I am not especially tech-literate and very clumsy. I want to buy a thinkpad that I can set up as a privacy machine. I mostly use my computer for web browsing and messaging and don't need something especially powerful, just something that can run bloated web pages easily and I won't have to think about again for at least half a decade.
Ideally, I want something around $300. Does anyone have recommendations for models to shop for? Anything the size of the T-Series would be adequate. I'm not a gamer or do video editing so no graphics card requirements.
I am thinking something like the T470 but wonder how futureproof that would be.
T 490/s. 8th gen Intel is new enough to be good and have H265, and the Ryzen laptop offerings of that time weren't good yet. The S is lighter, but has less expansion options. Get one without the u line processors, they get annoyingly slow over time. Can get one with a good i5 (remember, fuck the u at the end), 16 gigs of ram and 512 gigs of NVME storage for under $300. Those 3 things should keep the laptop good for at least 5 years, if not more. Especially if you're going to make it into a linux machine for the sake of privacy.
don't need something especially powerful, just something that can run bloated web pages easily
A web browser is the most performance-intensive software on any computer.
I'd recommend the T480 as it's the last of the T series that still has 2 ram slots and internal+external battery, while being the first with quad core U series CPUs which are really much faster than the dual core ones in T470 and older. If you combine internal and largest possible external battery you end up with 96Wh which makes it compete with the new M1 macs for battery life.
T480 is the one people tend to recommend. Processor not replaceable iirc so get the i7 gen 8 if you can find it.
Look to spend 100-200 on the chassis with the display you want and another 100 on the 32 gb of ram and ssd. 64gb of ram is the maximum but you might not decide you need that. You can use both a little baby nvme drive and a normal size sata disk in the 480.
I have a t420 and 430 in daily use too and they’re both perfectly fine despite positively ancient processors.
