Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025 • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#61

Post by OutOfHere » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 1:32 PM UTC

ofcourse2025 wrote: post #7

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System76 laptops are rebranded Clevo devices (a Taiwanese white-label ODM). Even by non-Mac laptop standards, they are known for subpar build quality, reliability, and battery life. I would pick a Framework over a Clevo, any day. And Framework has tons of paper cut issues - I’m not leaving my MacBook for high security work with Framework’s track record for firmware updates.

My lemur easily runs ollama, huggingface locally. No problems. Long battery life. Really thin. Rarely reboot. I don't have anything bad to say about it.

The hardware just isn't reliable, and the support doesn't have an SLA. I have multiple System76 laptops that don't work anymore, and I don't know what to do with them.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#62

Post by shae » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #23

I like the Lenovo P16 gen2. It's not cheap and rather heavy, but very powerful. You can get it with lots of RAM, a powerful graphics card (for LLMs), and a CPU with 24 cores (32 threads). And you can get it shipped with Fedora or Ubuntu (although wiped it immediately and installed my own Fedora). Curious what the bad Lenovo experience was. I've had various Thinkpads since the early 2000's and they all worked for me.

I have this laptop, with 192 GB of RAM and an ADA 4000 GPU. I haven't tried LLMs but it's an amazingly powerful laptop.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#63

Post by attendant3446 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

I will be buying a new laptop soon and have been researching this topic recently. I agree that MacBook is not a great option as a dev machine (great laptop, just not for devs, pretty much just because of that ridiculous OS).

Since I'm in the EU, I ended up with 2 possible options: ThinkPad T14 (non-s model), Gen.5 or newer. Or Framework 13 AMD.

System76 also make some interesting laptops, but it's just too expensive to get one in Europe.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#64

Post by animex » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

Where Lenovo is unbeatable for me, is the extended warranty cost. You can get (usually on discount) full 4 year coverage next-day in-home with accident protection for only a couple hundred bucks. I like a company that can stand behind their product in that manner.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#65

Post by mariusor » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

attendant3446 wrote: post #63

I will be buying a new laptop soon and have been researching this topic recently. I agree that MacBook is not a great option as a dev machine (great laptop, just not for devs, pretty much just because of that ridiculous OS). Since I'm in the EU, I ended up with 2 possible options: ThinkPad T14 (non-s model), Gen.5 or newer. Or Framework 13 AMD. System76 also make some interesting laptops, but it's just too expensive…

In Europe you can have a look at Tuxedo computers. They have some sweet configurations with the previous AMD CPU generation for reasonable prices. Full disclosure however, I had one of their Pulse 13 laptops (2 generation ago I think), on which I had to change the battery once every 2 years, and recently the screen started to behave like it's on its last legs. (After about 4 years)

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#66

Post by attendant3446 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #65

attendant3446 wrote: post #63

I will be buying a new laptop soon and have been researching this topic recently. I agree that MacBook is not a great option as a dev machine (great laptop, just not for devs, pretty much just because of that ridiculous OS). Since I'm in the EU, I ended up with 2 possible options: ThinkPad T14 (non-s model), Gen.5 or newer. Or Framework 13 AMD. System76 also make some interesting laptops, but it's just too expensive…

In Europe you can have a look at Tuxedo computers. They have some sweet configurations with the previous AMD CPU generation for reasonable prices. Full disclosure however, I had one of their Pulse 13 laptops (2 generation ago I think), on which I had to change the battery once every 2 years, and recently the screen started to behave like it's on its last legs. (After about 4 years)

I know about Tuxedo but they have not been up-to-date for a long time. I checked their website and I can finally see the improvement in their newer laptops. But for a long time there were no laptops with USB 4 (e.g. Thunderbolt), only ISO keyboard layouts (bleh) and many other obvious and annoying drawbacks.

Also, Tuxedo still feels like brand of white label products. I know System76 is sort of the same, but somehow their products feel like products. But maybe it's just the marketing.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#67

Post by mariusor » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 6:18 PM UTC

attendant3446 wrote: post #66

mariusor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe you can have a look at Tuxedo computers. They have some sweet configurations with the previous AMD CPU generation for reasonable prices. Full disclosure however, I had one of their Pulse 13 laptops (2 generation ago I think), on which I had to change the battery once every 2 years, and recently the screen started to behave like it's on its last legs. (After about 4 years)

I know about Tuxedo but they have not been up-to-date for a long time. I checked their website and I can finally see the improvement in their newer laptops. But for a long time there were no laptops with USB 4 (e.g. Thunderbolt), only ISO keyboard layouts (bleh) and many other obvious and annoying drawbacks. Also, Tuxedo still feels like brand of white label products. I know System76 is sort of the same, but somehow…

Yeah, I can understand what you mean, when I bought mine they didn't really have screens larger than 1080p. Luckily that didn't matter for me at the time.

I wanted to support them again, but I chose the new framework in the end. We'll see if it's going to be better.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#68

Post by FlyingAvatar » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 10:27 PM UTC

kokada wrote: post #54

FlyingAvatar wrote: post #3

You have two requirements that are at odds: * Macbook is not an option * Want to be able to mess around with some local LLMs. Your choices for a Window laptop that can run a local LLM is either to get a large amount of system RAM and have it be abysmally slow, or to run a very tiny model on a discrete GPU which will (a) not be very good due to its small size and high quantization and (b) evaporate your battery life.…

> You have two requirements that are at odds: Not really now that we have the AMD Strix Halo: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/review-asus-rog-flow... . The only available SKU right now is the above one that is a weird gaming tablet/laptop that seems to not be good in either (too heavy for a tablet, too cramped for laptop usage), but the performance is definitely there (similar performance of RTX 4060 for lapt…

Cool, I will keep an eye on this.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#69

Post by pestaa » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:59 AM UTC

attendant3446 wrote: post #66

mariusor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe you can have a look at Tuxedo computers. They have some sweet configurations with the previous AMD CPU generation for reasonable prices. Full disclosure however, I had one of their Pulse 13 laptops (2 generation ago I think), on which I had to change the battery once every 2 years, and recently the screen started to behave like it's on its last legs. (After about 4 years)

I know about Tuxedo but they have not been up-to-date for a long time. I checked their website and I can finally see the improvement in their newer laptops. But for a long time there were no laptops with USB 4 (e.g. Thunderbolt), only ISO keyboard layouts (bleh) and many other obvious and annoying drawbacks. Also, Tuxedo still feels like brand of white label products. I know System76 is sort of the same, but somehow…

I've seen ANSI layout being available on many Tuxedo models. I got my Aura 15 with it 4 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Best Windows/Linux developer laptop in 2025

#70

Post by attendant3446 » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:47 AM UTC

pestaa wrote: post #69

attendant3446 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know about Tuxedo but they have not been up-to-date for a long time. I checked their website and I can finally see the improvement in their newer laptops. But for a long time there were no laptops with USB 4 (e.g. Thunderbolt), only ISO keyboard layouts (bleh) and many other obvious and annoying drawbacks. Also, Tuxedo still feels like brand of white label products. I know System76 is sort of the same, but somehow…

I've seen ANSI layout being available on many Tuxedo models. I got my Aura 15 with it 4 years ago.

I know it was available on some models, but many? I doubt it. The last time I checked what was available from Tuxedo (maybe 1.5-2 years ago), the 2-3 models I liked didn't have an ANSI keyboard layout option.