Considering I’m still using my X201 I obviously can’t speak for newer models, but replacing the thermal paste (done at least thrice - and that’s a full teardown except for the display) is a significant procedure. The keyboard is more minor (a few screws and a panel to pop off, and it slides out). Still, it scared the bejeezus out of me the first time, but as long as you download the Hardware Maintenance Manual and take the least bit of care, it’s really no big deal. While I get that keyboard replacements are harder now, I wouldn’t worry personally. If a repasting takes an hour instead of half an hour, that’s pretty negligible.
Any laptop will be a pain for that. But one thing I appreciate the business grade thinkpads and latitudes for is all the basic stuff, hard drive, memory, fan, keyboard are all really dead simple to replace since they are designed for businesses where the extra time for taking the case apart on a consumer grade machine is valuable. Of course they are thicker, and not as pretty but I will take function over form.
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I could be wrong, but I think the X1 has the RAM soldered in.
The 370 has removable RAM.
I’ll be buying a new work machine first quarter 2018, and I’m eyeing the 370. I’m ambivalent investing in a touch screen that will be mainly a Linux machine until more distros reliably support the feature.
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My home machine is a Dell XPS, and removing the heat-sink to replace the factory thermal paste was less than 20 minutes from opening to closing the case. That said, it’s always a crap shoot. That’s why I always try to find a teardown online before I buy any machine.
Not to mention sensible thermal management. I don’t care how pretty it is if the CPU would rather throttle and the fan stand by while my lap grills rather than give me the full use of the CPU I paid for.
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I did corporate computer support for years in the 90s and early 2000s, and every single time there was a Thinkpad, there was a clit. They sniggered, I sniggered internally a bit because part of my brain is a 10-year-old boy, but there’s little use in telling the IT department anything at all about yourself when you’re a temp, so I kept quiet, and called it a TrackPoint.
They laughed at me when I called it a TrackPoint.
I recently revived my old X60s I bought in 2006. The frame and keyboard are superb, but display real estate is somewhat limited, with a maximum resolution of 1024x768 only. And mine is a 32bit machine. I run Ubuntu on it, but I fear it might be quite soon that support and software for 32bit machines will become difficult.
Should I need to upgrade to a 64bit machine, I might be looking into what minifree.org is offering.
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