Hello there!
I am here after watching Wendell’s video on the new dell laptops I decided to come here for recommendation and discussion regarding choosing my new work laptop.
Starting next year I will be switching jobs, I got a budget of ~$2000-$2500 to choose laptop. I am limited by company policy (it needs to be dell or lenovo with next business day service) I am eyeing the intel dell (Pro laptops) or lenovo (T14s, X), but I would be interested in your experience and/or recommendations.
The device will be running linux I am software engineer/devops person so that is roughly my use case.
Currently my main device is Macbook Pro M4 14”. I do not particularly like the software (like macos is such a mess I feel → I do not get why is it praised as the design option). Keyboard is ok, I like the haptic touchpad that I have set to very light force click which I love. The battery life is great as well as noise.
I understand that no device will have as good touchpad as macbook, but it is still important to me. Other that that I would like to have:
Higher resolution than full-hd
I do not like num pads on laptops, preferably 13-14” device
Good battery life - I commute a lot
Build quality I hope comes granted with this level of device
Performant hardware (32GB ram, i7-like cpu)
Any recommendation about the model or personal experience is more than welcome - I understand that in this price-range quality it will be mostly personal preference - still I am interested in your opinions. I have never shopped for a brand new device, in the past it was either assigned to me (like the macbook I use now) or when I bought device for myself I always shopped for something cheap and refurbished so this is kinda a new experience for me.
Likely Lenovo ThinkPad as Dell is lately allergic to any display resolution higher than 1440p. Lenovo offers everything from 1080p to 2160p.
ThinkPad T14 sor P14s.
Choose Intel. AMD’s Ryzen AI CPUs aren’t good on battery life. I know because I own one.
Dell Precisions are supreme on this but you’ll likely have to sacrifice display resolution.
Just pick and SKU with the amount of RAM you want. It’s unlikely you’ll get a better deal buying the RAM aftermarket anyway. Some OEMs, like Lenovo, force you to choose between CPU speed and display resolution, so you may have to make a tradeoff there.
I agree that ThinkPads are great. I had a T480s at work for years, then we changed to Dell, and I really miss my old ThinkPad.
I ended up buying a 14” (1920x1200) ThinkBook with AMD CPU. It has two battery-options, and the larger one was not much extra, but it has 30% more capacity, so it makes commuting on battery quite viable. It also has a two M.2 2280 slots, one was unoccupied in mine so I installed a second 1TB NVMe.
I ran Debian 13 on it for a very long time, but now I run CachyOS on it (because I run CachyOS on my desktop already).
I’d also recommend one of those 99Wh (~27000mAh?) USB-C batteries that you can use to power your laptop on the road. 99Wh is just under the per-battery limit that most airlines have. I have the previous generation of this battery: Anker Prime Power Bank (26K, 300W)
At work we have Dell laptops. Just got issued a new 14” Dell Pro last spring. And I do have to admit that I like them better than the older models from a couple years back…
Though I still prefer the old IBM ThinkPad keyboards, but I generally dislike all laptop keyboards.
They are available in higher than 1080p resolution for 14” and you can just spec them out with an i7/Core 7 and howevery much ram is needed. The latest models are quite expensive though. Might want to keep back a generation?
Battery life is fine, though honestly Macs are generally better at that.
Of the two, I’m pretty much always going to pick Lenovo. You can’t really go wrong with a T, P, or X series. I had a 16” Dell Pro for a bit that I wasn’t impressed by. I’m sure it would have run Linux fine but the keyboard and general build quality just didn’t feel great.
Intel over AMD for battery life right now but you’re probably not gonna get MBP levels
I would go with T14 or X carbons from Lenovo cause ThinkPads have excellent Linux support generally, I would recommend to with nice spec T14 cause with work laptop durability is key because you might be careful, but your coworker might not be.
For what it’s worth. I’d generally go for big screen and performance, then accessorize. Look at the way you use it. Most devs are going to need multiple screens. Make sure your laptop can easily extend to other screens . I almost never use the touch pad or keyboard . Instead, I get a good wireless multi-function mouse. and keyboard.
The other thing I would add is a spare battery and a decent backpack for all the kit.
In China their newer laptops come with phone connectivity. It might be worth checking if these laptops support it. I ‘m not sure Linux does.
The keyboard , display, build quality is absolutely the best - solid aluminum- I have ever seen in laptops.
I run Arch linux with niri and dms .
It came stock with Ubuntu.
This Ubuntu did not work with the laptop’s fingerprint reader nor with the cam.
Once I switched to Arch and niri, the both work great.
Also the warranty and next day business service is great and yes it really is the next day as I have called them twice now and both times they were there the next day.
I would recommend either this laptop or the XPS for linux.
