My new/used laptop

[Harold Mansfield]

We get the occasional post asking for recommendations of new computers so I thought I'd share my recent experience.

I was looking for something used that I could run Linux on and take a few online pentesting courses.

After looking around for over a month, and watching a ton of videos on it... I finally fell in love with the Lenovo Thinkpad line. They aren't flashy, they're just solidly built business laptops.
Ended up getting used Lenovo Thinkpad T430 (https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkpad-t430/specs/) (14") Core I5-3320M 2.6GHZ 8GB DDR3 (up gradable to 16G) 240GB SSD Windows 10, for $190 off of eBay. The only stated issue was slight wear and it had no power cord.

So based on the rating of the seller and product images I took a chance, expecting to replace the palm rest, and keyboard ( with the back lit one), and of course buy the power cord. ($20). You can also add the 9-cell battery which many say they get 15 hours from.

It ended up being much better condition that I expected, and the only upgrades I made was adding a 128G SSD in the DVD slot ( with a $16 adapter), installed Linux on that and it now dual boots Windows and Linux. (Dual boot SSD's on a 14" laptop!!!!)
I also like that you can snatch out the hard drive on the fly. Pretty cool feature for traveling if you don't want customs going through your stuff.

It's not going to do any major gaming or 4k video editing comfortably. It's just not that kind of machine. But for what I use it for, it's perfect. It's not ultra thin, but it's thinner than my old Toshiba Laptop.

This is the first laptop that I've loved. In the past I've had new Toshiba's (a ton of bloatware), HP's (not bad, pricey for the specs) and a Dell (Meh).
Stock specs on "affordable" laptops are a joke and they know it. As cheap as RAM is, I don't understand why they keep selling "business computers' or "Desktop replacements" with only 4G RAM

This one works flawlessly and it's built like a tank. Some people don't like the new style keyboard in this line (like on the T420's (https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkpad-t420/)) , but I never used the old one so I don't know the difference. I did see a guy on You Tube put a T420 keyboard on a T430. Couple of keys didn't work. Not worth it to me.

I could honestly see myself buying another if I could find close to the same specs for around the same price, or I've been looking at refurbished T440's and T450's ( no optical drive, much thinner, i7's) . I'm also a little hooked on buying used or refurbished since they're not really my main computer, but I do plan on using them as work tools.

All spent, (Including $5 for a skin that I got thinking there would be scratches on the top) about $284. I can't even get a decent 4G Ram Chromebook for that.

If anyone else is looking and not wanting to spend an arm and a leg, these are pretty good machines. And since they were widely used in government and business leases, there are quite a few out there, as well as parts.

[Arsudar]

Among Toshiba, HP, and Dell, I consider HP to be the best among the three despite expensive price. I haven't use Toshiba before so can't really give opinion about it. HP is decent in overall but it seems to have heating issue, during winter my HP is like a warming machine but in summer, it's kinda hell machine. Recently I'm trying Dell and I think it's best for office work (typing, writing, web browsing), but for other purposes, I don't trust it.

[WarrenD]

If anyone else is looking and not wanting to spend an arm and a leg, these are pretty good machines

I did spend an arm and a leg on my mac, but I bought it 5 years ago. It's still going strong and I can probably make it last for another couple of years. So cost wise it'll probably work out the same as a PC. I'm not an apple fanatic by any means, but I find their machines easy to use - you get a major OS update once a year & it gets installed on your mac without any hassles. Good for a less tech savvy guy like me!

[Harold Mansfield]

I did spend an arm and a leg on my mac, but I bought it 5 years ago. It's still going strong and I can probably make it last for another couple of years. So cost wise it'll probably work out the same as a PC. I'm not an apple fanatic by any means, but I find their machines easy to use - you get a major OS update once a year & it gets installed on your mac without any hassles. Good for a less tech savvy guy like me!

I watched WWDC last week and saw that they have some new models. Man, they do hit the pocket pretty hard, but it looks like Apple is finally getting serious about power outside of the trashcan Mac which they haven't touched in years. Also still don't understand that touch bar thing..or why they refuse to make a touch screen laptop. I mean they're the ones who main streamed touch screens, now it's like they hate it. Not in the Apple ecosystem, but they do make fine machines. Will you upgrade?

[WarrenD]

I watched WWDC last week and saw that they have some new models. Man, they do hit the pocket pretty hard, but it looks like Apple is finally getting serious about power outside of the trashcan Mac which they haven't touched in years. Also still don't understand that touch bar thing..or why they refuse to make a touch screen laptop. I mean they're the ones who main streamed touch screens, now it's like they hate it. Not in the Apple ecosystem, but they do make fine machines. Will you upgrade?

No, I won't upgrade. It's too expensive & besides, things like touch bar etc don't really matter to me. I just need a good machine that gives me trouble free usage & makes the clients go wow! whenever I make a presentation. Like you said, these are fine machines, eye pullers in fact! Having said that, what I hate is slow machines. Right now this one's running fine. When it does slow down, that will be the time I'll upgrade.

[billbenson]

I can't comment on the hardware, although only some hardware works with Linux. Also, the dual boot may give you issues down the road. I've done it and had problems down the line.

I think Linux is a superior OS. That being said, after having used it for years, there isn't that much help online if you need it. I would only recommend it to someone who has a Linux expert in the cubicle next to them.

I'm probably going to go back to windows shortly. There are things like ISP tech support won't help with linux. Also some very big sites don't support it. D & B for one.

[Harold Mansfield]

I can't comment on the hardware, although only some hardware works with Linux. Also, the dual boot may give you issues down the road. I've done it and had problems down the line.

Compared to my experience with Windows, I'm definitely a noob with Linux. Like I said, I watched a lot of You Tube videos over the last couple of months trying to determine which would hold up better as a used or refurb. Then I ran across this college kid who refurbs used computers and equipment that he finds from liquidations, garage sales, eBay and puts Ubuntu Mate on all of them and they work great. He did a few on older model Thinkpads and put some upgrades on them...one thing lead to another and I zeroed in on this specific model that checked all the boxes for me. If there's a Lenovo Thinkpad T420, T430, T440, or T450 video anywhere on You Tube, I've seen it.

I can honestly say everything runs pretty smooth. No glitches, hiccups, stalls. Boots up to either PDQ, takes like 30 seconds to switch between OS's. For $280 I really can't complain. It works better than new laptops I've paid more for, and at this cost It's damn near disposable.
I'm actually thinking about getting another one, the next model up (T440s).

As for dual boot, I've been doing that for a while now, and do it on my desktop, Windows 10 on an SSD/Fedora on an HDD and no issues.

Where I was having issues was trying to run Linux in Virtual Box. That sucked and crashed my Windows TWICE on this desktop and crashed my old desktop before that. Probably not meant for SSD's. I don't know. But I gave it the old college try and I'm never putting that or VM Ware or anything like it on any of my machines again.

I know people use Virtual Box to test, but I'd rather skip the frustration and just test on old machines.


I think Linux is a superior OS. That being said, after having used it for years, there isn't that much help online if you need it. I would only recommend it to someone who has a Linux expert in the cubicle next to them.

I can see that. A lot of people swear by their favorite distro. I like Kali and Parrot for the security software. Fedora is OK, but I'll probably always keep a Windows machine as my main machine simply because it's what I need for work and I know it well and it's what offices use.


I'm probably going to go back to windows shortly. There are things like ISP tech support won't help with linux. Also some very big sites don't support it. D & B for one.

I don't know about support other than Linux forums, but in my case for learning there's a ton of resources now. I'm in between a class that uses Fedora and following little tutorials in Kali. I'm pretty happy that I'm learning it so far.

[billbenson]

I don't know about support other than Linux forums, but in my case for learning there's a ton of resources now. I'm in between a class that uses Fedora and following little tutorials in Kali. I'm pretty happy that I'm learning it so far.

I'm not referring to forums here. There are sites that will only work with windows. There are work arounds. Also you have both systems. Still it can get confusing to remember what was on which machine or backup.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm so thrilled with this refurbished laptop that I'm getting another one. Saw some lots from businesses leases of the X1 Carbon that don't have hard drives, no OS, good price. That's perfect since I don't need another windows machine anyway, and was planning on putting an SSD in it anyway.

[Gravity]

I use xidax.com for my business laptop. Can't beat the price for the quality AND 2 year warranty.