Best thinkpad for word processing and web browsing

[muhdiggashigga]

Hey, I was wondering. What is the best thinkpad for purely word processing and browsing the web? No gaming, nothing heavy on the CPU or GPU. Just word processing and internet browsing. Intend to run GNU/Linux too.
Please give me some suggestions!

[RealBlackStuff]

Any Thinkpad from T23 upwards will do.

[slangeditorial]

RBS is totally right, seems like you should make the screen size and quality your numba one priority when looking for a machine. I would go for an IPS lcd which have good color reproduction and viewing angles. lots of old models have them (watch out for yellowing) and the X220 is the newest model with one (small though). I would get a 15" UXGA T60p machine. Works great on linux too, i run #! on all of my machines without a hitch. good luck!

[pianowizard]

Hey, I was wondering. What is the best thinkpad for purely word processing and browsing the web?

Welcome to the forum! You need to give us more info. If "browsing the web" includes watching hi-def YouTube videos, you are going to need something much more powerful than the T23. Do you need a very light and mobile laptop, or are you looking for a desktop replacement that sits mostly on a desk? What's you budget? Do you want to run Windows? If you are running Windows, make sure you get a model that's capable of running Vista or newer versions because Microsoft support for XP will end in less than two years.

Assuming you want to run Windows, the oldest Thinkpads that you should consider are the T43/43p, R52, X60/60s, and any of the Z-series models. Anything that used DDR RAM (as opposed to DDR2 or DDR3) would be too old. The X41 and X41 tablet used DDR2 but their very slow hard drives severely crippled them.

[unix_joe]

T61 with Intel Graphics will run perfectly, out of the box, with any Linux or BSD distribution. This is probably the most recent laptop that will be fully supported out of the box; it was before switchable graphics and the Intel driver (at least on BSD) does not require KMS for the X3100. Get the higher resolution screen, and you can eventually max to 8GB of RAM. You can run a LTS distribution which is supported for several years without issue.

[ThinkRob]

This is probably the most recent laptop that will be fully supported out of the box; it was before switchable graphics and the Intel driver (at least on BSD) does not require KMS for the X3100.

I believe that on the Linux side of things KMS is strongly, strongly recommended if not outright required.

Thankfully, support for that generation has been quite solid for many, many releases now, so there shouldn't be any issues with KMS.

[unix_joe]

I believe that on the Linux side of things KMS is strongly, strongly recommended if not outright required.

Thankfully, support for that generation has been quite solid for many, many releases now, so there shouldn't be any issues with KMS.

Yeah, that comment was directed more at the BSD drivers. Linux will be flawless on the T61 and KMS, even with an older kernel like RHEL 6.

[RealBlackStuff]

OP hasn't bothered to comment yet... A fly-by-night visitor?

[mattbiernat]

if you gonna browse the web with flash or silverlight then I would avoid T23 since it's video card can't handle it. i would go with something like T42 minimum.

[dr_st]

Recently I've been using some P4-M machines to browse the internet (Evo N610c with 1.8GHz and Thinkpad A31p with 2.0GHz), and you can really feel their age. Almost every website causes the browser CPU usage to skyrocket, and there is so much stuttering, that websurfing stops being a pleasant experience.

Therefore I .join the suggestions to use at least a Pentium-M equipped machine.

[ZaZ]

Of course getting a T4x or R5x machine may mean GPU issues if you get one with a dedicated card. I say a R60, T60 or Z61 probably isn't that much more unless you're on a very tight budget. You'll get a dual core CPU with one of those ThinkPads and access to bigger faster hard drives/SSDs. My R60e running Linux is still a great machine for every day usage.