Well i started my B tech course this year, I am looking for a laptop for my use case. I am using linux as a main os for 3 years.
The laptop which i currently use is a Dell Inspiron N5110. Its a pretty old machine so i am currently looking for an upgrade.
Things which I do :
- Read documents
- Watch videos and listen to music
- Light coding
- Tinker with almost everything
- Try new software if i can.
I REALLY need a a laptop with good cooling and battery life like 5 hours is fine.
ThinkPads are generally pretty good. Got mine for ~£450 on eBay and it’s got ridiculous specs for that price (4k display, discrete GPU, 2 nvme slots, 32gb of ram and an 8 core 3.6ghz i7)
I think it lasts about 5 hours of light use on Linux but like many ThinkPads you can swap out the battery so bringing a spare charged battery with you is an option if need be
Very high spec for the money, old hardware but still far more powerful than many modern laptops that are more expensive
You’re not going to be running cyberpunk at 4k on it but for all of the things you mentioned it won’t even break a sweat
Just make sure you pay attention to the specs because there are different builds of them with different amounts of memory, GPU and screen resolution I believe
Search on Flipkart, there’s a few good laptops there. Don’t know if they are full Linux compatible.
With points and a 1000 off coupon it comes in your budget.
I think you need to do something to make the GPU drivers work. See this reddit thread.
Try running Linux os live usb on it and see if everything works. If you use Linux Mint, i think you need to install kernel 6.2 since it’s still on 5.xx kernel now.
Maybe buys something that you can expand in the future by adding extra RAM, replace the storage and exchange the battery. A lot of the modern laptops don’t allow you to do any of those (planned obsolescence?). I know older ThinkPads are a good option but I think newer models are less serviceable. In Linux you can use tlp to tune up your battery usage and reduce the power consumption to the bare minimum. I would also recommend a second-hand ThinkPad, but just check if it is upgradeable.
Preowned ThinkPad. You can get a 2018 or so X1 Carbon for $400 or less on eBay.
Then I mean a later year because my girlfriend and I each own X1s from around that time which we bought on eBay. Mine, I believe, was listed as a 2018. Hers is a year newer. So those figures might need budged but I do not mean a T480.
Unless you’re just recommending a T480 over an X1, in which case, I apologize for stepping all over your punchline.
Check out Swappa.com for a used laptop… Got a very good deal on a thinkpad. Almost any laptop will work for what you do except for tinkering with almost everything which is kind of hard to define… Just avoid the Google Chromebooks
