Hi!

I’m in the market for a new laptop and I’d like to consult with the community about what’s being recommended on the year 2026.

This is a laptop that I intend to use for both playing games and using as a mobile coding platform so battery and horsepower are the main points that I’d take into consideration, prioritising battery power.

I do not care if it’s otherwise bulky.

I am currently encountering issues with AMD hardware on my main machine so just having a guarantee that the hardware is not gonna flop on me would be a big plus.

All in all! Thanks for giving my post a read and any answer would be appreciated, specially in the 900€ range.

    • SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      16 hours ago

      Not heard of this company before but I’ve set up to be notified once the UK keyboard for the Horizon is in stock

  • Da Oeuf@slrpnk.netEnglish
    4·
    22 hours ago

    Check out Star Labs. Their hardware is top notch, Linux-first, comes with Coreboot, and their customer support is excellent. They are hot on firmware updates too. I’ve had a really good experience with them.

  • observes_depths@aussie.zoneEnglish
    7·
    1 day ago

    You’ll always get better value for money buying second hand. In most cases the battery will be fine, but if you find it too degraded you can just buy a new battery and still be ahead. Slightly older hardware is more reliable and compatible than brand new if you do some research, especially for linux as drivers have had time to catch up.

  • Sockenklaus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    This may be cliché but I’d still go with a ThinkPad. This summer I bought a used (lease return) entry level ThinkPad E15 Gen 1 but with 40 Gigs of RAM for 500 € and it has perfectly fine build quality (even though ThinkPad became a lot cheaper since Lenevo took over and are no indestructible bricks anymore like in the old days). Since then it has been my daily driver and it is an absolute workhorse fulfilling all my needs (browsing, media, office, programming).

    For comparison I have a HP 250 G7 (which should’ve been decommissioned at this point but well…) and apart from it being old and having not nearly enough power for my needs, it’s quality is just nowhere near my ThinkPad. It just feels plasticky and cheap… Uck…

    • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      22 hours ago

      Do ThinkPads ever come with decent video cards for playing games? Cuz if not, that’s not gonna do it for OP.

  • bluGill@fedia.io
    13·
    2 days ago

    I would by from system76 or framework - dedicated linux companies that will ensure things work.

    • kubok@fedia.io
      12·
      2 days ago

      Those are US brands, tariffs and all. As OP specifically mentions Euros, they would be better off buying a European brand.

      I have a 2022 Tuxedo model that has served me very well so far. It has Linux out of the box (a spin of Ubuntu with a customized kernel and some open source hardware tools) and the price is decent.

      Slimbook is apparently good as well, but I have no personal experience with those.

      • Da Oeuf@slrpnk.netEnglish
        4·
        22 hours ago

        I think Tuxedo (Germany), Slimbook (Spain), Laptopwithlinux (Netherlands) and PCSpecialist (UK) all have the same Clevo/Tonfang hardware. They all seem good, so I would choose one of them based on language! Unless OP wants something a bit more boutique, in which case Starlabs (UK).

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    I use a Tuxedo Computers InfinityBook 15.

    Pros:

    • Vendor Linux support. I don’t care about using a supported distro, but if a vendor ships with Linux, it’s pretty good odd that the hardware will work with any distro without any weird quirks.

    • Being able to order with a fairly large amount of memory (I use 96 GB, and it’s available with 128GB now), though with what memory prices have done recently, memory may be limited more by price than motherboard capacity. I’m sure that it’d blow a 900 euro budget.

    • Large battery (can get 100 Wh, the most you can fly with in the US).

    • Screen can get up to be fairly bright, which is nice for use in brighter environments. My past laptops, mostly Thinkpads, tended to fairly dim screens.

    Cons:

    • Ships from Europe (Tuxedo is German). With Trump-era tariffs, buying them in the US is going to be more-painful. It also took a while to ship to the US when I bought it. You’re using a euro sign, so it may not be a con for you.

    • I’m not rabid about the trackpad, which is large and doesn’t have physical buttons. I find myself bumping the trackpad occasionally, and have set up keybindings to disable it in some games where it’s a problem. I’m a fan of Synaptics trackpads of the sort that Thinkpads have, a smaller pad with three built-in physical buttons (Linux being a good environment to use three buttons), but very few laptops have this; some Thinkpads do.

    • The power light does not pulse when the laptop is in sleep (not hibernate) mode; if there is a way to remedy this, I have not found it. I have my system set up to, on lid close, sleep, then hibernate after ten minutes or so, so tapping the power button will shut the system down depending upon how long it’s been sleeping; something that I don’t want to accidentally do when it’s still just in sleep mode. Many laptops are able to do this.

    • There’s more flex to the case than Thinkpads, which are mostly what I’ve used in the past. Putting a lot of pressure on the bottom of the case below the fan, like squeezing the case hard, is enough to make it impact the fan when it’s spinning.

    In the past, I have used mostly Thinkpads, but Lenovo has tended to take them in an increasingly inexpensive-but-not-as-good direction from where IBM originally had 'em. For me, the two front-runners when getting this one were either Tuxedo or Framework.

    I am currently encountering issues with AMD hardware on my main machine

    I have an AMD processor. I’m not sure what your concern is — like, are you wanting a laptop with an Intel CPU, or just not to have a discrete AMD GPU, or are you just frustrated at that other laptop?

    • Gonzako@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      Oh, great recommendation! I am on Europe so Tuxedo being German is actually a plus!

      For the issue my main PC is currently being affected by a very similar issue to this which forces a gpu reset shortly after I start anything that basically looks at the gpu funny. This is a new issue that started after an update and downgrading everything I could didn’t fix it.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        This is a new issue that started after an update and downgrading everything I could didn’t fix it.

        considers

        I don’t know if buying a new laptop is necessary to resolve that. I don’t know if this is the same problem, but I was just in a discussion with someone who said that he had had instability on RDNA3-based cards (I don’t know what distro) on kernels above 6.12.

        Someone else responded saying that they were fine on Arch, on kernel 6.18, IIRC.

        I also use an RDNA 3 card on my desktop (an XT 7900 XTX, on 6.12.48+deb13, Debian trixie’s current kernel) and haven’t had problems.

        You might just try installing a 6.12 kernel and seeing if the problem goes away, if whatever you’re hitting is whatever that guy is hitting.

        EDIT: Yeah, looks like Arch is currently on Linux 6.18.2.

        The discussion in question:

        https://lemmy.today/post/45004502/21377977

        And he said that he was on 6.18.2.

          • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            Hmm. If you don’t mind sharing, when you hit the problem, were you concurrently running a video game and an LLM on the card? That seems to be what the guy there was doing.

            • Gonzako@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              3·
              2 days ago

              Nope, just running the game. But I am running kde with a lot of fancy shit on and I’m switching kernels around and they all have the same issue. I might need to do my own issue. Tried, 6.18-zen,6.17-hardened, 6.12-lts. I’ll try a few more kernels tomorrow but I’m a bit stumped

              • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
                2·
                2 days ago

                Hmm. Kinda a long shot, but if it’s easy to reproduce and you’re looking for switches to try throwing, the amdgpu driver does have a number of options.

                $ /sbin/modinfo -p amdgpu

                Might try rebooting, and at GRUB, editing the kernel command line, and disabling some features, seeing if things magically go away.

                Like, the bug report there is talking about some ring timeout. Maybe irrelevant, but could try amdgpu.async_gfx_ring=0 on the kernel command line.

  • infinitevalence@discuss.onlineEnglish
    111·
    2 days ago

    https://frame.work/laptop13

    I have a AMD 370 AI based Framework 13 and its really dang good. They have Intel and ARM RISC V options on top of the AMD options. I will say AMD graphics are probably the best experience you can have in linux at the moment. Nvidia is making some gains, and Intel’s next generation may have a decent iGPU finally.

    The larger Framework 16 has a modular GPU tray that gives you options on different GPUs. I have not personally used one of these but the 16 looks awesome other than its size/weight for my applications.

    https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/this-is-xps-now/

    The new Dell XPS is probably another option.

    Your budget may be a challenge right now since RAM prices have gone nuts. 32gb of DDR5 can cost $400us on its own.

    • coherent_domain@infosec.pubEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      They have Intel and ARM options on top of the AMD options.

      I think by ARM you mean RISC-V? Both of them are RISC-based, but very different. RISC-V is not very close to consumer adoption anytime soon.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      The swappable GPU has been a let down for me. For ages no upgrades. Might just as well get the 13" and swap the main board every so often. There the upgrades were more frequent.

    • the16bitgamer@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I have the older 7640u Framework 13.

      As a coders laptop it’s fantastic. Keyboard is excellent and it’s modular port design makes it’s limited 4 port extremely versatile for your needs. Plus the 2880x1440 display is perfect for text.

      As a gaming laptop. Hummm. It can play games, but the display kills performance in games. The iGPU can’t handle much more than 720p for newer games. Without using a dedicated GPU I don’t know if any other laptop can do a better job and I was able to play most indi games at a solid frame rate. However a steam deck is a better way to play games.

      In terms of battery life. Left in a bag there will be some juice left the next day. With light office work I was able to get 4-6 hours on it, with 2-4 if I was gaming and the fans were cranking.

      • infinitevalence@discuss.onlineEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        The iGPU on the Ryzen 9 HX AI 370 is reasonably capable.

        I also have a minisforum v3 with a Ryzen 7 8840U and sufficient for on the go Indy games as well as older AAA.

  • SolarBoy@slrpnk.netEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    I bought an Asus Zenbook 14 about a year ago, specifically for immediately installing linux on it and doing some light gaming (I also have a linux desktop)

    It has been surprisingly good. When the windows setup launched, the fans were spinning up loudly. I wiped the laptop and installed NixOs. Suddenly the fans went quiet, and I got an estimated battery life of around 11 hours with light usage, excellent.

    It has an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS CPU with 780M graphics. I was surprised at what you can run on this. Even Elden Ring was working smoothly on low to medium settings. And the laptop weighs around 1.2kg. I found it even more practical to carry around than my steam deck. (which I’ve sold)

    Overall pretty great experience. Planning to build an Egpu to connect to the USB4 ports so I can add a bit of extra horsepower with an external GPU when needed.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    My recommendation is outdated by a year, but I love my Lenovo Legion, and I would think a current model would do fine as well. Everything worked out of the box, including the lenovo hotkeys for adjusting the keyboard lights.

    • SinningStromgald@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Other than the link being dead, the OP wanting a laptop, and the prices being way out of date that site seems like a worse pcpartpicker.

      • _‌_反いじめ戦隊@ani.socialEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Logical Increments gets updated monthly. It’s a generalization of a quo, from humble parts to top of the line parts. Laptops are generally discouraged, put there are preferences.

        CXd🔗

        corrected the link