Should I go for the E470 or a refurbished T430?

My budget is about 1000€ and I'm from Italy but the less I spend the better.
I'll be using the future laptop for programming and exclusively on Gnu/Linux.
Should I go for the newest and more expensive E470 or save with a refurbished T430 getting a better build quality, maintenance and upgradability?

 

There are other options like the T450 or T460 that perhaps split the difference. To me the main thing against the T430 would be the poor screens.

 

Where can I find a new T460 in Italy? The cheapest one on Ebay starts at 980€ without the ssd and only 4GB of ram.

 

I'm assuming since you're willing to buy a used T430, you'd buy a used T450 or T460, which I would hope will cost less in Italy. If it's between the L470 and T430, I'd take the L430 for the better screen.

 

For T430, be sure to get at least a 3 month warranty. I've had 2/4 T430 which turned out to have faulty motherboard. The same PCH chip was defective on both motherboards causing capacitors around it to break and leak. I think it's an inherent thing for the model since this chip is supposed to heat up, and T430 does not have a cooling system for it.

My first T430 started dying while I was overseas for 2 months on the day 1, which was a real bummer. I spent the rest of my trip trying to fix the laptop daily. I only got to fix it when I got home. My second T430 worked very well, extremely stable and very well upgrade, and has 1 year warranty. It's going strong still.

My 3rd T430, defective PCH chip is causing issues.

My 4th T430 is with dedicated GPU, I salvaged parts from 2nd T430 to make an ultimate upgraded laptop, going extremely strong, but with a bit of heating and power issues.

Unless if you want to have a setup like me(main SSD + msata SSD + optical bay SSD, intentionally separated to be able to work with one SSD with one OS at a time if required), I would go with E470. I had to admit it, T430 are not like T420. 3rd gen intel CPU's are better, but quality of the Motherboard and keyboard went downhill... Very steep downhill.

 

A good refurbished T420 with an ssd and a new battery would fit my needs? I really like the keyboard and touchpad buttons and probably I would save 400-500€. The only concern is the noise, I don't know whether fans shut off in idle but for the price I can live with that.
Alternatively I'd also consider the T450s. What would be a fair price for an used of both models in good conditions?

 

I used T410/T410s/T420 exactly for the same purpose as you, for programming on linux. I only got greedy wanting more power and monitor hookups because Intel HD 3000 Graphics only allowed 1 external monitor.

I never had issues with the fan, at worst you can use thinkfan in linux to configure it to run exactly the way you want it to

I cannot comment on T450s

 

I think T450s is a better option.