a decent, working laptop.
• 3rd – max recommended limit; best be top spec’d, mint, & excellent battery. These could be new priced units w/ warranties or what you can pay with the Lenovo employee discount code. Best for people who want the best out of their laptop, have certain spec requirements, need a warranty, & cost is no issue.

There are 2 different “eras” of ThinkPads covered in this guide.
Classic Era – 7 Row Keyboards, Durability, & many Modding
Modern Era – Cost cutting, slimmer, internal batteries, & Edge style Keyboards
I say this based upon ThinkPad Forum’s view of ThinkPads.
The Classic Era only pertains to the keyboard, it is nothing like the original Bento Box designs or early 2000’s IBM final Hours, thats something different entirely.

Classic Era Hardware facts (mostly)

• Pentium M Dothan – T4x, X3x, X4x, R5x. DDR/2 & IDE HDDs (slow), ATI GPUs
• Core (2) Duo Yonah/Merom – Robust, 3GB DDR2 limit, symmetrical aesthetic
• Core 2 Duo Merom/Penryn – Sweet spot, last 4:3 LCD options, 8GB DDR2, nVidia
• Core 2 Duo Penryn 1066FSB  – Best battery of C2D & light, 8GB DDR3, ATI GPUs
• Intel changes the CPU names from Core 2 Duo to ‘Core’, & starts i3, i5, i7 names.
• CPUs that end with m are standard dual core, qm are quad core, xm are top shelf quadcore.
• u, lm, & um suffix CPUs are low voltage, which aren’t that powerful.
• 1st Gen Core i3 i5 i7 Arrandale – Last 16:10, W Series = QC i7 & 4 RAM slots.
• 2nd Sandy Bridge – Still kickin in 2019! Meh LCD options, USB 3.0 on select models
• 3rd Gen Core – Great eGPU perf., USB 3.0 standard, backlit 6 row keyboard option

Modern Era hardware facts (mostly)

• 4th Gen Haswell – last decent tock CPU, dreaded clickpad, IPS revival, DDR3L standard
• 5th Gen Broadwell – best price/perf, great battery, soldered CPU laptops from now on.
• 6th Gen Skylake – smol gains, SATAe/ NVMe x2 & NVMe x4 on some. Xeon workstations on high end.
• 7th Gen Kaby Lake – Skylake for cheapies, fair performance gains, DDR4, TB3 USB-C.
• 8th Gen Kaby Lake R & Ryzen 2000 – new quadcore ULV CPUs! USB-C chargers on most laptops
• 8th Gen Coffee Lake – More powerful Quad i7 CPU & SixCore Xeons, 4GB quadro standard
• Core M – Low GHz, Passive Cooling CPU for excellent battery life.
• Oof – Units with meh CPU options – AMD, Celeron, i3 or Atom…

Quick Facts

No E Series? There are quite a bit of different E Series that I was overwhelmed researching them. Some of the models have AMD processors (I believe some L series as well), & the lineage of model numbers are consistent. So in this case if you’re looking for a good price for one of these laptops, look at a similar L Series in size & generation.

Build quality & modularity – ThinkPads have long been loved for its build quality, from the original iterations with 286 CPUs, up to the Core 2 Duo models. Even back during the IBM days, features were slowly taken off & made less intricate, when Lenovo took over production, they took it to a newer level to keep these laptops sold at a profit & be competitive, otherwise these laptops would have been killed off.

Sandy Bridge ThinkPads removed some indicator lights, slightly changed the keyboard. The T420 “DankPad”, is able to have coreboot installed & can be upgraded to Ivy Bridge. Some buy these because of it being the last to use the 7 Row keyboard… internet points indeed.

Ivy Bridge ThinkPads was considered the last classic ThinkPad due to its subframe design, keyboard removal simplicity & serviceability path makes it the final laptop some buy from Lenovo from the disappointment due to the clickpad.

Haswell ThinkPads had a drastic design change that removed lid latches, a new color, thin chicony style keyboards, & unfortunately had a very annoying touchpad that removed the 3 TrackPoint buttons & was nicknamed “ClickPad”. These can be replaced with a T450 TouchPad directly, for under $25 DIY.

Can I upgrade my processor? Some models you can, but you can’t upgrade to a newer generation in most cases. T & W series from 2005 to 2013 can be upgraded, with the exception of the T430u, and slim T4xxs models. With Haswell and later models, only the T440p, T540p, W540, W541 are last ThinkPads to have a socketed CPU, enthusiasts were very disappointed by the BGA CPU path Intel force OEMs to take.

So I can put a Core 2 Quad on older models? No, these are not drop in, the T61 needs particular modifications for it to accept C2Q

X1 Carbon ThinkPads slowly shifted T and X series into thinner designs. Lenovo markets the X1C as the flagship model.

X240 & later X Series have a soldered RAM stick, & 1 RAM slot. However the RAM runs at SIMM speeds, crippling performance compared to the T Series or X1C.

All ThinkPads except for the W70x & P7x have soldered on GPUs. If you buy a ThinkPad with an removable GPU part, Lenovo has a whitelist for their video cards so you can only buy their replacement parts. Consider the alternatives if you wish to have upgrades.

Battery is not warrantied – If you see this disclaimer, it is done by MANY sellers on eBay for one good reason; people return laptops because the 5 hour battery only lasts 4 hours and 40 minutes. This is an exaggeration, but most of these sellers don’t bother finding out how long batteries can last, they’d be out of business.

Most Thinkpads can be powered by a 90W AC adapter, just buy the barrel design & you can buy a slim tip adapter for newer laptops.
Recently 2017 & later ThinkPads can be powered with a USB-C adapter unless its a workstation that requires 90W or more.

Some modding Information

The popular T61 mobo onto the T60 chassis (T601 FrankenPad) mod is a bit outdated, though there are people still upgrading them. This would become an essay if I would even cover these, so check the T61 wikia & ThinkPad Forums 🙂

51nb ThinkPads are included now! Little sales but the price is here.

T420s and T430s were able to utilize FHD IPS display when a specialized chip & cable was made to use eDP laptop screens.

T420 and T430 has this chip as well but there two versions, the original had flickering issues, but the new chip shouldn’t.

Final before we get started

EX+ Price not included. These are in the other posts.
i7 separate pricing – too much numbers 😛
Skimmed information, don’t want to overblown this page (comment if I should?)
No color coded text – Because I’m a bad wordpress engineer. ;(

Mainstream Business Standard
14″ T Series, T43 to T480

AMD Business Laptop (Cheaper T Series)
14″ A Series A475 & A485

Economy Business Entry
14″ L Series SL400 to L480

Depreciated Economy Business & Multimedia
14″ R & Z ThinkPad Series

Ultrabook & Ultraportable

Thin N Lite Business Ultrabook
14″ ThinkPad T Series, ‘s’ suffix variant

Flagship Ultrabook
14″ & 15.6″ ThinkPad X1 Carbon Series

Ultraportable Business Standard
12″ ThinkPad X Series, X32 to X280
+ 51nb mods

Ultraportable AMD Business Economy
12″ ThinkPad A Series, A275 & A285

Ultraportable Business Executive
13″ ThinkPad X300, X1 & L380

Big Size Business Standard
15″, 15.4″ & 15.6″ ThinkPad T Series
T43 to T580

Big Size Economy Business Entry
15″ & 15.6″ ThinkPad L Series, SL500 to L580

Depreciated Business & Multimedia
15.4″ Z & R ThinkPad

Workstations & Graphics

14″, 15″ & 15.4″ ‘p’ suffix variant
Classic Performance T & Z Series ThinkPads

15.4″ & 15.6″ ThinkPad W Series
Socketed CPU Workstation ThinkPad

15.6″ ThinkPad P50 Series
Modern Workstation ThinkPad

17.0″ ThinkPad W Series
Behemoth Desktop Replacement ThinkPad

17.3″ ThinkPad P70 Series
Desktop Replacement ThinkPad

Ultrabook Workstation
15.6″ P1, W & P Series ‘s’ suffix variant

Business Standard Workstation
14″ ‘P’ Variant ThinkPad T & Yoga

Tablets, Digitizers & Convertibles

Classic Swivel Tablet, Single Hinge
ThinkPad X Series & S Series

Flip Back Tablet (Digitizer Optional)
ThinkPad Yoga & X1 Yoga Series

Slate Tablet (Keyboard Removable)
ThinkPad Helix & X Tablet

Not so sought after ThinkPads

Educational & Cheap Business Mini
11″ ThinkPad X100 Series

Educational & Cheaper Business Mini
11′ 11e ThinkPad Series, No TrackPoint Hell

Sleekish Economy Business Laptop
14.1″ & 15.6″ S Series ThinkPad

Depreciated Desktop Replacement ThickPad
15″ G Series ThinkPad (No Docks lol)