I am looking to buy a laptop for software development in the 0 to $2000 (USD) range.
What I am looking for: 1. Durability: battery life is important to me as well as general longevity of the hardware i.e. I would like it to last a long time.
2. Linux support: I use Linux as my OS of choice and I have no intention of using Windows/MacOS
3. Optimized for intensive computing usage.
Other things of note:
I looked into the Framework laptops and so far it looks like they are still a bit beta.
However, I am curious about users' experiences with:
* the KDE Slimbook 15: https://slimbook.es/en/store/slimbook-kde/kde-slimbook-15-comprar
* the Purism Librem 14: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
* Kubuntu Focus: https://kfocus.org/order/order-m2.html
* the StarBook 14-inch – Star Labs®: https://starlabs.systems/pages/starbook
Also tips about maintaining battery life would be appreciated. I've read too much conflicting advice about that lately :) Thanks.
"I've had these problems with Mac"
Reasonable response: Cool, use what works for you. EDIT> Here are some suggestions that match your constraints.
Annoying response 1: You should reconsider because Mac works great for me.
Annoying response 2: Your problems aren't real problems.
Annoying response 3: Let's live debug your problems in this thread to see if they're real problems.
Guys. I mean. Seriously.
It's not like stack-overflow where often the users are beginners and don't know what they want and it's sometimes helpful to point out XY problems. Here people are technically literate and know what they want yet the requirements are still ignored.
OP has already made the mistake of asking for something very broad in the title, then asking for something very specific in the body. If the title read “Linux laptop” I doubt they would have as many people in the comments suggesting anything else.
"Guys how do I learn math?"
"Are there any apps that let you type in numbers and add them together?"
"Is there any way I can ask questions to strangers on the web so I dont have to type the equivalent into the Google search bar or look it up on Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, library etc etc etc etc?"
granted my most generous interpretation of this phenomenon is that many of these cases are "kids at keyboard" phenomenon. but its frustrating at times seeing it repeat endlessly here.
Failure rates are pretty much the same given normalized manufacturing and part sourcing.
And the fit and finish debate have been semantically mined to death.
User knows constraints, just pick one!
This is not the sort of choice that needs a support group.
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They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth".
I think this is a result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades, and it only pushes me away from this brand.
The same reason console wars exist. If there are multiple choices, and it's not practical to take/use/buy all the options, people feel the need to justify the choice that they did make. When someone's starting from a defensive position, unemotional rationality is uncommon.
AKA, it's human nature.
It's natural human behavior to talk about things we like in relevant contexts, but I really don't see much of it happening anywhere near the top of this comments section. Just ignore it and move on.
It seems like every discussion about Macs or macOS has at least 2-3 comments about how someone had used macOS for years, then got sick of apples (intel) hardware or lack of software customizability and switched to a Linux machine running Debian/Fedora/Ubuntu/Manjaro and they are never looking back (except for commenting on every Mac related post on HN).
The only reason we don’t see many Windows fanatics on here is because the user base is more dev focused here and most people prefer *NIX based machines. If this was a gaming focused forum, you would see a lot more Windows fanaticism.
Or perhaps people really like macOS and their value system is different. I don't think a lot of developers are buying macs due to marketing.
Also, Linux attracts the same fanatic behavior. If you like linux, you don't notice see how many people are pushing it. If you like macOS, you're more likely to notice the people pushing linux because you disagree with them. (And notice the macOS crowd less.)
Here is a detailed blog on it: https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/cult-of-mac/
That is a good question. But ...
> They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth".
As soon as you can adequately explain why there are people that are vehemently anti-Apple, you will have the answer to this question. You make it sound like it's only pro-Apple people that are fanatics.
That's not to say all Apple products are bad.
Ever think it’s simply because they are amazing machines instead of being some conspiracy or mass brainwashing?
PCs are usually cheaper and can pull better benchmark numbers, but most Windows laptops have weird little issues and quirks that add up. I find myself a lot more productive on a Mac than a Windows laptop, which more than makes up for any price difference. I can add hacks to make Windows work, but even those aren't as intuitive as Mac productivity software.
A bit like a snowball scheme, where you try to get more and more people to buy in and commit to it. Then they will be your cool Apple friends and you can exchange with them without problems.
Ultimately the lock-in of that whole ecosystem pushes people away from it though. Most knowledgeable people, who can avoid it will avoid it, because they do not want non-standard hardware, missing ports, 400€ monitor stands and stuff like that.
Of course, there's religious devotees to all 3. I throw my lot in with the Linux crowd because of freedom: freedom to use the software and not give a fuck about anyone's philosophy or religiousity. And the knowledge that it'll always be open source, I'll always "own" my software, etc...
Honestly I'd rather be using Windows on a ThinkPad. I really really like windows, PuTTY, MS office etc and I even like spending time in Visual Studio. But the hardware quality has declined to near zero in the PC market and lets not even get into a discussion about the shit show that windows and the dev story on it has become in the last few years.
Please don't suggest WSL either. I have no energy for that and its associated problems.
Really it comes down to the least stinky turd. I wish one of the big vendors (MS / Apple / Linux Vendor X) would really try and concentrate on making the best user-centric experience because at the moment they're all failing. Apple is just failing less hard and when time is money, I'm just having to pay through the nose for a little bit of edge.
- solid and beautiful chassis, no plastic-y uninspired 2008-Dell design here.
- large, beautiful, high-DPI screen looks great and has crisp text. You can seamless rescale the UI to get effectively a 17" resolution or 13", depending on how big you want your UI elements to be.
- the trackpad feels fantastic to your fingers! Two-finger scrolling through a document is so natural and ergonomic. Whenever I use the stupid Windows mouse wheel, it's either 3 lines at once, which is not enough, or one page at a time, which is way too much; I've never used a Windows laptop with a trackpad, I hope scrolling on that doesn't work like the mouse wheel.
- macOS is a Unix that works. Sleep works out of the box, every time. Wifi works, and connects instantly when you open the lid. After configuring the settings on first install, I basically never do sysadmin again for the life of that version of the OS. (I re-install from scratch when I upgrade; I know the happy path will work, but as a software developer, I know upgrading has all kinds of edge cases)
- macOS has a very consistent look and feel, and looks elegant. It also has all sorts of little details that go practically unnoticed but add up to a better experience.
For non-technical users:
- there is an Apple store within about 2 hours where you can talk to a live person, try out the machine in person, etc. which makes you feel secure.
- I have had exactly one macOS tech support request in over ten years (some girl did not know how to free up disk space). Contrast with Windows, where the problem is practically un-debuggable, or Linux, where once your problem goes off the rails of the config UI you'd better know how to use the command line.
- Comes with a lot of useful software (Pages, Garage Band, iPhoto, etc.), unlike Windows which comes with nothing (and a few toy apps like Notepad and Paint).
- You don't need to be a tech expert to buy a Mac. Just get the size you want and it works.
Contrast this with Windows, where every program looks completely different (makes Linux look consistent). Windows is user-hostile (forced reboots, resists creating a local account, I cannot edit the Send To menu anymore, etc.) The user-experience of Windows is the equivalent of the Big Ball of Mud design pattern.
Contrast with Linux, where you can do absolutely anything you want, but nothing ever fully works. If you had more time you could fix those little corners, but it's just not worth it. Or you'd have to add features to this app. Or your favorite window manager (Sawfish) gets harder and harder to install. Or you fight with Pulse Audio / Jack / ALSA for this particular sound program.
And if your primary value is spending as little money as possible, Apple will drive you nuts. For what you get, the price is fair, it's just that there's no option for a lower trim model. Don't need Thunderbolt? Too bad, you're getting a fast interconnect whether you want it or not.
The thing is, there is something intangible about high-end stuff that goes from "this does what I want and I don't think about it" to "I enjoy the experience of using this". It's a little like wearing high-end fabrics, or eating at a high-end restaurant. Necessary? Absolutely not. But it's that enjoyment it gives that creates the "fanaticism".
So they need external validation for their choice, which they get by seeing everyone else switching to the Mac ecosystem as well.
It’s not that apple users are fanatics, it’s that some people define their identity by their OS and will make absolutely certain you know.
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MacOS is literally useless for me, because I depend on the Linux kernel.
I think the way this conversation played out was "given how I use my device, is there an optimal device to buy?" A lot of the answers are, in turn, "why don't you use your device differently? having ignored your use cases and preferences, this is the device I'd recommend."
It might be a valid opinion to say "I don't use Linux and I enjoy using MacOS on Apple Silicon" but... it doesn't actually help the original poster, does it? So why post that at all?
I guess I could point out to the poster that I use Windows 10, and I built a desktop PC. It doesn't really meet any of their criteria (except #3 computing power), but... it works for me. So maybe they should change and be more like me!
Why? Because the host machine sucks less at all the desktop stuff that Linux is horrible at and the VM wins at all the server and dev stuff the Mac sucks at.
Any OS can virtualize Linux, so the host doesn't really matter.
Besides, it's usually the software that matters and not the OS.
See: https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDMLoWz76U
Only real limitations are lack of ML because no server/desktop-grade GPU and some missing ARM-based docker containers. But the latter is slowly being resolved and the former isn't gonna happen on a laptop anyways.
Parent just seems to have an axe to grind and took the opportunity to hijack a thread about recommendations.
The problem is most workarounds I've seen are either to severly limit the games I can play or to get another computer/console for playing games, which just seems to be turning one problem into two. You can't even dualboot anymore, now that we have M1.
In public forums, one should assume both the questions and the answers to be for a wider audience. People are here for the alternate takes, the discussions, etc. Built-in to the interface of this site and many like it are tools to hide threads, in part or in entirety, and to downvote posts or threads deemed inappropriate or irrelevant.
I guess my main counterpoint is that it's a bit vain to expect a diverse public forum to be one's own personal consultancy / counsel / etc.
For me personally, disable the new virtualization framework and gfuse options. I hope they're working better for others, but I'm not seeing any benefits yet and CPU usage dropped significantly after disabling these
Sure, use Linux.
There's software I can't even install because there aren't arm versions of it available.
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What are people supposed to say besides, let's help you resolve that excuse?
It's not a cult, it's the free market at work.
Guys. I mean. Seriously. It’s a laptop. It’s not worth a request for comments every week.
I did do some reading before posting. Here are some of the threads I had read before:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302412
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28861949
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28216287
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28023345
None of the threads seemed to have a consensus e.g. some swear by the Dell XPS 13, others say the laptop has been a crap experience more or less. Others still prefer Lenovo Thinkpad variants, and even these have those who've had negative experiences. I was hoping for a winner of some sort or at least a list of recommended laptops that I can bookmark and spend time reading reviews of. Hope that makes sense and sorry for the inconvenience caused.
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I scrolled down pretty far and didn’t see a single top-level comment anywhere close to what you’re describing about people blindly advocating Macs.
Maybe you joined early, but comments like yours bringing up a problem that doesn’t exist is PART of the problem you’re complaining about.
If you want a laptop for development - get MacBook. I used to be a die-hard Windows guy about 10 years ago. After that switched to Linux on my Desktop and used it for a year. When I switched job they gave me MBP 2011 model, I hated it. The OS, but not the laptop. The new 2015 MBP were complete garbage, but I got used to macOS. The M1 laptops are the only laptops I would suggest to anybody. The battery life is so amazing, no overheating issues, I love it.
My work also depends on Linux, I have my own company, that provides tools for monitoring Kubernetes, OpenShift and Docker. Only OpenShift is sketchy on arm64, everything else works great. https://github.com/lima-vm/lima is a great tool to run Linux VM. Also Docker for Mac and Rancher Desktop both work perfectly!
But switching to Mac could be a challenge. I was always big fun of Thinkpad laptops, especially X1 Carbon. My wife uses it (she is Windows geek). But obviously this laptop is a laptop, not a computing machine. If you need computing power, just go to Costco and get yourself a gaming laptop with good video card (3060 would be in your price range). Read this https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLaptops/comments/srxtrx/gamin... to see which laptop provides enough power to the graphics card. But of course those gaming laptops are more like desktops you can easily move. The power bricks are huge, and laptops are heavy.
Another option to consider is to get a Desktop, you can buy used Workstations/Servers from companies like https://tekboost.com/ I got from them 2 x Nvidia Quadro M4000 8GB, Dual Xeon E5-2680V4 2.4GHz 14C, 256GB RAM for about 4k. For 2k I am sure you can find something that can fit your budget.
I mean, it's already kind of stupid to want to avoid something the whole industry uses, from big tech to startups. In particular, when you have a very hard set of requirements that historically no one gets right except for you know who.
Windows still owns the market to a substantial degree, Macos is still a niche OS. Maybe you've seen a trend of software companies moving to Macos, but it's definitely not the standard by any means.
Citation needed. With actual stats to back it up.
The reasonable answer at the end of the day remains
> Cool, use what works for you.
There are use cases where Macs are useless or such a PITA to work with (ugh native compilation), others where they're kinda necessary (i.e. iOS development), and there's been no info about this from OP, so the most reasonable thing to do is still to acknowledge they have a good reason, and stop forcing Macs into the suggestions, even more so by using baseless arguments.
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But we're serious. OP has created their own nonsensical boundaries with these constraints. Essentially the title is completely misleading apart from the 2K number. If OP is looking specifically for a linux-compatible machine they should have at least mentioned that in the title. It's no suprise at all that these types of answers are in this thread.
I saw the title, came here to offer my thoughts about mac options, when I realize that actually "not allowed" by OP's request. It's click baity and almost feels like it was designed to get a rise out of the HN crowd.
There's a meaningful title, and a set of perfectly common and reasonable requirements in an ordered, clear, explicit fashion that we all normally wish requester would follow.
But because some jumped in with their own agenda, and feel stifled... now these are "nonsensical boundaries" :->
(Plus, I mean, if somebody wanted a mac... how much advice or options do they need ? Want a mac, get a mac. That part of equation is not exactly complicated, for better or for worse, is it? So let's not pretend this was anything but zealots wanting to chime in :)
You do you, Hacker news :)
Get a grip.
I am now using a Framework as a daily driver w/ Fedora and it is wonderful! Deep sleep needs work still, but everything else is working great. Plus Framework works well with Windows as well.
The Framework Laptop still has some issues that need ironing out from what I could tell so cannot to commit to them this time round. Will definitely keep an eye on them though.
Thank you.
Article I wrote about it: https://erock.io/2021/11/01/framework-vs-mbp.html
Battery life will be an issue for OP. Also, the speakers are by far the worst feature.
I love the framework ethos and plan to continue supporting them but imo they do have kinks to work out.
kinks is the word :) True that's what a lot of users have mentioned also.
Hopefully they'll launch a 15"-16" variant in the near future.
They have a store of easily replaceable parts. You can replace almost anything that breaks.
I have already replaced the keyboard. Don't ask.
My work machine is a macbook pro, but I'd happily work on my framework instead.
One thing I'm curious about is how other people are handling the resolution of the screen on Linux? It doesn't seem like XFCE currently supports fractional scaling well, so I ended up defining a custom 3:2 resolution and using that to increase the size of everything by about 1.5x.
It's got a gorgeous 4K OLED screen, a quite decent CPU and GPU, and it's currently $350 off + a $300 mail in rebate (there was an additional $350 off over the easter weekend, too). The track pad is not my favorite, but it's good enough, and the keyboard is very decent. I haven't had it very long and mostly it's plugged in so I can't comment too much about battery life.
My biggest complaint is that the screen is too good. When I'm done with the laptop and come up to my desktop, my IPS screens look washed out and sad. :P
Edit: I didn't buy the X1, I bought a Gigabyte Aero 15.
Linux works great on the AMD chipset but I had to replace the Wi-Fi card with an Intel AX220.
After buying the aftermarket Wi-Fi card and 2TB SSD, I spent about $1200. Build quality and dimensions are comparable but a little worse than the Carbon imo.
The X1 is slimmer, lightweight but scarifies a lot and is expensive. The X13 ARM is passively cooled which a major benefit, similar to the MacBook Air but due to ARMs and Qualcomm bad support of Linux not even an option. A passively cooled AMD variant would be more interesting.
> Linux works great on the AMD chipset but I had to replace the Wi-Fi card with an Intel AX220.
Curious to know why you switched out the Wi-Fi card? How easy was it to do?
Upgradeability is decent, though RAM is soldered in. You can swap in hard drives, upgrade the antenna and Lenovo has a decent manual for replacing parts.
It's a very light laptop, which is nice. It's also extremely sturdy. No problems with flex or whatever when it's thrown in a full backpack.
It works well with an eGPU, but the main USB-C power port is quite wobbly even after a thorough clean out.
It has a stupid proprietary Ethernet adapter that also blocks the USB-C port. I assume this is for use with the official dock, but why not just have two USB-C ports?
The speakers are awful. Yes we're going to compare to a Macbook as the gold standard, but for a $2k laptop I really want better.
Thermals aren't great and it dumps exhaust heat on your mouse hand.
Keyboard is good, trackpad is mediocre.
The display is good, and it's bright. There are some funny graphics driver issues with Intel. The display flickers when switching between power/battery and often the backlight settings mess up. It also suffers from screen burn if you forget to use a screensaver or leave it on for a while.
Battery performance tanked pretty fast for me. I barely get a few hours these days. If you run on low power mode, it's not usable because CPU throttling is so severe.
- Really wobbly USB-C port(s). The original power brick doesn't work reliably anymore (I have to play with the connection in order to get the laptop to charge)
- 16 GB RAM is limiting now and can't be expanded
- The keyboard... It's more of a general modern laptop issue, but whenever I pull out my old W520 with the original Thinkpad keyboard, I start dreaming of going back. Maybe I will.
Instead I went with a Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED, 11th gen i7, 32gb ram, RTX 3070 etc. and after using the trackpad and keyboard daily it's an excellent daily driver that'll power through anything I can throw at it.
My only qualm is I can't be bothered to get the fingerprint reader working properly in Linux and finding a slim but protective case that still fits in my rucksack has been a pain.
The gen7 had a screen malfunction, repaired under warranty with flawless service. I just upgraded because it would take two weeks for service turnaround, and we might as well have a spare laptop around.
Excellent keyboard, much better than Macs. I use trackpoint, so I'm unable to evaluate the trackpad. The internal display is 1920x1200, and I have nothing bad to say about it. Excellent linux driver coverage. Runs cool, even if it required capping its performance.
The ASUS ROG line of gaming laptops had exactly what I wanted, although they look a bit garish, they are good value for what you get.
On Black Friday I got a G14 Zephyrus with a 8c16t Ryzen 9, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 14" FHD IPS screen. I think I paid £1300. There's a free RAM slot, so I upgraded to 32GB, I think it supports 48GB max. There are a couple of gotcha's mind you:
- It came with a WiFi chip with poor support for Linux (and it wasn't great on Windows). I got an Intel one from eBay for £10 and it took a few minutes to swap out.
- You need to restart X to switch from hybrid to integrated graphics, which you want to do on battery to save power.
- You need to restart X to switch from integrated to hybrid graphics, which you want to do when you get back to your desk so you can use a USB-C display.
- The default fan curves mean the fan turns on and off every few seconds. I changed the settings so it is off most of the time and it runs fine.
- The powerbrick that comes with it is heavy. I use a 65W USB-C brick and have no issues for working, but for gaming (it has a RTX 3060) it needs more power.
- The model I have has no webcam, that's fixed in this year's modem.
Everything else works great. Battery life is 5-6 hours as standard, but if you disable turbo boost and you can get closer to 10 hours.
WiFi seems okay for me, I've not had any problems. Restarting X is indeed annoying. Also only one of the USB-c ports has display port support, that took me a while to figure. I thought my usb-c monitor was broken until I took a closer look at the ports. No webcam is pretty annoying as well.
The Linux community for the laptop is actually pretty large. People have reverse-engineered a lot of the "nice to haves" [0].
[0] https://asus-linux.org/
I love the battery life, which is great when running on integrated graphics.
The CPU is great too, I'm satisfied with autocomplete speed in my IDE. I think the 5900HS is also quite power-efficient, maybe the Intel versions are more power-hungry, not sure. Another benefit is that the laptop stays completely silent, and only whirrs up when gaming or doing heavier workloads.
The GPU in my version is "just" the 3060 Mobile, but it's good enough for me, and there are costlier version with better GPUs.
The ports are good enough for me. There's one USB-C 3.2 Gen2 which I used to connect to a DisplayPort screen, and there's an HDMI port, which I use to drive a 4k@120Hz monitor. I also use one of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) ports with a hub to run all peripherals (mic, webcam, keyboard, mouse).
WiFi was giving me problems on Windows (I have the MediaTek card), but that was fixed at the end of 2021. Another smallish issue is that there's no webcam, but I use a standalone cam anyway.
Otherwise the G14 would have made my list. The reviews I read on HN suggested it would be worth a look.
Edit: saw that the parent post says that that has been fixed in this year's model. Will take a look. Thanks both!
One big advantage of the high-end Thinkpads: they're spill resistant. I accidentally spilled an entire mug of tea over this one, and it had no ill effects whatsoever. You can't do that with most laptops.
- Crashes more than before. This has only been 2 or 3 times, but it's still 2 or 3 times for than it should.
- Has random issues, like graphical glitches, with builtin and external 4K displays. Right now I keep the resolution at 1080 because it's annoying.
- Has more issues going into and out of sleep.
Those are all probably Ubuntu's issues though. Physically I don't have a gripe besides maybe the speakers are a bit quiet and it would be nice if there was a USB C port on the right side so I could charge from either side.
To complement other points:
- you can put the nvidia card in “compute” or “hybrid” mode, which removes the need for X restarts. Compute is really nice, the computer runs on IGP (which is vey capable) and all cuda workloads seamlessly wake up the nvidia card, no question asked
- the above means that the pc is nearly silent, maybe helped by the AMD cpu, while being pretty capable with the 8 real zen3 cores
- no issues really on Linux, and the Asus-laptop tools allow you to switch off the leds or cap the battery charge. The wifi card was an issue initially, quickly fixed with a newer kernel
- the screen is 120Hz, and this is really appreciated actually
I would buy a newer version in a pinch
The Realtek WiFi device is a problem with hp laptops too. Works but needs a cold reboot after the hibernate wakes up.
Are you saying the intel WiFi chip is pin compatible with the Realtek? That’s an amazing find.
I thought that most laptops have the WiFi on a mini-PCI card these days (or really anything in the past 10 years) unless they are really trying for the ultra-slim, solder everything down look.
2022 rog strix 12th gen i9 + rtx 3060
10/10 must Buy
I went with strix vs others because of power delivery. Apparently rtx 3080 is great and all but asus seriously fucked up because the laptops they put it in dont deliver it enough power and it gets similar performance to a 3060. So I just got the 3060, 300ms screen is mind blowing
Nothing today even comes close, and never will.
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Have my 2020 G14 since almost two years now and it's absolutely fabulous running arch as my daily driver.
> https://kfocus.org/order/order-m2.html
NVIDIA gets really old, really fast. My personal laptop has an NVIDIA GPU and AMD iGPU, my desktop is AMD.
For my laptop, a zen2 build of the kernel nets me about 15% more battery life and a snappier system. Unfortunately NVIDIA makes installing that kernel tedious, so I just run the regular kernel. I also have to install the proprietary drivers because noveau keeps crashing (across multiple distros).
n=1 and everything, but I'd strongly recommend avoiding NVIDIA and going with either an Intel iGPU or AMD iGPU/dGPU.
Unless you want to do some ML, in which case NVIDIA is a must.
The new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 looks like a good option; my only concern is poor black levels.
Don't sweat the battery, they're removable, upgradeable to larger ones if you have to go a longer time on a charge and easy to replace. For the change left over from $2000, you can buy lots of them!
Yet I almost see a fetishism around these machines I don't truly understand. 1080p, 60hz, 250nit, 16:9, 54% sRGB is the most common config you'll see and I really think on a 2 grand budget you shouldn't put up with it when purchasing new. This is also just a Lenovo thing, the Elitebook from the same year was 630nit 88% sRGB and the funny thing is that Lenovo probably only saved 10 or 20 bucks stocking this crap based on the price of replacement parts. On a 2 grand budget I'd spoil yourself with something better.
I've stopped buying new laptops and now I use refurbished Thinkpad P50 with i7, 64GB RAM, 512 SSD for ~1100 USD.
If I need to do something really computing intensive, I rent a cloud VM ;-) Actually, I've one for each project I'm working on, and I scale them as/if needed.
You get them decently refurbished on ebay as they are popular leasing models for companies which switch them out more or less on a fixed schedule. If you're lucky you get one that was sitting in a docking station for two years and is almost pristine, just the battery destroyed because it was on AC power uninterrupted.
I'm not sure that's fair, (and it's pedantically wrong - they're in production - but I know what you mean) the hardware is the nicest I've seen besides Macbooks (I agree with you about macOS, but I do like the hardware, keen for Asahi one day but that is very much beta (alpha actually I think)) and Linux is Linux? It works fine out of the box, everything 'in-tree'.
Unless you just don't want to buy any company's first product of course, which I suppose is fair enough, but I hope (for the longevity of a company I like & spares/upgrades for my laptop) that enough people don't feel that way.
Also, I get the feeling that the Framework isn't your typical first product. It's built to be upgradable, so unless you find something fundamentally off-putting about the shape of the board, I'm not sure if you get much by waiting for the next generation. If they release a slimmer case, better keyboard, touch screen, or whatever, then you should be able to retrofit the new thing onto an old machine. Of course, the product is still young. Time will tell if this actually pans out.
That's a killer - it's 2022 and Apple are still the only company who can get that right. I'd switch over to a Framework in an instant (for dual-boot Linux/Windows) if they could fix that.
Not particularly helpful to you necessarily, but I was able to solve the battery drain on windows by tweaking the deep sleep and hibernation settings and I'm now reasonably confident that if I close the lid on the laptop for the night it'll have a similar level of battery left when I open it in the morning.
I think everything defaults to intel's "not actually sleep" sleep mode which destroys the battery like nobody's business
When I originally setup this laptop, I found that if I left the intel raid storage crap enabled, the mvd module would prevent s0ix/suspend. Switching to AHCI in the bios resolved this.
https://01.org/blogs/qwang59/2018/how-achieve-s0ix-states-li...
I'm definitely very keen to use Asahi once it's more stable and has support for more of the hardware though. For now I have an Arch Linux ARM VM that I keep running for some things (Haskell development on M1 is still a bit of a mess) and I can VNC into a Linux desktop over 2.5 gigabit LAN when I really yearn for my old workflows.
Concerning battery life: There are various tools like TLP[1] that help you optimize your energy consumption without much configuration. I get more than 6 hours of my machine when I'm coding on the go. However, I only have a few terminals with Vim and a web browser open. Some IDEs might need more power.
[1] https://linrunner.de/tlp/
I like the idea of Framework/what they're doing, but honestly, the lack of proper suspend is definitely an instant disqualifier, and their inability to fix it or even AFAICT properly acknowledge/address this after a year doesn't really inspire much confidence.
I get that they're a smaller company, but Framework is also much lower on my list because they're still selling their last-gen Tiger Lake 11th gen laptops, when 12th gen Alder Lake is a big improvement, and of course, that I (and I think many people) would much prefer AMD Ryzen 6000 (or heck, even 5000 series) that would give better perf/watt.
- Intel i7 H series processor (best mobile Intel chips)
- Upgradeable RAM (currently at 24GB) - Intel Wifi 6
- Nvidia RTX 3060
- FullHD Screen with 144Hz
- Comfortable keyboard with backlight
- Two M.2 slots, laptop came with 500GB but added an extra 2TB.
- Good connecticity: HDMI, Ethernet, 3 full-size USBA 3.1 ports, 1 Thunderbolt port.
- Laptop runs on a 200W brick with a barrel connector, but on the go I plug it to a USBC 100W charger, works flawlessly.
- Good build quality: back of screen is aluminum, laptop itself is made with plastic with no deck flex or other problems.
- Only deal-breaker, not for me though, is the lack of webcam. I have a small USB one that attaches to the screen when needed.
Battery life is around 9h for me doing Node.js backend development with VSCode, Firefox with +40tabs, PostgreSQL and Docker running the server running locally. It lasts longer with the screen set to 60Hz and tinkering with the power settings to disable the Nvidia card when only doing CPU-intensive jobs.
Best of all: I only paid €999 ($1,081 taxes included) for it on Amazon Spain. Plus the SSD and extra RAM.
The rest of the laptop does look great for the price.
I have good eyesight, yet prefer 1920x1080 in my laptops:
- Larger resolutions are a significant battery drain.
- Larger resolutions are more GPU intensive, taking away precious system resources.
To be honest, I would trade 2K for 144Hz again. It's so good.