Thought I needed an old ThinkPad for retro gaming until I tried a Pi 400

Was dead set on buying a beat up T420 off eBay for $60 to play DOS games. Read a forum post where a guy said the Pi 400 handles DOSBox Pure with zero fan noise and takes up less desk space. Tried one at a friend's place last month. Boots Duke Nukem 3D faster than any laptop I ever owned. Now my $100 Pi sits next to the monitor and I don't even miss the ThinkPad. Anyone else ditch the old laptop route for a tiny board?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_karen19d ago

jones.grace said "boots up quick and I don't have to worry about a dying laptop battery" and that reminds me of my buddy Mike. He bought a beat up ThinkPad T430 for like $50 last year and the battery would die in 20 minutes off the charger. He ended up having to play everything plugged in anyway which kind of defeated the whole purpose. Meanwhile his roommate has a Pi 400 hooked up to a tiny monitor and runs Descent and Quake on it no problem. Mike finally ditched the ThinkPad and got a Pi 400 last month and now he just leaves it running all day without even thinking about power or noise.

jones.grace19d ago

Ha, yeah I did the exact same thing. I was hunting for a cheap Dell Latitude to run old games and then I saw someone running System Shock 2 on a Pi 400 with no issues. I picked one up for $80 and haven't looked back. It boots up quick and I don't have to worry about a dying laptop battery or a noisy fan running all the time. The thing just sits there and works, plus it uses way less power than any old laptop would. Way better deal for simple DOS gaming.