I did this one as a pretty casual ramble because I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I got my ThinkPad. I’m fully in the ThinkPad cult now, and my T440p has been a really good reminder that “old” hardware is still way more capable than people give it credit for. With a 4th gen i7, it’s not modern, and it’s definitely less efficient than newer laptops (you’re pushing more wattage for similar-ish performance), but it still does basically everything I need for real productivity. I talk through the stuff people assume requires brand-new hardware—streaming setups, recording, editing, hooking up an audio interface, a DSLR + capture card, external monitors, all that. Render times aren’t going to be amazing on a 4th gen Intel CPU, but it’s absolutely usable, and the big win is these machines are cheap, repairable, and super moddable. And honestly, being on older hardware has a funny side effect: it pushes you into lighter tools and better scripts, which usually makes your workflow more efficient anyway. I also bring up the “latest feature” trap—like buying a laptop because it has an AI chip when you’re just using ChatGPT in a browser. If you’re not actually running models locally, you’re paying extra for something you’ll never use. And on the security/nerd-cool side, older platforms can let you do things like flash a custom BIOS and remove the Intel Management Engine, which you’re not realistically doing on modern laptops.