12 Years ago I had a Sony Vaio. I quite liked it. Then in my next job, 2017 or so, I went for a Toshiba Portege, and absolutely loved it.
Guess what the above two have in common? Yup, they stopped making laptops for the professional market. So now I’m a bit at a loss. Any recommendations?
Requirements:
- Lightweight and easy to carry around.
- 13-15" display, preferably
- Decent battery life
- It absolutely must have an RJ45
- Works well with linux
- Good keyboard quality
- ISO keyboard availability
- Touchpad. Bonus points if it has the touchpad buttons ABOVE the pad itself.
Thinkpad T, W, X series.
Lenovo seems to be pretty solid but fuck… I still have a grudge over how much shittier they are than the old IBM ThinkPads.
We have nothing but problems with the ThinkPads issued by my IT department. Multiple models. They’re not what they used to be.
Novacustom, System76. Doesnt tick everything but has Coreboot support.
I’ve used Macbooks in networking / programming and construction environments for over fifteen years. They’ve been incredibly solid in my experience. In fact, the first week I was given a Thinkpad, I broke it because it was so much more fragile than a Mac. I always used USB adapters for Ethernet and serial connections without issue. They also run Windows and Linux.
Premium product experience at a premium price. Whether the cost premium is worth it is a judgment call for the user.
They also run Windows
They no longer do (since the switch to ARM) - unless you count running under a VM.
Basically any Lenovo Thinkpad. They’re cheap, strong and easy to repair/upgrade
