Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

I have a 15 year old Acer laptop that came with Windows 7 Home and runs Ubuntu just fine. I upgraded it to 8g RAM and 2T SSD hard drive.

I use a Dell Precision 5550 running Manjaro and it is an excellent machine, no complaints

Here's some zoom-out options.

If you travel a lot and have to work, you need mobility, but possibly not as much as you think. If compact wireless input devices and a hotel TV, borrowed screen or correctly configured tablet may be adequate, then you only need a compute box not a full laptop and you can consider higher end ARM boards and a purchased or custom battery bank.

If you don't have a huge travel requirement, you may be better off buying two desktops than one laptop as they are far cheaper, easier to maintain/repair, provide better input devices, better and far more upgradable. Carry your data around on a USB stick or SSD.

I have an MacBook Pro, which I really like. I recently wanted a second machine, running Linux, which I could (part of the time) use as a large tablet. I settled on a ThinkPad X1 Yoga, which I ordered with Ubuntu. It arrived with Ubuntu 20.04, which I immediately upgraded to 22.04. Everything worked fine out of the box (I haven't tried the fingerprint reader). This machine is not quite as fast as the MacBook Pro, but plenty good enough for me. I spend most of my time on this machine in Emacs.

Both of these are pricy machines, but I'm really satisfied with them.

I spent months trying to answer this very same question, and stumbled upon the LG Gram.

Best purchase of my developer career.

17 inch, backlit keyboard, 10 key numpad, great battery, trackpad equal or better to Mac, under 3 pounds, usb c charging.

The full package.

(Bonus: put MS PowerToys on it and remap the keyboard layout to your liking)