I’m in the market for a new laptop. I’m currently considering the Framework 16 but I’m wondering if there’s anything else I should look at. The System 76 Adder WS seems like a better value, but I’m hesitant to buy Nvidia.
I don’t need anything super portable, just looking for a decently powerful laptop for some gaming and other basic tasks. I use openSUSE TW but even with the Nvidia repo I’ve had issues with Nvidia graphics.
If you want a laptop for Linux then the obvious choices are Tuxedo and System76. Framework looks cool, but I haven't heard much about it's Linux support.
They officially support Ubuntu and Fedora, and it looks like people have decent experiences with other distros. That’s on the 13 though, nothing official about the 16.
If you don’t care as much about the specific brand and want to shop deals I would look at laptop deal history on slickdeals and keep an eye on the posts there after nailing down what you think is a good sale price.
I’ve got a thinkbook (that makes sense , Lenovo) that I picked up for like <500 which has run Linux since day one. Price/performance is killer. Though, I’d probably go with a framework if I was shopping today. Modular + serviceability wins it for me.
Linux will run on p much anything; hardware modularity and repair resulting in longevity are my main considerations these days.
There are a few manufacturers you can look at. Other than Framework and System76, which you already know of, there’s Tuxedo, Starlabs, Slimbook etc.
Other than that, The Linux Experiment is my go-to channel for Linux-related news. He has a playlist for Linux hardware. You can find some good reviews for different products in there.
I have been using a Framework 13 (12th gen intel) since April and I love it. The only complaint is the battery life (5-8 hours of software development with JetBrains IDEs), but in terms of hardware performance, it’s fantastic.
I also have a framework 13. It has been great! I run the latest fedora and everything works great out of the box.
My only annoyance is fedora disable hibernate by default and now that s2idle is the default instead of s3, too much battery is used while sleeping. That said, it isn’t difficult to enable s3 and hibernate.
Did they finally fix the phantom drain from the expansion cards during sleep? I had one of the original batch and wound up trading it in because I couldn’t actually use it effectively untethered.
I think the fix for the phantom drain came with the newest refresh (gen 3); I don’t notice a rapid drain when I sleep mine, though because I use the ‘deep sleep’ workaround.
I use s3 deep sleep which then hibernates after and hour. Works great for me as I don’t do work on my personal laptop so I’m only using it on evenings and weekends.
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