Thinkpads Forum

eBay is genius.

A few years back I picked up a very lightly used T42 delivered to my doorstep for $39 including shipping. (I used one daily for business many years ago, so it was like coming home!)

It served as my wireless “couch authority”, for Netflix list adjustments, random inquiries (“Who *was* that hottie!?”), and the seasonal uTorrent collection of various Euro motorsports broadcasts not shown in the US. The ONLY thing wrong with my little black workhorse was no HDMI for direct feed into my entertainment system – so I just used a USB to play from my Blue-ray. (Occasionally files will not work. Better to have VLC on a laptop...)

Alas, the motherboard just went. (The guy even sent me an extra HD so I have Linux Mint 13 on that just to play around – so I've got two extra 60GB hard drives – and I already had an extra power brick from back in the day.) The battery lasts only 20min, but I just keep it plugged in all the time, reaching distance from the couch.

So I'm looking for more “genius”. The obvious thing to do would be to try and get another used T42, which served just fine, and in order to utilize my extra bits.

But.. I must ask the question: is there a new/better ThinkPad model that meets these requirements:

- Has the Nub – in the center of the deck (NOT to the left if center)
- HDMI out
- USB 2.0
- preferably, that I can use these two extra T42 hard drives with. I presume they will work with other models.

Doesn't have to meet all those. The Nub+1 will do.

I don't suppose I can leverage the ThinkBorg here vs. pulling up hours of spec comparisons and try to figure out the history of the thing. 14” would be nice, but whatever's cleaver.

Thanks in advance for useful information on other models that might fit the bill!

Edit:
I wonder what the earliest ThinkPad model was that has HDMI? (Read: the cheapest, that I might find used on eBay, and that does not deviate too dramatically from the T42/T60 classic look & feel.)

ThinkPads have displayports, not HDMI. There might be an Edge model with HDMI, but I can't recall one off the top of my head. Displayport is easily converted to HDMI using a cable. Some early early ThinkPad models with displayports like the X200, T400 and R500 don't do audio, so you'd need to find a solution for audio.

All the ThinkPads with displayports uses SATA hard drives, which means your T4 drives won't work. The only way to get HDMI from an older ThinkPad would be a dock. That would get you a DVI port, which can also be converted to HDMI with a cable, but DVI doesn't do audio at all so you'd again need to find a way to get audio.

The T4x units are not particularly rigid and had a higher number of GPU failures. A T60 or R60 might be a better option and not that much more money. They're more durable, you'd get a dual core CPU and access to bigger faster SATA SSDs, though you're still stuck with no HDMI unless you want to spend more money for a newer ThinkPad with a displayport.

I have a lovely Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 with Nub and HDMI port for sale.
It also has 4 USB 2.0 ports, as well as Firewire, Intel graphics and 802.11agn wifi.
This model requires SATA drives, as ZaZ already mentioned.
PM me if interested.

I'm confused about DisplayPorts, but pretty much want to avoid the issue/hardware altogether if no sound. Thank you for the info ZaZ

RealBlackStuff, you say the SL500 has HDMI. Right now I lug my new Lenovo desktop out to the livingroom, unplug the HDMI Blue-ray cable and plug it into the PC as source, and the system works great. I need the SL500 to do that, and assume it has “regular” HDMI (1080i with sound) and is not using an HDMI port/cable to push out just the video signal and such... which is apparently how the DisplayPort is being used even though the cable/protocol supports sound.

...

Note: I just now picked up another T42 on eBay for $20.50 (but without HD & brick, so perfect for my needs.) So the “couch authority” issue is solved – as far as I know – but now I'm onto this whole HDMI thing. I want a SL500 - assuming all my assumptions are correct. [..'assuming assumptions'.. some kind of infinite regress problem there.]

And what an unfortunate name (SL500). That should be reserved exclusively for the Mercedes Benz model; from the 50s through to today.

I'll PM you for details about your rig, but I looked quickly at eBay, to get a sense of pricing, and the entire first page is filled with SL500 machines that are parts-only. May I assume that model has known issues?


Edit
At the behest of RealBlackStuff (elsewhere) I picked up a SL500. HDMI solved!