Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

336 points by thepoet 3 years ago | 518 comments

Background: I am sick of Apple's terrible customer support in my country. The most recent case was that of my friend who upgraded to a 14 inch Macbook Pro that stopped booting in 7 days. Since there is no return option in 30 days like in other geographies, he took it to Apple's authorised service centre (there are no Apple owned service centres in my country), and they put a big scratch right across the Apple logo. To add to this, Apple's customer support final response after more than a week of wasting his time was they would not be able to replace the display even when my friend sent clear voice recordings of the service centre employees accepting their mistake. He had to take the help of the local police who went with him to the shop to get a written statement that they would be replacing the display too along with the mainboard to fix the primary issue of dead laptop.

I have had my own horror stories in the past 10 years and I do not want to pay another dime to Apple for such pathetic treatment even under warranty.

Are there any other options for someone like me?

NorwegianDude 3 years ago |

You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop.

Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow"

I really don't understand how it's done. Clearly they must have parts distributed ahead of time.

I'm just amazed that it's included in the price considering the cost of sending a technician out to a customer. The fact that even here on HN a lot of people think Apple's support is good suggests that Dell might be able to save a ton of money by lowering their support level, so I don't really get why they offer it.

blurrybird 3 years ago | |

You should see their 4 hour 24x7 ProSupport option.

We managed to bundle it in with a 1600-device order one year and I was (un)fortunate enough to get to experience it.

“So if I understand correctly, You’ve just spilt a red bull on your work laptop at a LAN party you’re facilitating just now, and it’s 1AM, and you need your laptop tomorrow morning for bump out…?

Ok does 3:30am work for you?”

djbusby 3 years ago | | |

In 2000 I spilled grape juice on my Dell Inspiron laptop, while 1000 miles from home. They were out fixing it the next day.

It's not a new play for Dell.

readingnews 3 years ago | |

I really do not understand the love the XPS 13 gets. We have several here at the office. We will never get them again. They break, the keyboard is not pleasant, the machine is not really fast, two handed openings are painful when you come from a different brand, charging it takes forever, we just leave them plugged in, switching wireless to wired in linux (several distros) takes too long, did I mention the keyboard makes me want to vomit?... I think my office neighbors has broken at least 7 times. I stopped using mine as I liked my ancient MBP better, and I really do not like apple that much.

Although I do not have an alternative that I have used, I know colleagues who love their new (last three or four years old) Lenovos, like the X series.

horsawlarway 3 years ago | | |

I have 2 in the XPS line - a relatively old 15 inch and a new(ish) 13 inch.

They're perfectly fine machines.

Dell officially supports linux on them (admittedly, only Ubuntu), you can get 32gb of RAM, and they perform just as well as any other intel based laptop (which is to say - I wish they sucked less power, but they're fine on the performance scale).

I'm... not a clean person with my machines, and I've never noticed any issues with the keyboards.

I have zero issues swapping wireless to wired (Arch linux) - it's basically instant for me, but I don't actually know how you're testing that, since none of the newer 13 models include an ethernet port (I use an adapter). Have you considered that you have a bad usb-ethernet adapter? Every one I've used is fine. Alternatively - are you sure you're not thinking of the Latitude line? Those are very different machines, which I also avoid.

Basically - I'd take an XPS every time over anything Lenovo puts out. I don't even really care about the hardware, I just think Lenovo can't be trusted a god damn inch. Chinese company selling computers with rootkits/MITM pre-installed. It was a sad day when IBM sold their personal computing line to them. I know a lot of folks still like the Thinkpads - but it's not worth it, IMO.

rowanG077 3 years ago | | |

I mean the level of complaint being "Opening the lid is kinda hard" shows it must be a pretty good laptop. It's like complaining that the waiter asked one time too many if everything was satisfactory at a high-end restaurant.

packetlost 3 years ago | | |

Idk, I'm on my 3rd XPS and I've had none of these problems. Even the keyboard I consider to be above average. I will agree that opening the lid can bit a bit difficult/awkward, but it's hardly a problem.

tchaffee 3 years ago | |

My last Dell XPS sucked and the support sucked. I bought a top of the line XPS and within less than a year the battery was swollen. Same exact battery model they were still replacing for free on the previous laptop model, but when I called support I was out of luck. So I bought a new battery. And then within a few more months I started getting common the sticky key problem with several keys on my keyboard requiring a lot of pressure to work. Their build quality has gone way down. Strong avoid.

I switched to a gaming laptop and am still comparing brands before I decide who to recommend, but after a year I'm still really happy with the performance and build quality of my current one. Most seem built to take a beating. Which makes sense.

klik99 3 years ago | | |

Was your last Dell recent? I remember having horrible experiences with Dell support so I wouldn't buy them. But about 1.5 years ago I saw a great deal on a refurbished beefy machine I needed - and found their support was amazing when it needed some parts replaced. My guess is they did a 180 on support because they had a bad reputation. YMMV because I still hear bad experiences - they partner with local support so it may depend on the quality of folks in your area.

tinus_hn 3 years ago | | |

It just depends on what kind of support you order. Got the basic support? You get to listen to outsourced tech support telling you you have to reinstall Windows first. Got the premium support? They’ll typically replace the motherboard with everything on it the next day.

weberer 3 years ago | |

Just make sure the model you're getting supports S3 sleep mode (AKA real sleep mode) before hand. A lot of the newer Dells don't. Its something the OEM needs to support in the BIOS, so you can't just fix it by installing a new distro.

ajvs 3 years ago | | |

Since at least the 2019 model Dell XPS 13s no longer have S3 sleep mode and instead uses Microsoft's "Modern Standby" (s0ix)[1], which consumes tons of power whilst in "sleep" in order to have slightly quicker wake times.

[1] https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-15-9570-BIOS-1-3-0-sl...

treffer 3 years ago | | |

As far as I understand that's an Intel thing. They deprecated it and it is not allowed for high security devices.... (I thibk HS3 profiles?)

I have one of those DELLs for work. Don't.

nrjames 3 years ago | | |

My daughter just received a school laptop that drains battery very fast when sleeping. What exactly should I look for in the BIOS to set it to real sleep mode?

fennecfoxy 3 years ago | | |

Even if it does you still can't manually control the fan. Ahahaha, Dell, what a fucking joke.

mort96 3 years ago | |

I've had a couple XPS laptops over the years, one XPS 13 and one XPS 15. Both have had issues with their trackpads getting wonky. They would just increasingly ignore inputs and react incorrectly to my finger. The XPS 15 (the 2-in-1 model) would also sometimes just not go to sleep and cook itself in my bag, and its keyboard has keys which just break over time under normal use, and that's not covered under warranty. You can't just replace the keyboard, you have to pay out of pocket to replace the whole top case of the laptop.

Your experience might differ, but I'm not getting a Dell again.

ClumsyPilot 3 years ago | | |

> The XPS 15 (the 2-in-1 model) would also sometimes just not go to sleep and cook itself in my bag

happened to my XPS 15, Thats because they remives normal sleep mode and replaced it with always on standby. had to switch ti hybernation

alkonaut 3 years ago | | |

The keyboard/trackpad giving up is the battery swelling. And it happens to nearly all of them I think. At least if they run hot.

I had one plugged in 24/7 for 3 years and it’s usually a few months until the battery swells until the keyboard stops working. I had the battery replaced three times.

If only they allowed running without battery I’d get one again. Or if they started testing their machines properly. Great support, sloppy thermal design and testing by Dell.

hertzrat 3 years ago | | |

That’s due to swelling batteries, which is apparently common in the xps line

jscheel 3 years ago | | |

My 2019 16" mbp will randomly try to cook itself in my bag too. Apple never has any answers for any of the bullcrap power management that happens.

thesuitonym 3 years ago | |

The company I work for used to buy XPS's for upper management and C-levels. We stopped because every single one of them had their batteries bulge so bad they popped out the keyboards and trackpads. At first we thought it was a problem of traveling with them in standby, but then it started happening on users' desks. Other Dell laptops don't have such a problem, it has to be something with the XPS design.

packetlost 3 years ago | | |

It happened fairly often to the 2015-2016ish era XPSs. Afaik they fixed whatever issue was causing it

kurupt213 3 years ago | | |

Any lithium-ion battery can go spicy. The pouch form-factor common to the thin profile laptops that don’t have easily removed batteries can really swell.

It’s the same phenomenon that warps iPhones

650REDHAIR 3 years ago | |

My XPS15 has been a paperweight for 2 years now.

The original Dell battery swelled up and was replaced under warranty. The replacement battery lasted a couple of months and was so swollen it broke my keyboard and trackpad.

Dell support refused to fix it and couldn't provide me with a battery because they were completely out.

I tried 3 different vendors and all 3 batteries failed to work because Dell has battery DRM.

I can't even use it plugged in because the GPU/CPU throttle themselves without a battery hooked up.

My i7, 32gb ram, 4k laptop is a giant dud. Never again.

hnburnsy 3 years ago | | |

Just replaced the 97 WH battery on my Xps15 for the third time in 4 years, got the battery from third party on Amazon for $50, no issues, and the second battery lasted longer than the Dell OEM battery. Just search for 6GTPY. Not sure what DRM issue you ran into.

Install the Dell Power Manager application as it has very granular controls to allow you to maximize battery life and avoid the swelling issue. Good luck.

throw1234651234 3 years ago | |

Had XPS 15 for 6 years for work. Screen started dying all the time in year 2. Magically fixed itself after being taken apart multiple times. Network card died. Replaced. Still disconnects sometimes. Added 16 gigs of RAM. Was super picky about what RAM it took. Battery did swell a bit, but then stopped and didn't affect anything. I never replaced it. Overall, I am not too happy, but can't think of a better laptop.

Edit: Saw another comment on overheating - I only run mine on a coolpad, period. I think it fries the RAM otherwise.

bmitc 3 years ago | |

I would offer that the XPS 15 is a better deal since you can get it with a matte screen and it also allows upgrading both RAM and SSD. You cannot update the RAM on XPS 13. Not sure if they've changed the ability to upgrade the SSD is newer models.

Also, I'd say that Dell's customer support is horrendous. I bought an XPS 15 from them but had issues with the trackpad (which I think in hindsight were software/firmware related). It tooks months to resolve it, and by the time they did and they were going to replace it, they no longer sold the white XPS 15. They offered the gray one, which I didn't want, or a refund. They basically told me to buy a computer from someone else as there's "plenty of laptop makers around who might make a white one" (paraphrased). I also had to call them and tell them to stop the replacement, as they originally just kicked it off with a replacement that was not only not the correct color but had the completely wrong specs.

Basically every email and phone call was with a different person, for the same support ticket.

lerela 3 years ago | |

Latest models have suspend issues with Linux though, so keep that in mind if you do not plan to use Windows.

weberer 3 years ago | | |

The same issues exist in Windows as well. They actually exist BECAUSE Windows no longer supports real sleep mode. Microsoft does this to push "modern standby" so they can phone home 24/7.

Smerity 3 years ago | |

I have had my XPS 13 laptop die four times in the past two years, needing a replacement logic board each time.

The laptop is amazing when it's working, default Linux support too, but so far have literally had to ship it back to Dell for at least two months total since I've used it. Usually the turn around is only a few days but they were waiting on a part at one stage for weeks.

I am now looking to do a system exchange with them but am not certain if it's going to go through. At this stage I can't imagine they'd be profitable on this machine given how many times I've had to ship it in for repair.

Hence I sadly cannot recommend the XPS 13 even though I truly love it when it's working and laugh with glee at having 32GB of RAM =]

PaulWaldman 3 years ago | |

>"OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow"

Is this real? I travel quite a bit and have a ThinkPad with the highest level of support. When international, it takes at least 10 days to get replacement parts. The ticket is forwarded to the closest support. When I was in Cape Town, this happened to be the UK. It's easy to see how it takes that long to get replacement parts when they are shipped such great distances. The support reps, although friendly, weren't very responsive.

not_me_ever 3 years ago | |

I don't understand why anybody can recommend anything from Dell.

Last company I worked from had ~30 XPSs (various models). On average we had one break daily. Yes, they pick it up, and return it "fixed" within a week, but then it just breaks down 2 weeks later.

One of their "docking station" brick thingies went up in flames, while nothing was plugged into it, causing an evacuation of the building. Another one "exploded". Not bad enough to hurt somebody, but the coffe mug next to it was blown off the table.

My XPS 15 started to get hot, and smoke out of the keyboard while I was reading my email. Scaring the shit out of everybody in the coffee shop I was sitting in.

"Dude! You're Getting a Dell!" "Nah, thanks, I'd rather get a lobotomy."

tlhunter 3 years ago | |

The only laptop I've had in the past decade with major Linux compatibility issues was an XPS 13. It had loads of screen artifacting, small squares of the screen that would retain a previous frame. After a dozen kernel updates the problem remained.

fennecfoxy 3 years ago | |

XPS 13 sucks lmao. I have one and I'd never get one again. Dell don't know how to do cooling for shit. Honestly the most naive design I've seen for cooling; I've had to add a thermal pad between heat pipe and the aluminium back of the case just to sink some extra heat, only other thing possible to do is repaste but the pad makes the most difference.

dezzadk 3 years ago | |

IDGAF about their "sent DOA and fix later" on-site support. It will NOT fix terrible QC of their motherboards.

ska 3 years ago | |

> so I don't really get why they offer it.

For a long time, their failure rates were pretty high, i don't know if that's still true. The rock solid support made them competitive for big institutional buyers etc. Comparison then wasn't an apple but a thinkbook, which were way more robust.

zeroc8 3 years ago | |

I got an XPS 13 and it's the biggest crap you can imagine, especially the docking station. Not sure if it is Windows 11 or if it is the Dell hardware, but I cannot stand it.

I feel the only serious alternative is a Lenovo running Linux.

Eatcats 3 years ago | |

yep, I had two Dells, one XPS 15 from 2019 and some cheap Vostro, and both had problems with sleep state. The support is great, but I couldn't get Ubuntu to run without issues, and it sucked a lot.

Older Latitude were great for dev work, and I still use my 7450.

deepstack 3 years ago | |

* You don't say where you are located * I also would like to know the location. thepoet, would be good if you start commenting on this thread as it is on the front page of HN.

eastbound 3 years ago | |

> then XPS 13 is a great laptop.

No, clearly not. Apart from the overheating the first experience you’ll have is opening it: You pull the screen upwards, but the hinge is too strong, so the bottom comes with the screen, and then since the handle is slippery you lose the screen and the whole block slams on the desk.

That’s on paar with the DELL experience. Pretty much everything is wrong about it.

folkrav 3 years ago | | |

> No, clearly not. Apart from the overheating the first experience you’ll have is opening it: You pull the screen upwards, but the hinge is too strong, so the bottom comes with the screen, and then since the handle is slippery you lose the screen and the whole block slams on the desk.

I've just always opened my laptops with two hands (I'm gonna type my password anyway?), so a hinge not being able to be opened with one hand always screamed "first world problem" type of issue to me. Maybe I'm just too used to crappy laptop hinges and using a nice one would be a revelation. I don't know.

Biganon 3 years ago | | |

Every single laptop does this, except bulky Lenovos. Is it really too hard to use both hands? How many times a day do you open your laptop anyway? Let alone with one hand unavailable?

Lutger 3 years ago |

I absolutely love my Framework laptop for dev. I feel the software support is also quite good, at least for Fedora which is explicitly supported. I got the DIY edition and put everything together, including installing Fedora, in under 1 hour. And I'm a really slow guy, haven't build a computer in 10 years - its too easy with framework.

This laptop is really build to be repairable and modular and it does not suck at all. I think it will last a long time.

The ability to choose your own edition also means I got a reasonably affordable laptop with loads of RAM, which I find is quite useful for development.

zivkovicp 3 years ago |

Please excuse the long-winded answer...

I have also given up on Apple, but mostly because I can't see the value in it anymore, otherwise my experience with them has been satisfactory (Intel CPU models).

For the past few years I used a Microsoft Surface Pro because it seemed to have good build quality and high screen resolution, but despite this I have had to replace it as part of a recall due to a graphics hardware issue, so it was not without its flaws. On a side note, I found the Windows OS to be OK for non-dev work, but would always "work" on the Linux subsystem... so even though Windows supports it quite well, I would just suggest 100% Linux.

For 2022 I decided to buy a "gaming" laptop and switch to 100% Linux. The build quality is a little lower than Apple, and the screen resolution is not as good as Apple or Surface Pro, but it is still good, and when using my external monitor there is no difference.

The benefits are clear, however, for less than 50% of the cost I am getting superior performance, discrete GPU, excellent cooling, and NO LOCK-IN. There is also the added benefit of being able to play the occasional video game with great performance.

So far I don't regret it.

formerly_proven 3 years ago |

The current (2022) LG Gram come with Intel Alder Lake and dual USB4/TB4, they basically seem to be the only interesting competitors to the lightweight Apple laptops. The 14" model is 1.0 kg compared to the M1 Macbook Air at 1.3 kg.

Linux compatibility is very good with current kernels (I had a few DRM/GuC restarts with 5.18, those seem to be fixed in 5.19), all hardware works out of the box. ADL-P power management is still being worked on afaik, so for the time being it seems like the power profile you set does have a larger than usual impact - powersave results in 20-30h runtime, balanced more like 10. The base models have a 1240P, which is an "4C8T + 8C8T" CPU (for a total of sixteen threads).

The CNVi Intel wifi in these doesn't seem to have the 5G bug.

Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. MacOS has the correct color management to deal with this, Windows and Linux don't really, and Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. I've manually set a generic P3 profile in Firefox and that pulls most colors back into a more agreeable shape.

pwpw 3 years ago |

Last year I became annoyed with some of the MacOS limitations and decided I wanted a laptop capable of running Linux.

I settled on the Thinkpad X1 Nano. It weighs less than a MacBook Air, has a matte HiDPI screen, which is great for sunlight, a built in camera shutter, and most importantly, a great keyboard experience. I also splurged and added a 5G modem. The laptop is spill and dust proof and can clearly take more of a beating than a MacBook could. It's designed to be rugged while traveling.

This laptop has been an absolute delight. It feels like nothing is in my backpack, which is a nice complement to my stronger desktop at home. The performance is good enough for my development workflow, and the battery is fine to last during my workday. The only negative I would say is that the battery life is noticeably shorter than the M1 MacBook Air I previously had, but it's not terrible. Just not amazing. The laptop runs relatively quietly, which was another factor I wanted.

I'm running Fedora Linux on it, which I've come to enjoy more than MacOS. If you're looking for a nicer laptop to rival a MacBook, you'd be hard pressed to find a better option in my opinion. I spent about $1300 in total on this laptop.

adisbladis 3 years ago |

Lenovo's paid warranty has been fantastic for me in the multiple countries where I've used it (Sweden, Hong Kong and Mexico). In all three they sent out a local service technician that fixed the problem on-site.

Once it was a a worn out SSD that was replaced with one twice as big as that was the only thing they had in stock (Sweden), another time it was a broken connector on the motherboard (Hong Kong) and the third time it was a broken display (Mexico, Cozumel). I was most impressed by the service in Mexico as it's pretty far from any major cities and the technician came out after only a day.

If good warranty service is important to you I cannot recommend enough to get a Lenovo (T, P or X series) laptop and shell out for the extra warranty.

brtkdotse 3 years ago | |

I bought a P14s a few months ago and got an offer for 3 years of premium on-site support for €1 :D

Note that you have to purchase it as a company to get access to the premium support.

kramerger 3 years ago | |

I had the same experience with Lenovo. On-site support is expensive but also a no-brainer for professional users.

Just beware that Lenovo makes some great laptops as well as some really really crappy models.

jgb1984 3 years ago |

Laptops are all together awful. I can't imagine working on one for more than a few hours. My self built desktop blows any laptop out of the water in speed, comfort, reliability, upgrade / repair potential and ergonomics (obviously ignoring portability).

mdp2021 3 years ago |

Warning: in the past couple of years, manufacturers that shipped perfectly decent products have started replacing good components and build quality with unusable crap. If something has to sit in front of you for hours, you want materials that do not hinder you while you are operating. Expect the successors of some formerly very good lines to be noisy on touch (as in, tapping on a cardboard box), to be unpleasant on touch (with reference to touchpads), to stink. Plus, heavily tinted displays with spotlights, etc. Nowadays, you must assess it physically, not just on on-paper specifications.

mtmail 3 years ago |

Related from 4 months ago "Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094361 First comment-thread is about Apple but once collapsed the next 10 are non-Apple recommendations.

samuell 3 years ago | |

TIL one can collapse HN threads. With all the clear labels on HN, perhaps a [collapse] link would have been clearer.

djmips 3 years ago | | |

Were you never curious about what the little [-] did? Where's your sense of adventure! I rib you, but at the same time I understand and your idea has merit.

chaosbolt 3 years ago | | |

>Account created in 2013

Are you joking?

cranium 3 years ago |

I'm a happy owner of a Dell Precision 5520 that is already 5 years old. It shipped with a Ubuntu LTS by default and I took a 3-year next day repair warranty that I used once for a swollen battery. I cannot express how happy I was to have my laptop repaired in less than an hour in my kitchen by a Dell certified technician. Given how dependent I am on my computer for work, if I had to send it I would have lost at least a week of productivity. Instead, it was just a minor inconvenience. Sh*t happens, but I would pay for this peace of mind every time.

For my next laptop, I'm waiting for Framework to open shipping to Switzerland. It won't come this kind of warranty but its full repairability will make up for it.

2muchcoffeeman 3 years ago |

What country is this?

People are suggesting Frame Work laptops but if you don’t have official Apple support, it’s even less likely Frame Work ships to this country and if you managed to get one you’d have no support.

I imagine you need to go the Dell XPS or Lenovo route.

enlyth 3 years ago | |

The XPS are pretty decent machines, I just wish they didn't get so damn hot. This is probably Intel's fault? Can't have the laptop on your lap because it will burn through your legs and it's loud af since the fans spin at a million RPM trying to cool it down.

Aiming to sell my 13" XPS and replace it with an M2 Macbook Air, after work gave me an M1 16" Pro and it's just so unbelievably efficient and never gets hot, plus the battery last all day under heavy load.

ktpsns 3 years ago |

Thinkpad X1 (Yoga/Carbon) do great for heavy use developer laptops. I use them since the first generation, with Linux as operating system. Never had serious issues with drivers, even wacom, digitizer and auto display rotation are working nowadays, not to speak of USB-3, fingerprint sensors, etc. The whole device is a no-brainer and just works.

chunk_waffle 3 years ago | |

A place I work used to order them for developers, they're awesome little machines but not without their issues too. We had constant issue with them no longer charging for people, something on the motherboard related to charging would just die sometimes machines only a few weeks old would do this. You'd start your day, try to start up your laptop and it would be dead and require sending back to Lenovo (which to their credit they would fix and return within a reasonable time frame.)

kwanbix 3 years ago | | |

In the company I currently work, we have the option of MacBook Pro's or ThinkPad X1 Carbon. I never seen such a problem. I am not saying that it does not exist.

kwanbix 3 years ago | |

Yeah, after many, many problems with Dell's and HP's (I worked at IBM and we absorved thouthands of such machines on outsourcing deals), I recommend ThinkPads, Series X, T, P.

shp0ngle 3 years ago | |

I have looked at Thinkpad x1 carbon, and they are so expensive! People complain about Apple Tax, but the x1 Carbon is so much more expensive for what it does.

xur17 3 years ago | | |

Are you comparing based on the base price, or the "discounted" price? (I ask because Thinkpads seem to almost always have a 20 - 50% off sale - right now I believe it's 50% off).

BiggsHoson 3 years ago | | |

I always buy my ThinkPads as factory refurbs with remaining warranty from reputable sellers on eBay, saving quite a bit of money.

camgunz 3 years ago | | |

Yeah there's a premium. For me the T14 is still thin/light enough, and it has an Ethernet jack (!), and it's a lot cheaper.

650REDHAIR 3 years ago | | |

Check at Thanksgiving!

I try to wait for Black Friday/cyber Monday because ThinkPads are usually 1/2 off.

dezzadk 3 years ago |

Nope. Its all buggy and shitty. Dell XPS had coilwhine for several ages despite numerous complaints and other laptops with same chipsets didn't. The cause? Cheaping out on inductors. Lenovo has firmware issues I just returned my laptop which gone black screen due to some suspend/sleep state at random. This is a huge issue btw affecting more than 20-30+ models. Actually Lenovo support guy I asked for his recommendation said he got the M1 Macbook Air lol, the other one I spoke to said the only one he didn't have complaints about was their flagship P1 model. The previous Dell I tried ordering had GPU DOA. Honestly I don't give a shit about the on-site support the other guy mentioned, its just a bandaid on the problem that all laptops suck, but more often than not no matter how many times you replace a motherboard you can't fix these glaring issues! Its the QUALITY of the motherboard that sucks!

Macbooks aren't perfect either despite having better wifi, audio (and lower noise-floor). I would not choose a Macbook unless an employer gave it to me for free, but then I would without a doubt choose one. Will the logic board fail after 1 year warranty or a year after? Or have other quirks? Most likely!

Android is the same btw, ask me why I run iPhone despite being the largest android fanboi previously.. everything was terribly broken and half-baked.. The only android device I own now is my SONY X900H TV and since latest update it has started to reboot itself at random.

I'm fed up with this..

paintman252 3 years ago | |

"everything was terribly broken and half-baked"

What are you talking about? My S22 Ultra works great.

dezzadk 3 years ago | | |

Give it to me for a week and I will tell you everything wrong with it including all the bugs you haven't found yet.

colordrops 3 years ago |

Switch to Linux. Using MacOS locks you into proprietary hardware. By focusing on the software rather than the hardware, you can switch hardware manufactures as they oscillate in quality.

Going with something like NixOS would make this even easier as your operating system setup could easily be migrated to another machine when the time comes.

pizza234 3 years ago | |

Switching to Linux is a move that must be extremely carefully considered, due to compatibility. I'm positive about this because I've been working 10+ years exclusively on it, and compatibility is "not great".

In the past, Linux compatibility was not great because the desktop userbase was considerably smaller. Today, compatiblity is not great because hardware got considerably more complex.

It's possible that some hardware is very compatible. That's great! But one has to be very careful. For example the alleged Dell XPS compatibility with Linux is a half-scam (I've worked on such laptop), or brands like Lenovo, which used to be very compatible in the past, now are not necessarily so (e.g. Ryzen 6000 laptops are a dumpster fire on Linux).

allisdust 3 years ago | | |

> Dell XPS compatibility with Linux is a half-scam

How so? I'm using one with ubuntu 22. 04 and it works great. Haven't seen a laptop that properly sleeps and wakes up with Linux before so it has been a pleasant experience. Only thing that doesn't work out of the box is the fingerprint reader.

suprfnk 3 years ago | |

While NixOS in principle would make switching between hardware manufacturers easier, working with NixOS is anything but easy.

Don't expect to run anything that isn't packaged. Don't expect packaging some binary blob for NixOS is easy.

colordrops 3 years ago | | |

I've found it to be a ton easier than RPM or deb files. Not much ceremony - a binary can sometimes be packaged with a dozen lines of config.

The problem isn't that it's not easy. It is easy. The problem is that it's an entirely new ecosystem and language, and takes time to learn. But it's worth it.

SpacePortKnight 3 years ago |

I've seen your post as a comment before. For India, I recommend buying Dell / Lenovo if you really want on-site repairs for cheap, otherwise I recommend Asus.

I recently bought Asus Zenbook 14 Oled (12th gen) over M1 MacBook Air and I absolutely love it. It has 75Wh battery, excellent speakers and with a nice 90Hz 14inch display.

However, I can't use Fedora on it since sound over speaker doesn't work yet.

Dell's Inspiron 14 is a decent purchase for around 65k ( with on-site & accidental damage warranty )

On a side note, my gaming laptop MSI GF 65 died and I was able to walk into a service centre in Bangalore, and they literally replaced the motherboard for free and returned it in 3 weeks. The entire process was extremely simple.

throwaway23236 3 years ago |

I love my Lenovo ThinkPad. For a laptop, the keyboard is amazing and I have been using it for 4 years now without any major issue. I did have the CPU fan die on me, but with Lenovo's practically 10/10 repairability score for 40 bucks I overnighted another CPU fan, just unscrewed the back and replaced it myself.

DecoPerson 3 years ago | |

Concur. My 2020 ThinkPad Carbon X1 is so well designed and is of excellent build quality. In terms of laptops, I love it so much, even more than my 2011 MacBook Air. The keyboard is great, the screen is great, the Lenovo software is un-instrusive, the battery lasts quite a while, the charging port is durable, the body is durable, the dock drivers actually work, it feels nice to hold, … I could go on.

I’ve done quite a bit of developing and field-debugging with it. Haven’t had any complaints, beyond the unavoidable “My neck hurts.” and “Why is Windows choosing now to prompt me to use OneDrive, scan for viruses, update its search index, and install some mystery .NET runtime updates!? I only have 30% battery left!!”

throwaway23236 3 years ago | | |

I also have the Carbon, I believe 7th Gen. It was the first one to offer a 4k screen. I ordered the laptop with the LTE card as well.

I use it for school, coding, and editing my wife's photos she takes with her camera. It has been a very solid machine. My only wish would have been more RAM. When I upgrade I will probably get the Extreme so that I can edit videos and run more VMs. :)

It's so nice to just open up my laptop and have internet everywhere without the need to tether.

legitster 3 years ago | |

My 8 year old Thinkpad is still my daily driver!

I think the X1 is a bit overrated - I prefer their T-series laptops for repairability and durability. You can generally pick some coming off of a corporate lease for a screaming deal.

topaz0 3 years ago | |

I've had mine for 5.5 years. Still working great.

endigma 3 years ago |

I had an xps 13 9300 and struggled with battery life on any Linux distro ( tried fedora, Ubuntu, pop, elementary, solus, Arch, void ) and I'm not a beginner or anything. Even with combinations of tlp, powertop, gnome power profiles, kernel shit to make it run lower speed.

Framework is really nice from a hardware perspective, but the display res is wonky with scaling, 100% is small and 200% is big, which puts you in the no no zone on most display servers which employ fractional scaling. MacOS is the only I've ever used that doesn't completely butcher oddball scales. Battery life I've observed to be around 4 hours of light usage on stock fedora. (11th gen main board)

I personally run a new MacBook Pro M1 running any Linux I want in Lima or parallels, depending on GUI needs. Damn thing is god tier on battery, outlasts any other laptop I've ever owned by a factor of 3 at least.

MerelyMortal 3 years ago | |

I currently have a Dell XPS 13 9300 and have had no issues with it, including battery life running Ubuntu.

dijit 3 years ago | | |

> no issues with it, including battery life

Depends on your definition of issues though, I prefer linux to be perfectly honest but the MacBook Air I have has changed my mentality about battery life.

I literally do not look for outlets anymore; I use the machine for the whole day and I charge it at night like my phone.

If that's what the competition is then the 5hrs I used to get with my 97Wh battery on my Precision 5520 is definitely "an issue", because 3.5hours in I start getting battery anxiety.

jonahbenton 3 years ago |

Fedora works beautifully on Thinkpads. And Lenovo next day support plans, in the numerous geographies in which they are available, really are that.

Fedora is quite different from MacOS, to be sure. But if you use package management, the terminal, and VSCode- those bits are pretty much the same.

teekert 3 years ago |

I listen to a lot of Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts [0], their content is Linux related. I hear a lot of positive things about the HP Dev One [1]. JB's Coder Radio is a nice podcast about Linux and Software Development [2], although they really like their macs (which to me shows they are pragmatic and realistic), they indeed highly issues with the m.X chip based macs and what good alternatives are.

[0]: https://new.jupiterbroadcasting.com/

[1]: https://hpdevone.com/

[2]: https://new.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/coder-radio/480/ Note, I'm, linking to their new websites which are in beta but hey, lets stress-test them a bit ;)

devilkin 3 years ago | |

Not available outside of the us, though

mmcnl 3 years ago | | |

It's basically an HP EliteBook though. You can buy those almost anywhere in the world.

teekert 3 years ago | | |

Ah you're right. Disappointing.

kodah 3 years ago |

I run a Lenovo X1 Carbon that I've yet to send to the grave. It also works exceedingly well if you run Linux that also happens to supports firmware updates.

jraph 3 years ago | |

I have both a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 9 and an HP EliteBook 840 G6 running Linux, I'm very happy with both machines. The HP has a better management of fn keys, seems to lack support for > 4K 30 Hz on its HDMI port with my screen (both that might be fixed on newest generations), the X1 has a better trackpoint handling. Both have fantastic battery life (around 10h) and are quiet. The X1 tends to spin the fan earlier than the HP, if it's an issue, setting the energy profile on "power save" in the KDE battery widget fixes it. Of course it makes the computer slower but it's still quite fast (the CPU is a Core i7-1165G7)

Make sure you avoid hardware that have issues with the camera on Linux, it's a shame we are back to have to check for this stuff.

mingusrude 3 years ago | | |

We bought a number of Carbons (Gen 9) to the office and all of them (5) have had some kind of technical problems. It's been malfunctioning fans, a motherboard that stopped working, a screen where colors were awful etc. We might have gotten a bad batch but it was not at all what I expected from Thinkpads. Lenovo's support has been great though.

BatteryMountain 3 years ago |

Dell Latitudes are pretty great for mid-range and very affordable. You get tons of ports, a FHD screen in 14" variant, nvme ssd + tons of ram, plus you get service manuals for the hardware. Dell has pretty good support in most countries. Also, the UEFI/BIOS is actually pretty great, it gives you tons of control over the hardware! If you keep it plugged in most of the time and switch off battery savings and so on, it is quite a beast. I tend to run mine in the middle mode where it doesn't use turboboost but also doesn't down clock it too much, thus the fans are silent and the machine still very fast. Very happy with mine.

If you are forced to pick between Dell and Lenovo, take the Dell. Skip all the other brands/model variants (even from Dell) as they are more consumer oriented (better speakers but no gigabit lan port...). If you need something with a beefy gfx card, then rather buy an Asus gaming laptop, but they tend to be heavy and noisy but packs quite a punch.

If you are going to use Linux on it and value your sanity, do not take one with an nvidia chip (intel/amd chips works out of the box). If you were solely going to use windows, prefer one with an nvidia chip. If you can get a Ryzen 5/7 -based laptop at a good price, take it instead of an i5/i7.

Lastly, most manufacturers, including Dell, usually use very basic OEM ram and ssd's and wifi chips. So it is worthwhile to swap out your ram with faster and bigger ram sticks, make sure they run in dual channel (so rather buy 2x16gb instead of 1x32gb), and buy a proper nvme ssd (I typically go for one of the samsung ones with 5 year warranty).

uf00lme 3 years ago |

Depends on what you are working on, but don’t dismiss buying a cheap chromebook with a decent screen and using a cloud instance. A lot of IDE plugins make it an even better experience. Just make sure you are near the data centre and it’ll be better then you think.

sieabahlpark 3 years ago | |

Imagine paying a rental on your development environment.

dijit 3 years ago | | |

Yeah, but setting up a simple Debian machine with Tailscale and using vscode remote or intellij gateway is also possible; even easy.

You can even use the vscode-server thing made by gitpods that allows you to use vscode in a normal browser; but the environment feels weird because those localhost ports you're used to opening are not open of course.

Gigachad 3 years ago | | |

Millennials and Zoomers are very accustomed to renting and subscribing everything. Your dev environment is just the next step.

csunbird 3 years ago | | |

an alternative is to just buy a second hand rack server and send it to a colocation hosting provider. they maintain a good internet connection and supply the power.

suchar 3 years ago | | |

You can always run development environment in a local VM, although that would be rather slow (I assume that if somebody is going remote development way then they would buy cheaper notebook and use savings to pay for the cloud instance).

It's not for everyone, but you are paying for your development environment either way (upfront by buying powerful notebook, or as-you-go by renting cloud instance). Seems fine as long as it is conscious choice.

mgraczyk 3 years ago | | |

I do a lot of personal development and everything for my job on cloud VMs. I've been doing more development on a cloud VM than locally for around 4 years now. You can spin up whatever hardware you need more easily, backups are easier, connections to data are typically faster. Easier to get started again if you damage your laptop. There are lots of advantages.

zeroth32 3 years ago |

I have Dell XPS 13 2015 (9350). It gets fair abuse and fell on floor couple of times. Over years I replaced keyboard, battery, charging port, bottom plate from case (display hinge broke). All parts are on ebay for like $50 and can be replaced with a screedriver and YouTube video. I decided to keep this laptop indefinitely and just keep replacing parts. I also have spare laptop of the same type, so I can just swap SSDs or parts if it breaks. It is still decent machine, 7 hours on battery, 1.2 kg, nice touch display, excellent keyboard, 16GB RAM, USB-C charging....

From my workstation I need 64GB RAM, good cooling and many ports (4x displays etc). I do not feel any current laptop provides that. And I do not want to pay $7000 premium for decent machine. So at end I decided for mini PC (Asus PN 52). It is 1kg tiny box, can be carried daily and is very cost effective.

Saphyel 3 years ago |

My personal laptop is Dell XPS13 Developer ed. It's nearly a year old and works like a charm I can install anything I want, I can watch whatever. Battery wise last a lot.. 5-8h average depending on what I'm doing.

At work I'm force to use a MacBook, a lot of dev tools don't work very well or doesn't work, every dev has different weird issues, every other day we have a different thing that doesn't work some of us had to request to replace the MBP for a different one because it was very slow and the battery only last 2h if you are lucky.

briandear 3 years ago | |

2 hour battery life on a Mac? That’s approaching unbelievable unless they are a decade old.

kylehotchkiss 3 years ago | | |

My 2019 16' MacBook pro does about 2 hours of battery with only 488 battery cycles. i9 processor with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M. I'm just doing the most basic dev stuff. Generally a Chrome instance with ~20 tabs, VSC, and a Next.js process. I can't use it on my lap too long, it's hot. The fan never stops. Sometimes I look in the activity monitor to see why, but it's never something specific. A chrome tab using too much CPU or something. It's been the fastest self-depreciating machine I've used.

I recently switched to a M2 Air for personal laptop. Same exact workflow and tools results in zero heat, and the battery can do a few evenings of coding without needing to be charged. It's a gamechanger.

xdavidliu 3 years ago | | |

if it's 2 hours that's almost certainly gonna be one of the Intel macbooks, and probably several years old at that. The new Apple Silicon ones have batteries running for many times that easily.

edfletcher_t137 3 years ago |

I will second the others who have recommended Lenovo: I have a Legion 5 I originally bought for gaming but the keyboard is so good I find myself using it for nearly all my development.

Additionally, the Dell Precision line (the business workstation-replacement line) is exceptional for development, but those can be as expensive as equivalent MacBooks. Stay away from Dell's pure consumer line: the build quality is absolutely awful.

carlsborg 3 years ago |

ASUS OLED Zenbook Ryzen 5900 + Manjaro. Perf benchmarks compare to an M1 at half the price. The Wifi network card driver doesn't handle hibernates too well, so you need to disable your network manually before (Or replace the network adapter card as some have done).

kramerger 3 years ago | |

> you need to disable your network manually before (Or replace the network adapter card as some have done)

Really annoying that it doesn't work out of the box. but can't your solution be automated with systemd?

carlsborg 3 years ago | | |

Excellent idea

akvadrako 3 years ago | |

There is also the ASUS Vivobook Pro 14X if you want dedicated graphics. They are not yet available, but the Vivobook Pro 14 with Ryzen 6000-series CPUs also looks interesting. Both are OLED but sadly limited to 16GB RAM. The ProArt StudioBook 16 is an option too.

I'll be getting one soon; I've not been happy with the quality of my Thinkpad and really would like to avoid Chinese products in any case.

vbernat 3 years ago | |

Do you have sound? Both speakers and microphone? It seems to not be handled too well yet.

carlsborg 3 years ago | | |

Sound yes, microphone haven't tried. I can do a writeup on my install notes and post it here on the weekend.

gwnywg 3 years ago |

I love my super heavy and bulky Lenovo P53. Love it for horsepower, also because Arch runs on it n without problem, and finally because tech support exceeded my expectations, doing cleaning after 2 years for free (part of cleaning was to recover from little coffe spill...). I would prefer if it was not so plasticky, but I can't have everything :)

bluedino 3 years ago | |

The Lenovo P-series are amazing. I used to use my P50 as a portable ESX server. The P16 is out now, I would love the larger screen but the newest hardware doesn't work perfectly on Linux yet.

I tried a P5xS model for a while, which is supposed to be a slimmer, lighter 'workstation', but the performance was severely lacking. They are only as powerful as the T series machines they are based on.

I no longer needed such a machine so I switched back to the X1 which is as close to a Mac as I think you can get.

From time to time I am issued various Dell or HP laptops from work, and frankly they aren't really comparable. The keyboards and trackpads are horrible, they're buggy...

However, I will say this about the Dell Latitude that is my currrent take home from the office: it will sit in the 90 degree weather, in the sun, and operate without any issues - unlike my iPhone. I'm sure it clocks down (I can hear the fan going), but it works without a hitch. The screen is a bit hard to read in the bright outdoors, but after changing profiles in my terminal/editor and bumping the font up 2 sizes it's not terrible.

Joeboy 3 years ago | |

I run Ubuntu on my P53. It's almost great, but has really bad issues with the keyboard. Occasionally a key will get "stuck" (in some non-mechanical way) and I can't use the keyboard without logging out and in again. I believe it happens a lot less frequently after some BIOS updates, but I think there's a trade-off where keypresses are sometimes missed. Sometimes I think I typed something right, but when I read back there are missing letters.

It's not quite bad enough for me to do anything radical like get a new laptop, but it's pretty bad. Maybe I'm unlucky somehow.

ivanmontillam 3 years ago | |

I have a Lenovo P53 maxed out, it got everything it could have. It's great. I'm looking forward to buy another P Series in a few years.

matsemann 3 years ago | |

I loved my P1 Gen1. 64GB RAM already back then, lots of power. Got a Carbon from a new employer, which was really lacking for dev purposes (Gen8 or 9, only 16 GB ram, choked on remote meetings). Wanted to upgrade to the X1 Extreme which looked nice, but was impossible to get hold of at the time so got to switch to a Dell XPS 15 9510 which works quite well.

Sin2x 3 years ago |

FYI, Ubuntu has a list of certified laptops: https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops

timbit42 3 years ago | |

But who wants to run Ubuntu with Snaps?

Sin2x 3 years ago | | |

Logically, if it's Ubuntu-certified, it should run other distros well too regarding hardware compatibility.

ggm 3 years ago |

I like Lenovo, their worldwide maintenance deal appears good, but I suspect the fundamental problem you have is in some ways, your economy, unless you can convince me the repair story doesn't happen with other vendors. And, if thats the case, the other vendors are looking pretty solid as a choice.

Dell is good, in cycles. I only every bought in the bad years. If I wasn't on an Apple Mac I'd be on a thinkpad, or a chrome book at this point: run in VMs in the cloud, minimise dependency on the desktop.

lwertz 3 years ago |

My last laptop purchase was a comparatively cheap £300 HP something-or-other back in 2018, to avoid using my work laptop for personal projects. It only has 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and an 8x core i5, but I find it perfectly adequate for my development needs.

I'm running the latest Ubuntu on it, and it works nicely for running simultaneously an instance of VS Code, and a Windows VM in VirtualBox, and Firefox.

I mostly do reverse engineering projects, and development in node and C++. It's been reliably fine for this, and I'm not worried about it being damaged or lost as it was relatively inexpensive.

The camera is awful and the sound isn't great. And I can't run anything that requires massive computational power like AI models, but that's not what I'm really interested in.

I would advise just getting the cheapest laptop that does what you need. The expensive Apple kit is unnecessary in my opinion.

anddt 3 years ago |

Currently using a T490s (win-based on WSL, work machine) and a T480s (Fedora, upgraded to 24gb ram) for personal projects and they're both fine machines. The T480s runs a bit cooler after a repaste than the T490s but I'd say they can handle fine whatever I throw at them.

ihateolives 3 years ago | |

Sure, but both are older models and have (T480s) roughly half the performance of M1 base model. For some things (in Photoshop/Lr) the difference is even greater.

anddt 3 years ago | | |

Yes, both machines are not too recent (by now I'd expect to find them for cheap on ebay) but they support my workloads more than well. I work in ML and they're fine for general Python programming and exploratory data analysis. I spin a VM for anything that requires more memory/threads.

I'd would probably buy a beefier laptop from Tuxedo Computers or Slimbook if I needed more performances hoping to win the Clevo/Tongfang QC lottery (my T480s was fairly expensive in Italy 3/4 years ago).

So I guess that it ultimately boils down to the type of workload that OP deals with.

edit: poor grammar

kramerger 3 years ago | | |

People specifically prefer older Lenovos for other reasons than raw performance (cost, keyboard, max ram, Linux support, ...).

ranguna 3 years ago |

Checkout system76, slimbook, tuxedo computers or the framework laptop. All of these companies make amazing laptops.

sputr 3 years ago | |

I own a slimbook and have been quite satisfied with it - it's got everything I wanted and needed for normal price.

kramerger 3 years ago | | |

Have heard since good things about Slimbooks.

Could you tell us more about your experience and how much you paid for it?

lukaszkups 3 years ago |

I've just switched from Surface Book 2 to Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402ZA)

Pros:

- beautiful, bright display with 16:10 aspect ratio

- comfortable keyboard with backlight

- pretty decent battery life for my programming needs

- port selection (1 x USB 3.2 (2 Gen), 2x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI and audio jack)

- good performance

- beautiful design

Cons:

- if you try to run some games on it (it has Iris Xe Graphic card) - it will become hot very quickly

I've choose Zenbook, because I had one in the past (UX32LN model) - and it still holds up pretty well and works flawlessly while being used for office stuff by my wife (it will have 7 years now)

metta2uall 3 years ago |

I've been using a Clevo-based laptop for years - very good value and works well with Linux. Just don't expect something light-weight with a great battery life - but if you're happy to carry more weight (it's actually good exercise..) and mostly plug it in that's fine. In Australia you can buy from https://www.metabox.com.au/

danicriss 3 years ago | |

I second Clevo - running Manjaro for a year professionally and it kicks ass. Great CPU (got an 8-core 11800H) and the NVMe and RAM of your choice for about $2000

throwawaydell 3 years ago |

I still use 12year old Dell laptop. Runs Ubuntu 20.04 smoothly.

I have ES, MySQL, firefox with 20tabs, vscode and all running at the same time and still have half cores and memory free.

Android studio is the only thing I hate to run on this machine.

BuckRogers 3 years ago |

I've loved my Thinkpad X1 Xtreme for years now. I was given the choice of what I wanted to be issued for my job and it has served me well. Would I buy it for my personal use? No. I am not a fan of Lenovo being a Chinese company now, and it's very boring. I still haven't had any problems with it.

Before this machine I was issued a Dell XPS and the battery life was amazing for a Wintel laptop, great speakers and a unique power button + fingerprint reader button in one, but it had a ton of BIOS based issues and quirks. It always seems to me it takes years for them to work all the bugs out vs other companies. Dell is like a lot of companies where I prefer their designs over everyone elses, but I just can never bring myself to love them.

For personal use for fun or as a consultant, I'd reach for a Samsung laptop. They lag behind on CPUs and such but they're my pick. For a fleet, I'd probably have to go Lenovo out of necessity for the support.

durnygbur 3 years ago |

In my workplaces in Germany the service desks were terrified every time there was a need to repair of submit warranty claim for an Apple hardware, in less developed EU countries simply assume the warranty or repair options do not exist. You're throwing a sack of golden coins at an American moloch and counting that the device will not fail.

a-dub 3 years ago |

lenovo p1 is basically an intel mbp 15. camera and audio aren't as good as the mac, although i hear the camera has improved in later generations.

bigger issue is that the nvidia graphics are wired to the thunderbolt ports, so if you want to drive external displays you have to run with discrete graphics enabled which means battery life suffers or complications involving frequent bios config changes. this too may have been addressed in later generations though.

the p1 and x1c are probably best in class, with the t as a close second if you can tolerate more heft in exchange for more tradeoffs from size to performance and expandability.

traditionally the thinkpads have had some of the best linux support thanks to their popularity amongst linux developers. this may be changing though as linux gains popularity and developer oriented alternatives like system76, framework and lambda gain steam.

thinkpads are also known for build quality, but that gap may be narrowing as well.

rcarmo 3 years ago |

If you can get a decent display in your region (because they usually nickel and dime European users and do unfathomable part sourcing), Lenovo are usually a good choice.

I am a Portuguese Mac user and we still don’t have an official Apple Store in my country (although there are a few third-party certified support centres) and have been using mostly Surface laptops at work, but with the Apple Silicon switch I bought a mid-range Lenovo Ryzen laptop solely for running and building x86 Linux packages, and I am pretty happy with it even though it is plasticky and hardly as polished.

I suspect the high end ones might be suitable, although to be fair I had an X1 Carbon a few years back and loathed it - it was the reason I opted for Surface laptops to run Windows.

tobinfekkes 3 years ago |

I spent months trying to answer this very same question, and stumbled upon the LG Gram.

Best purchase of my developer career.

17 inch, backlit keyboard, 10 key numpad, great battery, trackpad equal or better to Mac, under 3 pounds, usb c charging.

The full package.

(Bonus: put MS PowerToys on it and remap the keyboard layout to your liking)

madsbuch 3 years ago |

I am happy with my Lenovo X1 extreme running pop os. It has been running for 4 years, just changed battery and hard-drive, which I could easily do myself. It is of high build quality.

I terribly want to try out a system76 computer, but haven't had the chance yet.

nunb 3 years ago | |

PopOS is awesome. It's what I use on my XY Thinkpad (repurposed Intel/hexa-core/12-HyperThreads/64GB/matte-screen/2TB(SSD+HDD)+256GbNVME/VGA/Trackpoint/USBC/laptop)! Nothing better imo, unless he[1] adds an E-Ink option!

[1] https://www.xyte.ch/mods/x210-x2100/ [2] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/196448/...

travismorton 3 years ago |

I see no one has mentioned Razer, but I'm on my second Razer Blade and I really like them as a Linux dev laptop which I can occasionally use for CUDA tasks. My first was a 13" Blade Stealth and now on a rebranded 15" Blade Advanced (Lambda Tensorbook). If you (or your company) can stomach the cost, it's a very well built machine with about the same amount of quirks as any other "Linux supported" laptop out there.

I ran 17" and 15" System76 Oryx Pros before switching to a Razer and was not impressed by the hardware nor the Linux support considering it was a "Linux supported" laptop from the start.

solardev 3 years ago |

Look for a small business laptop with on-site support (Lenovo or Dell) in your country. Not their consumer lines but their business ones. You have to pay extra for that support and but it's worth it. If it's available in your country

contingencies 3 years ago |

Here's some zoom-out options.

If you travel a lot and have to work, you need mobility, but possibly not as much as you think. If compact wireless input devices and a hotel TV, borrowed screen or correctly configured tablet may be adequate, then you only need a compute box not a full laptop and you can consider higher end ARM boards and a purchased or custom battery bank.

If you don't have a huge travel requirement, you may be better off buying two desktops than one laptop as they are far cheaper, easier to maintain/repair, provide better input devices, better and far more upgradable. Carry your data around on a USB stick or SSD.

fgonzalesv 3 years ago |

Always buy Business models of any brand. Lenovo? Buy Thinkpad. Dell? Latitude or Precision. HP? Probook or Elite. Business models are made to last, since companies buys them in batches of about 5 years and when they fail, the brand has to replace them. HP is a brand that usually sucks but my wife (then my gf) bought a HP from the business model and it lasted more than 10 years. There’s a reason why consumer laptops cost less than $1,000

vincent-manis 3 years ago |

I have an MacBook Pro, which I really like. I recently wanted a second machine, running Linux, which I could (part of the time) use as a large tablet. I settled on a ThinkPad X1 Yoga, which I ordered with Ubuntu. It arrived with Ubuntu 20.04, which I immediately upgraded to 22.04. Everything worked fine out of the box (I haven't tried the fingerprint reader). This machine is not quite as fast as the MacBook Pro, but plenty good enough for me. I spend most of my time on this machine in Emacs.

Both of these are pricy machines, but I'm really satisfied with them.

GauntletWizard 3 years ago |

I find my Framework laptop really good. 4h+ battery life despite Linux lacking support for the best idle state, plenty of power for compiling, clean and solid build. Best part: You can repair it at home.

PAMANOCH 3 years ago |

If you want lightweight alternatives to Macbooks, just beware that most of the small factor Windows laptops emit much greater fan noise comparing to M1/M2 Macs under load, although the Macs will probably reach similar levels on full load after a while. Recent platform designs target much higher power limit to achieve optimal performance, while the manufacturers keep pushing that envelope frame on sub 15" machines, creating conflicts between form and factor. Many recent Thinkpad and XPS machines have difficulties cooling the components.

I use an Alienware X17 for works including demanding graphics tasks. I know that Alienware does not have great reputation among enthusiasts, but at least for me it is pleasurable to use. Very decent build quality, sleek exterior design after lights off, amazing Cherry low-profile mechanical keyboard. On light modeling and compiling tasks there's barely any noise coming from the fan systems, and on higher load it isn't much louder comparing to M1 Max/Pro Macbooks, with performance being top-notch for sure. Overall very enjoyable experience comparing to lighter design systems, but the trade-offs are obvious too - 3kg+ weight, and the battery drains fast due to the aggressive power targets on CPU/GPU. It's clearly not for everyone, but if you need performance without workstation features (Quadro, ECC, Xeons), it's definitely worth a try.

ModernMech 3 years ago |

I have a surface studio laptop and it’s great. Keyboard has good travel, trackpad has a nice click to it, build quality is sturdy, battery life gets me through the day, performance is great, and it has a pen/touch display to boot that folds down. I also have a MacBook Pro, and I much prefer the surface.

As far as support, I bought an extended support contract from Microsoft that I haven’t had to use yet, but I’ve gone through the replacement process with them in the past and it has been seamless. Highly recommended.

smallstepforman 3 years ago |

I'm joining the discussion late, but can convey my experience with HP Omen 16 (Advantage Edition). My primary requirement was full sizes cursor keys, and the PgUp/Down, Home/End/Insert/Delete keys. Proper keys are essential for developers. The keyboard is very good. The laptop has a full set of I/O (including 3 USB-A connectors). AMD Advantage Edition has proper Linux driver support (no nVidia), and the built in Vega is OK for low power mode.

However, the laptop is not without it's flaws. The power supply is a chunky brick, there is a driver bug with the Elan Touchpad (so you're constantly hitting Fn-F11 to disable/reneable touch pad when you dont have a mouse), and the dolts put a Pause key where Delete is (and put delete on top row, to the right of power button). The designer should be hit with a bag of potatoes, it's idiotic.

Otherwise, great silent laptop, works well in Windows 11, Linux and even Haiku (minus an ACPI powerup delay, but once it finally boots, it flies).

7 out of 10. (-1 for Pause/Delete/Power key placement, -1 for Elan Touchpad drivers, and -1 for placing 4 stupid stickers on the palm rest area). 7 out of 10 may look low, however I'd give other laptops an even lower score. My old 2014 MacBookPro would get 8 out of 10, and that is the best laptop I ever had. Sadly, not suitable in 2022.

pram 3 years ago |

It really depends on which company offers the best support in your country in this case, yeah? People can recommend whatever, but it’s most likely going to be someone living in the US.

DaniDaniel5005 3 years ago |

The three aspects to consider when buying a laptop: Weight, Performance and Price.

Laptops that are cheaper and lighter weighted usually have a lower performance.

Laptops that have higher performance and lower price usually are heavy weighted.

Laptops that have higher performance and lighter weight are usually pricey.

You have to sacrifice one of the three.

I’d personally go for the Dell Precision 5520.

Cheap, high performance, moderate weighted.

P.S. (usually) heavier laptops are more upgradable and repairable so thats why I chose to sacrifice the weight for the other two…

tuatoru 3 years ago | |

No, keyboard quality, reliability, (calendar) longevity, robustness and repairability are more important considerations than any of those.

Dell Precision can be a good choice, true.

nottorp 3 years ago | | |

> No, keyboard quality, reliability, (calendar) longevity, *robustness* and repairability

... the hinge on the lenovo legion 7 that my daughter's using for university broke after 2 years. Repair shop told me don't close it by pulling on just one corner, either pull from the midlle or both corners.

As a macbook owner, it didn't occur to me that she should go easy on the hinges ;)

parasubvert 3 years ago |

I am a 25 year Apple user but wanted to work on VR more alongside my normal dev work while remaining portable.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 inch is an excellent laptop. Fast, AMD Ryzen 9, NVIDIA 3070 or 3080, 32 GB RAM up to 48 GB, good battery, decent keyboard and trackpad, lots of ports, fast HDR 1440p screen.

only two issues from my late 2020 model: fans get hot and loud when you push it (this may have gotten better), and previous versions to 2022 had no camera.

PaulHoule 3 years ago |

I think the Dell XPS line is fine.

hattar 3 years ago | |

My company is moving away from the Dell XPS. We’ve had nothing but problems with the devices, primarily the terrible “killer” Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters. The support has been abysmal which makes it worse.

I hear Lenovo is making good stuff though. We’ll see how that goes.

athammer 3 years ago | |

The new Dell Inspiron 16 laptops are amazing as well (minus the track pad issues - not sure if they fixed that by now)

gtaylor 3 years ago | |

Had some issues on recent Ubuntu with my XPS 17, but it runs wonderfully on Fedora.

ccrush 3 years ago |

Can I recommend a ThinkPad P series with Linux and some tuning? I've had nothing but good experiences for the most part. The only things I wouldn't recommend is a 4K laptop screen, Lenovo's prices for upgrades, or trying to get good power management in Linux. Make sure your CPU fans are turning when hear goes up or fix thinkfan config and check lm-sensors and don't use hibernate and force sleep mode to old/compatible/S3/other OS/Linux or whatever the option is called for you. Note about windows sleep mode: Microsoft worked with new firmware manufacturers for laptops to include sleep mode that's actually not sleeping but the CPU runs at 400MHz with the screen off. All your apps are still on, your computer is online, and things are happening while you think it's asleep. It uses very little power so actually being asleep or being in this mode doesn't change battery drain too much. However Linux won't play ball and it'll just wake up your computer and drain your battery while heating up your laptop bag. Turn it off.

eqvinox 3 years ago |

I'm about to buy an HP EliteBook 845 G9 to replace my current 830 G5 (which has been OK, replacing it because an i7-8550U is too slow to work with an external 4K display.)

My parameters were:

  - AMD CPU
  - possibility to install 64 GB of RAM; a factory option with 64GB soldered down would be OK (but I don't think this exists)
  - Thunderbolt / USB4 support
  - Metal / "rugged" frame
  - not noticeably larger than my current 830 G5 (310x235mm)

With these parameters there isn't all that much choice left. In fact, I originally had another parameter, on-board GigE LAN port, that I ended up sacrificing.

And to find devices matching those criteria - I can highly recommend Geizhals, e.g. for the above: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nb&sort=p&xf=14285_64%7E1482_AMD%7E... . even if you're not in the EU, their index/filtering is fantastic (though be warned, parts of it are manually collected, errors MAY slip in. The USB4/TB data is particularly iffy. I still know of no better alternative.)

Since my laptop is my primary work tool, I do generally take out a 4-year int'l next business day + accidental damage protection plan ("CarePack" in HP lingo). I have actually had reason to make use of it on my previous laptop (8470p, spilled Coke into it) - no issues in getting that fixed. Due to timing (this was during christmas) they had to come back a second time after mostly-fixing it at first; some minor parts weren't immediately available (they did get it back to working). But, this is the extra service that costs +¼ of the laptop itself — I have no idea as far as "normal" warranty handling.

skhameneh 3 years ago |

I'd look at the Xeon Lenovo machines (I think it was P series I was window shopping), Asus for design/gaming (their dual screen models are so nice in person, I found them to be slimmer than I expected), and Dell for something really solid/mass produced.

Essentially... Xeon Lenovo for "ultra enterprise", Asus for speed/looks/features, Dell for a "good laptop".

Justin_K 3 years ago | |

Don't be tempted by the Lenovo X series laptops. I have had nothing but trouble with battery life, throttling and cooling. Stick with P.

mnd999 3 years ago | | |

My first gen X1 carbon has been brilliant. It’s dated but I still use it for some things. Had run Linux and FreeBSD without issues over the years.

faut_reflechir 3 years ago |

I dev on a System76 Pangolin running Pop! OS. My only complaint is that there's no Ubuntu terminal that I like as much as iTerm.

azemetre 3 years ago | |

Have you looked at Alacritty[1]?

Once I adopted tmux, I really enjoyed using Alacritty.

[1] https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty

camgunz 3 years ago |

I bought an MBP 14" (Max, 32 core GPU, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) which I mostly don't regret. The things that give me pause are the battery life is only (only, haha) 9 hours or so, the resolution isn't ideal (the integer scaling options are either tiny or gigantic) and it was... $3,700? If I'd bumped down to the pro I would've saved money and gotten better battery life.

When I made this decision, I was between the Framework and a ThinkPad P14s Gen 2 AMD. I still think I made the right choice, but I think the P14s would've been a great option.

Lenovo hasn't released an AMD Gen 3 for the P14s, so you'd have to live with the ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 AMD instead (they're the same laptop, it turns out). It's:

- Ryzen 6850U

- 32GB RAM

- 14" 3840x2400 IPS Matte display (500 nits, 100% DCI-P3)

- 1080p camera

- $1,600

The extra nice thing about this is you get Ryzen and USB4, which lets you use eGPUs and the like.

---

All that said, I can't at all vouch for Lenovo support. If this is the defining characteristic for you I'd do more research before picking one of these up.

gmokki 3 years ago | |

I got T14s AMD gen2 a year ago, with 4k display, 32GB. Swapped the wifi card to Intel ax210, since back then year ago the realtek was not yet supported by kernel. Since end of mast year, after few bios updates, it has worked flawlessly. Battery lasts long with 5850U while using and suspend works properly and can last many days when not used. The new models with Ryzen 6000 series look to be na excellent upgrade with usb4 support.

camgunz 3 years ago | | |

Oh yeah good call out: swap the WiFi card, even when it's supported the Realtek one is slower.

jansan 3 years ago |

I cannot believe that it is so hard to even get a laptop without a numberpad. What are those manufacturers thinking? Apple has been delivering their laptops without numberpad for ages and it seems to work really well. At least give me the option to get rid of those (to me) usseless keys which also keep the touchpad from being centered to the screen.

davide_v 3 years ago |

I got in 2016 the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air for about ~750$ and I'm still using it today (Ubuntu 20). The design is the most similar to Mac design, but with more ports (:D). When I bought it, the other option I considered was Dell XPS, and I see it's mentioned many times in the comments.

White_Wolf 3 years ago |

Not sure if this falls in line with your workstyle but...

I'm using a few XCP-NG vm's for anything dev related(including test environment). I keep a few main images depending on what I'm working on and just add/remove resources if/when needed. A lot more effective (for me) than being tied to a specific machine.

I carry with me a cheap 13" laptop and my phone, both with VPN's set up to dial in into my home network. I can use either. When I'm travelling somewhere I don't even take the laptop. I only have a foldable keyboard, mouse, small pocket projector.

For remote connectivity without my VPN I use Splashtop business (very very rare). It happened to me a few times that the VPN was not working over 4G (still don't have a cliue why)

juicypt 3 years ago |

This is tangential to the discussion, but are there any laptops that won't heat up your legs/groin when used on your lap?

I remember owning an Asus UL30VT [1] 10 or 15 years ago, and I could have it on my lap for hours without feeling any heat regardless of the CPU load. It was a bit crappy in other ways, but a joy to use on the go!

It seems like nowadays all manufacturers try to keep the components cool, but don't care much about the external chassis temperature. Even laptops that use ultra low voltage CPUs usually go for fanless setups instead of trying to improve external temperatures.

[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-UL30VT.27130.0.html

maccard 3 years ago | |

I know the topic of this thread is not-apple, but the M1 Macbook is lap friendly even under most loads (except for extended gaming I found).

throw__away7391 3 years ago | |

The new MacBook Pro M1 is by far the very best I've ever used in this regard. It feels like my body heat contributes more to chassis temperature than the CPU does.

api 3 years ago | |

I’ve heard the term “weenie roaster” for hot laptops.

Danborg 3 years ago |

Frame work laptop

jdbernard 3 years ago | |

I'll second this recommendation, as I've found it very pleasant to use as a developer laptop.

mostlyRice 3 years ago |

HP Dev One!!

It's a recently launched laptop, specially focused on developers and comes with PopOS. I've haven't seen a single bad review of this laptop. Only available in US though.

https://hpdevone.com/

blueflow 3 years ago |

A few years ago i invested a full month's wage into buying leasing return thinkpads from ebay. Its basically pre-selected business hardware for few bucks. The hardware is from around 2010, so its fine for everything except gaming and electron apps.

hadrien01 3 years ago |

My company gives us a Dell Precision 5560 (big-co equivalent to Dell XPS, same chassis and everything), and it's pretty good. And we have next-day on-site support from Dell, but I don't think we've ever used it these last few years.

keyle 3 years ago |

Can anyone comment on System76 vs. Framework and what you chose or maybe if you used both?

cpburns2009 3 years ago | |

I have a Galago Pro 5 without the dedicated Nvidia GPU. It's a nice, lightweight, 14" laptop with an upper aluminum shell. I'm running Manjaro on it, and it runs great with a decent battery life (roughly 6 hours?) while programming.

The Framework laptop intrigues me but I ultimately wanted something less experimental.

byyll 3 years ago | |

System76 is a Clevo reseller, I don't think there is any added value other than supporting the company that makes PopOS but you might instead donate if you really want to. Framework in contrast is doing something more "revolutionary".

nunb 3 years ago |

Shilling XYtech's repurposed Intel/12-core/64GB/matte-screen/2TB/VGA/Trackpoint/USBC/ laptops! Nothing better imo, unless he adds an E-Ink option!

mpcannabrava 3 years ago |

Quite honestly I don't know what people are doing to their laptops to say anything bad about the Dell XPS. Statistically, it seems the overwhelming majority agrees they're great though.

I've never even had to call customer support, I've been running PopOS on a specced out XPS15 for years which I installed myself, overriding the factory-installed Windows with no issues whatsoever (honestly just one minor firmware detail that was easily solved).

Syncbo 3 years ago |

ROG g14 , handles all the dev task and build quality is solid ! Been using it for over 2 years and zero problems as of now , apart from the sleep thing . Had to switch to hibernate mode

rurban 3 years ago |

Mac's started sucking with their SW problems (usable until around High Sierra), their deprecation of 32bit, glossy displays and ultimately made it impossible with their broken keyboards. They fixed that, but I'm long gone since.

My new cheap Lenovo AMD Ryzen 3 Thinkpad is far better and faster, just horribly heavy and low battery compared to the mac airs. The M1 Air is tempting, but they still have their broken SW.

lysecret 3 years ago |

XPS 15 using newest Ubuntu. 100% happy. Just get the nongpu version. Also newest Ubuntu is important (22.04).

Even bluetooth and open wifi works really well now haha. (Those were my biggest pain points)

alkonaut 3 years ago |

Would love to find a well built high performance non gaming AMD 6x00H laptop. Bonus points if it’s really quiet and has good cooling so it will run without throttling (much). Weight, screen, keyboard and battery life not an issue I won’t unplug it or carry it around more than a few times per year (don’t ask, but yes it has to be a laptop).

All I can find is plasticky gaming rigs that some times don’t even have the pro/on-site support options, or lack option to not choose gaming GPUs.

jiggywiggy 3 years ago |

It's still a Mac. But the i love the MacBook pro series from 2016-17. With ssd. Before they took away all the plugs. If my m1 would break I would probably just buy one of those from a reputable refurbished company. They are affordable, often between 500-800 (mostly dependent on hard drive size), and great specs. My new m1 theoretically is better, but I experience much more issues. And if any issues I can deal with the refurbished company, of which some offer great service.

omnimus 3 years ago | |

I have both and the cheapest air replaced the pro instantly. The pro is heavy and loud and hot and less performant. But i didnt run into any issues so i guess lucky me.

jiggywiggy 3 years ago | | |

Yeah maybe it's luck. But have to restart my m1 air every evening, memory just gets out of control, then starts to blow up and get really hot and slow. Hopefully next OS version has some improvements.

1337shadow 3 years ago |

I have Lenovo which offers a great on-site support, have been using Thinkpad X since X201 or something and now am extremely happy with Thinkpad P14s with 42G of RAM and especially an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro with 16 threads and which provides much better 3D hardware than what Intel provides, and still much cheaper. Only problem is battery that is not as great as Thinkpad X when you can upgrade to a double battery in addition to the one that's inside the laptop itself. I use Linux.

300bps 3 years ago |

Laptop, desktop, chromebook, hardware support, doesn’t mean anything to me.

For the past 8 years I’ve used nothing but virtual desktops.

I connect to it from anywhere in the world on just about any device and I have my entire development environment available to me. I can spin up copies of it to try something out and then revert to a previous image. I can create full fidelity copies of it in minutes anytime I want to.

I cannot imagine going back to using physical hardware directly on the desktop anymore than I could a server.

deliriumchn 3 years ago |

Thinkpads are very good, I almost got myself one after around 5 years of working on macbooks, but in the end I got myself zephyrus g14 (2022 model). Surprisingly good battery life, good display (anti glare as well) and keyboard, amazing touchpad (very similar to macbook's one) and I actually like how win11 works on laptops after spending one day on tweaking settings and looks. Fantastic machine that performs as well as, or even better than, maxed out 14" mbp

webmobdev 3 years ago |

Frame.work makes modular and highly repairable laptops - https://frame.work/

If you prefer to purchase from a more mature company, check out Fujitso laptops - https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/pc/noteboo...

taspeotis 3 years ago |

I got work to buy me the SKU with the 3080 plus 3 year on-site warranty.

https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion...

It runs about six copies of Rider without issue. Maybe I will take it out of low power mode if I have to run a seventh.

The backlighting sparks joy.

sgjohnson 3 years ago |

Apple’s customer support is truly terrible in countries where they don’t have an official presence.

My wireless Magic Keyboard with Numpad and Touch ID just stopped working one day. I took it to the Apple Premium Reseller store where it was purchased for service, and it took them FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS to replace it.

I should have walked out of that store with a new one in my hands, because it’s impossible to repair. I seriously wonder what took them four and a half months to realize that.

Gigachad 3 years ago | |

If they didn’t have me a new one within a few weeks I’d be calling the bank or the consumer protection contact of the government to have a refund.

AngeloAnolin 3 years ago |

I find that the MSI business line of laptops to be topnotch and worth the money.

https://www.msi.com/Business-Productivity

I have the MSI Prestige 15 and it has been very reliable and a pleasure to work with.

I've had a Lenovo initially, but had all these problems with the web camera. It was a decent computer, but the camera is quite essential in this age of remote / hybrid work arrangements.

Ken_At_EM 3 years ago |

I am so dissatisfied with the state of the non-Apple PC world, particularly laptops, that I am tempted to do the insane thing and start a PC company.

cndg 3 years ago |

Get this: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-strix/rog-strix-scar-17-se-... It's currently the fastest laptop in the word. (scores 99th percentile on everything)

7speter 3 years ago |

6 year old thinkpads aren’t any good anymore? I really like that the parts are widely available enough and cheap (or were) that you can do repairs yourself. I guess there are people doing more mission critical things around here. I’ve been really impressed by frameworks offering and their insistence to stay true to their word about repairability and upgradability

rookderby 3 years ago |

I don't have a dev one, but all of the reviews have been phenomenal. If I were looking to buy some hardware, it would be near the top of my list, here's a review: https://www.wired.com/review/hp-dev-one-linux-laptop/

cednore 3 years ago |

I love System76 laptops. They are definitely crafted for developers. And I love their keyboard as well.

benjaminwootton 3 years ago |

I agree they aren’t great with repairs.

In the UK it takes a week for it to leave the Apple Store after you drop it off. They then repair it quickly in the Czech Republic then ship it back. It can then take 1-2 weeks stuck at customs or at some UPS sorting centre with no updates to tracking.

It always feels like a 48 hour repair turns into a 3 week frustrating wait for your laptop back.

napier 3 years ago |

All I want is a laptop with mac quality case and components, magsafe equivalent and most of all... a direct sunlight readable screen (transreflective or something new and exotic). But honestly would happily take just about anything with a sunlight readable screen. Not trapped in an office, would like not to be trapped indoors when it's bright out.

dre85 3 years ago |

I bought a fairly beefed up Dell xps 15 a year ago and put Ubuntu on it as I usually do. It's an amazing laptop with the only drawback being shockingly crappy battery life. Not sure if this is the laptop's fault though or Linux power management. I mostly use it docked so it's not a big deal for me. Overall I'm super satisfied.

jokethrowaway 3 years ago |

I tried a surface and it's a sh*tshow.

Linux support is bad and windows is a joke.

I'm thinking the framework laptop if I really have too - but at this point my main problem is battery longevity. I don't think I would buy a non arm laptop at this point, so apple it is.

That said, I don't like the idea of buying apple too and that's why I'm buying just a desktop pc

janfoeh 3 years ago |

Apologies in advance for being off-topic, but —

is it just my perception, or has it become increasingly common over the last year or two to end questions with _in <current year>_?

I vaguely associate that with SEO spam sites, and I feel a little pinch each time I see an actual person pick up that pattern. It is as if a black hat SEO trope has invaded our consciousness.

Kamq 3 years ago | |

It's common to add {year} to queries to find current answers to things. This aids in that practice.

janfoeh 3 years ago | | |

That is precisely my point, yeah - a Google search term "hack" that has spread into common parlance, even in places where it serves no purpose.

bee_rider 3 years ago | |

I read it as a general expression of dissatisfaction with the state of things.

aliqot 3 years ago | |

also adding my own nitpick... *its 02022

Evidlo 3 years ago |

T series Thinkpad.

silon42 3 years ago | |

And avoid models with NVidia

mmcnl 3 years ago |

This is actually quite easy.

Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook or Lenovo ThinkPad. All work well with Linux and have good support and/or can be purchased with additional warranty.

Don't expect a 1:1 MacBook replacement though. Keyboards and touchpads are good these days, but battery life is worse and resolutions higher than 1920x1080 are rare.

yread 3 years ago |

I would recommend HP's 840 or 845 series. Easy to upgrade RAM and SSD, solid hardware, lots of ports, light but sturdy, very quiet, next business day on site guarantee available, relatively little bloatware, the older G8 even has buttons on touchpad which is handy for dragging but it's 16:9, G9 is 16:10!

simonebrunozzi 3 years ago |

Apple has a great opportunity to compete with Dell (and their XPS laptops) to re-conquer the mindshare of prosumers and IT professionals.

The Apple hardware is IMHO superior (in particular their trackpad), but the customer support is generally pretty bad, even when you live next to a physical Apple store.

pengo 3 years ago |

I've had a good run with Dell XPS13 laptops running Linux. The only negative has been the battery swelling when it reaches the end of its life; you need to watch for this to avoid it damaging other components. Thankfully it's easy enough to replace the battery yourself.

agentultra 3 years ago |

I still enjoy the Thinkpad T series. They’re older and not sold new but they’re tough as rocks and meant to be user serviceable. Plus, reduce, reuse and all that.

If you’re doing bleeding edge graphics engine programming or ML it wouldn’t be my first choice unless you can deal with an external GPU.

propogandist 3 years ago | |

The T series is still available for purchase, it’s a workhorse for corporate use cases and the most popular model for corporate IT deployments.

There’s the P series which is a bit more premium and usually better specs.

Just beware of overheating & throttling issues with some high end P/X models, especially with 12th gen intel chipsets.

agentultra 3 years ago | | |

My bad, you're right. I usually just buy them second hand.

Which is a pretty good way to go about it. The after market for parts is pretty strong. They're plentiful and refurbished units are cheap enough that you can get a backup or two. With a decent backup system you can clone your setup to a new machine fast.

DarthNebo 3 years ago |

Unless you are fine with paying again for a windows license & sub 10hr battery life, I'd recommend any of the Zephyrus lineup with Ryzen & Nvidia gpu if your workflow can make use of CUDA or else AMD GPU for cheaper & decent battery life, performance/$ as well.

zquestz 3 years ago |

I love my framework laptop. Runs linux perfectly, and has upgradable components.

The arch guide is also excellent. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Framework_Laptop

free652 3 years ago |

My requirements are simple and hard, I need to have 2 4k monitors and preferably at 144hz. not that many businesses laptops can do that. I have settled for m1 pro, but I didn't pay attention that the hdmi output is only 2.0. so the second screen is only 60hz.

crawl_soever 3 years ago |

I actively use the XPS 13 from 2015 as my daily driver. I never had any issues besides a buggy broadcom wifi module that I recently swapped out for Intel which fixed all my issues. I can say I certainly got my money's worth & more from my machine!

gigatexal 3 years ago |

I love my lenovo p14s. All amd, runs linux perfectly. shameless plug for my thoughts on the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGmcnENnVqg

fsflover 3 years ago |

Perhaps https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 should fit well for your requirements. I'm happy with their previous model, Librem 15.

EntropyIsAHoax 3 years ago | |

Could you elaborate about your experience more? I'm looking for a new laptop in the next few months and I'm basically debating between the Librem 14 and Framework. My criteria would be

- Repairability/longevity

- Privacy and security

- Usability

fsflover 3 years ago | | |

Purism explicitly put Linux support first, unlike Framework. Suspend is flawless, any flavor of Linux should work out of the box, including FSF-endorsed distros. Default PureOS is FSF-endorsed. The devices require no binary blobs whatsoever, even for WiFi.

Purism explicitly prioritize security (https://puri.sm/security) and privacy (https://puri.sm/posts/tag/privacy/), unlike Framework. Intel ME is disabled (for Librem 15, also neutralized), hardware kill switches are really convenient. First class Qubes support, it can even be preinstalled (it's what I use).

Most important things are repairable/replaceable: battery, WiFi card, RAM, SSD, screen (I think). I heard keyboard is hard to replace though, but I had no problems with it. The keyboard is great, but the touchpad is worse than the one in Macs. I use a mouse. The laptop is thin, beautiful and powerful for my tasks.

ibejoeb 3 years ago | |

I've posted positively about my librem 14 before. Initially it was pretty good. Now it's failing. I've got 3 dead keyboard keys, so without an external keyboard, it's unusable. I've been working with support for 6 days, and we're still negotiating. Good intentions, but it's just not there yet.

strangus 3 years ago | |

Ordered a librem-14 in July of 2021. Never showed up. Filed for a refund in January 2022. Still waiting on that return. Can't dispute it with the cc company because it's over 120 days. I am going to have to take them to small claims court to get a refund.

wizofaus 3 years ago |

I've been pretty happy with my HP elitebook. I don't even bother with an external keyboard. But upgrading the RAM is a bit more painful than it needs to be. Haven't made use of support yet, hope I won't have to!

aabbcc1241 3 years ago |

I've been using System76 linux laptop (Kudu model, 21 inch screen, and awesome cooling fans) for a few years and it's working very well. It comes with Ubuntu pre-installed (although I switched to archlinux afterward)

lupuseli87 3 years ago |

I use a Dell Precision 5550 running Manjaro and it is an excellent machine, no complaints

fb03 3 years ago |

I'm having a good experience with the Dell G15 (Core i7, 32gb of ram, NVIDIA GTX3060) on Ubuntu 20.04. Everything works (besides, ofc, what has never ever worked ever in Linux: suspend) and it's a very performant machine.

fancyfredbot 3 years ago |

I like my Asus ROG Flow x13. Small, powerful, touch screen convertible with and a discrete GPU. If you can cope with the extra fan noise and shorter battery life then it is nicer than an M1 MacBook Pro for less money.

auraham 3 years ago |

Since some HN readers have opted for gaming laptops, I would like to know their experiences with Linux. Did you have a problem with sleep mode, poor battery life, WiFi connectivity, GPU temperature, etc?

tommilukkarinen 3 years ago |

Legion gaming laptops (and I guess all similar) are fast. If they can run games, they can run compiler. At least this is an issue for me, compiling server on my own laptop takes time if there's not enough power.

jeroenhd 3 years ago |

I'm running a Thinkpad P1 Gen 3. It's built for workstation purposes (has a dedicated NVIDIA GPU branded as "Quadro" though VRAM is limited). It's got a 10th gen Intel CPU and so far it's been working great with Manjaro. I especially like the upgradeability of the RAM (added 16GB to make it 32GB, can switch to 32+32 in the future) and the ability to use two (replaceable) M.2 SSDs, which is something fewer and fewer "professional" laptops come with. The built-in fingerprint reader (which works well with Linux!) is a nice bonus. The trackpad is nice, the keyboard is good, the screen is 1080p with 4k as an option for more expensive models. GNOME's performance switcher (power saving/balanced/performance) works with the motherboard as of a year or so ago.

One thing I had to fix manually was the use of the special function keys (Fn+F9/10/11). I had to map them manually by adding some config to /lib/udev/hwdb.d/60-keyboard.hwdb mapping the scan codes I found by running evtest to the right key codes manually. Not a problem if you never use Fn+F9/10/11 to answer calls or open chat, but I just wanted them to work.

I have some issues, though I suspect my setup is to blame. Sometimes Linux doesn't boot when GDM takes control of the display. Haven't bothered figuring that one out yet. Nvidia's hardware is also a problem child as always; the external display runs through the Nvidia GPU, massively increasing heat and power draw the moment I hook up an external display. If you don't plan on doing simulations or playing games, I'd recommend staying clear of models with an Nvidia GPU, if you can.

Fan noise is very annoying in Windows, where it'll spin up for no good reason unless you put it in the slowest power saving mode. In Linux this isn't an issue, though your experience may differ depending on your choice of distro and power configuration.

I imagine the 12th gen Intel chips will blow this thing out of the water in terms of performance, but I plan on sticking with this laptop for a few years at least. It's more than fast enough.

As a bonus, I've heard good things about their extended warranty. Over here, they'll send parts ahead and then send a tech out to replace them for you. Someone I know had a touchpad that stopped working well and although it was probably a five minute fix with a standard screwdriver, they still sent a tech over to do the fix for him. Took maybe two or three days for everything to be done here but I've heard varying stories about their timeliness from different countries.

daviddever23box 3 years ago |

An Intel NUC 11 with a portable USB-C monitor should be inexpensive and flexible. If your OS won't run on it, it's probably broken.

I use a NUC11PAHi7, which is basically a Tiger Lake-UP3 mobile chipset minus a display.

m_st 3 years ago |

Consider the Dell XPS15. It's a great laptop with a great display, keyboard and performance. I still have Macs at home, but for business work and development the XPS15 is fantastic.

neverminder 3 years ago |

Dell Precision 7 series or the Lenovo workstation equivalent whatever they call it. These two options have the official Linux support, everything else just gets progressively worse.

missedthecue 3 years ago |

My coworkers really like their Xioami laptops. I'm not sure what country you're in, but in my "developing economy" country, their service has been perfectly decent.

sundarurfriend 3 years ago | |

I never knew they did laptops too. A bit surprising (to me) that their prices don't seem to be any lower than the established competitors.

fxtentacle 3 years ago |

I'm very happy with my Acer Aspire Nitro. The look is gamer-ish and case looks like cheap plastic, but my last on worked well for 5 years. Good AMD CPU + 3080 for <$1000.

lazerl0rd 3 years ago |

I'd give the MSI Creator Z16 a look. Albeit, battery life is not amazing on [most] x86 platforms (compared to ARM platforms) though it should last notably longer on Linux.

regretMSIbad 3 years ago | |

I recently bought a Z16 and was extremely disappointed with it.

Constant BSOD, terrible bloatware. MSI drivers are required for basic laptop functionality, however installing them conflicts with NVIDIA...

The laptop does not charge over USB-C by design. Terrible waste of money. I wish I could get my money back.

dagw 3 years ago |

Dell business level support is the best I've seen. My dad broke his laptop while overseas on a business trip and Dell sent a local service tech to his hotel to fix it.

dagw 3 years ago | |

Should add that this was probably 10 years ago now that I think about it, so I have no idea if it is still the case.

devilkin 3 years ago |

https://kde.slimbook.es/ Linux powered out of the box, reasonably priced, great service.

seltzered_ 3 years ago |

I hated HP Elitebooks, but I've been happy with the HP Elite X2 G4/G8 tablet running Ubuntu. You can find them used for fairly cheap with a 3year support plan.

dncornholio 3 years ago |

Is there any laptop that can match Apple's touchpad? This is all I need to know. The touchpad is the only thing that keeps me tied to Apple. It works so wonderful.

drchiu 3 years ago | |

Yes, I use Macs quite regularly and the trackpad is the one feature that keeps me coming back. Just recently bought a cheap ThinkBook (Lenovo) 14 4th gen and was very surprised that the trackpad works so well. Feels like 95% of the Mac trackpad. The rest of the build quality isn’t bad either. Not a Mac for sure, but quite sturdy and runs well. Running Linux within Windows via VM.

jmartrican 3 years ago |

Every laptop I've gotten has been good for programming. I been using laptops to code for 20 years. They were mostly HP and Dell. Recently I switched to MSI.

AtomicOrbital 3 years ago |

Dell Precision 7530 i7-8750H 32gb ram ... on ebay for less than $950 tax and shipping included ... its super fast ... been running Ubuntu ... very happy

dethos 3 years ago |

I work on an Tuxedo's "Infinity Book Pro 14" and I have no complains, it has been a wonderful laptop for software development (on Linux).

dvko 3 years ago |

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with Arch Linux. Been on it (or similar Lenovo + Arch combination) for nearly a decade after my MacBook Pro broke. It just works.

strzibny 3 years ago |

ThinkPads... I recommend latest X1 Carbon. Better and more healthy ergonomy with a trackpoint + more durable chachi that handles heat better.

KernelPryanic 3 years ago | |

Agree. Few years ago I asked my employer to change Mac for something else and I got the 7th gen (Intel 8th gen processor) X1 Carbon, I fall in love and now I bought the latest 10th gen model (Intel 12th gen) and I very much like it. Super light and silent, great keyboard and also I like the touchpad on the latest model, it become even better. Build quality is the best, hinges are balanced very well that when you shake the laptop screen doesn’t move a bit but you can still open it with one hand. From the cons - it’s hot comparing to the 7th gen and also the battery life is slightly lower.

ppppwwwww 3 years ago |

I've been happily using the Dell 55xx series for quite some time now. Though I do mostly use it with external keyboard and screen.

edude03 3 years ago |

While I am personally a heavy apple user - I'd say for a developer it actually comes down to are there any good non Mac Operating Systems for developers?

The XPS 15, Lenovo X1 Extreme, Rog Zephyrus, and Razer Blade Advanced are all laptops I've personally used for development, and would mostly recommend, however I find windows hard to use for development and linux support varies of course.

Personally, I'd give apple another chance, but if that's not an option, The XPS 15 is probably the best bet.

workingon 3 years ago |

just get a dell workstation. the precision ones are good. just buy a new one every 2 years when the keyboard/power starts failing.

rmrf100 3 years ago |

I will vote Thinkpad X1C.

jvanderbot 3 years ago |

Had frame.work not been proven out yet?

jbirer 3 years ago |

Huawei Matebook 14 is pretty good.

lfkdev 3 years ago |

xps 13 plus, even ships with linux

kurupt213 3 years ago |

Anything that can run notepad

geenat 3 years ago |

lenovo legion are very close to classic thinkpads.

perhaps new gigabyte laptops.

mkl95 3 years ago |

I love my Slimbook

6510 3 years ago |

what and where you are developing is important

jnsaff2 3 years ago |

Sorry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

is_true 3 years ago |

Asus.

foxdie99 3 years ago |

thinkpad p14s AMD

BMc2020 3 years ago |

system76 dot com

ss108 3 years ago | |

I have to protest; I have bought two of these and they have been lackluster. They feel very cheaply made.

I am also having issues with my current System76 suddenly deciding not to detect my second monitor. Just a bad experience overall, though on this particular point, the flaw is easily Ubuntu's and not System76's.

orionblastar 3 years ago | | |

I have a 15 year old Acer laptop that came with Windows 7 Home and runs Ubuntu just fine. I upgraded it to 8g RAM and 2T SSD hard drive.

contingencies 3 years ago | | |

Recent ~forced Ubuntu LTS upgrade to 22.04 broke lots of things. They really need to improve their testing processes.

acomjean 3 years ago | |

I have one for home for 4 years and a new one for work. I like them a lot. I had one issue upgrading the OS after installing steam, but they have good support.

I really like a Matt screen and these have them. They’re rebranded Clevo machines but I found them to be decent quality. I had to replace a fan In the older one which I was able to do (we have a husky…..). They’re expandable and fast enough. Depending on the model some have a descrete gpu.

strangus 3 years ago | |

I love my lemur, however there is something wrong with their batteries. I've had two fail in less than a year each. They're not covered by warranty. Other than that, I love it.

what-imright 3 years ago |

You could move to a country that has Apple authorized service centers. Seriously. Or you could get over the scratch and continue living your life. If you believe in that sort of thing.

anothernewdude 3 years ago |

Should be pretty easy with only a single requirement.

throwaway4good 3 years ago |

Are you sure alternative brands offer better service?

Also Apple stores will fix your computer outside your country. I remember I got my MacBook’s motherboard replaced in China at no cost.

Symbiote 3 years ago | |

There are plenty of countries without Apple stores. Denmark, for example.

jshzglr 3 years ago |

I’ve owned approximately 8 apple products with essentially zero issues in the past decade sans some slight Bluetooth connection issues with my AirPods Pro. Apple makes the best laptops at the moment and it’s really not close. I’d take my chances if I were you.

- runs Linux out of the box - *extremely* lightweight - battery lasts forever even with CPU-hungry workloads, typically a full day. - very nice 16 inches hi-rez (2560 x 1600) screen - very comfortable keyboard and touchpad - supports an external 4k screen through USB-C without a sweat - super fast (especially if you install your OS on raid-0 dual SSD) - 4 12th gen cores (8 with hyperthreading on) - built-in GPU (Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics) has enough oomph to run blender @ 4k with very large textured scenes

- on my specific version (I believe the 2022 models have fixed this), built-in speakers don't seem work on Linux, only windows (the earphones jack works, just not the built-in speakers which Linux can't seem to control the volume of properly) - when the laptop is not on a flat surface and a bit twisted, the left click on the touch pad sometimes fails.