[pedrocr]

Just got a Thinkpad T460s. Practically the same dimensions and specs of a X1 Carbon but with replaceable memory and disk. Can easily be made to have 20GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD, and if someone makes a 32GB DIMM could potentially go up to 36GB of RAM although that's not advertised as supported. Everything works in Linux just fine and the 2560x1440 screen looks great.

[creshal]

T460s only has partially replaceable memory, some of it is soldered on. And god help you if that fails outside warranty, spare Thinkpad mainboards usually cost more than a new laptop.

[soulnothing]

I'm curious about the mother board comment. I have a t430, and rebuilt it the motherboard cost me 30$ via ebay. Searching for the t430s I'm seeing about 40 -> 80 on ebay. I'd think that by the time you need to replace the mainboard, it'd be at more attainable levels on the second hand market.

[creshal]

Third party mainboards are either used (and you don't know whether and for how long they'll work) or not initialized (throwing errors during boot). Factory replacements via Lenovo's spare parts service cost you $400+ for simple models and $800+ for dedicated graphics models.

[pedrocr]

RAM is pretty reliable so I'm not really worried. One thing I just realized though is that 20GB is probably the absolute max for this machine. Since there are 4GB on the board and the chipset can only do 32GB it's pretty likely that 4+16GB will end up being the maximum.

I've opened the machine and it's a shame they don't just give us 2 DIMM slots and 2 (or 4) M.2 slots so you can just splurge on some more RAM+SSD goodness.

[creshal]

If the T460 had the same display options available, it would be the perfect alternative: Two DIMM slots, two mass storage slots, two batteries, and still quite compact.

[pedrocr]

Seems slightly bulkier and 20% heavier, but that's not too bad. I wonder if the T460s panel works fine in the T460 if you're willing to do the swap.

[creshal]

It will, but you'll void your warranty, and it's annoying that Lenovo doesn't offer it themselves – all their notebooks are built to order anyway, so they're actively hurting themselves by artificially constraining their customers.

[mlwarren]

What about the T460p? Looks like it has the WQHD option but I can't seem to find info regarding the RAM (soldered or not).

[pritambaral]

The '-s' models are all designed to be slimmer counterparts to the non-'-s' models. Apart from that, the T460 should be identical to the T460s; and I'd recommend the former instead of the latter for the same reason you mention.

[creshal]

Should, but isn't: The T460 has for inexplicable reasons no high-resolution (WQHD) display option, unlike the T460s and T460p.

Lenovo's model policy (23 different Thinkpad models this year with dozens of options each) is really insufferable.

[brian_cloutier]

I'm happily on a T460s as well. The nice thing about the T4x0 series is that they're used by lots of Redhat employees so driver issues tend to be resolved quickly.