FrankenPad Is a Conglomeration of Multiple ThinkPad Models

For most geeks, there are have only been two worthwhile laptop model lines made in the past couple of decades: Apple’s MacBook and IBM/Lenovo’s ThinkPad. I’ve owned a few of each, and they’re both fantastic series. But, I used to do ThinkPad tech support for Lenovo, and I can attest to how well they’re built. Kitsunyan thought so too, which is why they put a huge amount of work into transforming a Lenovo ThinkPad T25 into a more robust workhorse.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T25 was released in 2017 as a special edition to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ThinkPad model line. It had modern, if not particularly impressive, specifications, and had throwback styling reminiscent of older ThinkPads. Notably, it had the older 7-row keyboard that many enthusiasts, Kitsunyan included, prefer over the modern 6-row types.

Unfortunately, Kitsunyan was unsatisfied with both the display and the processor, so they set out to replace them. The newer ThinkPad T480 had specs more inline with Kitsunyan’s needs, specificially a powerful quad-core Intel i7 processor and a better WQHD screen with a higher resolution. Kitsunyan’s solution was to take the screen and mainboard from the T480 and put it into the T25, with various parts of the bodies mixed and matched together so they’d fit.

If that sounds easy, make sure you read through the build log. A lot of work was necessary to mate the parts from the two models, including some Dremel modifications, but eventually Kitsunyan was able to build a working FrankenPad with all of the specs they wanted. And it certainly has a lot more geek cred than yet another Apple MacBook with some startup’s sticker on it.