Not meant to be downer (as a very, very happy owner of a pocket T420s if its replacement T480s should fail me):
To anyone considering going back this far in hardware gen, my T420s (i7, 16GB memory, LUKS-encrypted SSD needed for work) on Mint + MATE DE could flat-out _not_ handle work video calls unless it was the _only_ thing that was running with everything else closed down. Even then, it was watching slideshows.
It was the sole reason I needed to buy a new (as in a secondhand T480s on eBay last year) machine.
Arte you certain your Zoom or whatever is using GPU?
I had to tweak something to make Zoom and Youtube see the GPU better (for Youtube, something in the Firefox about:config), and it lowered CPU load on my i5 CPU quite a bit, down to things becoming pretty fluid (T470, currently at 6.0.12 but it worked with 5.x, too).
While I fondly remember my T420 from 2011, its CPU was sort of... underpowered by today's standards.
I certainly tinkered around a lot with it over the years until it was blocking my work when I got my first remote job. Seeing the rebuttals here, sounds like it's worth dusting it off and giving it another shot at some point.
Not sure about T420s, but my T420 handled Zoom calls with Codium and browser running in the background (and sometimes used too) just fine. One thing it couldn't handle however is recording the call (the recording was like 1 FPS and almost no sound).
Ubuntu, Xfce, can't recall the specs right now but definitely not top of the line.
That could have been a distro bug though. Ubuntu has an issue right now where some hardware configs will have a hard time with browser based video if a USB headset is plugged in; YouTube sits and spins for me on a dual Xeon Dell Workstation that’s 2 years old, with 32GB RAM and dual 2080s using any browser.
As soon as I unplug the wireless headset from its USB charging cable, smooths right out.
I’m not saying you hit the same bug I’m saying software is hard.
Zero issues with that on my T420. (Using modern gnome, afaik i5 16gb ram and no extra graphics). I can even attach it to the TV and watch in full HD (so more than the screen even has) without any compromise.
To anyone considering going back this far in hardware gen, my T420s (i7, 16GB memory, LUKS-encrypted SSD needed for work) on Mint + MATE DE could flat-out _not_ handle work video calls unless it was the _only_ thing that was running with everything else closed down. Even then, it was watching slideshows.
It was the sole reason I needed to buy a new (as in a secondhand T480s on eBay last year) machine.