I’m trying to downsize from an aging gaming laptop to an ultrabook I can use for writing, web browsing, and JavaScript / Python web development. I understand an ultrabook will be a downgrade in the performance department, but I don’t need all the performance my current laptop offers.

I’ve been looking at ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 machines and they seem like a good sweet spot of price to recent parts/repair-ability. Anybody have other suggestions for Linux ultrabooks? Needs to be <$400 USD.

PS. For more intense tasks, such as training language models, I plan on renting cloud compute as I don’t have the space for a deep learning machine at home.

edit: meant under $400, I am a dumbass

  • -spam-@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve got a Dell latitude 7390 that came from a refurb place. Was less than $400 australian, another $100 to throw a bigger nvme drive and more RAM in it.

    Runs like a champ with zero issues on Fedora.

    Got it initially to mess around with some different distros but have been using it almost exclusively instead of my macbook pro.

      • -spam-@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        A 2018 13 inch, the first of their quad core i5 offerings in a laptop.

        Spec wise it’s about the same as the latitude is currently. Of course the screen and general finish are nicer than the dell but for my current laptop use case, having the same OS and tools as my desktop makes up for it.

        • Lemmyin
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          1 year ago

          Ah nice! Tried Linux on the MBP? I just this week took the plunge with my 2016 MacBook 13,3. It was a MISSION to get everything working but I think later models have better support.