Advice for a Linux Laptop in 2025
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Love mine and daily drive it. Not janky, zero issues. Everything works on Linux. Not sure what you’re referring to.
Can you get more bang for your buck? Yes, to start. But let’s compare after a couple of upgrades on mine vs whole laptop replacements with other brands.
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Yes but in the future when you need or want to upgrade again, it's a fairly trivial cost because you're reusing 90% of the parts. It's an investment.
Not to mention if there's any kind of mechanical issue in the future.
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So... all the normal stuff that is normally upgradeable on a normal laptop is upgradeable?
The only "replacing the entire guts" you would do is if you replaced the mainboard for a CPU upgrade
That's exactly my point, yes. Again, the "upgradeability" of a framework laptop is unrealistic at best and a scam at worst. It's exactly as upgradeable as most laptops unless you're replacing the whole mainboard which is not very realistic
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I bought a Framework laptop then threw Pop OS on it. I have no issues. They sell refurbished devices and they are modular so you can swap out whatever is giving you issues.
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I had one of the initial batches and the hinge was too weak. They came out with stronger ones that are much better which I now have. It was cheap and easy to replace
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Just to second that, the model series is Latitude, not Inspiron. and yeah, the i5 processor options I got over the years beat the i7 on processing power. The Precision models are a step up, but not any kind of low cost and seem not quite as tough.
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I have a dell xps from a few years around and wouldn't recommend it to my enemies. Just this week it froze and crashed 3 times. Obviously all related to the stupid nvidia and hybrid graphics it has... so maybe if you can get one without that shitty piece of hardware maybe it's fine.
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Have you gotten any of the mystery boxes from them?
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I have a 12 year old thinkpad that runs bazzite. Thinkpads are definitely rad
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You said not a high budget, and yet everyone here is saying Framework even though the they are $900 to $1,000 at the low end. To me that is not budget.
Pine64 is affordable but maybe too slow to be a daily driver.
For other pre-built options, there's Starlabs and System76 but those are similarly priced to Librem and Framework.
Beyond that I might just research Windows laptops that are agreeable to being formatted.
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I have a thinkpad t470 from some years ago as my personal laptop has still works perfectly fine. I destroyed a few things in it, like usb ports and have some scratches on the screen, but linux support has always been good. Best think It has is the hardware design that if you drop liquids on top of it then it doesn't reach the motherboard. It saved it when I dropped a full latte on top and I really though it was gonna go to the trash... Fortunately I only had to buy a new keyboard that is easy to replace.
Anyway, I will also need to buy a new computer soon fro work and am very interested in getting a framework laptop or another thinkpad if it has things like the great feature above still in place.
Also been eyeing with extreme interest some tuxedo laptops.
These are the well known to work I guess.
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Latitude is my rec, not XPS. IDK why the XPS always seems to have issues.
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That's cool. Performance per dollar isn't the only factor for a laptop.
Size
Weight
Durability
Battery life
I/O and other features.
A not dogshit network card
An actually usuable trackpad
I'm sure I could list more. But those are all things that are important on a laptop and you can't change after you buy it.
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They're still far better than everything else on the market.
IdeaPads also aren't ThinkPads. Those are the consumer grade garbage you'd want to stay away from.
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I would reccomend the current configuration that I am running, It is a customised lenovo laptop that I got for little less than $390 (Not us citizen, and we have mid-high taxes, but i got roughly 5% off as student discount and another 5% for credit card payment, and you also apply the CUSTOMOFF coupon for rougly 5% more) - It is lenovo v14 G4 (you can also try to get 16 inch if you prefer that, differnce is roughly $10-20) - 2 things to note - I did not select a ram or storage upgrade - it comes with 8GiB soldered, but there is one slot free, and I added 16GiB which I already had, also I had my 512 GiB SSD, which i swapped with its 256 GiB one. If you would like to, you can get both of these upgraded for about $50 USD. Also you can choose between a 3 cell battery, or a 2 cell and a harddrive (this choice is only available in 16 inch one though).
List of upgrades that I did
Processor AMD Ryzen
7 7730U Processor (2.00 GHz up to 4.50 GHz) selected upgrade
Display 35.56cms (14) FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 45%NTSC, 300 nits,
Battery 3 Cell Li-Polymer 45Wh selected upgradeHere is a link for configurator (not affiliated or anything else)
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=82YXCTO1WWIN1
I checked this config not available in US
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I would recommend a Thinkpad. I have an E14, you can get them for under 800 Bucks. The Linux support is awesome ,under Fedora everything works out oft the box.
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Do they just use the good ones in new models now?
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You're worried about the screen being worn out? How does a screen wear out (excluding maybe oled burn in, but this aint oled). And a good chassis shouldn't show that much wear after a few years.
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You can get a used thinkpad T480 off eBay for ~$150. I've dropped it multiple times and spilled orange juice on it and it works perfectly fine. No issues running Linux mint Debian edition. Main drawback is the fan which isn't the most efficient at cooling, but it is upgradeable.
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Consider taking a look at this criminally underrated Linux-first vendor: NovaCustom. Prices aren't cheap, unfortunate. But it boasts hardware from about a year ago. Furthermore, NovaCustom takes Libre very seriously: from supporting coreboot to offering blob-free WiFi-cards.
