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Comment by esaym | Hacker News Reader

I need to update my 8 year old T520 with quad core i7.

I've been looking at the system76 series all year but can't really make myself pull the plug on anything. I can get a two year old T580 with similar specs for probably $600 on ebay.

But honestly, I'm tired of using Intel laptops (been doing that for over 15 years). Really hoping something more promising (and with better linux compatibility) from AMD powered laptops pop up soon. Lenovo already has some AMD stuff in their smaller T series lineup, but almost nonexistent in the used market (for now).

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A Lenovo E495 Ryzen 7 U3700 with 32GB RAM and an NVMe will set you back around $600-700 today. Actually more expensive now than it was several months ago, but I would expect these to be inexpensive used within a year. Zero hardware issues in NixOS or Ubuntu, USB-C charging, outputs to 2 external displays plus the internal without any additional fan noise.

I've got zero complaints, especially since this is not Lenovo's top business line.

I have an E495 (but with the 3500U) and the thing runs like a champ. I run Solus on it with no issues. It's build quality is excellent as well: consistent with my work-issued P50s, despite only being a (budget-focused) E-series.

I briefly considered getting a T-series, but the presence of soldered RAM is what killed it for me. Unless the RAM has to be soldered and there is some benefit for the consumer (which is what I've heard for LPDDR4 RAM) then soldering RAM just kills the ROI for me. I purchased my with only 8GB of RAM and will upgrade when I find the right deal.

Great point that I forgot to mention, because I take it for granted- this laptop is upgradeable (SATA, NVMe, and RAM), so you don't have to commit 100% upfront, but can upgrade over the life of the computer.

Regarding an above comment about the resale value of the Lemur, I'll be interested in how my e495 depreciates over time. It included Windows 10 Pro, which I left on a partition, expecting to dual-boot into. I haven't ended up needing it yet, but it will probably contribute a higher resale price- just delete my Linux partition, resize Windows back to 100%, and toss onto eBay.

Yea I just noticed the (much) cheaper E series line. I can't really tell much of a difference between the E495 and T495? Looks like perhaps the T495 used soldered on components in order to be thinner or lighter? Makes it kind of a deal breaker, especially for twice the price.

Any idea of battery charging thresholds are configurable like on the normal T series? (I use this script: https://github.com/teleshoes/tpacpi-bat)

Oh and looks like no docking station other than the usb plug-in types.

Do they have a 4k version? After using a 4k laptop for 5 years I just can't go back to 1080p

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