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Ask HN: Would you be interested in refurbished and upgraded used Thinkpads?

by philippnagel on 6/17/18, 2:26 PM with 4 comments

I am big fan of older Thinkpads and their maintainability and upgradeability. Whenever I am talking to coworkers and friends about these possibilities all of them are at least intrigued. The same want for something like that pops up here regularly in threads e.g. about failing Macbook keyboards.

My idea is to source a small amount of laptops (e.g. Thinkpad X-Series or T-Series) from eBay et al., service and upgrade them and sell them to people looking for productivity. Warranty and service included. Additionally I would like to curate parts and service information for these models.

Thoughts on this little side project idea?

  • by gaspoweredcat on 6/17/18, 2:41 PM

    nice idea but i believe there are a lot of people out there doing it already i believe so its all about marketing and getting your stock at the right price i guess. you could also consider offering a libreboot option for devices that support it.

    I am going to be upgrading my rather battered 1st gen carbon X1 soon but ill be looking for one with 16gb of ram in it and theres not much to be upgraded on them really save for the SSD (i know id probably get more out of a T series but i like the portability and battery life of the carbon)

  • by anoncoward111 on 6/17/18, 2:58 PM

    I still use my t410 from 2009 :) I think I put $20 worth of extra sodimms in it, blew out all the dust one time, and removed the HDD in favor of booting Lubuntu straight from a USB drive. I have considered inserting some tentacles into the motherboard for some pcie connections instead but the usb2.0 speeds are tolerable for my needs.

    I would suggest that you just make laptops yourself as semi-customs rather than calling them Thinkpads. Just advertise the specs and the price and market yourself well. You'll get a lot of lowballers but thats just life these days :)

  • by dman on 6/17/18, 3:04 PM

    This seems like it would attach a small niche of loyal users but my concern would be the following -

    a. Size of the market

    b. I imagine the target market for these would be fairly technical people who might be under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that they could replicate your work easily.

  • by sombragris on 6/17/18, 9:30 PM

    I would if the price is right.