Hi everyone!
I need to buy a new laptop to replace my 12 years old laptop. I didn’t look after hardware for a while for some personal reasons.
I will buy something new. My needs are:
- photo editing
- video editing
- vector graphics editing/creation
- good battery life (I don’t want to worry about)
- web navigating, docs, spreadsheets
- USB-C charging would be nice
I don’t game, and Framework isn’t available where I live.
I would be happy to have some recommendation on what is a good hardware for this use and good brand.
Thanks!
it’s easy to recommend a ThinkPad for Linux, and something in the T or P series laptops might suit you. video editing is a potential difficulty though, as that feels a little more workstation-grade than the rest, and you’ll probably want to go big on RAM (32GB would be best) and be sure to get at least an intel i7. I’ve not had great luck with battery life on AMD (shame because everything else is great) but perhaps others have tips for doing better.
you could also go for the ThinkPad yoga models (make sure they’re still ThinkPad though! they also sell a different model line just called “yoga”) if you wanted a tablet/convertible for graphics work.
anyway look at the T14, P14s, or P16 if you want something bigger. whatever the latest generation of those models is.
Lenovo build quality has been shit lately. My IT dept is constantly returning Thinkpads for various issues.
Tuxedo computers could be a good fit I think? It’s like system76, but from Germany. You can pick from a few OS including an Ubuntu fork they made ( tuxedo os ). You can tweak the laptop yourself ( different you/CPUs/disk sizes/… ) to fit your use case.
https://www.tuxedocomputers.com
Personally I’ve never bought there, but a friend of mine has and he’s happy with his purchase.
Note: I do not work for them, or am affiliated with them in any way.
I know you don’t game but a dedicated GPU will be a godsend for video editing. Depending on the budget I would get a used gaming laptop like an Omen or a legion 5
Edit: worst case wait a year for parts and laptops to be really cheap haha.
Have no idea if they’re any good but since you ppstwd this in Linux maybe one from the people that do PopOS:
I would not recommend them. I bought a Galago Pro in 2020, and it’s been a huge disappointment. Pop!_OS was very buggy, and their support was not helpful. I ultimately installed Ubuntu, and it’s now significantly more stable, but I’m left asking the question “why did I pay a premium for a clevo, when I’m not getting anything out of the custom software or support?”
Even with Ubuntu, it’s not a good laptop. The speakers are worse than my phone, a fully charged battery will die completely in less than a day when the laptop is suspended, it runs unbelievably hot. As a developer who depends on this machine for daily work, it’s been intensely frustrating.
That’s not the experience I’ve had. Maybe they have gotten better as my battery life is a full day and the speakers are great. I wish it had more thunderbolt but that may be fixed if or when they release there own hardware.
The battery life and speakers will certainly be model dependent. The quality of the machine I received and the lackluster support, given the price I paid, are what I find most frustrating. The computer would be fine for ~$600, but I paid over $1000. I paid a premium expecting System76 to hold themselves to a high standard, and so far, they’ve let me down in multiple ways.
I do recognize with a different model, the experience could be 180°, but if buying from them is a roll-of-the-dice, for me personally, that’s enough to buy from someone else next time.
I would favour an AMD Ryzen 7000 based laptop. Much better battery life than Intel and better graphics performance.
Lenovo ThinkPad T and P series are excellent build quality.
Asus Zenbooks or Expertbooks with OLED screens are also excellent. Displays are on par, or superior to Macbooks. Excellent colour accuracy.
Make sure you get something with at least 16GB of Ram, or 32GB if available.
While I agree with the recommendations (I have a ThinkPad P14S Gen4 now) I wouldn’t say the battery life is great - especially if OP wants to do video editing and such. Otherwise it’s an amazing laptop (now that it’s actually supported by the kernel). I still suspect the Intel variant would be better for battery life though.
With that being said for anything this intensive you’ll need a charger with any laptop because it will simply not be able to keep working for 8+ hours with this kind of software. In fact get a docking station and a second screen too unless you plan to be on the go all of the time; the productivity increase from getting a second screen is insane.
Oh and be prepared to lose a lot of the fancy stuff with Linux - sure you get an amazing screen but no HDR. You don’t get the sound improvements from the official Lenovo drivers for Windows, etc. Oh and you should keep the Windows partition (just shrink it to a minimum) - makes it much easier to keep the bios up to date.
