Upgradable battery: 24 Wh internal + 72 Wh discrete battery

I think they’re 2x 24 Wh, don’t have mine at hand to check or YMMV. Haven’t really tested it much though yet.

that’s about the crux of it. it’s a widely available platform that can be had for cheap, the replacements and upgrades are plentiful and cheap and cross-generational compatibility (both from earlier and later models) is exceptional. some notes:

• ignore the NVMe speeds; they’re perfectly congruent with the rest of the machine and there are virtually no bottlenecks for the use you mentioned
• no idea about the Guix thing, normal Linux distros (Fedora, Arch, Debian, etc) have OOB functionality for all comms; spotty fingerprint reader support though
• there’s a negligible performance difference between the top-of-the line i7-8650u and the entry-level i5-8350u, so feel free to ignore the CPU entirely. also be aware that earlier models came with the kabylake 7xxxu line, which you don’t want for any kind of money
• although panels can be upgraded cheaply and easily, make sure you don’t get a 768p panel. the factory 1080p stock panels are IPS and 6-bit, so they’re decent and power-efficient. if you’re into color-accurate use cases, you’ll need a 8-bit 400-nit upgrade at some point
• if at all possible, try to buy it without RAM and storage; they’re predominantly available with shitty 256 GB drives and one 8 GB stick and that makes a normally specced machine with 32 GB and 1TB+ storage unnecessarily pricier
• don’t shy away from newer models (T49x, T14 Gen1) if you happen to find them for cheap; T14 AMD for instance has one slot populated with 16 GB (1 free) and has only one battery, but it makes it up with a more modern, powerful and power-efficient platform
• if you plan on using it with external devices (monitors, sound, etc.) do yourself a favor and get a dock station. just like the T-series they’re widely available, cheap and work across generations; e.g. the 40AJ dock, you click the laptop into place and all your devices and PSU are connected instantly

I have a T480s with arch on it and it is my favorite computer to use. Its far worse than the one you posted tho.

Practically, the speeds on the NVME matter but not that much so just get what you can afford. At your price range you’re pretty much going to have to deal with something and those ThinkPads at least offer good outer hardware compared to other cheap ass laptops.

It should do alright with your specs though if you are doing a lot of reading and writing you might want to take that reddit user’s advice. I personally dont use the USBs hardly at all on mine, as its a lightweight setup I made to take with me when I move around the office (from salvaged equipment about to be thrown out).

So keep my light use case in mind with this comment as my little guy basically browses webpages, gets riced, and hides Caves of Qud for me while I’m at the office.

Imo, you aren’t going to notice any issues regarding speeds

The t480 is still pretty damn solid for the exact reasons you said. Unless you’re going to be doing some crazy stuff where you’d need a more potent device to begin with, it’ll serve most needs.

Mine is similarly specced, and handles even some video editing and photo editing without any problems at all. I can play games on it, assuming they aren’t batshit. And, I can have a dozen windows open and flip between them with no lag at all.

The battery upgrade is a must, in my book. The regular version is okay, but the extended lets you work on documents all day, while also playing music. That’s pretty damn nice.