Laptop collectors: if you're allowed to collect just one laptop, which one would it be?

[pianowizard]

This thread is for laptop collectors. My question is, if you were allowed to collect just one laptop, which one would it be? It can be a laptop you already have in your collection, or one that you used to have, or one that you wish you had. It can also be any brand, not just Thinkpad. And it's a laptop that you collect, not one that you consider to be your workhorse, although it's okay if it works and you power it up now and then (e.g. to play an old DOS game).

Though I stopped collecting laptops a while ago, I recently toyed with the idea of buying a >10-year-old laptop as a collectible. What happened is, I suddenly remembered that I have a 250GB PATA laptop hard drive lying around, and thought "wouldn't it be nice if I can get a PATA-era laptop for it?" I started thinking back on all the laptops I once had, to see which ones I missed the most. The first Thinkpad that came to mind was the iSeries 1124 with 10.4" 1024x768 and 500MHz Pentium III. A non-Thinkpad that I was very fond of was a Dell Inspiron 700m with 1.6GHz Pentium M. I wouldn't mind collecting either of these, but for variety and slightly better performance, I would prefer the Thinkpad 240Z with 600MHz Pentium III and an Ethernet port that actually works, and the Dell Inspiron 710m with at least 2GHz Pentium M.

[ajkula66]

A31p.

Not that this response coming from silly old me should surprise anyone...

[Neil]

I think I'd have to say A31p also. I've owned two or three of them in the past, but no longer have one. I do, however, still have an A30p which in some ways is just as good. But mine has a defective GPU, so it's not very useful, but I suppose that doesn't matter so much for a collectible.

[Thinkpad4by3]

AST Powerexec 4/33SL with AA battery adapter.

Active Matrix laptop with a trackball powered by 12AA batteries.

That, maybe an Olivetti Quaderno 33, HP Omnibook of some kind, the 4/5/6 series machines.

[MikalE]

W520 with all options.

[TonyJZX]

Probably a Intel gfx T420s w/ whitelist and at least 8Gb ram and an ssd.

Maybe an ultrabay hdd adapter plus your choice of msata ssd if you so wish.

Or maybe a T430 w/ the classic kbd upgrade.

The very end of the line or just past it.

I feel like a laptop should be reasonably usable... like if you have a 701c w/ the amazing butterfly kdb its really a museum piece, I mean it literally is.

[TonyJZX]

Another way to go is that of a fairly recent Lenovo tablet.

I have an x201 tablet and its quite nice. I feel like the x220 is let down by the 768p screen.

So that leaves the x200 tablet which is a fine enough machine given it has a usuable SL9400/9600 cpu and an 800p screen.

Would be nice but they are rare as the hen's teeth here, maybe more common in the US.

I really like my 201 but its not an energy efficient or compact unit.

[Screamer]

Seems to be mostly IBM or Lenovo here, I thought there were more in variety for collectibles? Either way, here is my list (one choice, not all of them):

Acer Aspire 9920G, a 20.1" 16:10 laptop that strangely had notebook-like specifications. That should not be the case for something that weighs 8 kg/17.7 lbs.

Clevo M590KE, another 20.1" 16:10 laptop that had the best specifications in a laptop for its time. Apart from the horrid Turion it has...

LG X-note S900, a 19" 16:10 laptop that is apparently similar to the 9920G. Has quite a big range of price tags to pick, from budget to high-end I believe.

HP Pavilion ZD8000, a 17" 16:10 laptop with the LGA775 socket and was not produced by Clevo. This particular machine had a lot of graphics chip cooling issues.

Toshiba Satellite P25, a 17" 16:10 laptop that was one of the normal machines you would find back in the days with a desktop Pentium 4 HT. Great sound quality though.

Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation, a 17" 16:10 laptop with a UltraSPARC llli. Probably one of the first modern SPARC-powered laptops I have ever seen in circulation.

Lenovo ThinkPad SL510, a 15.6" 16:9 laptop that is just here for the sake of brand 'loyalty', as I would like to put it. Honestly, I like the speaker placement of this particular model.

Elonex Soliton Plus, a 14.1" 4:3 laptop that came with the extremely uncommon PGA615 socket. It had the fastest Pentium II with paired with a Mobility Rage at that time.

Xentex Flip-pad Voyager, a dual-screened 13.3" 4:3 laptop that was capable of folding itself to a slightly more compact size. It never got out to mass-production, but there was a prototype.

Apple iBook G3 466/SE, a 12.1" 4:3 laptop with a very strange case design that I liked a lot. The carrying handle is also a nice addition, too.

Fujitsu LifeBook UH900, a 5.6" 16:10 laptop that was most likely the fastest in its class. Very light and small, but of course has the screen that strains the eye a lot.

UMID mbook SE, a 4.8" 16:10 laptop that is even smaller than the UH900. Lighter and more compact, but it was hindered greatly by the horrid specifications it had.

Zipit Z2, a 2.8" 4:3 laptop that is EVEN smaller than the UH900 or the mbook SE. A fun laptop to use if anyone with a decent amount of knowledge with Linux modifies it.

[ajkula66]

Seems to be mostly IBM or Lenovo here, I thought there were more in variety for collectibles? Either way, here is my list (one choice, not all of them):

I've got to give it to you, there are machines on that list that I've never heard of, let alone anything else...

[Hierax_ca]

Tough choice, so many good ones...

32-bit/IBM: A31p.

64-bit/Lenovo: tie: W701ds or x61t sxga+

[TonyJZX]

The Asus Taichi would be an interesting unit if you like evolutionary dead ends.

It was also a support nightmare given that they didnt take to the win8.0 -> 8.1 upgrade.

I wonder how they operate under Win10.

[wujstefan]

701c

However, a part of me yells A31p. On the other hand, a R61i is pretty similar, and if you put a R500 motherboard inside it still holds the pace, so nothing collectible (yet).

[tdot]

701c

However, a part of me yells A31p. On the other hand, a R61i is pretty similar, and if you put a R500 motherboard inside it still holds the pace, so nothing collectible (yet).

I'm curious why everyone loves the A31p so much ... maybe I should buy one and see

I saw some modern units on the list ... but that's highly dependent on the intention of the question. If you're allowed to 'collect' one laptop, I'd assume that means you're also allowed a modern laptop for work. Otherwise just go with a maxed out P series and emulate the rest.

Have a 701c and while it's cool, it's a little before my time. It's a nice collection piece, but it won't play a lot of my mid 90s favorites.

I'm going to have to go with the A22m, my first and favorite (still) ThinkPad. Why? Mostly because it runs all my nostalgic 90s games.

Guess I'm pragmatic, the ones I collect I actually expect to do something with

[dr_st]

I'm curious why everyone loves the A31p so much ... maybe I should buy one and see

7 years ago I was wondering the same thing, so I went out and bought one from ajkula66. You can read my thoughts about this A31p here.

I guess it is just because the A31p was the top-of-the-line model of a class of machines (Thinkpad workstations) that in some sense went extinct after it, or at least disappeared for a while during the IBM era. You might say that Lenovo's W and later P series Thinkpads are the same category, but these came much later.

I do agree that the A2* series may be better for DOS games in pure DOS, as we discussed in that other thread. The A3* series use AD1881A, which provides SBPro compatibility in its Windows drivers, but has no pure DOS driver, as far as I could see.

[TonyJZX]

The A31 is slightly before my time... I feel that being a P4M machine it'll be overlooked by many and further, with the reputation at the time, many would have ended up in landfill in China.

I went from the T20/23 straight to the T40/43.

I'm quite fond of the T40 class but I also have a HP Business laptop of the same age and it too is very thin and light for a 14" - there must have been something in the water at that time that made the T40-43 era very compact... that Dothan to Banias to Sonoma etc. class.

Granted I have no Dell of that era...

I'm sort of wondering what one does with a 1gb P4M class machine even with a 1,200p screen.

You could run Win2000 on it - I ran that for ages in business and even NT4.

[GrifterGuru]

If I could only have one? I would have none.

No point in having something that reminds you of something that you once had, but can never have.

[tdot]

I'm sort of wondering what one does with a 1gb P4M class machine even with a 1,200p screen.

You could run Win2000 on it - I ran that for ages in business and even NT4.

I'm not sure either TBH. Realistically, just about anything that will work on 2000/XP will work fine on Win10. Plus as said above, I don't think that generation (P4) will run DOS games properly. You can use it for a real floppy drive maybe (USB floppies can't read non DOS formatted disks)? I'm curious if the A31 even shipped with Win9x?

I even wonder what one does with a T601. I built one to see if it's still viable as a work machine, but it's hardly still viable as a 'simple task' machine. Even with an SSD, Win10 is dreadfully slow, and most modern web pages filled with scripts lag the system (even gmail is laggy), and it can hardly play back 720p YouTube ... beautiful laptop, and a perfect screen, but just too far gone to be a useful machine these days IMO.

Then again, I think most people who collect do so for other reasons than having a useful purpose

[ajkula66]

I'm not sure either TBH. Realistically, just about anything that will work on 2000/XP will work fine on Win10.

No it will not. There's a boatload of proprietary software where the compatibility was broken either in W8.x or W10.

I'm curious if the A31 even shipped with Win9x?

I don't believe so.

I even wonder what one does with a T601. I built one to see if it's still viable as a work machine, but it's hardly still viable as a 'simple task' machine. Even with an SSD, Win10 is dreadfully slow, and most modern web pages filled with scripts lag the system (even gmail is laggy), and it can hardly play back 720p YouTube ... beautiful laptop, and a perfect screen, but just too far gone to be a useful machine these days IMO.

I would argue that this is a matter of setup, not anything else. As a "basic daily driver", the *61 platform still works just fine in W7. For how long is anyone's guess.

[TonyJZX]

Yeah there's two different mindsets... eg. I love the T40-43 series however a single core laptop with say 2gb and whatever ancient Intel GFX is not a usable machine to me in any o/s given today's workload.

HOwever if you want to put a machine on a pedestal and run a 'period' o/s as a collector then its a great unit. The A31 and 701c and all those classics beiong here.

My last T61 which is a 4gb Nivida P9500 120GB ssd 900p Win7 machine. It runs Win7 quite well but I remember using this machine back in 2010-11 etc and although it worked better then I dont want to use it now as I have much better machines.

So the topic is, what do you want to collect? Not quite what you want to collect AND use for today's workload.

To me the widescreen T61 w/ middleton and all the upgrades is the grandfather of the modern system. It is collectable, if your Quadro is still working.

[shawross]

For me it would be my T42 , but as pointed out by "pianowizard" this doesn't include your workhorse laptops.

It just happens my workhorse laptops are X220, X201, X301 and X61 so I would still have basically the same thinkpads.

The A31 is OK but it is a bit bulky for my liking compared to the T42 which also runs cooler.

[mpcook]

As a collectible, the ONE I would want (and I still would love to have) is a ThinkPad 500 which was my first ThinkPad. It was also, I believe, the first ThinkPad "notebook" meaning it was small.

[Thinkpad4by3]

As a collectible, the ONE I would want (and I still would love to have) is a ThinkPad 500 which was my first ThinkPad. It was also, I believe, the first ThinkPad "notebook" meaning it was small.

There's one on eBay right now

[mpcook]

As a collectible, the ONE I would want (and I still would love to have) is a ThinkPad 500 which was my first ThinkPad. It was also, I believe, the first ThinkPad "notebook" meaning it was small.

There's one on eBay right now

Arggghhh! Don't tempt me!

[jdrou]

No it will not. There's a boatload of proprietary software where the compatibility was broken either in W8.x or W10.

Not to mention the fact that Win10 is locked out from CPUs that don't have specific features not required by Win2k or XP.

[kfzhu1229]

I even wonder what one does with a T601. I built one to see if it's still viable as a work machine, but it's hardly still viable as a 'simple task' machine. Even with an SSD, Win10 is dreadfully slow, and most modern web pages filled with scripts lag the system (even gmail is laggy), and it can hardly play back 720p YouTube ... beautiful laptop, and a perfect screen, but just too far gone to be a useful machine these days IMO.

I am seeing this on a T43p running Windows 10 (1607, 14393, as later versions have problems with the ATI card inside this thing) and I still have not much complaints about it. YouTube does have problems now with this computer only very recently when they switched from the red interface to the white one, and gmail is now slow but I use the Windows 10 stock mail app for that and problem solved.
Mainly using mine for PDF reading and *some* typing work thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio (much better for things like textbooks) and superior keyboard compared to my newer T530i. After sticking in a brand new aftermarket battery, I don't have much complaints about how the T43p is atm.
To answer the question, if I were allowed to collect just one laptop outside my main T530i laptop, the T43p would be it for reasons above.

[pianowizard]

Seems to be mostly IBM or Lenovo here, I thought there were more in variety for collectibles? Either way, here is my list (one choice, not all of them):

That's an impressive list of mostly very unique laptops, but if you can pick only one which one would it be?

Acer Aspire 9920G, a 20.1" 16:10 laptop that strangely had notebook-like specifications. That should not be the case for something that weighs 8 kg/17.7 lbs.

Clevo M590KE, another 20.1" 16:10 laptop that had the best specifications in a laptop for its time. Apart from the horrid Turion it has...

I remember these. They were the true mobile workstations, unlike the "mobile workstations" that are only 15.4" or 15.6". Too bad back then the highest resolution for widescreen 20" LCD panels was only 1680x1050. If someone resurrects this form factor today, it would have 3840x2160, which would be perfect for a 20" laptop. And it would almost certainly be lighter as well, like 10 lb.

Fujitsu LifeBook UH900, a 5.6" 16:10 laptop that was most likely the fastest in its class. Very light and small, but of course has the screen that strains the eye a lot.

Somehow I was very attracted to Toshiba's equivalents, namely the Libretto series. But I ended up getting Sony's P series, which was also pocketable.

I'm curious why everyone loves the A31p so much ... maybe I should buy one and see

I had one for several weeks and didn't care for it. Fortunately I was able to sell it at about the same price that I had paid.

[tdot]

I am seeing this on a T43p running Windows 10 (1607, 14393, as later versions have problems with the ATI card inside this thing) and I still have not much complaints about it. YouTube does have problems now with this computer only very recently when they switched from the red interface to the white one, and gmail is now slow but I use the Windows 10 stock mail app for that and problem solved.
Mainly using mine for PDF reading and *some* typing work thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio (much better for things like textbooks) and superior keyboard compared to my newer T530i. After sticking in a brand new aftermarket battery, I don't have much complaints about how the T43p is atm.
To answer the question, if I were allowed to collect just one laptop outside my main T530i laptop, the T43p would be it for reasons above.

Maybe I just like to complain but for me, "slow" is not acceptable on a work machine. If it's a collectors item or something like an A22m that I'm running Win9x for games on, "slow" is fine - but not for something I'm attempting to work on.

If word processing is all you do, maybe you can be fine with a T43/T601. But, IMO it's just not suitable for modern web - which is pretty much a requirement for anything these days. Sure, you can 'work around' things, but that means there is an issue with the machine that needs to be worked around. I have a hard time believing a T601 would even be okay for simple and basic home user tasks these days such as Netflix. Again, I can't do 720p YouTube without frame skip on a T601. I'm pretty sure 1080p YouTube is a requirement for any *device* to be called modern - as any $100 Chinese tablets and any modern smartphone can handle it. The T601 can't. I'm not saying it can't be useful for some people - but I'm pretty sure for the vast majority, it's just too outdated.

Quite a few modern pages with a lot of styling/scripts can even lag on the i7-7700HQ in this MacBook pro (though it does push 2880x1800) - and I personally find that level of performance unacceptable for a business laptop. If I'm not truly okay with an i7 7700, I'm definitely not going to be okay with a Core2 duo.

[ajkula66]

I have a hard time believing a T601 would even be okay for simple and basic home user tasks these days such as Netflix. Again, I can't do 720p YouTube without frame skip on a T601. I'm pretty sure 1080p YouTube is a requirement for any *device* to be called modern - as any $100 Chinese tablets and any modern smartphone can handle it. The T601 can't. I'm not saying it can't be useful for some people - but I'm pretty sure for the vast majority, it's just too outdated.

Ugh.

I can pretty much guarantee that you'll find dozens of folks running *61 platform around here who will testify that neither Netflix nor 720p YT are a problem within W7 realm on a *properly set* system.

[Thinkpad4by3]

I have a hard time believing a T601 would even be okay for simple and basic home user tasks these days such as Netflix. Again, I can't do 720p YouTube without frame skip on a T601. I'm pretty sure 1080p YouTube is a requirement for any *device* to be called modern - as any $100 Chinese tablets and any modern smartphone can handle it. The T601 can't. I'm not saying it can't be useful for some people - but I'm pretty sure for the vast majority, it's just too outdated.

My T450 with a i5-5300U can't play 720p YouTube right because YouTube as a platform sucks. It isn't the T601 fault so stop blaming it. I've seen very nice playback from both my X301 SU9600 and X61s L7500 which are total garbage compared to the T601.

Ugh.

I can pretty much guarantee that you'll find dozens of folks running *61 platform around here who will testify that neither Netflix nor 720p YT are a problem within W7 realm on a *properly set* system.

+1
My W700(more or less a T601) is still alive and kicking. YouTube at 1080p is no hassle.

[TPFanatic]

My T500 can do Youtube 720 60 and 1080 30, but 1080 60 is a slideshow. Luckily I have the Youtube Plus addon to do 30 fps instead of 60, the Greasemonkey old youtube script, or I just watch the 720 version. I am using the T430 more and more now, though.

That said if I were to collect one laptop... it'd be a T500 modded with QX9300 and a very bright LED WUXGA.