For all the devs wondering how to replace their MacBook Pros: I highly recommend running Linux on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've also heard good things about System76.
- Purism https://puri.sm/products/
- Vaio https://us.vaio.com/vaio-sx14/
- Dell Latitude 7390/7490 (not the "New 7300/7400" which look to be a downgrade, sadly)
And if you're in Japan and have money and are really stylish:
- Panasonic Let's Note https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/products/lv8k/
Their Premium site gives a better gallery: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/premium/
And their colour/aesthetic customizations exceed anything I can find in the west: https://ec-club.panasonic.jp/pc/sp/customize_letsnote/
Panasonic has even had partnerships with e.g. Star Wars to have unique laptop-backing options, which is a bit wild for a business-series laptop.
But sadly they seem to have discontinued their best-looking and most interesting option: the MX. It was a 12.5" laptop with a rectangular touchpad (that had real buttons). It was a Yoga-style touchscreen (with stylus), and had all the ports you could want (e.g. vga, ethernet, SDcard). Just ~3lbs but also certified as semi-tough, and with good keyboard travel.
But then the killer feature: two batteries. One internal, but another one removable (yet still fits flush on the bottom when connected). When you remove that battery, you can charge it from the wall / by USB. That means you can hotswap your batteries and keep charging them -- infinite battery life!!
It's just so interesting to me. Such a creative engineering marvel, not even mentioning the circular touchpads they have on their other models. We don't see anything close to this in the west -- instead we are constantly complaining that our laptops keep losing features that we want. Why!?
Thank you for showing that different options still exist for laptops.
I remember using a Toshiba Libretto, and a weird Japanese Sharp 10-12 inch laptop in late 90s both of which seemed amazingly small.
Now the XPS13 and Lenovo P1 that I use are nice but feel so.. normal.
I do miss the Libretto!
1. I won't use Windows. Will my battery life and WiFi performance be as good on Ubuntu? How much worse will it be?
2. Lenovo injected malware into the BIOS before. It was a different laptop division but it's still the same company. I am just finding it impossible to trust ever again.
I don't know about the BIOS though.
(PS. Don't use wayland. It seems to have issues with HiDPI apps, at least on my laptop.)
The keyboard is excellent, it is lightweight 1.2 kg. I opted for a 16Gb of Ram, 512 Gb SSD, i7 8556u, FHD model. The one with the QHD screen was 200 Euros more expensive but still 700Euros less expensive than an equivalent Macbook pro.
So far I don't see why I would change to a Macbook. Linux/Gnome are good enough for me.
I'm pretty happy with the battery life on my X1 Carbon, but I might try some some of the settings from that article.