I'm pretty sure that the X230 can be upgraded to 16GB RAM, and it may be possible with the X220. They cannot be librebooted, but they can be corebooted and ME-cleaned. If you have the technical knowledge to flash Coreboot, this will be as free as the most recent Purism laptop (the one with no ME, I forget the model) and probably much cheaper. However, it will not be as free as your librebooted X200.
I'm curious to know what tasks you require 16GB RAM for. I need to replace my X60 keyboard and am in the meantime using my non-free X230 temporarily. While I never had a problem with the X60's 2GB RAM, I was curious to see if I would start to exceed that with 8GB available on my X230. I've been pretty liberal with how many programs I run at a time, and have yet to reach 3GB. Perhaps with a heavier desktop environment I'd get there, but I don't know how I make it to 4. If my X60 ever dies completely, I'll probably go with a X200 tablet with 4GB. It seems to me that the specs of modern laptops are needed for proprietary systems affected by Wirth's Law[1], but are less important for GNU/Linux. A friend of mine recently switched from macOS to Trisquel. With macOS, he certainly rquired his 8GB. During basic desktop usage he sat at 6-7GB. Since switching to Trisquel he sits at 1-1.5GB and rarely exeeds 2GB. But everyone's needs are different. If your X200 (which you can upgrade to 8GB if you haven't already) really is insufficient for you, a corebooted and ME-cleaned X230 is a better compromise than your Dell. I think there are also a few libreboot-supported laptops that are slightly newer than the X200 (T400, T400s) but I don't know specifically which if any specs are better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law
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