New laptop 13-14 inch screen. Recommendations

Mobile Tech Laptops & Netbooks
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Hi people.

I am at the beginning of the search for a new laptop. I currently have a Clevo W230st barebones with a I7 4702MQ and a GTX 765m... However it is currently held together by duct tape, not kidding.

I am using Linux as my main OS, but as an engineering student, freelance software/hardware developer etc. I often need to spin up a VM depending on the task and therefore like the computational power the my current laptop provides. When browsing around it seems like this performance is not really offered by todays ultrabooks and the route is to get a "gaming laptop".

However I do not have any experience past my Clevo w230st and would therefore like to hear your recommendations. And feel free to correct me if I am wrong about the ultrabooks :slight_smile:

What i would like in a laptop is:
* Good build quality, keyboard (Those line of code do not write them selves :slight_smile: )
* Quad core and at least 16 GiB of RAM, Time is money when compiling :slight_smile:
* Preferably dedicated graphics for the occasional gaming (work hard, play hard)

Best regards.

Rasmus Suhr Mogensen

1 Like
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With no idea on your budget its hard to suggest something.

You will find it difficult to find a 13" laptop with a dGPU however. Only two in your 13-14" spec that spring to mind are the Surface Book w/Performance Base (nVidia 965m) or the Razer Blade 14 (nVidia 1060). Not sure how well Linux will run on either however...

Check out System76 laptops, as your main OS is Linux and this is what these guys really build machines for. Check out reviews though as the quality isn't quite top tier.

The Dell XPS is worth a look, they sell a Developer Edition with Linux pre-installed. 13" ones are spec'd as high as you'd generally find a machine of that size, I've used the 15" (older version though) as a desktop replacement with no issues for months and it is more that enough whilst being slim and light enough for travel.

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If you can ignore the horrid looks, it's a very good option.