- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged about the dearth of truly great PC laptops out there, and I suspect it won’t be the last.
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You seriously can’t go wrong with the lenovo thinkpads on eBay. I Got a thinkpad E14 ryzen 7 (7th gen), 48gb ram, 1tb ssd for $400 on ebay with a small hair crack on the hinge.
At the end of the day, a laptop is a laptop, and the cost difference between a $2000 brand new laptop and a $400 used laptop there really is no argument/justification to be made to buy a $2000 laptop in less-intensive tasks. Here’s a better instance of your money: find a $400 laptop with semi-good performance (ryzen 3 or intel equivalent) put $1600 to a gaming computer and setup a virtual environment with a radeon or rtx gpu at your fingertips.
I’ve been daily driving a framework 13 for like 9 months now. I’m pretty happy with it as a Linux machine.I can and will nitpick here to some of the points made in the article - but I’d buy another / recommended it regardless.
- the touchpad. It’s a diving board style. It’s also got a good amount of play in it prior to clicking. The diving board style means it’s tough to click at the top. Tapping works great. The extra play takes a little getting used to. It’s 1000% functional and works well - but if you’re snobby about trackpads, you won’t like it. It’s way worse than an Apple touchpad, but an upper end windows touchpad. The trackpads play also tends to allow “crap” and dirt to fall in there. I’ve had to take it apart once to clean it out (which is super easy to do on a framework, but it’d be nicer if I didn’t have to do it at all)
- the price - it’s a bit high for the specs. But that comes with the territory of a non glued laptop
- battery life is ok
- speakers are kind of crappy. They are fine, but they ain’t wowing anyone.
- the keyboard is ok
That’s it. 9 months of daily use, I love it, that’s my complaints list. The idea here is that someday, a better trackpad, or keyboard, or speakers will become available-and it’ll take me 5 minutes to upgrade. It’s a desktop laptop. And for me, everything “just works” on fedora 42.
I wrecked my Framework about 3 months after purchasing it. Damaged the corner from an ugly fall. Being able to easily purchase the parts to repair it was fantastic. I’m a huge fan. My only gripe, like you said, is the touchpad. It’s not terrible, though.
I’ve got a Framework 16 and love it.
Framework are nowhere near the scale of any of the large manufacturers, and they’ve had to spend a huge amount of time and money on R&D, so their laptops are probably always going to cost more. IMO it’s worth the price though, given you can keep updating it over time.
Why do so many computer manufacturers organize their websites around obscure names of model ranges that only they understand, or make you decide upfront whether you want a “home” or “business” or “creator” laptop? Why do they all make it as difficult as possible for you to browse what’s on offer? Is it just because they all suck at website design, or is there some other reason?
Maybe they believe that most of their customers don’t really know much about computers beyond turning them on and “bigger numbers = better”. They might not be wrong.
Thankfully I have some requirements for laptops that very significantly narrow my options:
- It must have a good, ergonomic keyboard
- It must have a good pointing stick
That only leaves Thinkpads for me to consider.
It’s no wonder people gravitate towards apple, it’s almost impossible to find a good laptop amongst this mess.
I really like the MacBook Air, but I was dissuaded from it because the M4 isn’t supported by AsahiLinux yet.
Well I say it’s no wonder people gravitate towards it but I don’t actually like it myself. It sucks that they make it basically impossible to upgrade snything. And that there storage and RAM upgrades cost several times more than they should.
I have a Macbool air (not by choice) and I installed asahi linux a couple of weeks ago. Main take away is that it’s really good except for software support. I’ve had a bit of trouble finding programs that work well on arm even open source projects often don’t compile there programs to work on arm.
Framework. It’s framework.
Price aside, they apparently don’t even ship to where I live
If not for the price.
And the battery life
And the ugly and cumbersome ethernet expansion card.
And not great high-end graphics performance
To be fair though, if you’re hooking up an Ethernet cord you’ve already lost in the “ugly and cumbersome” department.
Fine, then “more ugly and cumbersome” than it needs to be. I frequently have to hook up laptops to devices that simply don’t have wifi (think unconfigured network devices like routers and the like), so connecting via cable is the only option. Having a gigantic, plastic, snag-prone wart sticking out of my laptop certainly wouldn’t help matters.
Makes sense!
And the poor firmware support
Really? I am considering Framwork. What is wrong with the firmware support?
It seems to be getting a little better lately, but historically they just didn’t give firmware updates. I went 3 years without a stable bios update for my 12th gen Intel mainboard on linux despite known vulnerabilities since launch (just got its first update last month).
I actually upgraded my mainboard within that time, so I went the full lifetime of the product with an insecure BIOS and none of the firmware improvements that were promised at launch like thunderbolt 4 certification. For all practical purposes, firmware support ended when it left the factory until just last month.
That said, my new ryzen ai 350 main board just got its first update to patch some vulns that were disclosed a month ago. So still not in time for the coordinated disclosure, but a month is way better than 3 years so I’ll take what I can get.
i know a laptop that’s amazing in almost every aspect except that it doesn’t run Linux. the Macbook Pro. to me there’s barely any real comparison to be made unless Linux or Windows or the keyboard layout is a hill worth dying on to you.
i have servers and my gaming PC on Linux, but i wouldn’t trade my Macbook with its unified memory, incredible battery life, best in class touchpad, and top notch screen for anything else. Windows is dying, and chip designers (outside of Apple) seem more interested in cashing in on AI than providing a user experience. i was excited to see what Qualcomm would do, but it doesn’t seem like OEMs or Windows are particularly interested in supporting that platform as a next leap forward, while Intel is bleeding on the side of the road and AMD is constantly side-eyeing Nvidia. i think it would be peak irony for Nvidia to come out of left field with a desktop class ARM processor that’s Linux native, but that’s a pipe dream. what the ecosystem needs is a real competitor to Apple that is more focused on desktop machines than enterprise contracts. maybe RISC-V Frameworks will break out in a meaningful way. but it just seems like anything else these days in a compromise based on some biased preference or moral judgement.
anyway all that said i’m glad there’s an ecosystem of people who are stubborn enough to work on this platform. i have my own stubbornness, but i just don’t have the motivation to apply it here
I agree… I love my Macbooks for how well the hardware works, and I love how I can open up terminal and do pretty much anything I want. What I don’t like is how consumer hostile it is when it comes to being able to upgrade or repair. I also don’t like Apple’s insistence on telling me what I do and do not want in a product. According to Steve Jobs no one wants a touchscreen on their laptop, and even though he’s been dead for over a decade and the market has shown otherwise, they still don’t have a touchscreen Macbook (and if they ever do release one they’ll fawn over how innovative they are for doing so).
how do you find the keyboard? I’ve tried typing on a few macbooks but my fingers could never get used to it
it’s fine as far as laptop keyboards go. i’ve pretty much given up on laptop keyboards being really satisfying. i use a mechanical when possible
ah yeah, that’s fair.
i’ve found the fw13 keyboard and the thinkpad xx30 keyboards are pretty good, but even the xx30 ones are extremely dependent on the age and manufacturer, so it’s basically just luck at this point
Most companies still change their laptops’ keyboard layouts in random negative ways every year; ship with stupid screen resolutions, woefully bad speakers, and disappointing touchpads; and stuff the most powerful processor and GPU in there and don’t focus enough on tuning the cooling, power usage, and fan profiles.
I don’t really get these nitpicks. If you’re planning to use the laptop as your daily driver, do what every other power user does and get a set of good peripherals.
Walk into class
Pull laptop out of bag, put it on the desk
Whip out mechanical keyboard
Mouse, small set of stereo speakers
Pull out a large object wrapped in a blanket
Everyone else watches confusedly
Take off blanket, unveiling a 28in monitor
Whip out power strip
Put power strip on the adjacent desk, no one is sitting there anyway
20ft extension cord
The outlet is on the far wall, run the extension cord between the desks
Apologize to everyone bumped into a long the way
Play World of Warcraft the entire time
