Razor Blade 15 works very well, also under heat. The Surface Pro is also fantastic except the lack of webcam support.
What is the Linux story on a surface? I admit I like Microsoft’s products form factor a lot, especially the surface book.
Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
21–30 of 103 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#22You can get a Purism Librem 15 with 32GB RAM and a 500GB NVMe drove for about 2K USD...
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#23I made the switch to a Dell Precision laptop (or mobile workstation as Dell calls it) for work and speced it to the max a few years ago. I specifically wanted to run Ubuntu. I've had it for 3 years now and it's never let me down.
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#24I just got a Lenovo P1 Gen 2 and so far have been very happy with it. It has two NVMe slots and I think it can go as high as 128gb of RAM, 64 at least. The build quality and keyboard are very nice and it has an nvidia quadro T1000 w/4gb. My setup is a 9th gen i7, 16 gigs and 256 NVMe, it was ~1600 USD, and I think it was worth the price. My only complaint is that it took over 3 weeks to ship.
It looks like PSREF [1] for that platform says 64GB RAM maximum, possibly because it only has two DIMM slots and there's nobody making 64GB modules at the moment.
According to Intel [2] most of the 9th Gen can support 128GB, perhaps it'll be able to do that should 2x64GB modules ever become an option in the future?
[1] https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad%2... [2] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/192990/...
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#25The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is the usual recommendation as far as having the most "Macbook"-like design (e.g. slim, unibody aluminum, but powerful).* ThinkPads generally have pretty solid Linux support, and System76 makes a line of Linux-only laptops, although both of them will be a good bit chunkier than your MBP. Neither are bad laptops if you're willing to trade sleekness for a tad more power or durability.…
XPS seems to me more like a replacement for the MacBook Air 11” size wise... except that it has a 13” HiDPI screen and a 6 core processor. I keep mine in an 11” MBA case.
I’ve found mine to be really good. They seem to have fixed issues with the trackpad that bothered me.
Only things I’m not keen on are the PgUp, PgDn key positions above the cursor keys and mixing the 4k screen with a 1440 external screen.
I opted to buy it over a Thinkpad because it comes with linux preinstalled and at the time the current X1C had some issues, as I recall. I think whatever it was has now been fixed but it’s still officially unsupported hardware in that you’re not paying Lenovo to support it.
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#26I would probably still say Lenovo. Although ordering on their website was the single worst eCommerce experience I ever had.
Mine might be a bit dated, but you might be able to find one on eBay for pretty cheap now. I switched from an MBP 2013 to a ThinkPad T480 running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS back in July of 2018. Linux support has been really great and I didn't have to install a lot of special drivers. (e.g. trackpad support with multi-touch scrolling worked from the start)
Things to love about the T480:
- Fairly portable at around 3.5 lbs with a 14inch screen. It avoids the dedicated numeric keypad that some larger 15inch models have, while still having good screen real estate.
- Great keyboard as all Thinkpads have. (media keys are working great under linux)
- Very durable having undergone mil-spec testing.
- Camera placement at top with a mechanical shutter if you get the FHD screen.
- 32 GB of ram if you want/need it
- Hot-swappable batteries. No need to turn off the laptop. just flip it over and replace. (You can buy the extended 72Wh battery for extra battery time)
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#27Thinkpad X and T series.
Unless you hate money, don't buy current years models. This will also give you better Linux support.
Also, don't forget to purchase the 3-year on-site support.
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#28I've read probably every HN thread the past 10 years about this, and the current consensus seems to be either Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition or Lenovo X1 Carbon.
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#29I am interested in switching from Macbook to Linux laptop. My biggest concern is the different keyboard shortcuts and layouts (most important ones are cmd vs ctrl for shortcuts, but keeping ctrl+C for terminating processes).
I bought a cheap Lenovo x230 recently, and the most annoying thing is finding an easy to configure the keyboard shortcuts to be the same as the OSX. Does anyone know if there are any OSes or software that helps mimic the OSX keyboard experience for those who don't want to undo the years of muscle memory?
Re: Ask HN: Best Linux Laptop Replacing a Macbook Pro?
#30My xps15 9560 has been a basketcase under ubuntu or arch linux, mostly due to the nvidia gpu never playing well with, well any other gpu.
In general I'd recommend avoiding anything with a "hybrid" gpu solution.
The downside is you're stuck with a crappy intel gpu, which at high-res (4k) on my xps15 is pretty crap, so I wouldn't get anything beyond a 1080p display with it.
I think life would be much better if we could disable the intel gpu in the bios to only let the system know an external solution exists, but then intel might have to admit to world+oems their gpu's are crap to need hard-disabled.