I've been looking for a new laptop to replace my brick of a 2013 MBP Retina. Don't get me wrong, the MBP is a great performer but with my new job I'm commuting 8 hours a week and that thing weighs me down, not to mention the battery life is pretty poor these days.
I figure in 2017 I should be able to get an ultra-portable that performs about the same as my MBP (i7, 16gb, 500gb SSD, retina display) so that I don't have to feel like I'm going hiking every time I have to travel to Sydney for work.
I've been reading a lot about ThinkPads and they seem like a solid purchase for what I need. I recently got my partner an X240 for uni and she loves it, but I'm worried about the performance of the U type CPUs if I follow suit.
Battery life and performance are key, and the X series seems to fit the bill. Work might be receptive to buying me one, in which case I would be considering the X260 or X1 carbon gen5, or I may go a refurb if I have to buy it myself.
I'll be running Fedora 25 and I'm mainly doing PHP/js development right now. I'm new to Fedora but I've been running it on my MBP for a few weeks no issue (HiDPI included).
PS. Loving Level1Techs. If I wasn't flat broke all the time I would throw money at it.
The new line are coming out in a month or so, you should see drops in prices for older lines (unless you want the new one.). Another solid choice might be the xps 13 which is pretty much made for Linux.
I never even knew how good they were before I visited /tpg/. The best meme I ever fell for. But I wouldn't even have considered getting a used laptop it if /g/ was my only source of info. Luckily there are some useful links in the /tpg/ OP, so I went from there and googled my doubts away.
And also workstations. They want light and carriable.
@mrpopo thinkpads don't have that crap on them (never have). Not that it would matter either as the OS well be removed.
I've been looking at laptops as well, and have been fairly leaning towards the XPS as i can get it with Linux so i can add to that tens of millions of dollars of linux laptops sold be dell.
They also have other linux laptops, i potsed about it in the linux news thread.
I have a thinkpad x260 it's a fantastic laptop. It is running great with fedora 25 and the laptop has a very good battery life with the 3 cell internal and 6 cell external battery. I was also thinking of buying the xps 13 but I got better extended warranty with the thinkpad.
I have the i7 cpu and it's seems like a fast cpu i have compiled the linux kernel and it didn't take a long time. But i can do some test with my laptop if you want deevus. I also got 16gb ram and 1080p ips display that is awesome. My laptop is also connected to a 4k 40 inch display via the thinkpad ultra dock and it's performing very good. And it also have a awesome trackpoint :) If you want now more just ask ;)
My x260 specs: cpu: i7-6500 screen: 12.5 FHD IPS 1080p ram: 16gb ddr4 hdd: 750 gb 2.5 inch ssd gpu: intel hd 520 battery: internal 3cell 23WH external 6 cell 72WH wireless: intel ac 8260 Ethernet port :)
I think one thing that had me leaning towards a ThinkPad over a Dell XPS was the maintainability. However, I'm not sure how much that applies to Lenovo's more recent offerings. Can you replace screens or keyboards etc in the newer ThinkPads?
Looks good, but I'll have to investigate its performance a bit more. Also budget. My gf used an XPS 12 prior to the X240 and it was quite good, but had some problems with it.
I've got Fedora (with latest plasma desktop) running on my T430 (i5, 16gb ram, ssd etc) & an old T61 (C2D, 4gb ram etc). Everyhting works out of the box just fine as Im sure you're aware of by now that you dont need uber fast hardware for a good linux experience. Latest thinkpads can still be opened up easily enough for servicing etc. The Carbon range is very nice if you like that size otherwise the x250/x260/x270's are very nice indeed. Like others said ~ Dell XPS 13's are also worth considering.