Hi everyone, I use Linux on all my machines since a decade. Unfortunately my laptops are getting older and I will probably have to change them soon. Which Laptops would you recommend me to buy in 2025 a part Librem?
I don’t have a high budget but I’m still looking for something relatively recent. I looked on H-node but it seems that there are not a lot of recent things.
I use Debian as a distro.
I personally buy refurbished. Lately I got a Lenovo X280 thinkpad, for $160 with 8 GB of RAM, 1080p screen. Worked fine, Linux flies on it.
Lenovo Thinkpads are always a great choice. You can get N.O.S (new old stock) models at deep discounts directly from their website.
I have a 12 year old thinkpad that runs bazzite. Thinkpads are definitely rad
New thinkpads are trash unfortunately. Lenovo really cheaped out on their build quality. I’ve had to fix multiple lenovo laptops and one of their all-in-ones and the corners they cut made the repairs either impossible or extremely difficult.
One new ideapad had to go back to them twice with motherboard issues.
Replacing the keyboard is impossible, you need to replace the whole front panel of the case becuase the keyboard is plastic rivited in place.
The all-in-one started as a simple ram and storage upgrade, but in order to do that the whole back panel needs to come off. Its snapped on but the LCD panel itself doesn’t have any subframe around it, so when opening the back panel theres a very high chance of you cracking the display.
Ideapads are trash. I only recommend Thinkpads because they are their business line. I especially like their X1 series. I also recommend buying their new old stock because you get a good deal and you can buy their excellent extended warranty service. Two years in my screen went dark. First they replaced the MB and when that didn’t work, I got a brand new screen. No charge and I basically have a brand new system.
An almost exact question was asked here about 3 days ago, maybe begin there.
Almost any Windows machine with an Intel sticker on it will work so it really depends on your priorities:
- ethics - buy from a Linux specialist like Tuxedo to avoid paying Microsoft
- safety (no surprises) - buy whatever your big-box retailer is selling at your budget
- bang for buck - buy a Lenovo ThinkPad second-hand
You said not a high budget, and yet everyone here is saying Framework even though the they are $900 to $1,000 at the low end. To me that is not budget.
Pine64 is affordable but maybe too slow to be a daily driver, unless you feel confident finding your way through ultralightweight software and the command line and can do most of your problem solving that way.
For other pre-built options, there’s Starlabs and System76 but those are similarly priced to Librem and Framework.
Beyond that I might just research Windows laptops that are agreeable to being formatted.
You can get a used thinkpad T480 off eBay for ~$150. I’ve dropped it multiple times and spilled orange juice on it and it works perfectly fine. No issues running Linux mint Debian edition. Main drawback is the fan which isn’t the most efficient at cooling, but it is upgradeable.
I have an all amd alienware m17 r5 I got $2000 off at around 1200$ pretty fire, 6850mxt = 3080 laptop, ive had no issues running most things, msfs needs hella tweaking on windows but past that even vr stuff mostly works fine
Frameworks cool if you can afford it, but if you want the best perfomance/deals, then laptops go on sale for half off or 70% off often, you just gotta check daily since they sell out within the day for those deals
Give yourself a month to look at deals, its around week 3 for me where I usually purchasep
Consider taking a look at this criminally underrated Linux-first vendor: NovaCustom. Prices aren’t cheap, unfortunate. But it boasts hardware from about a year ago. Furthermore, NovaCustom takes Libre very seriously: from supporting coreboot to offering blob-free WiFi-cards.
Thinkpad t480, they can be found pretty cheap second hand, then install libreboot. Can be upgraded with 64 GB of ram and a 4K screen.
So that’s why everyone recommends the T480 over the T580.
The T580 doesn’t have a libreboot build.
Up until very recently the t480 didnt either
Brb gonna go libreboot my sister’s t580 when that comes out
You would probrally have to wait a very long time, keep in mind not all features (ex: Thunderbolt 3) are working on the t480. In addition I dont think the t580 is even supported by coreboot yet.
So, I saw that lot of you are agreeing that basically just a standard CPU is needed. The problem is that in some cases its not enough. Some years ago I bought a very small Lenovo Miix 320 (not a thinkpad) and it was not compactible with free software at all. The audio and webcam crashed all the time with any distro that I tried. For this reason I asked this question, I had the impression that in the last years it became more difficult to make a laptop work with free software but I cannot judge it just with this experience.
I have a thinkpad t470 from some years ago as my personal laptop has still works perfectly fine. I destroyed a few things in it, like usb ports and have some scratches on the screen, but linux support has always been good. Best think It has is the hardware design that if you drop liquids on top of it then it doesn’t reach the motherboard. It saved it when I dropped a full latte on top and I really though it was gonna go to the trash… Fortunately I only had to buy a new keyboard that is something easy to replace.
Anyway, I will also need to buy a new computer soon fro work and am very interested in getting a framework laptop or another thinkpad if it has things like the great feature above still in place.
Also been eyeing with extreme interest some tuxedo laptops.
These are the well known to work I guess.
I would recommend a Thinkpad. I have an E14, you can get them for under 800 Bucks. The Linux support is awesome ,under Fedora everything works out of the box.
I would reccomend the current configuration that I am running, It is a customised lenovo laptop that I got for little less than $390 (Not us citizen, and we have mid-high taxes, but i got roughly 5% off as student discount and another 5% for credit card payment, and you also apply the CUSTOMOFF coupon for rougly 5% more) - It is lenovo v14 G4 (you can also try to get 16 inch if you prefer that, differnce is roughly $10-20) - 2 things to note - I did not select a ram or storage upgrade - it comes with 8GiB soldered, but there is one slot free, and I added 16GiB which I already had, also I had my 512 GiB SSD, which i swapped with its 256 GiB one. If you would like to, you can get both of these upgraded for about $50 USD. Also you can choose between a 3 cell battery, or a 2 cell and a harddrive (this choice is only available in 16 inch one though).
List of upgrades that I did
Processor AMD Ryzen™ 7 7730U Processor (2.00 GHz up to 4.50 GHz) selected upgrade Display 35.56cms (14) FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 45%NTSC, 300 nits, Battery 3 Cell Li-Polymer 45Wh selected upgrade
Here is a link for configurator (not affiliated or anything else)
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=82YXCTO1WWIN1
I checked this config not available in US
I had system76 and now on tuxedo. I will buy tuxedo again…
They’re a bit expensive up front, but I’m really enjoying my Framework.
That is very likely to be my next laptop.
I bought the Asus Tuf A16 AMD Advantage laptop. I installed Arch on it and it’s been great. Got it for $600 on eBay. Put 32gb of RAM in it and a 2tb nvme drive into the second slot. Left the 512gb drive it came with.
