Modern ThinkPads are garbage

My current main (Linux) laptop is a ThinkPad T480, which I bought after Coreboot has been ported¹, to flash it with Heads². It is, in fact, the first “modern” personal ThinkPad after my trusted X230/T430 (the former with classic keyboard mod) - apart from some work laptops from various companies.

Initially I have been quite happy with the T480, as all my old ThinkPads were slowly getting unusable for modern web browser and graphics workloads. Also, on the plus side, it is almost a “classic” ThinkPad: trackpoint, Ethernet port, SD card reader and a fairly usable keyboard (although I prefer the classic keyboard).

However, slowly, problems started to arise. Foremost, the internal battery wasn’t equipped in my model (Lenovo removes it in some countries), which was annoying, but quickly solved with an order from China. After finally getting my internal battery, my external battery spontaneously decided that it wouldn’t have any of its capacity left. Good, I wrote the refurbisher an email, who quickly responded that they would send me a new battery as part of the warranty.

Battery problems solved. Some day my trackpoint buttons started acting weird. They were middle-clicking all the time without any action. Which made it impossible to work in any usable way. I started disassembling the laptop multiple times to re-seat touchpad cables, etc. Until it hit me: The trackpoint buttons are part of the keyboard assembly. So I removed the keyboard and re-seated the smaller (trackpoint) cable. Finally the ghost clicks disappeared.

The T14 (Gen 1) and L390 I have used at work both had extremely weird issues with crashes (especially when moving or slightly flexing the laptop). Which is an issue I have never experienced on older ThinkPads. The build quality of the T480, T14 and L390 is also pretty meh. The case doesn’t feel as sturdy anymore and flexes easily. Probably because the case is almost entirely made of plastic (with no magnesium reinforcements like in older ThinkPads).

In contrast, my X60S is extremely sturdy and has no issues despite being about 19 years old at this point. It is not suited for web browsing with many tabs or graphic workloads; however, it is the perfect machine to work with 9front for me. Similarly my X230, which has been quite modded in the meanwhile (classic keyboard, USB-C charging, etc.), is still perfectly usable with OpenBSD for light day-to-day tasks. I will continue to use those older machines until they die.

Rant end. My next (modern) laptop probably will be something from MNT³ (no affiliation). Modern ThinkPads are garbage.