Hey, I wanna know your preferred laptops, used is better and to run Linux on it. Something with at least 16gb and 512 SSD is good. Budget range. Thank you!
My “budget” until my new laptop was “hey you just got a new pc? What was wrong with your old one? Slow as hell? Can I buy it cheap and tinker?”
Friends/family always give me the best price especially when they think it’s just “too old” and think I’m crazy, they don’t know the problem is windows.
I was always happy with everything I got from Lenovo (mostly ThinkPads but also IdeaPad), both cheap ones, used and new ones, always worked without any problems.
I'm ok with the XPS 13 from Dell but I had some problems, they needed to replace the motherboard and when you hold it it bends a bit and does register a click on the touchpad.
I hated my Tuxedo laptop, very expensive and very bad quality, had to send it in to repair twice and after a year I gave up on it because it was so broken and bought a used ThinkPad.
I have 2 lenovos (ideapad and yoga) and a pinebook. I’m happy with all of them, though I’m happiest with the pinebook and yoga’s impressive battery lives
HP EliteBook 840 G5 or other EliteBook models. Even on Debian everything works fine after a clean install (including special keys), they never die and have a pleasant design. You can get one second hand, modern i7 (8th gen +) CPU + 16 GB of RAM for around 500€.
I’ve been a ThinkPad fan for a long time, but their new stuff bothers me. I picked up the HP DevOne which is essentially an Elitebook and I really like it. Very user serviceable and solid. The only think I don’t like is the glossy screen, and when playing around and configuring another model I think it was difficult to tell if it was matte or glossy through their marketing speak.
I used to prefer ThinkPads but I’ve moved on. I have had lots of reliability problems with them over the past few years. I had keys fall off a newer ThinkPad keyboard (which wasn’t user replaceable) and another new ThinkPad just die under warranty and the repair person damaged it further when trying to fix it.
I am on System76 now and have no issues and they do good things like right to repair and Coreboot.
If I had to choose a single laptop for everything, it would be the Toughbook 40. I have one for work and it has a 1200 nit display. It runs Ubuntu LTS perfectly. It costs several thousand dollars new but has swapable components, multiple batteries, and part availability is measured in decades. You can get an older CF-31 or CF-54 for a few hundred dollars and still find new components for it.
i like my laptop cause i already have it, and have gotten to know it quite well over the past 16 years, but i wouldn’t recommend it. it would be nice to have more than 4gb of memory these days, cause i can’t have too many tabs open on firefox without it bogging down.
I bought a ThinkPad new in 2014 for my study for like 1200 euro’s. She’s still happily purring today. Around 2019 I made the mistake of emptying a cup of tea into the ThinkPad accidentally and then holding it upside down to get the water out. I think I should’ve just let it leak out of the bottom since the laptop has holes for that, but I panicked. This broke the keyboard, but not the rest of the laptop. I got an official new keyboard for like 100 euro’s which came with a tool and the simple instructions, and since then everything has been working flawlessly.
So I recommend ThinkPads, although I can’t really say anything about compatibility of new models
I bought a Lenovo about 2 years ago that I’ve been really happy with. I wanted something with a metal shell because I carry my laptop around sometimes and use it balanced on one hand, and my previous Dell (plastic) started flexing and having weird issues with the TouchPad as a result. The Lenovo has been solid. I’m running Kubuntu on it, but my plan is to go Debian at some point.
Did you ever try an EliteBook? Even on Debian everything works fine after a clean install (including special keys), they never die and have a pleasant design.
ThinkPads are my go-to. I just got an X1 Carbon Gen 9 (i5, 16GB) for $350 and put Fedora on it after upgrading the SSD to 1TB. It’s a beautiful laptop.
Of course, there’s the tried and true T480. Love that thing, especially if you get the right display panel and touchpad upgrades. Swappable batteries, upgradeable RAM. Those laptops can be had for cheap on eBay. Also check r/hardwareswap or the Discord for ThinkPad deals.
XPS 13 units can do well with Linux, too. I’m just a ThinkPad fan.
Definitely. I got a T470s that had barely been used for business purposes on eBay for 100€. It’s a great machine. Lots of I/O, great IPS touchscreen, great backlit keyboard, great trackpad, great build quality, awesome form factor, good battery life (about 6-8 hours). If you need a cheap laptop, get a used ThinkPad. They’re the best bang for the buck imo
I’ve been wanting to find an alternative to Thinkpads since Lenovo bought them, but despite them not being what they used to be, I just haven’t been happy with any alternatives. I’m hopeful for Framework improving on their modularity, and the System76 in-house design that’s in the works has me intrigued.
Right now I’m looking forward to their eventual redesign of the Z series. I doubt they’ll do it, but I’d love a light workstation class version of the Z16, with slightly higher end graphics, and a vapor chamber. I’m also hopeful that they work on Linux support for their ARM offerings, and bring back the X13s that they offered with Snapdragon 8 a couple years back.
I only had bad experiences with an XPS, then I found out that the Linux model was a cut down version so that Dell didnt have to support the fingerprint reader and other gadgets.
Lenovo at the time were working with Fedora to get all their fingerprint drivers upstreamed so the choice seemed obvious.
Dell Latitude 5000 series are usually bought by corporations for employees. They are made of sturdy metal, and have features like backlit keyboards and physical trackpad buttons. Then, after 2-3 years, or if they have some minor problem, they end up in a giant stack that either never gets diagnosed, or just gets sent to recycling.
I have had fantastic luck getting a couple of these either direct from the company I’m working for, or from ebay or a company that recycles laptops. They usually don’t actually have a problem, and if they do, parts are readily available on ebay. You can end up with a high-spec laptop from just a few years ago for practically nothing.
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