Switched to Thinkpad X250 recently from old HP netbook and so far very much happy. Running Ubuntu 15.04 with Gnome.
Everything works out of the box, no problems with hardware so far, no need to patch or edit any obscure config files or download weird drivers.
Solid hardware. Internal battery that allows you to switch drained battery to a full one (if you have it) at any moment without the need to turn notebook off.
Besides that, I really like how Thinkpads look. Sturdy build that feels great in your hands.
Good keyboard. Some people don't like that type of keyboards (chicklet), but I feel comfortable working on it.
The one thing to be wary off is some alterations they made to the keyboard/trackpad in a few of the models (I think they may have reversed the changes most recently, but make sure you are getting the classic one).
But at least with X250 they did bring those buttons back. I guess same is true for the rest of the newer models.
I've read that the 2014 T-series clickpads and trackpoints have similar issues too. Generally, when people recommend Thinkpads for their quality they're referring to the X and T series. The 2014 models are frequently showing up in the Lenovo outlet store with surprisingly low prices because of low sales and high returns. Not a good deal. I would have gotten a refund if it wasn't a refurbished purchase.
It does have a wifi issue, it seems to me that the Intel 7260 wifi chip has serious issues across multiple laptops from what I've read online. But I found that for my home network switching to 5ghz fixed all my issues so it might just be an interference thing.
Are you sure? This seems very odd, and I cant find a single mention of this in a review. Does the mini-DP port carry audio? My X240 works perfectly fine with audio over mini-DP in linux (there is no full size HDMI). I dont know about windows, I dont use it.
>click pad issue
The clickpad sucks on the X240 too -- but I never actually push-to-click it. Do people not tap to click on laptops in 2015? This complaint is a strawman IMO, the push-to-click sucks on Apple and every other laptop I've seen it on as well. As a standard trackpad, its fine.
>wifi
Zero issues since day 1 on the X240 with the default intel 7260 card. Not sure which card you have, but I've yet to see a laptop with an intel wifi card that has issues in linux. If you have a different vendor's card and its giving you issues preventing you from using linux, it might be worth the $30 to pick up an intel card.
I was also surprised about the HDMI audio issue. You're right about the reviews not mentioning it. I've read that the mini DisplayPort works properly. But the expected behavior of an HDMI port is to output audio and I'm just glad I wasn't entertaining guests or giving a presentation when I discovered the problem.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/No-so...
Read the whole thing, if that's what you're into. The Lenovo support specialist should have admitted that he only had general advice about computer troubleshooting and did not have a solution to the problem. Anyway, the only person claiming to have found a solution was the last post, who only offered an irreproducible solution. I actually tried everything everyone suggested in that thread and wasted far too much time for nothing. And even if any of those solutions worked, this is a thread about Linux laptops.
I don't like tapping, but sometimes I prefer it over clunking down the whole pad. The dedicated clicking buttons of older models worked perfectly well and Apple laptops have wonderful touchpads.
> This complaint is a strawman IMO
A strawman argument is actually when one side of a debate lies about what the other side's argument is so they'll have have an easier argument to refute. I don't think you were accusing me of that.
>wifi
Lots of issues since day one on this laptop with an Intel 7260 card.
Other models from Lenovo remain excellent; I have a T530 from several years prior, and I love it.
If you have a need for multiple VMs or top or the line performance, you might want something a bit bigger (RAM is limited to 8GB on the current X250 and processors top out at 15W models). That being said, I have yet to feel even remotely limited by the capability of this laptop -- it is my primary machine.
edit: I should add my 2 batteries have 77% and 78% capacity after 18 months of extremely heavy use, which I consider to be excellent.
I purchased mine right about two years ago (brand new from a seller on Amazon in order to avoid delivery delays when purchasing direct) and went for one with only 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB SATA HDD. I paid (separately and, again, via Amazon) $300 for 32 GB of RAM and $385 for a 480 GB SSD (and spent 20 minutes installing them) but this was much, much cheaper than purchasing the W530 with those upgrades pre-installed. I ended up giving away the "original" 4 GB RAM to a friend who could use it and (since I very rarely need or use the optical drive) I usually keep the original 500 GB SATA HDD in the secondary bay in order to keep a fresh, up-to-date backup of my data for when the SSD inevitably fails without warning.
The NVIDIA Optimus graphics system is apparently a PITA for some people but since I don't use a dock or external monitor it's really not been an issue for me. I believe I have my BIOS set to the "Discrete Graphics" setting (to use the NVIDIA card) and Ubuntu has no problems with it (I previously ran Arch Linux on the W530 with the Intel card and also had no issues).
The W530 isn't nearly as light as many other laptops (about six pounds, if memory serves) but, then again, it's considered a "Mobile Workstation" -- and with the quad-core i7 @ 2.70 GHz, 32 GB RAM, the 480 GB SSD and 500 GB SATA spinning disk, and FHD 1920x1080 15" display, it truly is!
Side note: after using MacBooks and MacBook Pros exclusively for ~7 years, I said that I'd never again buy a "PC laptop" (i.e. a non-Mac), but I'm extremely happy with my W530 (running Linux, of course) and use it almost exclusively nowadays. About a year after purchasing the W530, I sold my MBP simply because I had only used it two or three times in that year and thought I might as well sell it and get something out of it instead of letting it sit around and eventually become obsolete.
I am doing everything to keep the GPU from frying my fingers on the keyboard and/or causing emergency shutdowns
- got the heatsink replaced by customer service
- cleaning the fan regularly
- tune software fan control, nevermind the noise
- check and replace thermal grease
- switch away from graphics-heavy desktop environment (Unity...)
- switching off webgl support in my browser
- ...
Well now that I put it like this, I am thinking it might not be worth the whole effort :)
I'm dual booting Ubuntu 15.04 and Windows 8.1 as I support software on both platforms. So I'm suffering from the "reboot twice to get working audio" issue and occasional touchpad problems.
I believe that both will be fixed with kernel 4.1.
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/models/?query=&c...
// I am a happy Lenovo Thinkpad user :)
I'm also a happy Thinkpad owner but have been considering a new one, although it's hard to find one that can compete with the two-year-old W530 I have now.
It's fast and quiet, the keyboard and touchpad are decent, and the screen is mostly good. I don't know about new ones, but that version is SUPER easy to clean out: remove one panel and the fan comes out letting you clean the heatsink. It doesn't collect dust really, but it was handy because replacing the thermal paste made it run quieter after the original stuff dried out.
The only issues I've ever had with it are that small amounts of dust got behind the display panel but in front of the backlight, leaving fuzzy outlines visible. It's probably not an issue for most people though because I've taken this laptop camping in the desert...
The other problem is the battery has degraded over time. Originally I got 5+ hours of battery life, but right now it lasts maybe 40 minutes. Replacements can be had relatively cheaply, but I just never got around to getting one.
I had been considering one of their laptops due to the apparent extensive Linux support and wonderful "unicorns and puppies" praise on some of the Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts (until it hit me that System 76 is a huge sponsor and so they wouldn't be saying anything negative about them) but the comments I just read caused me to strike them from my short list.
[0]: https://captnemo.in/blog/2014/07/04/galago-ultra-pro-review/
I like:
- All versions of Debian and Ubuntu work flawlessly (no pre-purchase research necessary)
- Sturdy (knock on wood)
- Easy to take apart (for cleaning or upgrades)
- Nice screen
- Keyboard with numeric keypad
I dislike:
- Very rarely (once in a month[1]), the touchpad acquires consciousness.
I am neutral:
- It's not silent but I did not expect silence when I purchased it with the latest i7 at the time.
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The Gazelle looks very much like what I have. I like it :) The price is fair too. Btw, I didn't know it came with a Matte option.
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Disclaimer: I'm a happy (would-be repeat) customer and have no ties to system76.
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[1] I contacted system76 support and they told me that either they could send me a replacement touchpad (to replace it myself) or I could ship it back to them for repairs under warranty. I decided not to bother with either.
The only other possibility I would entertain is the new Dell M3800 developer edition. The step up is significant: it has a quad core i7-4712HQ and Thunderbolt and 4K screen as an option. While even a well pimped out T420 is well below $1000 (starting at a few hundred, even), this one will run to $3K and more if you pile on everything. I'd get it if I needed Thunderbolt bandwidth but otherwise just go with the old.
That is, if you don't require modern OpenGL/gpgpu features, nor plan on doing massively parallel jobs on it (It sports a Core(TM)2 Duo CPU L9400 @ 1.86GHz)
Hypothetically, you _could_ solder a faster processor (not realistically for most of us tho).
Why the X200 and not a more recent one? They changed the keyboard / buttons afterwards, for the worst :(
NB: you might want to patch the bios to remove the mpcie whitelist ibm/lenovo put in. Misewell flash coreboot (requires in-circuit programming, due to flash block write protection)
You'll want to add something in the lines of
xsetwacom set "Wacom Serial Penabled 1FG Touchscreen touch" Area 104 26074 115 16374
for proper calibration to your .xinitrc (as it doesn't survive reboots). As always, RTFM ;-)
To answer your question, I've heard great things about the Dell M3800. You can get Linux preloaded and get a higher resolution screen. Dell has worked with Canonical to make sure the hardware support is there.
Before this machine, I had a Thinkpad and I really had trouble understanding what all the hype was. I don't think I'd buy one now after Superfish.
Run away (far!) from general use HPs. Only professional series are fine.
Plus excepted the XPS, you can at least here find other laptops pretty easily on refurbished/used market.
Nowadays, things are much better. Chrome has native Hi-DPI support on Linux, as does Opera (which was actually the first browser to gain really good Hi-DPI support on Linux, fwiw). GNOME has flawless Hi-DPI support throughout GNOME Shell and almost all (if not all) of their apps. i3 does as well for the most part, but some aspects are limited by XOrg. Other desktops (elementary's Pantheon, KDE, et al) have decent to good support and it's improving all the time. Additionally some major apps are gaining solid Hi-DPI support, such as GitHub's Atom. I don't think LibreOffice or the major XUL apps (Firefox, Thunderbird) do yet.
I'd definitely buy the XPS again as it's been brilliant (not Wi-Fi issues as other owner mentioned), although I might forgo the touch screen which adds nothing really on Linux and marginally increased weight and apparently causes slightly lower battery life.
If I were to buy a new one I'd be really tempted at this, which aims a being fully FOSS powered: https://puri.sm/
BTW, have you considered a mac and then installing Linux on top of it?
You may go with a Thinkpad or a Dell XPS if you need a well built machine or you could go with a less flashy, cheaper expendable machine that's slightly slower, slightly heavier and less durable. More memory is good, a good screen is good. I'd suggest avoiding any hardware with less than stellar Linux support.
I agree that the "speed, strength, lightness, battery life and quiet" is excellent by the way.
I use a T440s and it is fantastic. No issues whatsoever in Mint 17.1 Mate 64-bit.
put in an SSD.
if you do go for a thinkpad or dell xps, if it has a 'decent' graphics card, search google for overheating on that model before buying.
Most modern laptops can handle virtualization with no noticeable performance penalties even for heavy dev tasks, and the UX is essentially identical to running on bare metal if you use the full screen immersive mode that most virtualization software offers for interaction. The virtualization stack takes care of most hardware compatibility issues, and running Windows as your host OS means you won't have to restart to do Windows specific dev stuff and/or play games (Hyper-V allows full access to the GPU for the "host OS").
Getting a Macbook and running Linux with VirtualBox, VMware Fusion or Parallels is also a viable alternative if you don't need to game on the Windows VM but need OS X support instead.
This is how I've done it for the last several years with great success.