12 Years ago I had a Sony Vaio. I quite liked it. Then in my next job, 2017 or so, I went for a Toshiba Portege, and absolutely loved it.
Guess what the above two have in common? Yup, they stopped making laptops for the professional market. So now I’m a bit at a loss. Any recommendations?
Requirements:
- Lightweight and easy to carry around.
- 13-15" display, preferably
- Decent battery life
- It absolutely must have an RJ45
- Works well with linux
- Good keyboard quality
- ISO keyboard availability
- Touchpad. Bonus points if it has the touchpad buttons ABOVE the pad itself.
Thinkpad W541
Look into the Framework 13. There are no touchpad buttons but otherwise it has everything you need and is fully upgradable and customizable. The laptop has four expansion ports that can hold a variety of hotpluggable expansion cards. The manufacturer offers USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, DisplayPort, 2.5G ethernet, microSD, audio and SSDs. There are also some community-made ones like LTE and dual USB-C.
When I eventually need to upgrade I won’t even consider anything that isn’t repairable on a similar level. Hopefully they will be sticking around until then, but it’s looking good on that front right now
Lenovo seems to be pretty solid but fuck… I still have a grudge over how much shittier they are than the old IBM ThinkPads.
Lenovo onboard power issues very common at my job. Toshiba was great way back when. Surface pro nifty but battery is crap. I hate to say it but dell makes ok laptops
We have nothing but problems with the ThinkPads issued by my IT department. Multiple models. They’re not what they used to be.
Newer ones flex a lot more.
Same here, both E Series and L Series.
Those are the shit ones. Only T, X, W are the proper ones.
The problematic models we have are all T series.
My last and current laptops were and are Lenovo. I definitely recommend
I’ve used Macbooks in networking / programming and construction environments for over fifteen years. They’ve been incredibly solid in my experience. In fact, the first week I was given a Thinkpad, I broke it because it was so much more fragile than a Mac. I always used USB adapters for Ethernet and serial connections without issue. They also run Windows and Linux.
In fact, the first week I was given a Thinkpad, I broke it because it was so much more fragile than a Mac
Genuine question, but what the actual fuck are you doing with your laptops? I used a ThinkPad through high school and college, and school aged me certainly didn’t treat it very kindly.
I picked it up by the screen and the LCD cracked. I realize this is stupid but it’s something I’ve always done and continue to do with Macs.
Why? That’s not a good way to pick up laptop, the base is heavier than screen
stupid
Their Linux support is so bad it might as well be unsupported.
I run Asahi on my 2023 m2pro mbp; performance-wise it’s closer to a contemporary i7 than the actual performance of the M chip on macos, but a lot of what I need is there, a surprising amount of stuff is compiled for Arm64 actually. Feels like normal Fedora in most every aspects. Coming from thinkpads / latitudes, keyboard is shit tho, really. Screen is great, sound is quite good, device feels sturdy but sleep eats 50% battery a day. Air vents are placed just right to gulp any spilled drink, like, vacuuming it off the table, a puzzling design choice. Prices took a dive with the advent of the m3 so I’m not really angry, a 2023 i7 thinkpad would have cost me the same.
They also run Windows
They no longer do (since the switch to ARM) - unless you count running under a VM.
Right. I use Parallels.
Windows supports ARM https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/overview
I know, but you can’t install it directly on a MacBook - you have to use a VM like Parallels or UTM.
Honestly, unless you need Solidworks or something else highly resource heavy and windows only, VMs work well with M chips. They’re surprisingly fast.
But nothing supports windows arm
Premium product experience at a premium price. Whether the cost premium is worth it is a judgment call for the user.
Premium product experience
The hardware is pretty premium, but the software is such a pain. As a result the overall experience is just “okay”.
I see you’ve never seen a Dell BPA
Dell is giving the Feds a premium experience?
Novacustom, System76. Doesnt tick everything but has Coreboot support.
Tuxedo, if in EU
They use proprietary firmware, dont they?
They use coreboot, at least mine has it.
The Lenovo E series ticks all those boxes. I use one for work and it’s good for an x64 laptop. Just hate how long it takes to come out of sleep. Nothing really beats a Mac there.
Dell.
Basically any Lenovo Thinkpad. They’re cheap, strong and easy to repair/upgrade
Also a matte screen.
A secondhand Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude, 2013-2018 models. Get one with a quad-core i7, it will run you €150-€400 depending on the amount of RAM, SSD, screen resolution, condition and possibly an onboard GPU.
Thinkpad T, W, X series.
Also the P series (succesor of W). X series, just avoid the X1 Carbon.
Why?
Glued or soldered components, lots of issues as far as I’ve heard. You don’t find them refurbished (or rarely) which is a bad sign.
We found the carbon to be okay, but the fan ramped up to TOGA mode super fast.
Framework if you want to repair it yourself and Lenovo if you don’t. Lenovo makes a good machine and has very reasonably priced on-site support options.
Is this a joke? Framework as a work laptop?
Then what’s it for? Looking pretty?
Hobbists and home devs I think.
Edit if anyone can link an example of a real sized business going with framework I’ll eat a delicious lunch very quickly so I become slightly uncomfortable
Why would a business not like a laptop that they don’t have to replace?
Because most businesses don’t think like that at all. They don’t want employees taking things apart either.
ThinkPads and similar are far more popular because they can be bought in large contracts
I’m genuinely asking, bought prebuilt what would be the difference from a normal laptop?
Cause I could see lower longterm costs being a great benefit to a business, and if one part fails not losing 100% of your data, just let the IT guy replace that part
Long term costs aren’t an issue, framework costs 2x as much as a comparable enterprise laptop.
With a warranty parts are replaced if needed by the vendor, the IT guy doesn’t need to do anything. They even come to your home.
Drivers are regular updated tested, verified, packaged together and deployed through a repository and management apps.
since many companies have the ability to switch vendors, costing a company like dell or Lenovo $100k+ per year by doing so, the vendors pay attention to issues.
Yeah but it isn’t exactly ideal to have to fully stop operations when something goes down, especially given the opportunity to solve things within 10 min.
I suppose this would be even greater benefit to smaller town/out of city center businesses, but still framework is a company, so they do go through their own quality testing
You can buy a 2nd spare laptop for the price of a framework.
Lenovo posts their compatibility with each windows release. They also provide specific driver packages to use.
They also have tools to remotely test and troubleshoot hardware issues, online and offline.
I’d love to have a framework and I support the idea they have for multiple reasons, but it’s not a legitimate business device yet.
Shit I’d love to see where youre finding a laptop with comparable specs at $750, I’ll probably pick one up
I just spec’d a framework for $2000+ and a comparable Lenovo Thinkpad for $1000.
Another item important for work users availability. I wouldn’t the Lenovo in a few days. Not sure about the framework.
I have been a loyal Lenovo customer for years. Their laptops are not cool or sexy, but they are reliable.
I’ve had 2 touch screens completely become unresponsive in the last year or 2. Both Lenovo, so I’ll never buy from them again
For what it’s worth, I’ve bought two laptops from them in the last four years and had tons of problems initially (there were both essentially pre orders, first run laptops). A few minutes on the phone, some trouble shooting,and I had replacements for both overnighted for free. Zero issues with the replacements in both cases.
So yes, don’t order the brand newest Lenovo. Get the one a generation old at deeep discount.
Vaio still exists
It’s just its own brand now
The HP elitebooks might be nice for you
Not DELL.
Dell’s Precision series is really good these days. Their Latitudes are all over the place quality-wise, especially their 2-in-1s. XPS’s have been alright.
Which did you hate? I deploy a ton of these and there are definitely ones that were awful.
Latitude 5540. Someone designed this thing as a prank.
The power button is a keyboard key. It has a key just for calc.exe. It’s a comedy show all over.
Yeah their Latitude line is basically the boring no frills business tier that veers between ‘okay’ and ‘bad’. I talked my company into dropping that junk and instead we now lease their more premium Precision series. Build quality is higher and they have a discreet GPU. People have been way happier and I get a lot fewer complaints. I’m hoping to buy mine once the lease is up.
