Thinkpads Forum

Hello guys, I'm pretty fresh on this forum

Few days ago I decide to buy laptop for 5-7 hundreds dollars, there are a lot good laptops for such money but at the last moment I've found refurbished thinkpad's laptops for 150-250 dollars, I used to play with it 3-4 years ago and I really liked it-great quality, classic and a great feeling of work-oriented laptop - "quality,reliability first of all!" - love this feeling

So in this case I decide to buy something cheap as possible

But I have some doubts about relevance of this items today, please tell me guys about everyday using it in 2016

I need laptop for studying, coding, web surfing, watching videos in high quality, I dont need something very powerful because of my powerful desktop, and Im afraid that after speedy desktop it will be annoying to use t510/t520 - what can you say about it? Is it fast enough for all my needs?

So guys first of all it is price - now on ebay I can get t510 in perfect condition( like new) for 150$ with delivery and dock station!:), I think it's a great deal, later I can replace HDD to SSD, maybe LCD to FULLHD,
also IS i5 m540 enough for later updates as FULLHD, RAM etc?What about 1st gen and 2nd gen i5? Is 2nd gen i5 on t520 really better than t510 in real using?


About other models - I dont like t530 keyboard, and especially new t540/t550 , I'll better go for asus laptops

Thank you so much for help

Sandy Bridge (i3/i5/i7 2nd gen) runs quite a bit cooler than Arrandale (1st gen) and the integrated graphics are also vastly improved. Battery life is also much improved on Sandy Bridge.

You are limited to two cores on the 14" models (unless you swap in a QC CPU on your own - but beware, throttling is likely due to heat), but the 15" models offer quad core flavors. Discrete GPUs offer a small bump in performance over the iGPU (perhaps 20-25%) but do reduce battery life. The T4/520 comes with Optimus which allows you to have both GPUs - but the driver turns off the discrete GPU when no GPU intensive applications are running to save power.

If GPU performance is a concern, look at the W520. The Quadro 2000m is roughly 3 times as powerful as the NVS4200m (the discrete chip found in T4/520) and is 3.5 times as powerful as the iGPU in Sandy Bridge. The Quadro 1000m is about 2 times and 2.5 times as powerful, respectively.

I just bought my T420. It is going to be a relevant user for a long time. I would go with a T520 with an i7 and dedicated graphics. Upgrade RAM and to an SSD in the future and you will have a beast for several more years. I would go with the T520 over the T510. it's faster and does run cooler.

theterminator93 wrote:Sandy Bridge (i3/i5/i7 2nd gen) runs quite a bit cooler than Arrandale (1st gen) and the integrated graphics are also vastly improved. Battery life is also much improved on Sandy Bridge.

You are limited to two cores on the 14" models (unless you swap in a QC CPU on your own - but beware, throttling is likely due to heat), but the 15" models offer quad core flavors. Discrete GPUs offer a small bump in performance over the iGPU (perhaps 20-25%) but do reduce battery life. The T4/520 comes with Optimus which allows you to have both GPUs - but the driver turns off the discrete GPU when no GPU intensive applications are running to save power.

If GPU performance is a concern, look at the W520. The Quadro 2000m is roughly 3 times as powerful as the NVS4200m (the discrete chip found in T4/520) and is 3.5 times as powerful as the iGPU in Sandy Bridge. The Quadro 1000m is about 2 times and 2.5 times as powerful, respectively.

The W520 is a good idea as well. Can't really go wrong with a 2nd Gen i series machine.

theterminator93 wrote:Sandy Bridge (i3/i5/i7 2nd gen) runs quite a bit cooler than Arrandale (1st gen) and the integrated graphics are also vastly improved. Battery life is also much improved on Sandy Bridge.

You are limited to two cores on the 14" models (unless you swap in a QC CPU on your own - but beware, throttling is likely due to heat), but the 15" models offer quad core flavors. Discrete GPUs offer a small bump in performance over the iGPU (perhaps 20-25%) but do reduce battery life. The T4/520 comes with Optimus which allows you to have both GPUs - but the driver turns off the discrete GPU when no GPU intensive applications are running to save power.

If GPU performance is a concern, look at the W520. The Quadro 2000m is roughly 3 times as powerful as the NVS4200m (the discrete chip found in T4/520) and is 3.5 times as powerful as the iGPU in Sandy Bridge. The Quadro 1000m is about 2 times and 2.5 times as powerful, respectively.

Great review

Guys I'm totally agree with you about all that things, but also it will be my first thinkpad, and Im not sure is it for me or not, I think I need a time to test etc(haven't anybody who own thinkpad)

Is it make a sense to buy t510, to play with it for couple weeks and sum up what I really want from it? And later I can sell it and buy w520 or upgrade t510

I really want to hear something from real T510 present users who owns this laptop

thanks for help

A T 510 presently is my main laptop. And I am very happy with mine doing similar computing needs as you envision. A W 510 would be icing on the cake, offer you a better GPU and offer you more RAM limit. Why not for the price? In nice condition, a bargain.

I have very similar uses and my T420 is way more powerful than necessary for everything I do with it.

The low voltage CPUs found in the brand new T450s are about even with the Sandy Bridge CPUs you'd get in a T520, though they do it using less power:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.ph ... &cmp[]=809

T510 should still give solid performance for standard web/email/wordProcessing for at least a couple more years. If you have the funds, a T520 would be a beter bet. The newer Sandy Bridge cpus are significantly faster, give better battery life, and have less heat output.

brchan wrote:T510 should still give solid performance for standard web/email/wordProcessing for at least a couple more years. If you have the funds, a T520 would be a beter bet. The newer Sandy Bridge cpus are significantly faster, give better battery life, and have less heat output.

I decided to buy T510 in new condition, I think this is the best idea now, will figure out what I really need from it, and it will be not a problem to sell it and buy w520

W520 is extremely solid machine, but it will more than 2.5-3 times expensive for me than T510 because of fees(150 euro free limit), pretty expensive to ship it to Ukraine and almost impossible to find it here for good price

Thank you guys for help

@Dartmoor, I'm a recent convert to ThinkPads and am very happy with my T510 (you can read my adventures here) and in a nutshell, what I have learned from the wonderful folk here is that if you can get the type number from the specific T510 from the seller, and click the link "MTM" at the top of this page, you'll see exactly the configuration that it had when it came from the factory. This is very useful in assessing how much work may have been done on it by the seller. In my case, I got it from a charity with a 12-month no-quibble refund option, but you might not be as safe elsewhere.

So, for example, when I look up mine (4349-AF5), I see that it would have originally shipped with a 320GB HDD, whereas mine had a 160GB HDD, but on the other hand mine has a better 1600x900 screen than the 1366x768 one it shipped with. Mine came with a "Windows 7 Home for refurb PC" sticker, but under the battery was the Windows 7 Pro 32 sticker, which I was able to use to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro and 64-bit.

As far as upgrades, for what you propose to use it for, 4GB should be loads, you should be able to upgrade it to Windows 10 (and then do a clean install), followed by adding either an SSD or (hybrid) SSHD -- I went for a hybrid Seagate as it still has 8GB SSD over 500GB spinning disk, felt just as fast as an SSD and was cheaper as well. The T510 can't do 6GBit/s SATA so it could never achieve the speed of modern SSDs anyway.

Only since I've seen the wonderful kit people on here have, have I become envious and looking for more .... so I'll also keep my eyes peeled for a bargain W520!

Dartmoor wrote:

brchan wrote:T510 should still give solid performance for standard web/email/wordProcessing for at least a couple more years. If you have the funds, a T520 would be a beter bet. The newer Sandy Bridge cpus are significantly faster, give better battery life, and have less heat output.

I decided to buy T510 in new condition, I think this is the best idea now, will figure out what I really need from it, and it will be not a problem to sell it and buy w520

W520 is extremely solid machine, but it will more than 2.5-3 times expensive for me than T510 because of fees(150 euro free limit), pretty expensive to ship it to Ukraine and almost impossible to find it here for good price

Thank you guys for help

I am typing on a T510 right now. It's a very solid machine with I think the best modern T series keyboard. It lacks the SATA 6.0 but with a decent SSD you should be able to get 280mb read and 230mb write speed. Mine has a 1600X900 screen. Has an i5 processor with Nvidia graphics. I can't tell much of a difference in processor speed between the T420s and T510. I think with an SSD drive you will be hard pressed to tell any difference. The T510 lacks the ability to switch between discrete graphics and integrated graphics. In your case it will always run in Nvidia graphics. The T510 will serve you well for years.

Hans Gruber wrote: I can't tell much of a difference in processor speed between the T420s and T510.

It depends on what you do with it.

the integrated graphics option in the t520/t420 is more powerful than the nvidia option in the T510 in some benchmarks.

the dual core i7 available in t520, benchmark better than the quad core option in the w510.

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after the sandybridge, Intel has been focusing on iGPU and creating low power processors, so there isn't that much improvement between generations as their was between 1st and 2nd generation of core i.

still though, .. the 1st generation is a big improvement compared to the previous generations, because it has mutli-threading.

For 2016, the new year, I think the T410/T420 and their W and T510/520 cousins are fine choices.

I have a few 410s (all 900p) and a single T420 which is middle spec. ie. i5-2520 4gb 120gb ssd 1,600 x 900 screen intel gfx. They all run Windows 7 faster than I'd ever want. I dont see much difference between the 410 i5 and the 420 i5 as far as speed goes. The 410s are especially bargains some being as cheap as $50 ex lease sans hdd. Pop in a cheap SSD and do a Windows 7 loader install and you got a cheap as hell workstation, free Win10 too. Granted I think none of these are much use over 3, maybe 4hrs at a stretch even on the 9 cell batteries?

Of course you should all be smart enough to know they dont run any games nor would I do anything super intensive on them.... ie. I loaded the 25Mb Excel sheet of the Lenovo serial numbers spec sheet and it wasnt that fast but thats over what I expect a laptop to confortably do.

IMO the T410/420 are quite visibly faster than the T400 due to the CPU and I think the faster Arrandale Sandy architecture but its not unbearable. Flipside is that the older C2D has better battery as seen in the X200 range.

Like I run my older T400 4Gb Intel GFX 900p screen SSD Windows 7 and its absolutely fine. Further to that, you'll find out the current $300-$400 new laptop with the Pentium N3540 and that kind of cpu is actually slower than a fast Core 2 Duo.

A project I may be interested in is putting a 3rd gen Ivy bridge into a T420 with the German fixed bios. However that seems to be a lot of money and futzing around to get maybe 15% better cpu. If I have a cpu intense task I rdp to my i7 desktop and farm it off there.

I have already received and used for a few days my T510, as I said I ordered it from eBay in perfect condition, as new with doc station( cool addition for thinkpad)

What I've received : pretty fast high quality solid machine, I cannot believe that I spent 150$ for such laptop

Integrated graphics are pretty weak, but that's what I expected guys,enough if you are not playing games, 1st gen i5 works really well, really fast - more than enough for all my needs

I'm pretty happy that I'm thinkpad member !;)

thank you all for help

I think Sandy Bridge is a still a highly relevant generation. I would not go farther back unless you really do rather light computing by 2016 standards. That means you really just browse the web (a few tabs at a time) and write documents. Coding is fine, but you'll be held back by significant compile times possibly. I would also avoid heavy desktop environments if you go with Arrandale.

My personal favorite of the Sandy Bridge generation is a T520 with the 2860QM, 16Gb of memory, SSD and of course the lovely FHD screen.