Replaced my T520 with a T480

[2005]

So I bought a new to me Thinkpad T480 to replace my T520. Battery life was terrible, and it was heading on almost 10 years old. The T480 feels a bit "cheap" but it does have the internal 24 whr battery and option for up to a 72whr battery. They claim up to 15 hours battery life is possible. I think with a 24 + 72 you might get 8 to 10 unless your just leaving it idle at the desktop. 8 hours of productive use is fine for me.

The screen? Not so great. It's a IPS 1080P 14" screen that can be upgraded with both 2K and 4K options. 4K seems a waste at 14"? I might go the WQHD upgrade route. Supposedly much better brightness and sRGB accuracy. I think my panel is 250 nits and the upgrade is 400 nits? Power consumption doesn't really change, but not a surprise as I'm sure they are LED's. The machine to my surprise has 2 years worth of factory warranty available as well.

Got it for $450 off eBay. Upgraded and sold off my T520 to offset some of the cost. Ordered another 8GB memory DIMM and the 72whr battery upgrade. Haven't pulled the trigger on the screen yet. Not sure I hate the 1080p IPS screen enough to spend the $150 on the new panel.

The ThinkPad is a backup mostly to my daily driver desktop. If the desktop FUBAR's I just pull out the laptop and continue working until I can afford the down time to fix the desktop. Two thunderbolt / USB - C ports for display and one USB-C for charging. I like the USB-C charger.... I use it to charge my phone when I don't need to charge the laptop. Much thinner laptop than the T520, quieter too. HDMI output vs the displayport on the T520. Fingerprint reader that works well. Pretty happy with the upgrade.

[palmboy5]

You're going to get the upgraded screen as the part itself and replacing it yourself? Neat haha. $450 seems like a good deal. If you just connect your monitors to it, you can avoid seeing the 1080p screen and save on the $150 maybe? Paying 33% more to change out the screen seems a bit much.

250 nits is pretty low though, going higher will certainly at least superficially make it look nicer!

[2005]

I agree, I'll probably leave the stock panel alone. It's "good enough".

I'll probably spend just as much time using external displays as I do with the built in display.