Lenovo ThinkPad T500 Okinomiya

A mediocre laptop that I own since 2023. Back then, I was still somewhat fond of ThinkPads, but now I know that better alternatives exist (I'll write about it at some point). It has:

Anyway, this computer serves as my server. I stopped using it as an actual laptop ever since the lid hinge snapped in half, which, from what I've read, is a known design flaw in ThinkPads from that time. The lid hinge was incredibly stiff and difficult to move. That, I imagine, put excessive stress on the hinge, causing it to crack. I decided not to bother with a replacement hinge, and moved on to a Fujitsu Lifebook A512 after that. As I do with my actively used computers, I named this one after a location from 07th Expansion visual novels.

As a server

I must say that it does a great job as a server. For having a CPU this old, it is fairly power efficient, and draws about 10W at idle, after being gutted out of all unnecessasry components (Wi-Fi card, modem, screen, touchpad, etc.). The battery is pretty worn, but still works and seemed to last long enough for any rare power outage to pass. I've had excellent uptime with it. The CPU can handle all my use cases just fine, and 8GB of RAM is plenty. Cooling is efficient. At idle, the CPU temperatures sit at about 30 °C with Upsiren PCM-1 (PTM7950 rebrand) used as a thermal paste replacement. The fans don't have to turn on, making it effectively passively cooled at idle. Storage is expandable with an adapter in place of the optical drive, which is definitely a plus.

Desktop usage

Contrary to popular belief, even laptops this old are perfectly fine for basic desktop usage. Sure, you won't be playing graphically advanced games and it may struggle with Full HD video, but it won't be a useless paperweight either. I knew the limitations, and I always had my PC for more demanding tasks, so I rarely found the lack of performance an issue.

Overall experience was satisfying enough. The keyboard is indeed as good as everyone says, with a superior layout and a pleasant key response. UltraNav is brilliant and I wish that more laptops had it. I can live without it, but it's one of the things I miss the most. What wasn't great was the LCD panel. Although the resolution of 1680x1050 is quite comfortable for a 15,6" screen size, the panel itself was a TN type, only slightly better than the absolute gutter oil junk found in later ThinkPad models and most other business laptops for that matter. I don't think I still have the calibration logs, but from what I remember it had only around 300:1 contrast ratio. I don't remember the sRGB gamut coverage, but probably something between 70% and 75%. Truly the malaise era of LCD panels in laptops.

To conclude this section, it's a decently designed laptop. No frills, utilitarian. Unfortunately, it has some flaws too.

Critique

I've already mentioned the poorly designed hinges and the LCD, but those are just some of the downsides. Much of them apply to other ThinkPad models as well, but here I want to address this model in particular, not ThinkPads in general.

Build quality

ThinkPads are praised for being well-built and durable, but are they really? In my experience, not so much. It's all plastic-fantastic, save for the internal skeleton made out of magnesium. Even if the magnesium chassis can protect the electronics from damage, an impact capable of doing that will likely render the plastic body cracked and warped beyond repair. At that point, the laptop would be pretty much done for anyway. The plastics themselves are of mediocre quality, with many elements having poor tolerances, in my case most notably a squeaky palm rest. There exist some weak spots, some of them being the plastic grille covering the speakers and the bottom casing around the optical drive area. Both are incredibly thin plastic, especially in the latter and may be easily cracked.

Serviceabilty

I absolutely despise how unnecessarily difficult it is to access user replaceable parts on this laptop, such as the RAM or the CPU. On most other laptops, all you have to do is pop open a service door or two, typically by removing a couple of screws and lifting it open, and then you have convenient access to things you're most likely to remove. On this ThinkPad (and most other ThinkPad models) meanwhile, what would be a 5 minute CPU re-paste job takes several times longer:

After you're done, you have to do the steps in reverse, which is not as easy as it seems. It's a royal pain in the ass and a horrible design that not only wastes your time, but also leaves you with a bunch of parts and screws that you have to look out for. Additionally, the plastic elements are prone to damage and/or unnecessary wear, especially the plastic clips that latch onto the chassis.

Libreboot installation woes

Unlike Dell Latitudes (a superior ThinkPad alternative that you can flash entirely with software), for this ThinkPad (and the others, with varying degrees of difficulty) you'll have to take the entire laptop apart, down to the motherboard and use an external programmer, such as the CH341A. I think that speaks for itself. If you want a laptop specifically for Libreboot, get a supported Dell Latitude instead.

inxi and fastfetch output

Some info redacted

rika@okinomiya:~$ inxi -e
System:
  Host: okinomiya Kernel: 6.12.63+deb13-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64
  Console: pty pts/1 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 2055W1N v: ThinkPad T500
    serial: xxxxxxx
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 2055W1N v: ThinkPad T500 serial: xxxxxxx
    BIOS: coreboot v: CBET4000 20240612 date: 06/12/2024
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 27.6 Wh (100.0%) condition: 27.6/84.2 Wh (32.8%)
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core2 Duo P9600 bits: 64 type: MCP cache:
    L2: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/2667 cores: 1: 800 2: 800
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
  Display: server: No display server data found. Headless machine?
    tty: 80x24
  API: N/A Message: No API data available in console. Headless machine?
  Info: Tools: No graphics tools found.
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801I HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.63+deb13-amd64 status: kernel-api
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
  IF: eno0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: xxxxxxx
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 521.66 GiB used: 318.75 GiB (61.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Apacer model: AS340 240GB size: 223.57 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Hitachi model: HTS543232A7A384 size: 298.09 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 16.11 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (14.1%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-1
  ID-2: /boot size: 912 MiB used: 114.4 MiB (12.5%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /var size: 6.41 GiB used: 435 MiB (6.6%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 976 MiB used: 176.2 MiB (18.0%)
    dev: /dev/dm-3
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 31.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): fan-1: 0 fan-2: 0
Info:
  Memory: total: 8 GiB note: est. available: 7.51 GiB used: 685 MiB (8.9%)
  Processes: 188 Uptime: 9d 22h 42m Init: systemd Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.38

rika@okinomiya:~$ fastfetch 
        _,met$$$$$gg.          rika@okinomiya
     ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       --------------
   ,g$$P""       """Y$$.".     OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
  ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: 2055W1N (ThinkPad T500)
',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:    Kernel: 6.12.63+deb13-amd64
`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$     Uptime: 9 days, 22 hours, 43 mins
 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P     Packages: 563 (dpkg)
 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'     Shell: bash 5.2.37
 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'       Resolution: 1024x768
 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'          Terminal: /dev/pts/1
 `$$b      "-.__               CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo P9600 (2) @ 2.667 GHz
  `Y$$b                        GPU: Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller
     `$$b.                     GPU: Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller
         `"Y$b._               Memory: 654 MiB / 7686 MiB
             `""""