I’m in the market for a new laptop. Preferably under $2000 and have good specs. 16 GB ram minimum and 500 GB SSD minimum. What recommendations does Lemmy have? If more details are needed please specify what and I’ll answer
EDIT: thank you everyone for the answers 🙂 I do not need anymore suggestions
Framework 13
I recently ordered one and had some issues with it so I returned it. Would prefer one from another brand as I did not have a good experience with Framework.
So I ordered the DIY edition and when it arrived the screw to input the SSD was stripped and wouldn’t budge. I emailed their support and they said they would replace the motherboard, and when that arrived it had the exact same stripped screw. I told them about it and they said to ship to their repair center so I did. I didnt receive further details about it for a week so I just decided to refund because it had already been more than a month since i first got it. Of course I could’ve waited a few more weeks for it but I urgently need a laptop now and don’t think I could have waited that long.
There’s no way to answer that question without knowing what you want to do with your laptop.
If you want anything but gaming, go for a Mac, especially if you are a musician (every Mac comes with GarageBand, is silent and has crazy battery life). You’ll also find the iWork suite installed for office work. No hidden cost.
For photo editing, built-in Photos app gives a good alternative to Lightroom.
For more advanced stuff you can also buy Affinity Photos or Pixelmator Pro, which are great alternatives to Photoshop, without the cost and the weight on the system
Little built-in apps like Reminders and Notes can be life-changer if you’re in GTD stuff.
The feature that impressed me the most back in the day was preview. Select any file and press the space bar. You’ll get instant preview (whatever the file is) without launching an app.
If you want to game, it depends on the games you play.
I would just be doing general use and for my studies. I was considering playing some games on it, like Escape from tarkov and games like that. Why do macs not work well for gaming? Also do you have a recommendation for what type of mac to get?
Macs are not good for gaming because it wasn’t delivered with a proper graphic card for years, so game developers left the platform.
Apple silicone Mac are pretty good for gaming now, if compared to similar form-factor PCs. Besides, Macs doesn’t lose any power when unplugged, contrary to PCs.
But the catalog is still lacking. There are good games (BG3, Metro Exodus, Resident Evil Village, Lies Of P, World Of Warcraft if it’s your jam) but nothing merely enough for a true gamer.
You could play Escape From Tarkov on a Mac using virtualizing software like Parallels Desktop, CrossOver or Game Porting Toolkit, but it won’t run natively, and I can’t make any promises on that subject.
You’ll have to do some research if you want to play some games on a Mac.
Otherwise it’s truly the best computer you can get. Not necessarily the most powerful (depends on what you’re doing) but definitely the best user experience.
Thank you for the detailed response. it seems like a good choice for me and it’ll probably be the one I end up buying. Do you think macbook airs are better or pros? Also is there a noticeable difference for M1 and m2? Im not sure which model to buy
Have such a hard time upvoting this, solely because OP posted their budget and they could get something much better. Apple is nice, but you’ll be paying out the wazoo to be limited to their ecosystem. Nice, intuitive ecosystem, wont lie. Really pays to be in it, but getting out is hell.
Honestly I’d rather do the extra leg work of finding good enough replacements for basic mac functionality than getting an apple product. I’m hella biased though.
A thinkpad. You just can’t go wrong imho
This really depends on your use case and your screen size/portability/power requirements. Laptops with AMD processors tend to be the better choice in terms of power/battery life. I would probably skip Z series, E series, and ThinkBooks.
Lenovo Thinkpad T14s AMD. Runs Linux perfectly, is fast, has a great keyboard, has a great trackpoint, and has good battery life.
If it doesn’t run Linux, I don’t buy the laptop.
The Thinkpad E series AMD ones are also really good. I use one daily at work to run 2 monitors and its own (for 3 total). It doesn’t hiccup at all on an AMD 5000 chip with Ryzen mobile. Battery life is fabulous when running just its own screen. I routinely get 8 hours of web/office suite work done.
