I’m looking for a portable laptop around €650. Decent Linux support is required. I also have a strong emphasis on it being portable so the lighter the better. This will be used for light dev work.
I’ve been looking at
Lenovo Thinkpad 13 €660 for i3, 4GB ram, 180GB SSD, FHD IPS screen, (€685 with backlit keyboard). This is 1.4Kg, has USB C and is all round newer. Aparent issues with blacklight bleeding and fan noise.
Dell Inspiron 13 5000 €599 for i3, 4GB ram, 256GB SSD, FHD IPS screen. This weighs slightly more at 1.6 and is not as up to date with no USB C and aparently has screen issues as well (weird patterns on white backrounds according to one reviewer).
One that also looked decent was the Acer Swift 3 (great weight, keyboard, trackpad, screen with similar specs) but I think Linux support isn’t great for it (anyone confirm or deny this as I do like the Swift @ €650). Also looked at the Asus Zenbook but wasn’t impressed by the trackpad; I’ve checked these two out in store recently.
Anyone have any opinions on these?
Also, how powerful is the i3 and is the i5 necessary for the turbo to 3.5 for light dev work? I currently still have a Lenovo T400 with a Core2 T9600 and it runs okay for my needs. Dev work in a text editor is perfect most the time but it does get sluggish when I run a full blown IDE (Eclispe or Android Studio).
I’m not sure now. Most the Thinkpads second hand (T440 up to T450) are heavier than I’d like, have low res screens and don’t have great battery life (3-4 hours). There is a T460s there that looks decent but its right up there on the budget; €650 with an i5 8GB ram, 1080p. Its only a 128GB ssd but its nvme. Not sure what battery life is like but apparently the T460s isn’t great to begin with as it has two small batteries permenantly fixed.
I’ve a bit to think about anyway. I’m in no rush for this so I might even just hang on a while to see what comes down the pipeline. Coffeelake is out soon enough so it might be worth it to wait and see what comes with the new models. I know people shouldn’t wait but this is a luxuray item that I don’t really need.
Many of the second hand models where I am, are quite old and worn in. Most have a 3427U, 128GB ssd, 1600x900 screen at around €400-€500. And battery life doesn’t seem great. Some are showing 3h at 95%.
I am half thinking of increasing my budget and looking at something with the new 8th generation Intel processors. €800 for the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 with an i5 8250U 4C/8T, 256GB ssd, 8GB ram 1080p screen.
Still willing to hang on and see what comes out. No indepth reviews on the 6th gen processors as of yet. Wondering what the performance of these will actually be like considering the base clock is a lot slower.
2016 12" macbook owner here. This machine is a waste of money if you buy it new. BUT second hand models are actually going down in price. I noticed some for around $900 CAD(which is 620 euro). I paid $1200CAD(820 euro) for mine, but i got the 2016 model thats is pristine shape.
I bought mine second hand and have been incredibly happy with it since. I honestly was expecting to sell it 2 weeks after buying it, but once i used it, i started to love it more and more. Now the only time i’ll sell it is they introduce USB3.1g2 or TB3. Even though they’ve got low power M3’s with 8gb of ram, ssd and single USB-C port, i would argue that the screen, speakers, trackpad, build quality and extreme portability make up for it. Personally i very rarely plug anything into it, and if i do i just use a cheap tiny C->A adapter that works really well. As a standalone machine, its actually surprisingly good. Your mileage may vary as usual
Personally i can’t stand the current mess that is windows, and from my experience linux is hit or miss for laptop battery life. Bear in mind OSX is much closer to linus than windows. It is locked down, but a simple Homebrew install fixes that. OSX already has BASH, and homebrew just adds a bunch of linux tools that arent present on OSX.
12" Macbook + OSX + homebrew is basically a perfect balance in terms of hardware/software support, battery life, portability, looks and functionality. Personally i havent installed linux on mine, but because of homebrew i have no reason to apart from tinfoil reasons. Also OSX 10.13 is going to be bringing an updated filesystem that actually isnt shit
Interesting, is Mac OSX really that good paired with Homebrew? What if you ran a Hackintosh (another computer with Mac OS)? Not sure if I ever go that route, after all, Apple is far more invested into iOS and if they could, would abandon Mac OSX if iOS had the right support.
After all, you described the big pile of mess that is Windows, and overtime I am getting more attracted towards Linux and less attracted towards Windows.
It works well IMO. OSX is basically Unix under the hood, so if you’re familiar with Linux CLI, the learning curve isn’t so big. Homebrew works fine on a hackintosh too, but if you’re making a hackintosh laptop you’re wasting your time. It’s finnicky, not everything works and support is spotty. If you’re going with OSX for laptops, get an actual MacBook. That said, there are definitely differences when using OSX. Primarily in the UI, but if youve used Ubuntu you’ll get use to it quickly. The UI is built for the average peasant so some more advanced options are buried deep inside the system or can’t be used without a trip to terminal. Also programs for it generally tend to cost money and pirated versions can be hard to find(don’t pirate, kids!). If you buy a machine that still under warranty, homebrew doesn’t void the warranty and doesn’t prevent you from using apples features or getting updates. with homebrew you can replace the DE entirely and start customizing it to your liking since all the necessary tools are there. You can also use homebrew to install WINE for using Windows apps and run any Linux packages as well. If you prefer a visual editor, they do usually have OSX versions of all of them. OSX support for things like file systems and sysadmin tools isn’t really there in vanilla OSX, but a few homebrew packages later you’ll be fine. Downside of osx is that there is iCloud integration out the whazoo, but nothing a hosts file can’t block. Also, the track pad and gestures. navigating using the track pad and gestured really is something else.
If you love CLI, you’ll generally feel st home with osx+homebrew. If you like using the DE for tasks, it’s very fun to use with the track pad.
Apple gets lots of crap for their hardware, but the ease of use and support of Apple + all the Linux tools in homebrew is at least worth trying. If you don’t like it, you can either replace osx with linux, or sell the Mac for a ridiculous price to get your money back
Literally win win.
Here’s my advice as a linux novice, a former apple technician, and a fan of macbooks
If you want that high res screen and dont mind the slower low powerCPU, the quirks of the keyboard and the 1x USB-C connector, then a used 2015/2016 12" macbook is an excellent choice. Costs a bit more but IMO i love the portability. Love it more than my former 11" and 13" air and all my other previous windows laptops. waiting for the USB3.1gen2 or TB3 model of the 12" mac.
If you want something a bit cheaper and dont mind having a “meh” quality lower res screen, get the 11" or 13" air. Go for at least 2013 models because they had the PCIe based SSD. older ones had simple SATA ssd, but theyre still fine too as budget macs. All of the airs They can be found with 256gb/512gb/1tb SSD’s, they can be found housing i7’s (they have an i5 by default), and theyre cheaper to fix and they actually have a decent amount of IO including USB3 and Thunderbolt2
2013+ 13" Retima Macbook Pro is also a decent choice, but it will be the heaviest alongst the 3 and generally isnt very different from a comparable macbook air. Itll have good screen and better keyboard and a bit more IO.