Retiring the T430

For almost the past 5 years I've been using my Thinkpad T430, but with my university transfer being accepted I knew I needed an upgrade.

That laptop has been with me through so much of my formative years that it's hard to let go of it. I originally got it at the beginning of my senior year of high school, back when I would blow all my allowance for the month on a half-functioning Thinkpad because it was a deal, despite me never putting in the money to fix them up with proper batteries or new hinges. This one had the latter problem, Lenovo used fairly weak plastic to hold the upper assembly to the hinge so if 1 of the hinges becomes loose, it puts more strain on the other side and inevitably the whole upper assembly pops off. I got it with a failing hinge before realizing the severity of the problem and eventually the two halves separated in class. I still used it for a while, trying to prop up the lid on the bent off hinge but this proved to be problematic and I ended up borrowing my dad's T420 for a couple months.

Eventually the bug to look for laptops struck again before I decided to give a non-Thinkpad a try. There was a nearly perfect Dell latitude E5450 with an i7 processor that I managed to buy for the relatively low bid-price of roughly $100. When I got it I was absolutely elated by the sturdy build quality (comparatively better than Lenovos of the era) and gorgeous 1080p screen. Thinkpads were never really known for their screens but the T400-T430 were especially bad with the base spec 1366x768 dim TN panel. The only issue it had was constant overheating, which I thought could be fixed with a new application of thermal paste. In the process of taking it apart, no easy task, I ended up ripping off the speaker connector. I had it for less than two days and already I couldn't use sound. It was ok since most of the time I just used ear-buds anyway, but it kinda soured me from ever wanting to open it up again. Worst of all, the new thermal paste made no difference so I either had to have it down-clocked to be noticeably slower than the T430 or have it constantly spinning the fan at full-bore which sounded like a small jet plane was in the room. Also their version of the trackpoint was far less precise and I ended up just using the touch-pad most of the time.

I got the dell in the first few months of me and Syd's relationship, it was her dell charger that I ended up needing to use since the laptop wasn't shipped with one. On New Years Eve when she and I were driving back to her house I saw a mangled iMac thrown on the side of the road. I quickly pulled over to grab it to take what parts I could out of it. It was a late 2009 model, and everything except the screen and hard drive seemed to be intact, so I sold the i7 860 and pocketed the 2 8GB DDR3 sodimm ram sticks.

Then Covid hit, I stopped needing to use my laptop very much and the constant overheating ensured I didn't. With all the spare time from lock down, I decided to build out the T430 a bit more so I could ditch the dell. New hinges were first, but in the process of replacing them I realized that the threaded insert for the hinge had popped out and so I needed a whole new back cover, which was quite a bit more pricey than the hinges. In my penny-pinching foolishness I Jerry-rigged it so if I squeezed down on the bezel, the hinges would somewhat work so I could open and close it. I got new aftermarket batteries and did a deep clean of each component. Even though I rarely if ever used up the 8GBs I had installed already, I put in the sticks from the iMac to double it. It was all ready for me when I would go back to school, though that day wouldn't arrive for 2 years. Now with "working" hinges I found myself using it more, using my desktop less and less during relaxation. I realized how happy it made me feel, the way the concave keys would hug your fingers with each keystroke, the way the track-point would be able to snap to exactly where I wanted it faster than using a mouse, the robust weight to everything and heavy locking latch that would make a satisfying springing noise each time you opened it.

When Sydney didn't know what to get me for our anniversary, she tricked me into giving her ideas by asking about my computers and I mentioned the 1080p screen mod for the T430, I had always dreamed of putting a beautiful display to match the elegant interface of the device. So when it arrived I again was ecstatic to get it all hooked up and have my dream laptop. I didn't even need to order a new panel for it, since the dell had the same sized screen and I was able to just use that, which was beautiful. The night I did get it put together was the same night Roomie recorded his audition for the concert band for university, he used my house because he couldn't at his apartment. While I was taking appart my little T430 for probably the 50th time, I was serenaded by his horn, with the occasional break in music followed by swearing. When we moved into the new house together I got a new chassis and properly replaced the top cover so it was just about perfect. I still had a crack on the palm rest but I didn't much care.

Since then I've used that laptop pretty much daily. It's been great for using in bed and has been the primary device I've used for writing. Battery was always abysmal, part of which is due to the aftermarket batteries, but even if I got new Lenovo ones I doubt it could hold water in comparison to pretty much any modern device. It's a little Frankenstein of all my different computers, the CPU came from the L430 I had before it, the ram from the spur-of-the-moment scavenging, the SSD from the first computer I ever built, the display from my brief affair with dell, and each part coming from used Thinkpads online. It's a real ship of Theseus. People really like it too, some of my in person comp-sci classes had a few people who asked about it. I proudly showed it off, a lot of folks thought the thinklight was a really novel and fun way of solving the solution of illuminating the keyboard. People always remarked on the thickness but it really was never an issue for me.

I'm gonna miss using the old guy but I need better battery life for school, while the community colleges have largely stayed hybrid, the university has not and so I need a device that can last for more than a couple hours disconnected from the wall. The speed also has been starting to get to me, web pages have not gotten any easier to render and I'd like to be able to not have to be at my desktop in order to do more power-intensive tasks. Currently I have to max out the fan because the thermal paste has dried up and it has begun spontaneously overheating. It's outlived most tech from that era, originally coming out in 2012. I'm going to miss being able to say I use a decade old computer, but I'm able to cross that off my bucket list now. She will be dearly missed but never forgotten.

I've replaced it with it's younger brother, or maybe half-brother, a T14s gen 3 with the ryzen 7 6850U. So far it's been very nice to use, very snappy and while it's not the same as the T430, I have to say Lenovo has done a good job not completely tarnishing the Thinkpad brand. While I would have preferred more ports with the T14, but for whatever reason the T14s is able to have a larger battery, which is largely the primary thing I'm looking for in a new computer. So far so good with the laptop, but it will never match T430.

Email me

sudon1m@pm.me