79 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
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date = '2025-10-27T00:01:00+01:00'
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draft = false
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title = 'Refurbished Thinkpad T480'
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I just wanted a machine to mess around with, test things, break things. Build and deconstruct — that’s how you learn. Basically, a computer for quiet evenings.
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Why not go for a refurbished one? I’d never tried that before, so I started browsing around.
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I quickly settled on Lenovo’s ThinkPad line: quality machines, easy to upgrade — RAM, drives, even the battery or screen.
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I didn’t need much power; I mostly wanted to test different tiling window managers at first.
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Even for RAM, 8 GB would be plenty.
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## The Purchase
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Then I found a gem: a ThinkPad T480, i5-8250U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, a 14-inch 1920×1080 screen, and an Ethernet port — no Wi-Fi compatibility headaches to deal with or custom ISOs to build.
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And the price? Only €230.
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I hesitated… but not for long. Actually, I cracked pretty fast and ordered the beast.
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It was October 12.
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## The Beginning
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Two days later, the package arrived.
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No fancy packaging — just a box, the laptop, and a charger.
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I plugged it in, then spent way too much time trying to boot the NixOS ISO (don’t forget to disable Secure Boot and the other fun stuff).
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I installed NixOS in LUKS mode via the live USB, from the terminal instead of Calamares.
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After the base install (without X), I did a bunch of tweaks and finally launched X with bspwm in the early afternoon.
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That’s when something felt off — especially when I opened Firefox.
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A quick hwinfo --monitor later, and… the screen was running at 1366×768.
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What an idiot — I’d forgotten to double-check that detail in the specs before buying.
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## Doubts and Confusion
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Still, I went back to BackMarket’s site to look at the product page — it clearly said 1920×1080.
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So what now? Send it back or keep it?
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I checked around and found that a 1080p panel costs about €60.
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So I wrote them a nice message, attached a screenshot of hwinfo --monitor, and offered two options:
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either refund me the price of the panel so I could replace it myself, or take the machine back.
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They replied with a ridiculous compensation offer: €23.
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My guess? That’s probably their entire margin on a €230 sale.
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They also offered a return, with two possible outcomes:
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– the refurbisher has a proper model in stock and ships it;
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– or they don’t, and I get a full refund, plus a 5% discount on a replacement order (half their margin?).
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Except… I then got another message telling me to return the item immediately.
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So, was option 1 canceled? I didn’t quite get it.
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I decided to sleep on it, but when I powered on the ThinkPad the next morning, the screen looked truly awful.
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I had to head to work, so I planned to drop it off the next day — October 14.
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The locker refused the barcode (lots of beep-beep-beep, zero results), so I took it to the post office instead.
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## The Long Wait
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The refurbisher received the parcel on October 17.
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They warned me it might take several days to process.
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Four days later, they offered a replacement — same model, but with 16 GB RAM instead of 8.
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I replied that if the screen was truly 1080p, I’d take it.
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BackMarket confirmed they’d forward my response… then silence.
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Three more days passed.
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It had been a full week since the refurbisher got the laptop, and I still knew nothing.
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## Knock, Knock
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Around 1:30 PM on October 24, someone knocked on my door — a very pleasant delivery woman asking for a code.
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I told her I wasn’t expecting anything and hadn’t received a code.
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She said a signature would do. And there it was: the ThinkPad.
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I booted it right up and dove into the BIOS to check the specs.
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Everything matched — especially the 1080p display — and as a bonus, 16 GB of RAM.
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And honestly, the screen difference was night and day!
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## The Outcome
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I still reported the delivery, since no one on their side seemed to know it had shipped.
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My first refurbished purchase left me with mixed feelings.
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Would I do it again?
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Honestly… I’m not sure.
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