A gift to my sister: the last Classic Thinkpad

[mikemex]

Hi folks.

My sister still had my old X301 (1.4 GHz SU9400, 8GB RAM, 64GB SSD) from around 2013 in (sporadic) use. She learned to appreciate the cute little machine and became fond of the classic keyboard and Trackpoint thanks to me. But she complained some time ago that the machine was starting to really show its age. Therefore, I decided to give her a very nice birthday gift this year.

So I got a T420si in PRISTINE condition and I fully upgraded it. Now it has 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The battery is brand new. It's not that fast; an i3 from 2011 is hardly something to write home about, but compared to her X301, it's like day and night.

So I gave it to her and said: "this may not be an expensive present at this point, but it's certainly highly valuable still. Chances are, you're virtually the only person in the whole world receiving a practically new classic Thinkpad as a birthday present. This is a great machine, they no longer make anything like it this days...". I explained her that this was the last model to have all the goodies at once: the classic keyboard, indicator lights, physical screen latches, Thinklight, removable battery, upgradeable components, magnesium chassis, docking capabilities, etc.

She agreed and is super happy with it. She's been using it mostly to edit large pictures that were problematic before.

P. S. She got a docking station (complete with keys and a spare charger) with it!

[amardeep]

Which OS is your sister running ? I have a T410s with no battery life (so it stays on mains), with a wobbly (and now cracking around the hinges) lid, just dropped the lid and fished out the docking station. It's on Windows 10 Pro, having successively upgraded from Windows 7 (no clean install here !). Works fine for browsing and general light use, until a new antivirus definition and/or Windows update rolls in, which makes the CPU hit 100% and the machine have the responsiveness of a dead slug for a while

Problems, well irritations :
* Windows Settings windows don't render well (flickering, tearing, bits missing) on the external monitor (only!). Fixed by waving a "normal" window over them to re-paint.
* Just nuked the Q: Windows 7 Lenovo recovery partition - don't see any use for it, and a full Windows Security antivirus scan thought there was a trojan in an ancient recovery .msi file, so almost certainly a false positive. But I had meant to nuke this partition for ages, so I did. I'm out of space on C: (only 5GB left), but don't yet know how to get this lovely 10GB added to C: as a Windows recovery partition is right next to C: and stops expansion.
* Sometimes I see a million Lenovo Modem-something processes in Process Explorer, and also have an assortment of Lenovo "helper" programs installed. Not sure which, if any, are useful.

I still like this machine though.

[mikemex]

Which OS is your sister running ?

Windows 10 Pro. The 420si came with Windows 7 Home, but I replaced the COA with a Windows 7 Pro. From 7 Pro to 10 Pro is a free upgrade and works every time.

I have a T410s with no battery life (so it stays on mains), with a wobbly (and now cracking around the hinges) lid, just dropped the lid and fished out the docking station. It's on Windows 10 Pro, having successively upgraded from Windows 7 (no clean install here !).

I'd normally [censored] slap you for being lazy (you only install Windows once in a blue moon, so why skimp on the hour or two it takes to do a fresh install?) but I guess, as long as it runs fine...

Works fine for browsing and general light use, until a new antivirus definition and/or Windows update rolls in, which makes the CPU hit 100% and the machine have the responsiveness of a dead slug for a while

I like Windows 7 much more than 10 and this is one of the (many) reasons. It's normal for Windows 10 to slow you down when it comes to update things. It happens on every machine.

Problems, well irritations :
* Windows Settings windows don't render well (flickering, tearing, bits missing) on the external monitor (only!). Fixed by waving a "normal" window over them to re-paint.

Sounds like a driver issue, I'm really not familiar with the first generation but like any machine before Ivy Bridge, it's supposedly unsupported in Windows 10. My sister's machine works pretty well, though; no device in the device manager lacks drivers or is marked with a yellow sign. Even the fingerprint sensor works.

* Just nuked the Q: Windows 7 Lenovo recovery partition - don't see any use for it, and a full Windows Security antivirus scan thought there was a trojan in an ancient recovery .msi file, so almost certainly a false positive. But I had meant to nuke this partition for ages, so I did. I'm out of space on C: (only 5GB left), but don't yet know how to get this lovely 10GB added to C: as a Windows recovery partition is right next to C: and stops expansion.
* Sometimes I see a million Lenovo Modem-something processes in Process Explorer, and also have an assortment of Lenovo "helper" programs installed. Not sure which, if any, are useful.

I think most of your problems come from the switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I'd stay with Windows 7 if I were you. I just installed 10 on my sister's machine because she's not really computer savvy and I won't be surpervising her, so the security risk is high. Like I said, in my own machines I still use Windows 7 and I see no immediate reason to upgrade to Windows 10. There is nothing I can do on 10 that I can't on 7 and everything just runs as intended.

I still like this machine though.

What's not to like? We're talking about premium machines that sold for thousands of dollars back when they were coming out of the factory. The performance may not be up to modern standards, but quality certainly is. And classic machines have a lot of good things more modern machines lack. To be fair, the more modern machines have a few key areas that really make a difference (like battery life or high viewing angle / high color accuracy displays) but other than that, they feel like constant regression rather than progress...

Thing is, when talking about performance, I can't help to think how astronomical it sounds to own a 32GB RAM, 1TB laptop compared to what I used to run back when I was a child. We're spoiled by constant innovation and really ungrateful about the miracle of owning a modern computer of any kind.

[dr_st]

I'd normally [censored] slap you for being lazy (you only install Windows once in a blue moon, so why skimp on the hour or two it takes to do a fresh install?)

The only advantage I can see is that an upgrade install retains your existing apps and settings. It will typically actually take LONGER to do an upgrade than a clean install, as Windows stores and transfers all the configuration, and also backs up old OS files (to support rollback). However, once completed, you (theoretically) get the new OS, with all the apps/tools you had before. I don't know how well it works between 7 and 10, as the OS are different enough. I did such an upgrade about a year and a half ago between Vista and 7, though - and it worked remarkably well.

As you said, I would generally advise against running Win10 on a *410 generation system. It's a little underpowered and has never been validated on Win10, which did not exist at the time the machines were in production.