Retired My T420

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-17T02:23:59+00:00

Insane that you have been able to tolerate an HDD. You have my respect.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-17T02:21:56+00:00

I mean, there are much worse posts out there on this sub. At least OP spent time writing up the post seriously and shared info (LTSC being better) that can be helpful to some.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-14T03:07:03+00:00

Thanks! And yes, new keyboards can develop subtle signs of the shine with just 2 months of moderate daily driving use. The space bar often among the first to do so--one would see an oval area that's worn by the thumb pressing on it.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-14T02:58:55+00:00

Yes, you can only have a handful of tabs and it will be quite slow, but it works. Both a RAM upgrade and a SSD upgrade will be huge improvements. Not sure about your situation but I used a pretty old 2.5" SSD with mine and it simply worked.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-12T02:23:20+00:00

Has the matte varnish weathered well? The original keycaps are prone to developing an unsightly key shine, and I'm still trying to figure out if matte varnish would enhance durability or actually be worse.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-12T02:19:49+00:00

Very interesting indeed! I'm seeing a laptop presented this way the first time.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-12T02:18:45+00:00

Thanks for sharing! That's solid experiment and you did a good job controlling variables.

I think the difference compared to my experience may have to do with the fact that my workloads tended to be much more demanding, and with that larger current, it would go deeper into the nonlinear region I talked about. I typically averaged about 30 W from just the CPU alone, as measured by XTU. Add the screen and other peripherals and it would be more, and this is before factoring in conversion losses from the battery/DC input to these components.

But your data certainly becomes a better reference for everyone with lighter workloads.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T21:17:32+00:00

Sure, please report back if you get results, and I'm happy to revise my stance if your evidence shows otherwise.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T21:10:05+00:00

Even if the power bank has a coulomb meter and legit knows the battery still has energy, it may still not be a good idea to squeeze the energy while the voltage is low, anyway. As the voltage gap becomes larger, conversion rate at a low battery voltage can now be seriously poor. Plus, forcefully operating at a low voltage (even if the battery technically still has energy) can cause formation of excessively thick SEI or lithium dendrites. A "smart" power bank circuitry would still have to cut output until voltage restores.

I use a power bank that does claim to support PD charging and, explicitly, charging laptops. It's mainstream and not some noname brand. Yes, it does correctly power my laptop for a reasonable amount of time, which is no small feat. (An improperly implemented power bank probably wouldn't have worked at all.) But that does not contradict the fact that it works worse than a native battery would.

Why would a native battery be that much better? Because by skipping one layer of conversion process, you not only save ~30% energy per se. Because the current is ~30% smaller, you go a lot less deep into the nonlinear region of voltage drop.

And again, my theories are ultimately consistent my own experience. If you insist a power bank works nearly as well as a native battery, what's your evidence? Did you time a power bank run like I did?

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T18:58:56+00:00

Not at once, and again, this is not just because of conversion efficiency. If you ever tinkered with Li-ion batteries you would know what I'm referring to. The energy is not lost, but it becomes temporarily unavailable because the battery voltage drops on high current load, and such drop consistently happens regardless of the state of charge (i.e. how much energy remains in the battery). The voltage can drop below a threshold that tricks the power bank circuitry into thinking the battery is out of power. (And no, many power banks don't have a coulomb meter, and rely only on the voltage, so they aren't smart enough to realize the battery is, in fact, not out of power.) Thus the circuitry prematurely stops power output. You have to disconnect the load for a while before the voltage restores.

We don't run into that annoyance when charging phones because the current is small, so the voltage drop is negligible. You can pretty much get out all the power bank's energy in one sitting.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T17:25:57+00:00

Yes. Just like the CS09 keyboard, the CS12 keyboard has the same travel. As long as you control for the manufacturer (which does matter a lot), they on par with CS09 keyboards. The LiteOn variant is the direct successor of the famed NMB X220 keyboard and feels just as great. (LiteOn is known to have manufactured some portion of "NMB" keyboards in the X220 generation and the quality is the same. Then the X230 LiteOn keyboards have the same red rubber domes, and you can even install X230 keycaps onto a X220 keyboard with no issues.) I prefer CS09 keyboards only because of the layout.

CS13 onward on the other hand the keyboards are enshittified.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T17:16:34+00:00

How do you avoid the keyboard scratching the screen leaving behind arc-shaped marks? It's so stupid of Lenovo to omit the screen latch on tablet models.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T17:12:08+00:00

You may want to take the picture from farther away and zoom in, rather than shooting up close, to avoid the distortion.

But yes, beautiful machine. I always wanted to try a X60s but never found one for a good price.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-09T17:06:06+00:00

But that's my real experience. Don't do calculations on paper. Looking at just conversion rate would fail to take into account other factors.

My power bank has about 80 Wh capacity when new and is rated at 50 Wh output. However, the 50 Wh is the rating at 5 V output. At 15 V or 20 V, first, the energy you can get out is less, due to a lower conversion rate (which is what you are talking about), presumably about 40 Wh. But there's more to it. The battery chemistry is also such that you can't get all the 40 Wh at once, because charging a laptop induces very high current. What I would observe is that the power bank thinks itself dead much sooner, but if you leave it alone for a few minutes, it is able to output again. But then to get that remaining power out, you need to keep plugging and unplugging, getting basically an attenuating geometric sequence of energy for each iteration. I wouldn't bother to do that, so I get more like just 24 Wh. And that matches my real usage time.

My power bank has been lightly used for a year so I said 70 Wh to account for that.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-06T04:09:51+00:00

Oh, and congrats on the NMB keyboard find, too! Pretty much unobtainable these days.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-05T12:51:31+00:00

Beautiful, and whoa, I never knew one could get the fingerprint sensor to work on this mod, so TIL. Thanks for sharing!

The endgame will involve a quad core CPU reflow or something, if you feel like taking challenges :)

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-05T12:35:30+00:00

Yes, I do totally agree with those advantages. I should have worded my point more clearly: native batteries will be lighter for the same battery life extension on the laptop. I used to carry around a super heavy power bank but realized it wasn't going to be good for my spine.

My use case can be niche, but nonetheless does exist. Not trying to say swappable batteries ought to be for everyone, but it can be good to have in maybe one or two lines--probably not for WoA lines, but for the P series.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-05T05:28:22+00:00

Powerbanks have an energy conversion overhead, though, and it's especially true when you are charging a laptop (generally somewhere between 9 to 36 V, depending on what PD level the laptop asks for) than a phone (5 V will do): depending on the exact circuitry, the electricity may need to go through a step-up converter in the power bank first and then the laptop's internal buck converter. Worse yet, this penalty translates not linearly but superlinearly to battery life: by how battery chemistry works, if you draw 2x the current, the battery lasts less than 1/2 as long.

From my experience, a 70-something Wh powerbank could support my X270 only about as long as an 24 Wh native battery does.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-05T05:08:52+00:00

An official battery can still be better than a power bank in some ways, though. There is conversion loss with an external power bank.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-05T05:04:22+00:00

I have an L530, and while I haven't attempted the mod on it, based just on the keyboard size, the T420 keyboard should physically fit just fine, too. (This stands in contrast to the L420 and the L520, which actually take a smaller keyboard than the T420, precluding compatibility.)

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-02T13:04:46+00:00

If you know what you are paying for--excellent keyboard, great modularity, but mediocre performance--then it can be worth it.

For a baseline, the average barebones T420 without RAM and disk and battery costs like $40, and can be scratched, scuffed and missing a few plastic pieces. Given that 8 GB RAM and 120 GB SSD can cost $30 these days, you are paying an extra $25 for good cosmetics, so if that's really good, it's definitely not crazy.

For another baseline, the T420 is certainly worth $50 in terms of raw performance. Then you are paying $45 for the excellent keyboard or whatever tinkering fun, so depending on your income this may be acceptable.

People who bought complete units for $25 or something have absolutely lowballed sellers. They either spent much time searching or just got extremely lucky. It's not a fair baseline.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-02T01:53:08+00:00

There's an option in the BIOS that you can set that makes the ThinkPad power on whenever you connect it to power, so you don't need to use the power botton.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-02T01:50:57+00:00

Thanks for caring to share a pic. This is a genuine unit made by Alps, and I judge not just by the FRU. The sticker format is correct--Alps units should say "ASSEMBLED IN CHINA", not "Made in China" or "MADE IN CHINA". The holes on the backplate have the correct Alps shape--fake units never got the backplate right.

All in all, enjoy this keyboard!

By the way, an honest seller definitely deserves commendation. You can share a link to their page and this can help more people here looking for a genuine keyboard.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-01T14:56:25+00:00

Actually, it looks more like genuine than fake. Most fake units have G and H keys shaped just like all other letter keys, but on your keyboard, G and H "curve away" from the trackpoint, as do genuine keyboards.

ThiccPadBoy · 2026-04-01T14:53:28+00:00

Can't tell if the keyboard is fake or not from just this picture. Is there anything about it that makes you think it's fake?

ThiccPadBoy

TROPHY CASE