Ask HN: What new laptop would you get?

My laptop's almost 6 years old. It's starting to have reliability issues, and the battery life isn't very good. The landscape has changed considerably since 2018, and I'm not sure what should get. I use things like IntelliJ and Photoshop, so Chromebooks aren't an option.

Historically, I've used X1 Carbons. I like that they have just enough ports, are light and repairable, but Windows has started to feel more like an ad platform than an OS. I ended up rolling back to 10 after the 11 upgrade because of all the garbage. I'm also not a WSL fan. It's better than nothing, but it's a pain to manage.

I use a Macbook at work. It's ok. It's nice that the OS is actually an OS, and being Unix-like is a plus. I don't like Apple's history of dropping OS support after 5 or so years. They've also unrepairable. I don't buy into the Framework upgrade premise, but being able to recover data from the SSD or replace a damaged trackpad is nice. I also prefer the Thinkpad chassis. Apple's aluminum is feels cold, the edges hurt my wrists, and the metal picks up dings my X1 Carbon never got.

That leaves Linux, but 2024 is not the year of desktop Linux.

I spent months researching my next laptop.

After buying a machine I thought was The One, I returned it after sort of accidentally stumbling upon the LG Gram. I was and still am surprised how difficult it was to come across. It feels like a hidden gem. It is a dream come true, and no one pays me to say that.

In my circle, people come to me looking for laptop advice, and so far 11 other people have picked one up (or I went and got it for them) and they love/loved it.

If you want a basic one, they have them at Costco for like $999. Mine is the $1800 version from LG.com, and I couldn't be happier.

My dad's had a hardware issue after a few months, and after a bit of troubleshooting, they replaced the motherboard promptly.

It checks all my boxes off: 17 inch, backlit keyboard, long battery life, super light (like, scary light), num pad, USB charging and display, and the only Windows trackpad I've found that is better than the Macbook.

I can run 3 monitors (one 4k) with VSCode, Photoshop, postman, Visual Studio (with iisexpress server running), MSSQL studio, Teams, Brave (+ 39 tabs), YouTube, and the thing doesn't skip a beat, or get loud or super hot; it does get warm, but that's expected with that load.

It's also comically easy to open up and upgrade the RAM or SSD, or replace the keyboard or screen.

My only complaint would be the sound; the speakers don't go very loud. But headphones or external speakers fix that, so it's only mildly problematic. Very little bloatware or pre installed LG garbage.

If you don't need a dedicated graphics card, I don't know of a better Windows laptop. But if you're really done with Windows overall.... Ignore all this :)

I find Windows 11 to still be tolerable with some tweaks to the settings/notifications.

Good answer. A refurb Dell desktop tower or smaller form will get ya 10-20 years service vs. the 5 tops of the laptop (excluding battery and screen for generous comparison because they may fail sooner). Also laptops just seem to do sucky stuff like keyboard randomly stops working. Laptops suck.

Bought Thinkpad P52 in 2018. Still going strong almost 6 years later. Running Fedora on it. I've been a Thinkpad user for over 20 years now but also using MB Air alongside for a few years. My next laptop will again be Thinkpad.

I bought my P52s in 2018 also and it's still going strong as well.

The fan was starting to make some unseemly noises, so last week I replaced the fan, upgraded the ram to 32GB and replaced both batteries (under $200 in total).

Would highly recommend a P series Thinkpad, if you like a desktop replacement running Linux.

I ran PopOS, Debian and now Linux Mint. I would have preferred Debian, but it doesn't run seamlessly with my DisplayLink dock + 2 monitors.