I’m planning to purchase a used T480, and want to know how the battery life would be on Linux. Online I see a lot of good numbers, and I am considering carrying multiple of the external batteries, but I want another opinion. Also, do you have any recommends on a good price to “go for it” and any other laptops to consider (up to but preferably well under 600 USD, good battery/portability, linux) to consider.
Long story short: nowadays 65W-capable USB C powerbanks make more sense in my opinion, than multiple Thinkpad batteries. And they work with all laptops.
Yep just like the S versions they have a double battery. This is great because the total can get close to 100Wh (when using the 72Wh external) but hot-swapping requires an internal battery in good shape which is not so easy to come by. From Lenovo they can be very expensive or not available. From third parties you’re always gambling that those batteries will play nice with the proprietary Thinkpad EC.
I bought both (3rd-party) batteries for a T440S, and the internal would suddenly show up as 0% every couple of weeks, and had to be “reset” by opening the base, unplugging and plugging it in…in the end I just put the original internal back; the external has been amazing instead, and it does basically all of the work since it’s the 72Wh version. Fun fact: these laptops work perfectly with only one of the batteries attached.