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So you want to get a used Th​i​nk​Pad​? 


2005 - 2018 MegaList ​V0.10 12/26/2018 created by ​xsauc !!rCUKADYmg0+ (saucey#1307)

You are ​not​ getting a good deal if you buy a ​new​ ThinkPad.
Used business laptops are cheap because companies send off laptops for tax write offs. ThinkPads would flood the market, so some resellers
started a trend with auctioning them off at 99 cents & others then started to undercut competitors.

Why choose a ThinkPad? What are you looking for? 


~ really cheap when buying used or as is ~ a​ medium sized laptop​ (13” to 15.6”) - see T Series, A4xx, & ​maybe​ R, Z or L Series 
~ spill proof keyboard (mostly til 2015) ~ an ​ultraportable​ (11” & 12.5”) - See X Series, A2xx & ​maybe​ 11e 
~ best non-mech keyboards to type on ~ ​digitizer​ or ​pen​ ​support​ (11” to 17” ) - See X Tablets, Helix, Yogas & some W70x 
~ great to good durability ~ a ​workstation​ (14” to 17”) - See W Series, P Series, Txx​p​ & late T4xx​p 
~ nice battery life & linux support ~ an ​ultrabook​ (14”) - See T4xx​s​, X1 Carbon & P5x​s 
~ helpful community worldwide  ~ a ​bad decision​ - E Series, IdeaPads, i7 dualcores over quad, T4xx​i​, X2xx​i​ & new ebay sellers 

~ efficient pointing device called the TrackPoint Where do you look for one this cheap? 
~ Ultrabay - replace that DVD drive with a battery, eBay, Offer Up, Craigslist, Electronic Recyclers, & r/thinkpadsforsale 
or a bootable HDD caddy Don’t buy ThinkPads with BIOS passwords or not powered on 
~ ThinkLight - An LED on top of the display that shines  
Light on your keyboard (mostly until 2015) There are three prices for each model in this guide! 
~ classic design - deters thieves from stealing them first 1st​- Great deal if fully, but mostly fixer uppers (needs more $$ parts) 
~ mostly well kept due to being in a business environment 2nd - Mid/high average, recommended price. It can be complete & working  
~ service manuals readily available & parts obtainable but may require a battery (since sellers don’t warranty them).  
~ comfy bed laptop to keep you warm but not hot 3rd - max recommended limit; best be top spec’d, mint, & excellent battery. 
~ anime bios splash screens for maximum OWO & UWU These include new priced units w/ warranties or Lenovo employee discount. 
 
This guide will brisk most ThinkPads built from 2005 to 2018 & will be price updated every four months. 
What makes ThinkPads fun to have is the upgrading & modding paths you can discover. Search the market for a week before pulling the trigger. 
 
Classic Era - 7 Row Keyboards, Durability, & ​Modding Modern Era - Cost cutting, slimmer, internal batteries, & Edge style Keyboards 
Pentium M Dothan - T4x, X3x, X4x, R5x. DDR/2 & IDE HDDs (slow), ATI GPUs 4th Haswell - last decent ​tock​ CPU, dreaded clickpad, IPS revival, DDR3L standard 
Core (2) Duo Yonah/Merom - Robust, 3GB DDR2 limit, symmetrical aesthetic 5th Broadwell - best price/perf, great battery, soldered CPU laptops from now on. 
Core 2 Duo Merom/Penryn - Sweet spot, last 4:3 LCD options, 8GB DDR2, nVidia 6th Skylake - smol gains, SATAe/ NVMe x2 & NVMe x4 on some. Xeon workstations. 
Core 2 Duo Penryn 1066FSB - Best battery of C2D & light, 8GB DDR3, ATI GPUs 7th Kaby Lake - Skylake for cheapies, fair performance gains, DDR4, TB3 USB-C. 
1st Gen Core i3 i5 i7 Arrandale - Last 16:10, W Series = QC i7 & 4 RAM slots  8th Kaby Lake R & Ryzen - new quadcore ULV CPUs! USB-C chargers on most laptops 
2nd Sandy Bridge - Still kickin in 2019! Meh LCD options, USB 3.0 on select models 8th Coffee Lake - More powerful Quad i7 CPU & SixCore Xeons, 4GB quadro 
standard  
3rd Gen Core - Great eGPU perf., USB 3.0 standard, backlit 6 row keyboard option Core M - Low GHz, Passive Cooling CPU for excellent battery life. 
Oof - Units with meh CPU options - AMD, Celeron, i3 or Atom… 
AMD (Pre-Ryzen) - 2016 AMD CPUs that are quadcore & are better than i3 Kaby Lake 
Ryzen 2000 - Quadcore CPUs about equal to an i3, & i5 Kaby Lake R 
 
All prices are based off eBay sold listings, what people actually paid for them via auction, best offers or buy it now. Guide updated every four months unless I get aids. 
For the latest guide, please visit ​https://dankpads.com/tbg/  
ThinkWik.Orgi is depreciating since 2013, apart from some users adding guides, ​https://thinkwiki.de/Hauptseite ​is updated more often. 
 

14” Mainstream 15” Mainstream ​ 5” ​17”​ Workstations 


​14” 1
 
T43 35 65 160 T43 'IPS' 40 100 170 W500 50 77 190
T60 60 80 150 T60 'IPS' 120 220 280 W700 170 200 260
T61 45 60 100 W700ds 160 600 1100
T400 50 70 145 T500 50 70 190 W510 80 140 250
T410 60 85 145 T510 55 140 200 W701 270 290 540
T420 80 115 160 T520 80 130 175 W701ds 600 970 1700
T430 100 155 230 T530 105 160 205 W520 135 220 340
T440 130 170 220 W530 210 320 439
T440p 115 200 255 T540p 160 220 320 W540 269 440 629
T450 120 220 350 T550 240 350 400 W541 300 450 670
T460 265 390 500 T560 330 440 600 W550s 380 470 600
T470 400 550 740 T570 450 700 900
T25 1130 1600 2800 P50 600 920 1300
T480 640 800 1250 T580 850 1100 1400 P50s 420 650 900
A475 360 515 700 T460p 450 600 900
A485 550 680 950 P40 Yoga 500 620 950
 
P70 900 1180 1400
SL400 30 50 125 SL500 26 60 90
L412 55 80 130 L512 40 65 150
L420 50 75 155 L520 65 125 190 P51 850 1250 1700
L430 75 90 135 L530 70 120 240 P51s 570 750 1000
L440 80 125 220 L540 115 179 229 T470p 780 900 1150
L450 120 220 300 P71 1000 1400 2300
L460 230 300 450 L560 170 365 480
L470 180 550 720 L570 370 550 700 P52 1200 2400 3000
L480 475 620 800 L580 440 580 1200 P52s 700 1200 1700
Z60t 40 50 84 Z60m 30 45 90 P1 1200 1770 2500
Z61t 40 60 80 Z61m 50 70 120 P72 1460 2100 2500
R52 25 70 155
R60 35 65 100
R61 28 55 100
R400 35 65 120 R500 32 57 125
 

10” - 13” Ultraportables  10” - 15” Drawing Tablets 14” & 15” Ultrabook & Slim 
 
 
12” X32 30 70 160 Swivel 14” T400s 30 60 90
X41 30 70 100 12” X41t 30 60 96 T410s 40 68 150
X60 40 60 115 X60t 50 80 128 T420s 75 140 210
X60s 50 70 120 T430s 130 155 240
X61 40 65 185 X61t 60 90 130 T430u 100 155 247
X61s 40 90 160 T431s 85 140 230
Reserve 100 1000 2500 S430 40 90 140
X200 44 62 150 X200t 45 60 80 S431 110 130 200
X200s 50 65 180 15” S531 70 140 250
X201 62 100 160 X201t 65 95 155 14” X1C 140 280 350
X201s 75 130 220
X220 80 145 270 X220t 105 160 260 T440s 145 220 300
X230 100 140 260 X230t 110 210 270 S440 80 170 300
X230s 140 200 350 S230u Twist 65 115 180 15” S540 150 200 300
X240 100 175 250 14” X1C2 170 260 400
X240s 140 200 330 Folding T450s 180 250 430
X250 250 310 400 Yoga S1 140 175 300 X1C3 230 360 550
X260 280 420 620 T460s 330 470 680
X270 400 630 900 Yoga 12 140 230 350 X1C4 400 600 850
X280 650 970 1400 Yoga 14 240 370 700 T470s 500 720 1000
Yoga 15 260 400 600 X1C5 All 550 850 1100
A275 370 500 800 X1C5 'Kaby' 620 880 1230
A285 660 900 1300 Yoga 260 250 420 570
Yoga 460 190 375 600 T480s 740 1050 1400
13” X300 40 80 130 13” X1 Yoga 1 350 530 660 X1C6 850 1300 1850
X301 35 85 175 Yoga 370 420 600 780 15” X1 Extreme 1400 2000 2400
X1 95 190 280 X1 Yoga 2 600 900 1200
L380 450 760 1100
Yoga X380 650 950 1300
11” X100e 45 65 75 Yoga L380 530 750 980
Mini 10 1 10 40 X1 Yoga 3 850 1280 1800
X120e 40 60 90
X121e 40 60 100 Slate
X130e 50 75 100 11” Helix 130 190 250

X131e 35 75 130 Helix 2 200 270 430


 
X140e 65 90 115
12” X1T 330 400 600
11e 1 60 115 200 X1T2 500 650 900
11e 2 80 120 160 13” X1T3 900 1250 1550
11e 3 60 130 200
11e 4 100 210 400
11e 5 300 420 580
 
Additional Information 
Sandy Bridge ThinkPads ​removed indicator lights, slightly changed the keyboard. The T420 “DankPad”, is able to have coreboot installed & can 
be upgraded to Ivy Bridge. 
Ivy Bridge ThinkPads ​pissed off enthusiasts by removing indicator lights, a 6 row keyboard, however the previous 7 row can be retrofitted 
with an EC flash 
Haswell ThinkPads ​had a drastic design change that removed lid latches, a new color, thin chicony style keyboards, & unfortunately had a very 
annoying touchpad that removed the 3 TrackPoint buttons & was nicknamed “ClickPad”. These can be replaced with a T450 TouchPad directly, 
for under $25 DIY. T440p, T450p & W540/1 are last ThinkPads to have a socketed CPU, enthusiasts were very disappointed by the BGA CPU 
path Intel force OEMs to take. 
X1 Carbon ThinkPads​ slowly shifted T and X series into thinner designs. Lenovo markets the X1C as the flagship model. 
X240 & later X Series​ have either a soldered RAM stick, & 1 slot, however the RAM runs at SIMM speeds, crippling performance compared to 
the T Series or X1C. 
All ThinkPads except for the W70x & P5x or P7x (non ‘s’ models) have soldered on GPUs, so be weary of buying a model with glitched graphics. 
Battery is not warrantied ​- This disclaimer is done by MANY sellers on eBay for one good reason, people return laptops because the 5 hour 
battery lasts 4 hours and 40 minutes. It is an exaggeration, but most of these sellers don’t bother finding out how long batteries can last, they’d 
be out of business. 
Most Thinkpads can be powered by a 90W AC adapter, just buy the barrel design & you can buy a slim tip adapter for newer laptops. 
Recently 2017 & later ThinkPads can be powered with a USB-C adapter unless its a workstation that requires 90W or more. 
 
Modding Information 
The popular T61 mobo onto the T60 chassis (T601 FrankenPad) mod is a bit outdated, though there are people still upgrading them. 
51nb ThinkPads are not included on here, ​T50, X62, X330, T70,​ these have newer hardware custom made to fit classic ThinkPads. You got to get 
on a waiting list. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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