ThinkPad Price Guide V4.1

Version 6.1 is out now.

WE skipped v5 because it was a fucking year and stitching that wouldnt of made sense…
anyways dankpads.com/tpg/ to see v6 or whatever it’s at now.

Prices reflect July thru August 2020
All are USD prices and are based off eBay sales in America.
There are always higher priced units for sale on eBay, so wait for them on auction or give some best offers.

Files to save/bookmark

Google Spreadsheet Link – Infographic & slightly more in depth sheet
PDF Link – Google Drive
Imgur Fullsize image Link
Click these above for the bottom image… because idk how to link n stuffs 🙂

This price guide is like a Kelly Blue Book for laptops, I will touch base lightly for these systems, & in-depth specs/upgrades will be separate posts. Most of this page is recycled from a previous post, but with new information added & revised recommendations thanks to price fluctuations.

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?

~ discount price thanks to being sold by surplus stores
~ much cheaper to their similar spec’d consumer counterparts
~ some of the best non-mech laptop keyboards
~ great to good durability for a laptop
~ nice battery life & linux support
~ helpful community on thinkpadforums, thinkwiki.de & lenovo supportt forum
~ 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 fairly obtainable
~ comfy bed laptop to keep you warm but not hot
~ the older it is, the stronger/durable it likely is

Where do you look for one this cheap?

• eBay, Offer Up, Gumtree
• Electronic Recyclers – EPC, Iron Mountain, & surplus vendors
• 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 come by later.

What are you looking for?

• medium sized 14″ laptop – see T400 Series, A4xx, & maybe R, Z or L Series
• slightly bigger 15.6″ laptop – see T500 Series, & L500 series if too expensive
• ultraportable (12″ & 13″) – See X Series, A2xx, and L380 series
  • cheaper & 11″ – See X100 series & 11e models
• 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
  • Low Power – P50s Series- W550s, P51s, P52s, P40 Yoga
• Ultrabook (14”) – X1 Carbon
  • Cheaper – ‘s’ T Series – T420s, T450s, etc
  • Smaller – X3xx & L3xx models
  • Workstation – P1 or X1 Extreme
• digitizer or pen support (11” to 17” ) – See X Tablets, some Yogas, P Series & W70x series with wacom palmrest
• meh – E Series i7 dual cores, T4xxi, X2xxi & L Series sometimes
• not a ThinkPad – IdeaPad, Lenovo Yoga without ThinkPad in its name

There are 2 different “eras” of ThinkPads covered in this guide.
Classic Era – 7 Row Keyboards, Durability, & much Modding
Modern Era – Cost cutting, slimmer, internal batteries, & Edge style Keyboards

Common Classic Era Hardware facts

• All these CPUs can be upgrade to their respective CPU gen, except on X Series or T-Slim units
• 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

• 4th Gen Haswell – last decent tock CPU, dreaded clickpad, IPS revival, DDR3L standard. T440p, T540p, W540 & W541
• All CPUs below are soldered & cannot be upgraded w/o BGA magic
• 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.
• AMD Pro – 7th gen competitor, cheaper but weaker
• 8th Gen Kaby Lake R – uadcore ULV CPUs! USB-C chargers on most laptops from here on out
• Ryzen Pro 2K – 8th gen competitor, cheaper & better in some cases
• 8th Gen Coffee Lake – More powerful Quad i7 CPU & SixCore Xeons, 4GB quadro standard
• Ryzen Pro 3K – 8th Gen *ice lake* competitor, cheap & bretty gud
• 10th Gen – Current top tech for 2020 systems
• Ryzen Pro 4K – 10th gen dominator, cheaper but not on higher end systems
• Core M – Low GHz, Passive Cooling CPU for excellent battery life.

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.

Battery is not warrantied – If you see this disclaimer, it is done by MANY sellers on eBay for one dumb reason; people return laptops because the 5 hour battery life may only last one. Highly rated sellers don’t bother wasting time on power testing, because they got such a variable or hectic workload, it subtracts from their sales over time. Get rid of that return reason = marginalize the market towards buyers who are far less likely to return.

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.

Most ThinkPads except for the W70x, P5x & 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, as Dell and HP workstations let you upgrade from Alienware, Asus or MSI gaming systems.

There are three prices for each model in this guide!

• 1st Low– 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 – In about the above middle mark of all sold listings (e.g. #270-300 out of 500 sold units) , my recommended price to newcomers. It can be complete & working, maybe with a warranty. Best for people who want a decent, working laptop.
• 3rd high – Systems with upgraded RAM, CPU, SSD or LCD. In some cases these are near mint condition. You can def pay much more, as in my spreadsheet I have 4th price… Good for people who want the best out of their laptop, & have certain spec requirements.

T Series – Mainstream 14″ Laptop

• T400 & later are cheap systems that gets the job done for frugal programs
• T61 & later have sub FHD dpi displays, unless you do the mod $$$
• T420 if you want to flash coreboot & ME Cleaner for security
• T430 if you want to flash ivyrain for security
• T420 & T430 added mSATA & have upped RAM limit to 16GB

• All models here have HD screens as default if not upgraded from factory
• T470 best performance for under $500
• T450 great performance/budget & price depreciation curve
• T14 AMD is a serious benchmark powerhouse for its price
• T450 dropped mSATA for m.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x2
• T450 also added FHD IPS as an option for the first time
• T480 dropped HD+ for FHD & had WQHD/1440p IPS as an option
• All AMD variants have FHD as the display limit (idk if can be upgraded)
• T490 & later have up to PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds on some models
• T14 Intel has UHD as an option, AMD version cucked still

T400s Series Slim – Ultrabook-Business

These are based off the T400 units, and have some ruggedness, unless the much more thinner X1 Carbon. However they mostly use different motherboards & batteries.

• Most systems have HD as standard and HD+ optional
• If upgrading, you’ll need the proper LVDS cable & panel to get HD+
• T430u has only an HD display, Idk if it can be upgraded
• T431s the best if u don’t care for 1 ram slot, you can upgrade to FHD
• T430s and T420s can take the FHD mod chip without issues
• T420s prob best price/performance
• These models have less battery life than their above counterparts, because of battery cell technology & shape (totally diff design)
• T400s & T410s use the 1.8″ uSATA format, & no mSATA. It’s best to buy an mSATA adapter bc uSATA have limited drive sizes & high prices
• T420s & later have SATA III & mSATA drives

• T440s has HD+ as standard & FHD IPS as optional
• T460s has FHD IPS as standard & WQHD IPS as optional
• T460s drops mSATA & has 2.5″ drive or 2280 PCIe NVME 3.0 x4
• T470s & T480s have only a 2280 PCIe NVME 3.0 x4 slot
• T470s & later use USB-C chargers
• T490s & later add a m.2 2242 @ NVMe 3.0 x2 slot alongside the 2280
• T490s add 2 FHD options, low power & a tint/privacy screen setting, the WQHD is 200 nits brighter & is Dolby Vision & 100% Adobe RGB gamut
• T495s doesn’t get the WQHD option but has all 3 FHD screens

T Series – 15″ Big Mainstream

A size up from the previous models, the systems are similar spec’d but for those who need a larger screen or better screen resolution.

• T43 & T60 are 4:3 ratio, T500 16:10, rest are 16:9
• T510 – T530 have HD, HD+ & FHD options, no IPS 🙁
• Systems start at about 20% higher price than it’s 14″ counterparts
• T520 recommended, or T500 if extremely frugal

• There is no T540, it’s just called T540p for marketing reasons
• T550 & onward have soldered CPUs
• T540p thru T560 have a 15.5″ 3K option, lid swap is the way to go if you upgrade due to different FRUs (bezel, lid, hinge screws location)
• T580 & later have FHD IPS as the standard panel
• You can get these with iGPU or dGPU, consider the W500 & P50s series if you require dGPU no matter what

X Series – 12″ & 13.3″ Ultraportable

The traditional X Series lineage, the X300 & X1 are not included here. These are a smaller version of the versatile T Series, without discrete graphics but with similar CPU power that is soldered & great keyboard feel.

12.1″ 4:3 Classic

• These are all super old and really not recommended for daily use, with the exception of the X61 maybe doing it
• These are all classic 4:3 aspect ratio 🙂
• Slightly smaller keyboard width than T Series, same layout <3
• TFT panels on all, tablet variants came with IPS (later on page)
• The prices did go up on these models, but not as much as T Series
• The X40 was a departure w/ its ULV CPU that a lot of X Series owners hated, thats why you see the X32 alongside the X41
• the ‘s’ suffix in this instance have slower ULV CPUs compared to the normal unit, e.g. X61 have 2.2GHz T7500, X61s have 1.7GHz L7500
• All screens here are XGA resolution, unless $XGA+ mod from a tablet

12.1″ Widescreen Style

• Fullsize keyboard layout, sharing the same T Series FRUs each year…
• 16:10 aspect ratio from X200 to X201s, 16:9 on X220 & later
• likewise WXGA or WXGA+ or HD screens, unless FHD 13.3″ Mod
• X230 best price/performance
• X220 was a cheaper deal, until the pandemic hit & price went up
• IPS screens optional on X220 & X230, if upgrading, buy an X230 panel
• …X230s brought back a slightly narrower keyboard & is like the T431s in that it was the new design

• These have slightly narrower keyboards than the T Series & X1 Carbons, but otherwise feel like fullsize in comparison to older X Series
• HD screens are base, but HD+ & FHD IPS displays are optional 🙂
• The A2x5 systems are essentially an AMD version of the X Series, the A prrefix was dropped but the 5 suffix was kept on later models
• best for future proffing – X270
• cheap shitposting machine – X240
• YES the X Series now has one RAM slot & then it get soldered by 2018… its similar to the slim T4xxs, so a standard T4xx is beneficial
• X280 might have 4GB of RAM soldered…. otherwise 16 or 32GB

13.3″ Form Factor

• X Series now has a 13.3″ display in the “same 12 form factor”
• All have soldered ram… 🙁 the L Series variant doesn’t tho… 😉
• Yea the systems will be called X13 Gen 1, Gen 2, G3, etc, for now
• X13 AMD is prob the best to buy, or the X395
• X390 can come with 4GB RAM, but has 8, 16 & 32GB options
• X13 versions have 8, 16, or 32GB RAM

13″ X300 & X1 – Executive Series

Remember the ThinkPad Reserve edition? Well that specialized X61 was the predecessor to Lenovo’s X1 Carbon. Could the X Series line get any sexier? Yes, well sort of. These models were originally made to go against the MacBook Air but soon fell into the Intel Ultrabook category. Lightest as possibly can be.

• Hell yea, the X300 Series, best keyboard… or the 25th Anniversary TP
• X30x have 1.8″ SATA bays, so buy a 1.8″ to mSATA adapter bc SSDs are expensive, uncommon & have lower disk size volume
• X1 NON CARBON! I think this does have some carbon in it… but it does have one DDR3 bay & has soldered ram too…
• Don’t bother buying OEM batteries, they are probably degraded from sitting on the shelf for half a decade.
• all these use the classic barrel charger 🙂

14″ X1 Carbon – Ultrabook Executive Flagship

I have a guide that is outdated in regards to price range and is missing two years… however the write up is much more in depth than here. Should I up date it? actually you don’t have to respond, no one does
X1 Carbon 2012 – 2018 buying guide
X1 Carbon 2012 – 2018 spec Google sheets spreadsheet

• X1C2 is worst keyboard… SIKE! Any E Series ThinkPad is worse tbh >:)
• These may be called X1 Carbon 3rd gen, or X1C3 depending on seller
• All systems require the rectangular “slim” power adapter
• All keyboards should come standard with a backlit keyboard, something that is optional on other thinkpads.
• X1C & X1C 2nd Gen have 900p displays as standard
• X1C2 has FHD optional & brought a 1440p IPS display
• X1C3 has FHD TN as standard, then X1C4 has FHD IPS as standard
• I think X1C 4th gen brought NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 drives
• best all around – X1C3 in the low end
• X1C4 has a slightly different design style than the others
• I owned an X1C3 1440p, I liked it okay… but the Pixel 2 I loved more

• FUCK YEA, WE USB-C CHARGERS NAO
• FUCKIN… 14″ DISPLAY IN 13″ BODY, EAT THAT SHIT DELL XPS
• SAUCE IS BUZZIN RIGHT NOWOWOW
• DRINK 10% STOUTS GENTOOMEN & SHITPOST ON X1C2
• Best All Around – X1C6, 8th gen quadcore
• Ice lake, Comet lake, I stopped caring bc Intel is shit vs RyzzzYEEE 🙂
• 5th gen brought Silver ThonkPads again, sorta like those old iSeries
• X1 Extreme not included here for better comparison w/ its P1 cousin

15″ Workstations – Classic, W500 & P50s Series

Originally they were fuckton hueg, then went smaller, then became ultrabook workstations? These basically had better graphics cards and higher standard CPU equipment, better displays & specs. Some of these models became ISV certified, so they have workstation graphics instead of the business type (but not gamer/consumer-ish).

• These models listed above are purely for nostalgic feel of a workstation, an X220 trounces these when it comes to performance
• Despite their size, G4x systems come standard w/ an iGPU, only some G41 machines come with a dGPU, check for that extra left side vent
• T60p 14″ is probably the sturdiest laptop on these entire page
• T40p systems might have an issue with finding a proper distro to run
• This isn’t a complete Workstation guide as I have skipped the lustful A3x beasts, some T4xp series & that one glimmer of hope R50p…

• W500 has ATI graphics, W510 & later went nVidia
• These systems can come with WSXGA+/900p or WUXGA/1080p screens
• 1st gen CPU doesn’t fare well vs 2nd & 3rd gen in performance these days
• These don’t have removable dGPUs, like the Precision & Elitebook rivals
• best price – W520
• Long term – W541
• These are good for photoshop & 1080p video editing, however something with a 6th gen CPU will do absolutely better if you need it done faster
• W540/1 has the 3K option similar to the T5540p

• Best Price/Performance – P51s
• All systems come with a 1080p IPS screen standard
• 3K optioned on W550s & P50s; 4K/UHD on P51s & later
• W550s – 2.5″ bay & 2242 m.2 sata
• P50s thru P52s – 2.5″ bay & 2280 PCIe 3.0 x2
• P53s & later – 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 & 2242 x2
• I believe the optional displays also have an optional touchscreen on top of that
• These are essentially T500 series machines with quadro graphics

17″ Desktop Replacement – W700 & P70 Series

Size doesn’t matter, but goddamn, wielding a 17″ laptop daily can be a daunting task. Big ass footprint, number-pad on the right and… dual fans. They are fuckin awesome, except for the GPU whitelist…

• Go big or go home, get a ds model, to have that additional 11″ screen
• With that stated… a Dell Precision M6400 or M6500 are better machines
• These machines have a significantly higher price than Precision and Elitebook competitors