X210Ai is a new motherboard to upgrade ThinkPad X201/200

hello,

as always: imho (!)

i own a x200s ... bought it in march of 2009 =?> so its approaching 17 years ...

it was a really great device with one of the best keyboards for a small notebook. and i still use it multiple times a week for example to browse hackernews, reddit, ... or watch some video etc.

buuuut: its nearly 17 years old ... everything is starting to wear - i wouldn't invest a dime into it right now.

what do i mean by that: keyboard has faulting keys, case starts breaking at heavily stressed regions - for example around the cursor-keys -, display is (slightly) mechanically damaged, batteries are beyond usefull etc.etc. ...

just my 0.02€

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jdboyd 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Currently $1,299.00 for the Ultra 7 and $1,449.00 for the Ultra 9. I won't say it isn't a fair price, but it is a really hard one.

It would be perhaps more interesting to start making ARM or maybe even RISC-V motherboard replacements for some of these beloved chassis.

	▲	bubblethink an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's not the type of CPU that is driving up the cost. It's a niche hobby product which will sell O(tens-hundreds) units worldwide. The issue with these frankenpads is the brokenness of bios/ec, tb ports, thermals, fan noise, stability, etc.
	▲	znpy 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There is a risc-v motherboard for the famrwork 13 but different reviewers agree that is overall a slow cpu, nit really competitive. Probably in a few (cpu) generations…

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fsckboy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

anybody know if this motherboard will fit the x220 or x230, or just the x200/201? i've cornered the market on x220 and x230, i must have two dozen

	▲	scrlk an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Won't fit, the X200/201 use a different chassis design to the X220/230.

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globnomulous 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sorry for my cluelessness, but why is this laptop so popular?

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loloquwowndueo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The keyboard is absolutely glorious, for one.

	▲	fuzzy2 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And that’s about it, I’d say! I find that everything else is really, really bad. It creaks, it wobbles, it warps, and it did so from day 1. The fan is loud and kicks in quite early. Well maybe the X200 isn’t as bad, but the X220 certainly is. And even after 14 years, it still smells when it gets hot. Sorry for the rant. I really want to love it, but I just can’t.
	▲	silon42 19 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		For a laptop keyboard...

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close04 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Mine still works as well as expected after 17 years, 5-6 of which it spent with heavy daily use, another 2-3 with light use, only occasionally afterwards, and overall a lot of travel and airports. I could disassemble and reassemble it to the last screw easily, no special tools besides a screwdriver, no glue, upgradeable RAM and storage. Actually my one major complaint is Lenovo's use of whitelisting for wireless cards.

But I wouldn't pay $1300+ to bring it up to speed. The batteries are done, the screen is small and the backlight is yellowed and dimming. That laptop would need a lot more love to make it fully usable as a daily driver so I'd rather keep it as it is, as a memory.

	▲	AlecSchueler 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Mine x200 still my daily driver. Only had to replace the battery and the charger so far.

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bfrog 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I love the x220 chassis, I wonder what it’d take to make a board with a modern risc chip and open firmware for Linux for this sort of thing.

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RomanPushkin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm the owner of one of these laptops. I paid like $2-3k or even more for the laptop. The screen got broken almost on arrival. I think few days later it started glitching. It was intermittent, so I thought it would go away. I didn't. Over time it started glitching more and more. I reached out to the person in China who sold the laptop. In broken English he told me that I should replace the screen and sent me a link. I bought the screen, actually two of them, since for some reason you can't buy one. Turned out that the screen doesn't fit, and I cracked the first one while trying to install. So now I have a laptop without a screen, and it just doesn't work.

I bought Macbook Air for $1k just one week ago. I can't be more happier. Fuck these ThinkPads.

	▲	jokowueu an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm a bit confused, what do you mean you bought it for +$2k? They cost nothing to buy, they came out like 18 years ago
	▲	AlecSchueler 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You paid how much? I use my x200 every day and love it but never considered I could sell it for so much. Is that really a normal price for such an old model? My screen works perfectly too.
	▲	pyvpx 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		As a counter-experience, I bought five of the x63s and was so paranoid I’d bork the screens somehow. They all work fine to this day. :shrug:
	▲	leoedin an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You paid $2-3k for an x200? Was that a long time ago? Is that the same laptop that's sold by computer recyclers for $100?

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rkagerer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anyone know if there's anything like this for the Dell Precision M6600?

(Or upgrade suggestions for someone who loved that laptop? Framework? Thinkpad?)

	▲	bubblethink an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Get an x1 carbon gen 13 (lunar lake version) for a general usable laptop. For clunkers/workstations that use desktop style CPUs, Dell still makes them and so does Lenovo. The Lenovo version is P16 Gen 3.
	▲	__del__ 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		i'm also curious. i used that thing until last year.

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rramon 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is the X200s (s = low power variant) chassis too different or is it compatible as well?

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cyanydeez an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Someone do this to the X230T.

ALL OTHER 2:1 TABLETS ARE INFERIOR.

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GaryBluto 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds great, but the website is down.

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samtheDamned 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is super cool!

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idiotsecant 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Error establishing a database connection

	▲	thinkmassive 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250924185757/https://www.tpart...