I’m in the market for a new Linux laptop. My current machine is a 2018 i7 with 64GB of RAM, a 4K screen, 1TB of storage, 2x USB-C and 1x USB-A.
I’m looking for something that can match my current specs but brings great battery life, modern Wi-Fi, and a fingerprint reader. I don’t have to have 4K, and may actually prefer lower resolution for the battery savings.
I’d love to hear some recommendations for a machine built within the past 12 months. Thanks in advance for your feedback!
I’m trying to aim for the Framework Laptop 16. Coming out soon. Should be very modular.
Same!
Pre-order is placed!
Talking about the devil… 🎂 I just received an email for pre ordering.
Owno… the price tag… :\
Nevermind almost as expensive as Lenovo.
But once you’re in the environment, upgrades will be much cheaper than getting a new machine.
True that!.. I actually pre-ordered the Framework 16 now.
/me waiting for ThinkPad T14 Gen 4, with amd cpu.
Note: This might not work for your needs if you NEED the core OS to be Linux. It’s also not optimal if all the software you need to run is x86-only.
The Macbook Pro with M2 Max comes with up to 96 GB of RAM and a ridiculously high battery life. It comes at the price of… a very high price. And Asahi isn’t all that ready IMO, you’d have to run your Linux stuff in a VM or docker container. But for the most part I’ve found that MacOS doesn’t actually stop me from doing anything compared to Linux - the OS is less customizable, but software to run on the OS is still plentyful, especially if you use virtualization or containers (or containers + virtualization).
There’s just no real competing ARM laptop out there right now. Not at this performance level. I wish there was, I’d love this kind of performance/power consumption ratio on Linux where I could also eke out more battery life by customizing my kernel. It would be especially awesome if it could be something like a Framework where you can swap out the board for one with a better SoC in 5 years. But for now, the best laptop processors are Apple’s.
Thanks to Rosetta, I can also easily run AMD64 containers, so I have access to both ARM and x86 Linux software. The latter isn’t as efficient of course. But overall, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do on my two Apple Silicon Macs that I could (and need to) do on Linux.
Have you looked into the Framework Laptop? It’s highly customisable, upgradable, and repairable. I don’t actually know how well it plays with Linux but as it is appealing to techy people who like to tinker I would imagine the community to be rather active.
Framework laptops are, as far as I know, certified for Ubuntu. Meaning that any distro should run just fine, if maybe with some slight modifications, but Ubuntu (and its derivates) will work perfectly.
Yup, it’s absolutely on my list. I’m specifically interested in the 16”, but it’s not available yet. Additionally, the soonest I could get the 13” is Q4. I’m wanting something before then.
Thank you for the feedback!
I was in the same boat before Framework launched and ended up with a ThinkPad X1 Extreme.
It’s a solid machine - easy to upgrade the SSD and RAM, easy to repair, very good premium support available for an additional fee. I paid for the support and had to replace a touchpad that started acting weird. They were at my house within 24 hours and made the repair at my dining table. So much better than AppleCare.
The Linux support is great. Everything works. The build quality is good as far as pc laptops are concerned. Lots of USB ports, HDMI out, and an SD slot. That’s the next best thing to the customizable ports on the Framework. The battery is a little better than the Framework. Really can’t go wrong with either one.
I had an extreme, as nice as it was it kind of sucked on Linux due to all the dual gpu weirdness (working hdmi or battery longevity, pick one)
Has this changed recently? Because it used to be due to the wiring of hdmi though the external gpu
I have a gen4 with Nvidia 3050, and with the newer cards/drivers the support for power states is actually decent. On arch I don’t need any of the trickery you used to have to do to power off the card, if the card is not used for some time (less than a minute) it properly shut downs, and powertop reports something around 9w of power usage if you don’t fire up the CPU for compilation or such. When a program needs it, it powers back on. You still have some of the Linux/Nvidia headaches (with Wayland etc.) but it’s much better than it used to be
You can never go wrong with Thinkpad. Both of mine are 10+ years old and still running and they do with realyl well with Linux
Was looking at a Thinkpad; how well does Linux run in a web developer/graphic designer element? Is it pretty easy, specs wise?
Just got a new gigabyte. The bootloader is shit combined with shitvidia to make a terrible combination to avoid. I expect most companies are doing the same bullshit with TPM/Secure boot. Everything proprietary is criminal theft.
Avoid at all costs
If your OK with arm I’d say the macbooks and especially the macbook air are ready with asahi for daily use. I’m personally considering getting to run linux on as daily driver.
That’s an interesting point. I could buy my wife a new Air and update her M1 to run Linux. Thanks for the suggestion!
Check the status of Asahi Linux, they’re making a lot of progress on Apple silicon, but it’s very early. I wouldn’t recommend it, at this point.
Do you actually need 64GB of RAM? The Thinkpad T16 AMD would be a good choice, but the T14s AMD has just stupidly low fan noise in Notebookcheck’s review. You definitely want to focus on AMD, Intel’s efficiency is… not great right now. As an added benefit, you get AMD graphics from the APU, so none of the Nvidia driver fuckery, and better performance than Intel.
Personally, I’m waiting for the T14s Gen 4 AMD. The 7840u is zen 4, GCN 3, and TSMC 4nm over the 6850u’s zen 3, GCN2, and TSMC 6nm. The T14 and T16 just hit Lenovo’s model database ‘psref’ earlier this week, so I’d expect them out in the next couple months. The T14s hasn’t been seen yet, I’d guess it hits psref in the next couple weeks. But, I’m prepared to wait into Q4, if need be, and some think I will be.
