Thinkpads Forum

How useful is a thinkpad x200 in 2022, and could programming be done on one with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD? Using Intellij specifically, or simply the JetBrain IDE line in general?

Welcome to the forum.

The CPU is the weakest link in the X200, since at best you are looking at a ~2.5GHz Core 2 Duo.

Still, I believe a high-end config, with 8GB RAM and SSD, as you mentioned, will do OK as a machine to write code on, but compilation of large projects will be slow, and applicability for testing those projects will depend on what the code actually does, and how CPU-intensive it is.

Katakuri2001 wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 4:28 am

How useful is a thinkpad x200 in 2022, and could programming be done on one with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD? Using Intellij specifically, or simply the JetBrain IDE line in general?

Old machine with new Jetbrain IDE will be slow. I always use VS Code on older machine as old as sandy bridge mov backward til pentium, or I will use VIM+COC.NVIM for code on it. You can ease the burden or slowness by not using new windows 10, but using Linux, and the lightweight one, like distro with LXDE or XFCE (now XFCE start to bloat, for my taste), or i3wm. then it will survive. If not, forget about it. You can use Windows Vista or Windows 7, but X200 designed to run on Vista, so I don't ask too much if you really ask using intelij IDE.

anyway VIM and COC is good in many cases on low powered CPU laptop. Choose wisely!

* I'm a professional developer, and uni lecturer, specific in software development. If you still not convinced on my explanation, took it as a grain of salt in the ocean. this is internet so, you can't trust anyone, hehe.

X200 could be fine but certainly the X201 which has the Core i processors would work better.

Just "upgraded" my x200t to an x201t, had lv core2 duo, now had i5 (2 core) with ht. Very noticable speed difference.
(couldn't buy a CPU fan in the USA for less than the machine was worth, but a new "tested" MB/lower case was cheap)

An ssd makes a huge difference on older machines, I stuck my old 64gb samsung SSD that came with my X300 and stuck it in an old gobook3
(Pentium M 1.8ghz dothan) even on PATA adapter it made the machine reasonably usable running KDE 5 on Linux...

I have yet to find a "lighter" Linux desktop that is any faster or use less memory than KDE5, and most border on usable.
(My Year of Linux on the Desktop was 1993...on my Amiga.)

x200 are *very* slow, you would be much better off with a x201/x201s. x200 running a modern IDE of any sort I expect to be painful.

If you have a x200s you could buy a x201 and swap the screen to obtain a frankenpad x201s on the cheap.