HN Explorer

Ask HN: Best Laptop for Developer?

47 points by franca ↗ HN
I am looking to buy a new laptop for web dev. I will be running Debian. Which laptop would you guys recommend? My main criteria is that it should be light and work without any hiccups with Debian based OS. And my budget is not much.

What are people using?

Thanks for your suggestions!

70 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] thread
tenken
System76
pro_af
I second this. I have a System76 Gazelle. Would recommend to anyone looking for a Linux laptop
elbrian
I use a Dell XPS 13 9570 with Ubuntu and I am absolutely smitten with it.

My last laptop was an XPS 13 9350, and I loved it too, but I did find it a bit too small for my liking so I ultimately ended up selling it and buying the 9570.

Let me know if you have any questions about this specific model, and I'll be happy to help as best I can.

greatjack613
Matebook x pro, try to get the 2018 one due to its higher performance (weirdly) than the 2019 one.

Also linux works great on it, and build quality is a smigen under apple but very very close.

Oh and the keyboard works :)

greatjack613
forgot to mention, the 16gb and core i7 version is mandatory
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
throwitawayfam
Does the touchpad support gestures and does any driver exist for it? That's the biggest thing keeping me on macOS
anuragsoni
It does support gestures. Gnome and KDE use libinput these days which has support for 3-finger, 4-finger gestures (Both have some gestures enabled by default when using wayland)
greatjack613
yes, it supports what Microsoft calls enhanced gestures.

But don't kid yourself, apple's touchpad implementation still reigns

kjaleshire
I have a Dell XPS 9570 as well and I love it, it's been one of my favorite dev machines ever.
monk_e_boy
alienware. it glows and has an alien head on it
y4mi
Yes, it clearly fulfills the light criteria by lighting up when it's powered on.

The trivial gain in weight can be ignored. What's a kilogram or two compared to your body weight after all!

It's especially well thought out considering the price point of gaming laptops. They'll surely be in the budget range if he doesn't want to spent a lot of money.

Finally, as it's a gaming laptop, it's gonna ship with Windows preinstalled. Don't fret though, you can always install some 'nix on it yourself! Battery life is gonna be at least 30 minutes as well without any driver optimizations and you'll always be warm when you use it!

Did I forget anything?

(Disclaimer: I never actually used any Alienware hardware with Linux... So I guess it could be the best Linux laptops ever)

anuragsoni
You can't go wrong with anything from the Thinkpad T or X lines (you might be able to find them refurbished/used for pretty reasonable price). The Dell XPS 13 is another decent option but can be pricy.

For my personal use i've been using the Huawei Matebook X pro since last year. Things i dislike: no linux driver for the fingerprint scanner, there wasn't an option for me to buy the model with 16GB ram without Nvidia (its not a problem if you plan to run Ubuntu, etc). Things i like about it: The screen (3:2 screen is growing on me), the built quality seems really nice, its light but feels very sturdy. Good port selection, It has two USB-C + 1 regular USB-A port. The battery life is really good.

sam_lowry_
Keep away from t440, t440s and x240, they usually have really bad screen panels.
berbec
And a horrible trackpad without real buttons. Made using the trackpoint impossible. Replacing it with the x250 trackpad was a two hour job involving prying glued parts apart
ConceitedCode
I use a Thinkpad t480s (last years model). This laptop has done a great job "getting out my way". It has one of the best keyboards on any laptop I have used. It runs ubuntu great out of the box. 14in screen happens to be be a very nice size for me. I have the touchscreen model which has been nice for testing mobile sites. The screen could be a little brighter / more vibrant, but I do prefer the matte display for when I setup outside when the weather is nice. A brighter glossy version is available if you prefer that.

It has great port selection:

- 2 usb-c ports (1 thunderbolt)

- 2 usb-b

- 1 hdmi port

- 1 ethernet port

- 1 sd card reader

Overall I'd say it's a very good well rounded laptop that I don't have any major complaints about.

300bps
Did a lot of research on my last purchase and it came down to a Thinkpad T480s or Thinkpad Carbon X1 and I ended up going with the Carbon because it's so much lighter and thinner while still having an i7, 16 GB of RAM and SSD.

And I bought it from Costco which was a great price and doubled the factory warranty for free, gives free tech support for a year and a ridiculous 90 day return policy.

And the battery lasts 10+ hours which is amazing.

ConceitedCode
I came down to the same choice, but went with the t480s for the extra RAM and the ethernet port (only used twice, but been a life safer each time).

Both are great options.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
icr0
Has anybody tried the amd version, the t485? I was considering buying one of the two.
sam_lowry_
T495 is on par with t490 and ~250€ cheaper
tomknig
I am using the same device and it's also a clear recommendation from my side. Another plus to add is the support: When I called the support because I had these vertical stripes showing up in the panel from time to time, they sent a replacement mainboard and a technician who replaced it at my place in about an hour. I was 0 days without the device which is quite valuable if you are using it professionally, I'd say... This sort of support does of course not only apply to this exact model but I think it is constrained to the T and X series.
ben174
1920 x 1080 resolution is very hard to justify at that price point.
orhmeh09
I disagree. I have had a T480 for some time, the 1440p one. I regret getting th is screen and wish I had gone for the 1080p. While I hear HiDPI may work OK for displays that are scaled up in integer ratios, I basically expect that fractional scaling is never really going to work that well unless all the software you use written in the latest frameworks. (Based on experiences with Arch, Debian 10, Fedora 31 beta)
immnn
I was pretty happy using an HP x360 UHD display on Fedora. It also drove two 4K external displays.

What makes the different is wayland. Fractural scaling is working fine. However, we also were using Airtame for over-the-air desktop mirroring, which supports x.org only. Thus, I needed to switch sometimes, which caused „WTF is not working again?!? Oh forgot to switch x.org session back to wayland.“.

No seriously, if you need HiDPI and could omit proprietary nvidia drivers, give wayland a serious try.

sam_lowry_
Come on, the Ethernet port is a joke, I have to ask people with long nails or use a knife to get the RJ-45 cable out.
danroc
do you actually use that little red button in the middle of the keyboard? if so, what for?
packetlost
Dell XPS 13 9370, and it's fantastic with Ubuntu. At least 3 other developers at my office also have XPSs of varying generations
1337shadow
System76 looks great, but I've been using Thinkpad X series for quite a while now. I get a configuration that's linux compatible, but my favorite feature is to have one double battery on the back + another battery inside, for a total of 10-14h lifetime, basically I only charge at night. If you travel a lot, and code while traveling it's pretty useful. Have been using XPS in the past, not a bad experience, but still prefer thinkpad X for the battery life.

For my teams I buy refurbished Thinkpad X250, past models (X220, X230, X240 IIRC) don't have normal mice buttons, those don't work well for me.

I miss the old keyboards though.

berbec
Onky the x240. Before and after have real buttons.
julienfr112
X and T thinkpads. Amazing Linux support and battery life. Very robust (I've seen Dell XPS with screen hinge broken when it more solid on thinkpads)
bemeurer
I wrote about my experience with a Thinkpad here[1]. It was the P1, a great laptop on paper.

[1]: https://lovesegfault.com/post/2019-01-24-thinkpad-nightmare/

ryanlol
I’ve mostly had great experiences with lenovo tech support, certainly never had to talk to a robot.

When things go wrong I make a ticket and usually receive a call (and email if I don’t pick up) in intelligible english within an hour, the technician usually shows up at my door within a day (unless waiting for an exotic localized keyboard or something).

znpy
I've been given a Dell Latitude 7390 at work and I think it's awesome.

Basically, it has a full array of ports (Thunderbolt/USB-C, USB-A, microphone jack, an eff-ing ethernet port, hdmi, smartcard, sim and micro-sd), thin bezels (it looks like a 12" but it has a 13" display), a good display, 60WHr battery, a good enough keyboard and it's well supported by GNU/Linux (basically, only the fingerprint reader and nfc don't work).

Mine is configured with a quad-core 8th gen Core i7 and 16GB ram. The fun thing is, my colleague sitting at my left has a 13" macbook, and I often hear his laptop fans spin up (from the distance!). OTOH, my laptop fans have basically never spun up.

If only it had the trackpoint it could easily get me to abandon the ThinkPad altogether.

11235813213455
Dell's are good, I've a more modest Dell inspiron 15, i5 8250U, 16G ram

Silent, and great touchpad, I don't even use a mouse anymore actually, using it with Lubuntu 18.04

jharr
Have Lenovo P1 (gen 2). Linux friendly, thin & light, 64GB memory, 2TB NVMe, plenty of ports, industrial build quality. Love it.
dijit
I have a Dell Precision 5520 running Linux; it’s incredibly similar to the Dell XPS line and is incredibly fantastic.
loudmax
I have one of these as my work laptop. I agree, it's a lightweight powerful device and the Linux drivers worked perfectly in my experience (though I haven't asked much from the GPU).

I ended up getting a Lenovo Carbon X1 (6th gen) for my home laptop. It's even lighter, and again the Linux drivers are excellent.

I'd recommend either of these.

catacombs
Anything but a ChromeOS notebook.
kmerrol
Agree most are content consumer oriented, but my Pixelbook and the Linux container support has been awesome. Running native Linux apps together with multiple containers has been terrific for my main programming rig.
chappi42
With not much budget, many of the recomendations like e.g. the T480s seem too expensive.

I'd recommend a secondhand ThinkPad from the T series and suggest to ask on the reddit thinkpad forum with more details (budget, size).

transistor-man
Its really annoying the W series Lenovos were discontinued. The W530 could survive everything from road trip back-seat python to outdoor satellite sdr debugging, all while having a keyboard that was backlit and easy to replace.
jlgaddis
Indeed! I've got a six and a half year old W530 that I stull use pretty much on a daily basis. It's survived I-don't-know-how-many hundreds of miles in the saddlebag of a Harley-Davidson.
igetspam
I have a W530 that I can't stand. The keyboard is so much worse than the previous or current generations. There's also something wrong with it that makes the screen go rainbow when it moves the wrong way, so I can't carry it around. I don't know what it is but I can barely type in that thing. I have P70 now and I love the thinkpad again. My next laptop will be a P5x model. Great keyboard, screen is fine (I don't game or do anything that requires more than a modest display), built like a tank and uoi can stuff it full of memory. (Always running Linux, so I can't speak to anything else.)
dariusj18
I've been using HP Omen gaming laptop. I feel you get better specs for the money out of many gaming laptops. The down side is the stupid red keyboard with dumb "gamerz" font.
soamv
I'll throw in yet another recommendation for the Dell XPS 13". I'm using the 9380. It's light, thin, and has an excellent keyboard, and good battery life. The higher resolution screen option is beautiful, but it does drive the price up.
ct0
The x1 carbon line is very light weight, and the generation 6 has been widely adopted. But for cheap a refurbished x230 x250 seam to be still very popular. check out reddit.com/r/thinkpads
vermooten
It's still a Macbook Pro, by miles!
icr0
yeah, no. unless you're an ios developer
davidw
Dell XPS 13 is pretty good and ships with Ubuntu: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-7390...
windyaskew
My XPS 15 (9550) has treated me very very well for the past 4 years! Ubuntu works straight out of the box and the battery life is wonderful. The super slim bezels keep it looking modern looking, too, if you care about things like that. I do somewhat wish I waited a year to get the fingerprint reader, though (not sure if it would work on Ubuntu).
philsnow
Lots of recommendations for X/T lenovos in here; does anybody know of a way to navigate the lenovo outlet without screaming into the void? https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/laptops/c/LAPTOPS

It doesn't seem possible to constrain it to just X and T series, you have to pick on dimensions that are ancillary like screen dimensions and weight, but their data seems to be really dirty because there's only two laptops (out of 600+ right now) with a 'weight' field.

The best I can see is to search by "memory: 16GB" since then you don't have to wade through the ideapads etc.

Jeaye
I've been using my System76 Oryx Pro for a few years, which comes with Pop!_OS or Ubuntu on it (your choice), but works well with other distros. I use Arch with it just fine.

The Oryx may be a bit bigger than you'd like, so you may want one of their lighter models. My laptop mostly sits on my desk all day, so I opted for the better CPU, GPU, and memory (which makes this machine better than the latest Macbook Pro while costing much less).

One nice thing is that System76 laptops ship with IME disabled and, soon, will be shipping with coreboot.