Ask HN: What is the best non-Apple laptop I can buy?
I will not lie that I like Apple's hardware, but I'd rather be on Linux.
Which laptop do you recommend and what do you like about it?
Which laptop do you recommend and what do you like about it?
I believe it was the "surface 5" or maybe the "surface studio."
I don't remember the model, but they were on display at best buy (a place I don't like shopping at all, and would have never purchased from).
I was strongly considering a non apple device and if I were going to choose one, it would have been that purchased through microsoft.
Given the geopolitical climate and lenovo's crimes against security (superfish), I would never consider a lenovo laptop.
I forget what dell did, but they did something that made it so I will never buy from them.
When I have bought laptops in the past, they have been acer, asus, and HP. All of them were functional, but low quality and definitely inferior to apple products.
I had one of the first generation Gram 17, and this Jan got the 16 (same 16:10 resolution as the 17).
My wife has been using Gram 14, and she really likes it.
All 3 laptops have been exclusively on Fedora. Zero issues.
I really like the screen, the weight, and the excellent battery. On the older model, sleep was not very good in terms of using low power, but with the two latest (last year) models, sleep is ultra low power. Of course the massive battery helps a lot.
Trackpad is great, keyboard is great. It's awesome to have dual NVMe slots, although not so great to have non-upgradable RAM.
I can do a full work day on battery charged to 80%, including multiple long Zoom calls.
I’d recommend looking at the Microsoft Surface, HP z series, the fancy HP series, or a Lenovo T or X. Dell has good stuff too, but I don’t know the lineup. I use a 3 year old HP Z mobile workstation for work and it’s a solid device, a little heavy but well put together and with good thermals and display. The trackpad is hopeless, however.
Apple is unique because despite lower market share, they have better economies of scale. Dell has a product for any niche — they make 6 different devices catering to police and other vehicle mount solutions. My guess is they probably have 60 different laptops for sale right now.
Apple makes like 8 Mac products in total. That’s why the cheapest Mac has a better touchpad and display panel than 90% of the market - Apple just buys all of the good stuff.
what is it for?
you can get an incredibly inexpensive laptop that will run Linux perfectly serviceably, and act as a terminal to utilize cloud services / the web. just keep in mind that if a game costs more than the laptop, the laptop very likely will struggle with the game. you likely won’t be running local llms. but if you are always in a location with connectivity, this may be irrelevant to you. meaning you can spend very little on your hardware, and save the rest for services.
if you want something “more” locally, details on what that looks like will help. what you prioritize as well. screen, keyboard, material, storage, ports. ethernet or sd card slot, if you had to choose? gpu ram requirements? storage? examples like that.
A low end Acer would be fine for browsing Facebook & YouTube.
A maxed-out Lenovo W series might be better if you're doing heavy lifting in 3D scientific modelling.
I'm personally a fan of the Framework laptop, the focus on user repairs, environmental consideration and future expansion.
Framework.
One of those two.