The Vikings X230 secure laptop is a refurbished, ultra-portable and durable business-grade laptop that respects your freedom and your privacy. It comes with up-to-date coreboot boot firmware & Intel ME neutralized. Vikings offers a wide choice of improvements, depending on your budget and needs.
- Boot Firmware: coreboot
- Intel Management Engine backdoor: neutralized (via me_cleaner)
- CPU: Intel i5 or i7, Ivy Bridge 3rd generation
- 2 cores, 4 threads, 35W TDP
- Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cpuid_fault epb pti ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts md_clear flush_l1d
- Graphics: Intel® HD Graphics 4000 (CPU-integrated)
- Display: 12.50 inch 16:9, 1366 x 768 pixel, matte (IPS or TN available)
- Connections: 1 Express Card 54mm, 1 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen1, 1 VGA, 1 DisplayPort, 1 Kensington Lock, 1 Docking Station Port, Audio Connections: 3.5mm combo, Card Reader: 4-in-1 (SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC), 1 Fingerprint Reader
- Dimensions: height x width x depth (in mm): 26.6 x 305 x 206.5 ( = 1.05 x 12.01 x 8.13 in)
- Weight (approx., without battery): 1.35 kg ( = 47.62 oz / 2.98 pounds)
More information about the X230 in our Wiki.
NOTE: Product images shown are representative of the product being sold, but may vary slightly from the product as shipped due to continuous improvement and related changes.
Jerome Quan
The X230 (i7) is my main travel & bed laptop :o) There are thinner laptops available these days, but not with coreboot AND Intel ME neutralised. I can trust this laptop not to spy on me. I use NixOS on this machine, Debian also works very well. Watching videos on the IPS display also is very nice, plus the HD resolution saves space on the disk for my movie selection.
The purchase process with Vikings has been flawless (also got an X200 here in 2018). Notably the contact with Thomas prior the purchase has been really pleasant, probably the least sales-y experience I’ve had so far.
Daniel
Coreboot X230: Best libre laptop for professionals
I’m very happy with this powerful and corebooted ThinkPad X230 by Vikings!
I received the laptop swiftly delivered by DHL an in a professionally packed box. The laptop itself looks as good as new, in a near to perfect casing and a presumably brand new keyboard.
The form factor of the X230 is perfect for my needs, and I really love the smaller, more portable size. I’ve been working mostly with 14″ laptops so far, more specifically the ThinkPad T4XX series.
This great little machine beats them all:
* Highly portable, while still offering a great and full sized keyboard. The keyboard by the way being really excellent, far better than the newer ThinkPad chiclet keyboards and I actually prefer it over the older X200/220 keyboards as well. The 12.5″ screen size makes it a perfect companion not only for traveling, but also for general handling and daily usage around home or in the office.
* Ordered mine with 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It’s really powerful, and for my daily usage – and I work as an IT professional and system administrator – it’s really speedy and can handle anything I throw at it.
And I’m not talking “normal office work” only, this X230 delivers far more than that. I can easily run my 6-8 virtual machines on high load, seems like no big deal for the X230…
* You’d want to get the docking station as well. It’s a highly useful piece of gear, and I much prefer this type of docking station to any USB-C type box. It’s easy – and feels good – to dock the X230, it makes a really nice little “clack” sound when you attach the X230 and it sits well and tight. The main benefit here is that I can use the X230 easily with my 27″ 2K monitor at home, or my dual screen setup at the office. So when I work stationary, I usually pop the X230 into the docking station and have a powerful beast of a workstation. Going out? No issue, I simply dock the X230 off the station and put it into my bag and I’m ready to leave.
This combination of a small, light and portable laptop, yet a fully capable workstation when docked…
Well it simply beats all my previous setups!
* IPS panel – really nice to work with, bright and full colors. Now, I can’t really compare it to the normal TFT as I haven’t used that, but it’s a huge difference to e.g the TFT panel in my older X200. This IPS is really good!
* Battery life. I got a brand new 6 cell (6600mAh/73Wh) battery from Thomas – thanks again! – and I can use the X230 for a good 8-9 hours, depending on work load. For me, that’s usually good enough for an entire work day at the office and usually don’t even bother to bring the charger.
* Coreboot and (almost completely) free of the Intel Management Engine. You won’t find too many machines out there that are usable for modern day computing tasks incl. virtualization, while having the Intel ME disabled. This is one of them! There’s a reason the X230 is ranking on top of Qubes OS hardware compatibility list, and that the X230 is one of the few laptops that also is one of the few Qubes OS certified laptops. The X230 is one of the most powerful and libre friendly laptops out there.
This Vikings X230 with Coreboot is absolutely the best laptop I’ve ever used so far!
I’d recommend the X230 to users out there that want a privacy/freedom respecting machine, both for personal and for professional usage. It’s so good I’m actually considering buying a second one, for backup and contingency. Really hope that this machine will be around for a long time!
Big thanks out to Thomas and his team for his professional support during the buying process, and for doing a _really_ good job selecting and refurbishing this truly A grade hardware!! 5 stars and both thumbs up!
Christoph
Fantastic refurbished Laptop with a fantastic Display
Hello,
i have bought this laptop before the relaunch of the shop after a very nice contact in the Trisquel forum and i am very, very happy with my purchase. My points are:
1. I received a laptop in an “as new condition” with 8 GB of ram and a SSD inside. The quality of refurbishment is really “Made in Germany”. There is no sign of second hand laptop!
2. Thomas recommended me to choose the IPS-Panel and i love it every day, it’s fantastic, would never go back again.
3. The whole process of buying this laptop, the packaging and the contact after the purchase was first class.
4. For this quality of refurbishment the price was more than fair.
I can recommend every “normal” user, who want’s a freedom respecting laptop to choose Thomas and his company in making this laptops possible.
Thanks Vikings, thank you Thomas for this nice laptop!
Christoph
Mogul
All I need
This is my main rig! What I like about it most is that it’s really easy to travel with and that I basically can use it like a workstation together with the docking station and my desktop monitor. And: How awesome there is no stupid Intel ME backdoor, check with dmesg: [mei_me 0000:00:16.0: wait hw ready failed]. The built-in speaker really sucks, but I own a headset and other laptops aren’t much better.
I didn’t require assistance from Viking yet so I can’t say anything about the serivce. I got my delivery in the same week (Switzerland). Overall experience: very recommended