TPG 5 – X1 & T14s

These are the sexy ThinkPads, so it’s a must own if you’re a… (COMMENT BELOW WHAT YOU THINK YOU SHOULD BE TO OWN ONE OF THESE)

Link to google sheets
Microsoft Excel file
PDF 12″ x 22″ ish

The google sheets file & PDF have deeper info like LCD, RAM, Storage & AC Adapter stuff. I’ve spent too much time on making an image for that, so it’s not here. yeah. Plus half the time the page looks garbo anwyays,

all prices

What makes these different to other ThinkPads?

X1 Carbon is the flagship Ultrabook
T400s & now T14s are the business ultrabook (like XPS?)
X1C deviated to it’s own line

• X1 Yoga (basically pen enabled carbon)
• X1 Extreme – dGPU 15″ X1C, basically non ISV P1 meaning GeForce, not quadro cards
• X1 Tablet – Detachable slate tablet w/ docking keyboard, superseded by the X12 Detachable.
• X1 Fold – MUH FOLDING SCREEN
• X1 Nano – Lightest ThinkPad
• X1 Titanium – Thinnest ThinkPad

Story time! We got to start at the beginning. When IBM introduced the X40, it fucked all things over. It was supposed to be the successor to the X31. The machine was way thinner, it has a ULV version of the Pentium M and had 1.8″ PATA (ipod) hard drives. However the main appeal of the X Series was a smaller T series with similar performance. The machine was disliked because of how poorly it operated, this was during the dreaded Vista era, so some users rolled back to XP. But still the 1.8″ IDE drive was slow, most drives were 4200 or 5400RPM, no 7200RPM and SSDs were crazy expensive at the time. So when IBM launched the X41, they went back & brought an update to the X31, the X32. Fucker still has the same dGPU in it too, IBM didn’t bother with that, but it put it out there, two different small machines. Also they did add an X41 tablet, this time it was a success vs the failed TransNote 🙁

So the X60 would come along to be the successor to the X32, and for those who wanted longer battery life and a slightly thinner machine, the X60s was it. Yes this is where the ‘s’ comes from, not the Cs from older ThinkPads which meant color DTSN display instead of the better TFT. Most parts were not compatible, the motherboard was different, same with the frame/bezels, battery was…. the same?, but the keyboard had a different connector as well. Until the T400, we got an ‘s’ variant with the T400s, and it did the same. Though this time, instead of having a 2.5″ HDD bay, it had a 1.8″ uSATA bay, because…

The X300 is the successor to the ThinkPad Reserve Edition, a limited run of a leather bound ThinkPad X61s sold to specific customers at Lenovo’s direction. That machine cost $5000 in 2007, while the X61s started at $1200 and was well spec’d around $2K…. The X300 was sort of an answer to the Apple MacBook Air, but the X300 was still boxy as hell. So they phased out the X301 for the T400s, & T410s, but then Intel did the “Ultrabook Initiative” at Computex in 2011. Basically not shitty versions of CULV processors like the X300/1, but something decent at a fair price. Because nobody wanted a ultraportable that was twice the price of a netbook with not the same, but still lackluster performance.

ZD Net Intel Computex

X1 stayed in a 13.3″ formfactor, however it & the T420s shared the same Sandy Bridge processor & both machines got rid of the 1.8″ uSATA for a proper 2.5″ SATAIII SSD & they also added support for an mSATA SSD. Can’t find X1 Hybrids on ebay, but it basically has a snapdragon CPU where the WWAN chip is located. On the third gen, X1 Carbon went proprietary SSD format & T430s is basically an updated T420 with the 6 row island key style, gone is the awesome 7 row keyboard, it now inherited the X1 (or Edge series) type keyboard. I’m not sure what the T430u is, but it feels like it was a budget Ultrabook, somewhere in between the E430 and T430s… All of these laptops used an LVDS cable for their LCD, and just about all of them do not have an IPS screen option.

T431s is drastically different from the T430s, it’s slimmer, the frame is integrated more into the palmrest like a MacBook, the removal of the keyboard is updated again, & the displays are connected to eDP, in which laptops can now have IPS/AFFS/WVA screens again. Blah blah blach, thats the story, don’t feel like writing any more. tbh there might be some stuff i just forgot about & will edit later.

Trusted News X1 Hybrid

Table layout

Model - Low - Mid - High - EX+ - #Sold - PSREF 

Model - Laptop name & has a link to sold eBay listings, sorted by the lowest 

Low   - Low price (not lowest), that boot to bios, & working screen & maybe at least a drive installed. An average, about 1/6th or 1/4th of the page scrolled down if its 200 or less listings sold. Most are ugly machines, untested, have damage auctions or a BIN/Offer priced to sell fast 

Mid   - Middle price of laptops, usually come with OS & AC adapter, or as-is in better spec/condition, about 1/2 of the page scrolled to maybe 3/5 

High  - High end, should be working 100%, maybe refurb, better specs & not a shady seller, maybe NOS. About 3/4 to 4/5 of the page scrolled down 

EX+   - Overpriced units, either backed by seller brand, buzzwords, warranties or hugely upgraded specs. Mostly composed of NOS, New, BNIB (buy it now), 9/10 of the page, the prices way much higher than high & not really recommended by me for a "good deal"

#Sold - How many units have been sold, so more units sold, the better availability. Generally 30 or lower is bad, because it's either too many overpriced units, or just low amount in the market. If it's 150+, you'll have a better chance getting a well spec'd machine. If it's 300+, good price heaven, you'll find deals out there, plenty of surplus sales & parts 

PSREF - Link to PSREF :)

uSATA Slim Pre-Ultrabooks 2008 – 2010

• Notes about search
• T400s – lotta parts machines, 6 seem to be with an operating system, a few linux & 2 libreboot without that T400 overprice-ness
• T410s – mostly parts machines, good amount have no drive
• T410si – None specifically found nor any i3 machines
• X300 – 6 systems fully working
• X301 – Libreboot machines in EX+

T400s is the bargain LibreBoot ThinkPad, cheaper than T400, X61, or X200. I’m assuming not many T400s were produced & the other machines seem to have article, guide & video about them, so they became the ones that were demanded. If you’re really wanting to get something this old… X301 is the one I recommend, because of it’s keyboard feel. The T410s really I don’t recommend, as even though its 16:10, there’s newer gen machines you can get that has that and the keyboard of this machine is nowhere near X301 or even close to an NMB or Alps T6x/R400.

Parts wise T400s & T410s are similar, same with X300 & X301.

Classic Style & Pre-IPS ThinkPads 2011 – 2013

• T420s – many units without drives until mid price, 20 i7 units, mostly in high/EX+, 2 at mid price
• T430s – fewer machines w/o drives, about 40+ i7 machines throughout
• T430u – only 4 units without drive/os, not really overpriced but idk HD screen & Ivy U CPU? Cheaper than a Pixel, only i7 is EX+ & 4 units with SSD in mid/high
• T431s – 2 units without drives, 4 with i7, & 13 with SSDs. all but 2 units are in ready to use order.

First off, these are not “REAL CLASSIC IBM” however the T420s, & if you mod it, T430s are the last here to have the 7 Row keyboard layout. The typing feel is a bit better, but it’s not something I’d recommend for college if you’re wanting it to last 4 years & expect it to stay on & standby for 4 classes… you’d probably need an extra battery or two. If you want something in your in your dorm, use it for writing, watching streams & have great durability, nab either of these machines. The FHD mod kit is not available for these machines, but it is for the normal T420 or T430, cost ya $50 from ThinkPan. If you want to, the T431s can get an FHD IPS panel as an upgrade. I disliked the Helix, with an i5 and 4GB RAM, 128GB mSATA SSD, but honestly it was dogshit for Krita, Lightroom & InkScape. The fucking display was beautiful, literally flawless other than the OLED shit we see nowdays, a way better improvement than my X61T and maybe my T430s… for the small screen size, it was amazing, but godfuck the clickpad shit it had & keyboard.

Parts wise, T420s & T430s share similar parts, mobos are different due to some port location/types. They have “normal” However I believe T431s, T430u, X1, & X1C don’t have anything interchangeable (other than RAM & maybe LCDs). X1 Carbon went with a proprietary SSD format, you are better off buying the mSATA adapter.

Early Ultrabooks Island Key style 2013 – 2015

• T440s – More than 50 units without drives, over 270 with SSDs, & about 180+ with i7’s.
• i7 FHD SSD ver – a lot of units from smhservices03868, sold as refurbished auctions, they even have a battery health estimation! Most units here have 180GB SSDs, plus a handful 240/250/256GB & 1 512GB, no terabyte SSD systems sold.
• T450s – 140+ without drives, 25+ with spinning rust, 275+ with SSDs and 70+ with i7s
• i7 FHD SSD ver – listers dont have keywords (FHD i7 SSD), more i7 T440s vs T450s, despite having less units generally sold (415 vs 465)
• X1C2 – l16GB RAM (except one avail with an i5??), 28 4GB & 88 8GB untis & 3 512GB. old search had “-no”, which nixed about 50 results. Funny thing is that the average prices were higher, 100, 170, 260 & 370 respectively. however i forgot this is the worst one to buy, 5 1440p screens, past mid to EX+
• X1C3 – Low end may not have SSD, big price difference from gen 2fucking shit. 130 i7s, 5 WQHD & 15 1440 (devations of 2560×1440 w/w/o space or hypen, once 1440p, thats the buzzword), 1 1TB, 2 2TB, 17 16GB machines, and finally 6 that are the best i7 16GB WQHD/1440, 2 below high price, 4 at/above it.
• Helix 2 – avail units are much more expensive, but when they actually get sold? Cheaper than Gen 1, and I think its an availability issue. 3 8GB units

Clickpad hell… T440s & X1 Carbon 2nd Gen. Idk about the latter, but the former can get a T450s swap. I liked the X1C3, I bought one as a refurb, with the 1440p display, which was overboard from what I’m used to. Yeah imma cunt, UXGA 15″ fine, WUXGA 15″ or 17″ ok, OI 2K whatever the fuck the 12.5″ Pixelbook has. im a hypocryte, but the 1440p screen was hard to see, and so was teh 1440p display from the T470p I got as well… but fucking is badass for color accuracy vs the shit they pass for some of the panels.

Partswise…. whatever I had close to each other are compatible-ish 🙂 seriously this is out of my field, the T models have m.2 sata 2230 or whatever, so its fucked for big SSD, so look for SATA 7mm drives instead for upgrades. X1C2 is the same way ish, & X1C3 has 2×4 speeds, Helix 2 im not sure, maybe 3.0 x2? All of these models are gimped becase they bring the 4GB RAM soldered as standard, borked if you go X1 or Helix, but even on the t series, ur fucked at max 12GB because they didnt ad any more or can upgrade after that.

Late Model Ultrabooks 2016 – 2018

• T460s – we all NVMe x4 SSDs now 🙂 probably 150+ with no drives, 260 with i7, and only ONE FUCKING 1440p in the title?! Nah there has to be more
• T470s all – about 100+ without Drives or OS, 300-ish i7 machines
• T470s Skylake – 70 without drives, plenty in the low, but some in mid and 5 even in high. about 80 i7 units 😀
• T470s Kaby – 56 units w/o drives, better, also 126 i7 machines, two with 1TB SSDs, then 31 w/ 512GB. Also a single WQHD listed T470s
• T480s – under 200 that have i7’s, also high chance you’ll get an 8th gen system, about 8 1TB systems, over 50 512GB listings, & 60+ systems w/ 24GB, tbh only 1 system with 20GB RAM, so sellers must be maxing the 8GB soldered systems
• X1C4 – These may be mixed with X1C5 machines, thanks to same CPUs. However 185 hits on “4th” out of 240-ish listings… 120 i7, 78 16GB, 1 1TB, 2/10 wqhd/1440p, over 35 units without SSD, up to mid price.
• X1C5 Skylake – no notes, fuck this model
• X1C5 Kaby – 7 units missing drives below low and in mid price. 70 i7 units, 33 16GB, 1 1TB, 5 512GB, 5 WQHD vs 1 1440 unit.
• X1C6 – “only” 10 units w/o drives, 130 with i7, 130 16GB, 20 1TB, 16 WQHD & 14 1440p, last one with this display. 650+ for ultimate. Only 5 units came with an i5-7300 in title… 😀
• X1 Yoga – A few “lot of” X1 Tablets in the bottom and some Titanium yoga are in here (which I ignored). 60 i7, 85 8GB, 12 16GB, 20 512GB SSD, 6 WQHD & 0 OLED…. at least in the title, those 6 WQHD might be an OLED version But I’m not going to check (because if I did so now, I will have to chech every fucking time). However I did come across one that was OLED via MTM as a cheap BIN but im not sure…
• X1Y2 – ok this and Yoga 3 results are fucked bc i was hungry and angery thanks to 2 lazyfuck dudes who are takng an extended break while women are doing the heavy lifting for them. there’s a few $1000 ‘Straya units sold by thinkbuyer… but nah too much for EX+ imo. 6 WQHD, 13 1440p, 1 OLED (2 more if that straya seller), 100 i7 units, 65-ish 16GB machines, 40-ish 512GB, 3 1 units (1 mid, 2 hi)
• X1Y3 – 70 i7, 60 16GB, 40 512GB, 15 WQHD/1440, 3 1TB, 3 w/o Drives, about 8 without OS. 1 w/o HDD & one w/o OS.
• X1 Tablet – Revised search, 7 listings instead of 4… 1 mis-titled. 415 is actually an avail listing, but otherwise all of these are obtainable BIN at these prices!
• X1T2 – avail units at Mid/high price, 1 16GB, all others are 8GB, no 4GB, all units working.
• X1T3 – 15 units on old search, 27 now 🙂
• X1 Extreme – imo what CPU is redundant, anyways 3 units with 64GB RAM which are at high/ex+ prices. nly one dGPU so really if you actually need CPU performance, nab the i7

Ye, all these have NVMe 3.0 x4 SSDs, IMO these are modern, NVMe is fucking nice and fast compared to SATA III SSD, at least when it comes to boot up times. The T460s is the cheapest “quick” machine on here, which to me is “recommended” for casual use. I’ve never flipped any of these, at this moment, X1C3, T470p & P50 are the latest ThinkPads I’ve used. So take what I say with a grain of salt, these are strictly based off PSREF & some forum crap. T480s is the last T Series S that can accept a RAM upgrade, after that its only soldered (and with less max RAM on most cases). otherwise ur fucked on the models after this on the max soldered ram, unless you want to do a mobo $$$wap…. ofc all X1 have soldered RAM, unless you go for the X1 Extreme, 2 slots and max 64GB baby! I didn’t say anything about this, but these are also the last time we can get a dGPU on the T Slim ThinkPads. T460s has it optional and T480s does too, only iGPU on the T470s types, strange they skipped that one. But from the T490s & T14s gen whatever, you can only get integrated graphics.

Current Ultrabooks & Oddities 2019 – 2021

yes this is written BEFORE 2022 thinkpads are releasec… no point of pricing them, as even if they were out, are going to be at full price.

• T490s – no WQHD sold WTF?!?!?!, 4 units w/o drives, 52 i7, 16 w/ 32GB RAM, 32 w 16GB, 4 units 1TB & 32 units with 512GB. maybe 5 of these will require work
• T495s – this machine is cucked on ram vs the regular T495 or X395. all sold units are complete, 7 units with Ryzen 7, 5 w/ 16GB RAM *max*, & only 3 with 512GB SSD
• T14s Intel G1 – No UHD/4K screens, jesus fuck. 3 w/o drives, 22 i7, 4 1tb, 25 512GB drives & 5 with 32GB RAM & 8 touchscreens 🙂 maybe 3 broken units total
• T14s AMD G1 – 1 without drive, 8 ryzen 7, 4 1TB units, 8 512GB, 2 32GB RAM units
• T14s Intel G2 – 1 wrong result,
• T14s AMD G2 – 8 1tb, BUT 2 2TB machines??, 9 32GB RAM, 9 ryzen 7… that price difference tho, buy new

• X1C7 Kaby R – about 50 i7, 45 16GB, 11 1TB, 25 512GB, 7 UHD, 5 4K, the latter two are used interchangably, so it might be more or less (and they put 2160p too…)
• X1C7 Ice – mixed with other machines,
• X1C8 – 66 i7, 50 16GB 23 UHD/4K, 20 1TB. Only 2 machines that had no drives, 2 with broken screens & maybe 5 that needed an OS install.
• X1C9 – I had 10 more results when adding “11th” but its gonna fuck up x1C11… no broken units, no unis missing drives. 100ish i7 units, 70 16GB, 20 32GB which go about 1800 & up, 44 512GB, 45 1TB & 1 2TB. bout 7 WQXGA units, but they use 4K+ or UHD+ as verbage… RIP old thinkpad lingo
• X1 Nano – high/EX+ is bothced bc this ithing is new. 20 i7 units, 22 16GB units, 9 1TB machines, over $1370

• X1 Yoga 4 All – no notes…
• X1Y4 Kaby R – EX+ is NIB, 17 i7, 9 16GB, 5 512GB, 2 1TB. 5 WQHD (of which 3 have 1440)
• X1Y4 Ice – Did my best to avoid X1C5 units, so some 4th gen machines may be missing? one 5th gen unit did come thru, so its ommited OFC> no broken or msising machines, still can get these new or refurb’d w/ warranty
• X1Y5 – wtf these are cheaper?? and they are newer? lmafo, even the high/EX+ price is pushing it haha, units avail at mid & below. 14 i7, 18 16GB, 11 512GB, 1 1TB. 35 sold but 23 shown…
• X1Y6 – 17 i7, 18 16GB, 2 32GB (EX+ ofc), 13 512GB, 8 1TB, 1 2TB. 7 WQUXGA. no broken lappies
• X1Ti Yoga – idk about these prices

• X12 D – new system, they are literally putting “400 Nits” as if it helps sales on listing titles. lmafo love it. M1 MacBook Air has the same luminescence, nvm was gonna talk shit about the X12
• X1E2 – 2 only witn 64GB…. 6 i9
• X1E3 – Forgot to write about this one, and i think about the X1E2 as well.
• X1E4 – Super new, on the available units, BIN @ 1700 is available (months ago), but goes up 1900 next result. Still new, most sales are from a seller called ellen_mouse

Last ones of the machines, all of these have soldered RAM except the Extremes. The Nano, Titanium, X12 & Fold all have smaller m.2242 sized drives. Some of the 2021 laptops have 16:10 displays, X1 Titanium is 3:2…. but that’s not 4:3 nor is it 5:4, so it’s not a “Real IBM ThinkPad tm”. Again really don’t have much to say about these. The AMD systems seem to be really nice price when you can get them.