Shadowing Practice: What Can a $50 Laptop Do?!? (2026) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hi everyone, my name's Matt and this is a ThinkPad T470S that I purchased for right around $50 on eBay.
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In today's video I'm going to show you what it took to get it fully up and running, what it's capable of and do my best to clean up and refurbish this old used laptop.
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So recently I decided I wanted a cheap machine for trying out different Linux distros
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and for some basic work like writing scripts.
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I pretty much knew right off the bat I wanted to
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go for a ThinkPad of some kind as they're generally easy to upgrade
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and repair and I've owned an X220 in the past and really liked
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The holy grail of Thinkpads at least from what I've read online are the T480s, but those guys usually start close to $200 for a working unit with RAM and storage.
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That was a little more than what I wanted to spend
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and after looking at a bunch of different models and deal hunting, I ended up pulling the trigger on this listing here,
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which you can see I paid about $30 for the laptop itself and $18 for shipping.
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The pictures weren't the best but it seemed to be in decent physical shape, and even though it was listed for parts, the description said it did charge and worked enough to look through the BIOS,
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which meant it was almost certainly fully functional.
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With an i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, it seemed like it was specced out fine for the type of things I was looking to do with it,
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so I hit buy it now and patiently waited for it to arrive.
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After about a week, I received the ThinkPad in the mail
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and was surprised to find the seller shipped it in a soft plastic envelope, though when I opened it up I found there was complete bubble wrap coverage
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and the laptop itself once out didn't look to be damaged from shipping, so no harm no foul, and all that came in the package was the laptop itself.
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No charger, but I've got a compatible one on hand and you can get OEM ones from eBay for like $5.
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On first inspection there were a few light scratches and minor wear, but overall nothing looked noticeably broken, and considering this laptop released around 9 years ago,
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this guy seemed to be in pretty good shape.
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Opening the lid I found again some lightly worn surfaces, but nothing major in terms of damage, Pressing the power button, the keyboard illuminated and then loaded this boot menu.
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There didn't seem to be an OS already on it, so I ended up getting into this diagnostic screen where I could see the system info.
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Going to the CPU tab, I confirmed this laptop is using an Intel Core i5 -6300U.
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This is a 2 -core 4 -thread CPU that's not very powerful
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but should be good enough for a basic Linux productivity machine.
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Under the Memory tab, I saw it did indeed have 8GB of DER4 memory, but I couldn't seem to find any information on the pre -installed storage, which is a bit of foreshadowing.
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Under the display tab I found the model number
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and looking it up it seems this is in fact an IPS display like the listing stated.
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It's a 14" 1080p 16 :9 display and we'll talk about my thoughts on it more in a bit.
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Port wise this laptop's pretty well kitted out with a power input.
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USB 3, Combo Audio, and SD card reader on the left.
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On the other side we find a Smart Card Reader, a Thunderbolt 3 USB -C port, two more USB 3 ports,
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HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, a SIM card slot, and a Kensington lock.
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So, I shouldn't be needing any dongles for this laptop.
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With the device turned off, I decided to take a look at the internals.
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Five screws and some plastic clips hold on the bottom cover.
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Also, these are captive screws, meaning they stay attached to the panel, which is a small thing, but is so nice because it means you're way less likely to lose one of these tiny screws.
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Inside, I found a couple of interesting things, the first being there's no SSD installed, even though the listing said there should be a 256GB drive,
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and that the M .2 Wi -Fi card isn't screwed down.
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But before I messed with anything I decided to unplug the batteries
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which required me to remove a couple of screws for each and pop them out.
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And this shows you how easy it is to remove the batteries
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and how easy it would be to replace a battery if I needed to.
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Now visually there isn't any swelling or anything on these guys
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but who knows how much of a charge they'll hold and how many cycles they've been put through.
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Bringing my attention to the RAM and pulling out the single stick, I found it's only a 4GB module, meaning there must be 4 additional gigs soldered to the board somewhere,
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but even just upgrading this to an 8GB stick for 12GB total in the future could be nice.
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Right above the DIMM slot is the cooler for the CPU, which looks clean and dust free, and the only other thing worth noting is under here there's
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a few more antenna cables running to an empty M .2 slot of some sort, I'm assuming it's similar to the M .2 WiFi slot,
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but probably for cellular and I quickly stole the screw from this one to hold down the wifi card.
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Before putting the batteries back in, I installed a 256GB Intel 600P NVMe SSD that I had recently purchased on eBay for around $17,
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also I used a screw that I had on hand.
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Which if you add a buck for the screw, $17 for the SSD, and $5 for the charger to the original purchase price of the laptop,
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that brings the total price to really get this up and running to a little over $70, which if that's all I have to spend for a fully functional laptop, then that's not bad in my opinion.
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I might replace the thermal paste later, but for now, I just wanted to start testing it out a bit.
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Also, if you're wondering, even though the listing did have a 256GB SSD listed in the specs,
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something I missed was it pretty clearly stated in the conditions section that it didn't come with a hard drive or charger, which I don't know how I missed that, but again, it's not the end of the world.
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So, what's this guy capable of?
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Well, to test the base performance, ironically I decided to do it inside of Windows before installing Linux to see stuff like temps, general performance, and even gaming performance.
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Part of why a laptop like this is so cheap is
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that it's not natively able to run Windows 11 which many people require now that Windows 10 has reached end of life.
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Now you can use Rufus to make a bootable Windows 11 USB that'll bypass the TPM 2 .0 requirement,
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but the way the great time inside of Windows 11, so I just installed Windows 10 for testing.
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Booting in and getting stuff installed and set up was a pretty slow experience, but general use in Windows 10 wasn't too bad, gaming is another story.
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I know this isn't a gaming laptop, but for the heck of it, I decided to test out a few games.
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In Valorant, at 720p low, I saw around 30 -40 FPS average, but with a ton of stutters and lag.
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This was basically unplayable, and I just had zero chance of having any success with this kind of performance.
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In Fortnite with the lowest settings in performance mode, I again saw around a 30 fps average with 1 % lows of around 2.
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This again stuttered a ton and froze completely at points, but surprisingly I was able to get a few kills which was kinda funny.
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Finally, even Minecraft at 720p with the lowest graphical preset called fast didn't provide a very good experience.
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Even though the fps was a little higher than the other titles, it still stuttered a ton, to run.
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You could technically hook up a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU to the USB -C port
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which would give you a big performance uplift
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but this would cost like $200 for a dock and graphics card so definitely not worth it in my opinion.
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If you're wanting to game on a PC like this, I think emulation is the way to go.
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I flashed a 128GB Baudicera image to an SD card
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and thought it would be cool to have this plugged in at all times
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and be able to boot to it whenever I wanted.
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But I found out you can't boot to an SD card on this laptop.
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I could still boot to it with an SD to USB adapter
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and I was able to run and play a bunch of different retro titles.
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So again, if you're wanting to game on an older system like this, retro console emulation is the way to go in my opinion.
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hundreds if not thousands of titles that will be playable on this PC.
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Temperature wise, this PC idled around 42 degrees, and under load sat around the high 60s to mid 70s,
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which is decent, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to change out the thermal paste.
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I also ran a battery test report in Windows, which once completed showed the batteries have definitely been heavily used, as one had a cycle count of nearly 800,
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and the other had a cycle count of nearly 1000.
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With that being said, they still had a usable capacity of around 75%, which should translate to at least a couple hours of general use, which is fine with me,
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and like I said before, changing these batteries out is super simple to do, so in the future, if I'm not getting the battery life I want, I can always swap out the existing batteries for new ones.
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And before I installed a Linux distro, I did decide to open the system back up, take out the batteries again, and change out the thermal paste, which was a pretty quick and pain -free process.
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With that done, I was ready to install Linux, I decided to start with Linux Mint Cinnamon, All I did was grab the ISO from the Linux Mint website.
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flashed it to a USB, booted to that USB and selected to install Linux Mint to my SSD.
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And after about 15 minutes, I had Linux installed, which definitely was noticeably faster and more responsive than Windows 10 on this machine.
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For editing Word documents and spreadsheet files, browsing the web, and streaming 1080p video, this PC seemed to handle it all fine.
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I even downloaded Minecraft, and running it at the same settings as I did in Windows, yielded a much smoother experience, likely due to having way less background processes going on.
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Again, I don't think I'll ever use this laptop for gaming, but it's nice to see better gaming performance in Linux than in Windows.
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plastic surfaces, the screen, the keyboard, and anything else that looked like it needed to be cleaned off.
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I've been using this laptop for a few days now, just to make sure everything's working as intended, and luckily it is.
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I'm able to get a few hours of work done before needing to plug it in, which is fine because I don't plan on using it much outside of the house.
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I've been using it a lot in the mornings to do stuff like answer emails, manage to -do lists in Notion, along with planning and scripting videos,
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which has been nice to do away from my desk that I spend most of my working days at.
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This green isn't great but it gets reasonably bright and is perfectly usable.
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Viewing angles aren't amazing but I'm only ever using it looking straight on so that's not a problem to me.
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The trackpad is a basic plastic one that works fine
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and I may look into upgrading this to a glass one
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which is a mod I think others have done though I'll use an external mouse whenever possible.
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The keyboard was a little bit of a disappointment, as while it's far from the worst laptop keyboard I've ever used, it pales in comparison to the one I had on my X220.
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I know these are easily replaceable and you can get an aftermarket one for like $15 - $20, so I may do research into if it's worth it or not to switch it out,
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and what the best one of those replacement ones is in terms of quality and typing experience.
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But overall the laptop is completely usable and I don't have any major complaints.
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Also, this 14" form factor is a nice size in my opinion as the screen's big enough to use comfortably
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while also being small enough to easily fit in a laptop bag.
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And to finish this off, I decided to do two more things to polish it up.
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The first is I removed all the old broken feet from the bottom panel
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and installed these inexpensive adhesive ones that I got for only like a buck on AliExpress.
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factory new surface condition.
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But I'll let you be the judge, here's the laptop before any cleaning, and here it is after cleaning and doing the magic eraser method.
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Now I've also seen people say they put Nivea hand cream on the top after doing the magic eraser thing, and I'm not sure if this is just an elaborate troll or not,
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but I didn't think it would be worth it spending the money on the hand cream to try it out, and I really only did the magic eraser trick because I had some on hand.
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ThinkPad now is fully up and running.
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This isn't a powerhouse or anything, but it's great for basic tasks, and while I wouldn't want this to break or be stolen, I'm much less worried about handling it super carefully
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or traveling with it as losing out on
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or breaking a $75 laptop is much easier to get over compared to doing the same to a $500 laptop
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let alone one that's $1000 + So yeah guys, I think it's time to wrap this video up.
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I hope you guys enjoyed it, if you did consider subscribing, and as always this is Matt from Tech by Matt, signing out.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “What Can a $50 Laptop Do?!?”. Las palabras que más se repiten: laptop, Windows, Linux. Este vídeo tiene 126 frases y 2411 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 12:13. El hablante habla rápido, unas 197 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. Solo el 76 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| boot sustantivo | /but/ | bota |
| slot sustantivo | /slɑt/ | ranura, hendidura |
| keyboard sustantivo | /ˈki.bɔɹd/ | teclado |
| eraser sustantivo | /ɪˈɹeɪsɚ/ | borrador, goma de borrar |
| stutter sustantivo | /ˈstʌtɚ/ | tartamudeo |
| usable adjetivo | /ˈjuː.zə.bəl/ | utilizable, usable |
| charger sustantivo | /ˈt͡ʃɑɹd͡ʒɚ/ | cargador, recargardor |
| pasta sustantivo | /ˈpɑ.stə/ | pasta |
| thermal adjetivo | /ˈθɜːməl/ | termal |
| install verbo | /ɪnˈstɔl/ | instalar |
| buck sustantivo | /ˈbʌk/ | buco, gamo |
| plug sustantivo | /plʌɡ/ | enchufe, clavija |
| wrap verbo | /ɹæp/ | envolver, fajar |
| adhesive adjetivo | /ədˈhiː.sɪv/ | adhesivo |
| aftermarket sustantivo | poatmercado |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Significado |
|---|---|
| end up verbo | terminar, ir a parar |
| back up verbo | retroceder, ciar |
| clean up verbo | limpiar |
| find out verbo | averiguar, anoticiarse |
| get over verbo | superar, sobreponerse a |
| hold down verbo | retener, sujetar |
| pull out verbo | retirarse |
| put through verbo | poner con |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — una acción que empezó antes y continúa | I've been using |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | I've owned · I've read · they've been put |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | was listed · was specced · be damaged |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | storage, which is · panel, which is · kills which was |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 49 contracciones y formas reducidas, como I'm, I've, didn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: emulation /ˌɛm.juˈleɪ̯.ʃən/, foreshadow /fɔːˈʃædəʊ/, patiently /ˈpeɪʃəntli/, refurbish /ɹiˈfɝbɪʃ/, spreadsheet /ˈspɹɛd.ʃit/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: emulation /ˌɛm.juˈleɪ̯.ʃən/, illuminate /ɪˈl(j)umɪneɪt/, replaceable /ɹɪˈpleɪsəbəl/, inexpensive /ˌɪnɪkˈspɛnsɪv/, visually /ˈvɪzju.əli/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: slot /slɑt/, stutter /ˈstʌtɚ/, spectacles /ˈspɛktəkl̩z/, spreadsheet /ˈspɹɛd.ʃit/, spec /ˈspɛk/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: adhesive /ədˈhiː.sɪv/, natively /ˈneɪtɪvli/, inexpensive /ˌɪnɪkˈspɛnsɪv/, visually /ˈvɪzju.əli/, responsive /ɹɪˈspɑn.sɪv/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: usable /ˈjuː.zə.bəl/, spectacles /ˈspɛktəkl̩z/, browse /bɹaʊz/, visually /ˈvɪzju.əli/, translate /tɹænzˈleɪt/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como boot, slot, keyboard.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.