I’ve been trying to find P1/X1 Extreme (Gen 1/2/3) and X1 Carbon laptops (Gen 7/8) that come in the configuration of Intel 8th/9th/10th gen (newer is better) in i7, or the AMD Ryzen equivalent of it, 16/32GB of RAM, 512GB/1TB of storage space, FHD display and preferably 2xSODIMM, if possible. No dedicated GPU, because I’m not going to be playing games. Also, no operating system, because I’ll be using Linux. So far, this effort hasn’t been going well. What will improve the success rate for finding a refurbished/renewed device?
The budget isn’t finalized, but I’ve imagined it to be somewhere in the ₹30k-40k range. I’d prefer if it were in ₹20k-30k. Country is India, by the way, and I am open to getting them imported, as long as I can get it for cheap, and have it last for almost four years, and get parts readily available. I’ve tried looking in DesertCart and UBuy and they’re expensive in both the sites. E-Bay does not have enough devices.
Yeah, when you have criteria like that, sure. That’s like trying to find a specific engine configuration on a used car. You’re basically looking for a custom specific used thing.
My criteria for thinkpads is “is it a thinkpad.” Usually I can find one for dirt cheap that works really well. Swap out the drive, if it supports libreboot, add some ram, as long as the CPU is OK it doesn’t really matter to me. I bought an x260 the other day from a rando on the fediverse for 80 bucks that I was going to give to a kid but is now my main workstation. I didn’t even change anything, it’s as powerful as I need.
My assumption was that if I get a iGPU variant, I could save some money, and also because I’ll not be having to deal with the headache of having to configure Nvidia with non-free software. FHD because a 4k screen will probably use nore battery, and require more computational power.
About the RAM, the X1 Carbon has soldered RAM, and I can only choose between 8 and 16GB. No OS, again for saving money. And finally i7 because older processors are a bit weak, so I wanted it to run for a long time.
I also tried doing a vague search, eliminating most of my restrictions (except the iGPU requirement), but I could not find anything.
My understanding is that i7 is generally overkill in an X1 since the thinness makes the thermal properties worse, leading to more frequent CPU throttling and lower sustained power than i5. This could be wrong or outdated advice, though.