Why I picked a 5 year old ThinkPad over a brand new Chromebook

I was looking for a cheap laptop for my nephew to do schoolwork on. Everyone on here was saying get a new Chromebook for $200 and call it a day. I went the other way and bought a 2019 ThinkPad T480 off eBay for $150 instead. It had a busted trackpad and the battery only holds 2 hours, but I threw in a $30 battery and a $10 replacement trackpad. Thing runs Linux like a champ and he can actually install real software on it. The Chromebook would have been useless in 2 years when it stops getting updates. This ThinkPad will outlast my truck. Has anyone else had better luck with old business laptops over cheap new ones?

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danielwhite1mo ago

Did you run into any issues getting Linux to play nice with the Thunderbolt ports or the trackpad after the swap...

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finley7771mo ago

Yeah the "play nice with the Thunderbolt ports" part is super real. I've found that's kind of how all tech is now though, everything barely works together and you gotta fiddle with it for hours. It's like how my smart TV won't talk to my soundbar without some weird hdmi arc workaround, or how my phone and laptop don't sync properly half the time. You just expect things to be janky out of the box and figure you'll spend your weekend messing with configs instead of actually using the stuff.

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