Well i started my B tech course this year, I am looking for a laptop for my use case. I am using linux as a main os for 3 years.
The laptop which i currently use is a Dell Inspiron N5110. Its a pretty old machine so i am currently looking for an upgrade.
Things which I do :
- Read documents
- Watch videos and listen to music
- Light coding
- Tinker with almost everything
- Try new software if i can.
I REALLY need a a laptop with good cooling and battery life like 5 hours is fine.
Just don't get a modern HP laptop, or any old ones for that matter. They're crap (personal experience). If you are not planning on playing modern AAA games then probably an older thinkpad would do. A friend of mine has an upgraded X1 Carbon gen 1, but i recommend something a little bit more modern for your usecases. I don't know about battery life tho.
I don't plan on an HP or Dell. I have had the worst experiences with them. ThinkPad even if refurbished come for a higher price than $ 600 here.
Where do you live? Where i live, i can pick up old thinkpads for maybe around 200 euro.
Ok probably your best option is a used Thinkpad, or maybe a Chromebook with the Chromebook distro, but if you want to do something crazy you could try the Pinebook Pro. It's a 14" arm laptop that comes with debian for $220. You might need some accessories, but it would still be <$400 for something new and interesting. However, it's a bit slow, and arm doesn't have as much software support. I think it could do everything a CS student needs, except browsing may be slow because web apps are so absurdly big and complicated now. Definitely would get more than 5 hours of battery.
https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/
I can't my college is full practical I had to use wine for something's as well.
Check out Swappa.com for a used laptop.... Got a very good deal on a thinkpad. Almost any laptop will work for what you do except for tinkering with almost everything which is kind of hard to define... Just avoid the Google Chromebooks
No Dell pls. I do know that but I would like something a bit more updated.
ThinkPads are generally pretty good. Got mine for ~£450 on eBay and it's got ridiculous specs for that price (4k display, discrete GPU, 2 nvme slots, 32gb of ram and an 8 core 3.6ghz i7)
I think it lasts about 5 hours of light use on Linux but like many ThinkPads you can swap out the battery so bringing a spare charged battery with you is an option if need be
Very high spec for the money, old hardware but still far more powerful than many modern laptops that are more expensive
You're not going to be running cyberpunk at 4k on it but for all of the things you mentioned it won't even break a sweat
Just make sure you pay attention to the specs because there are different builds of them with different amounts of memory, GPU and screen resolution I believe
You can try getting a laptop online under the name of any business of yours or you friends. That way you can save upto 30% on tax savings. Here is an HP probook i found online for 50k with amd hardware
https://www.amazon.in/HP-ProBook-445-G8-Notebook/dp/B0C49C3W9X/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=1ODQOVM2ZTW8U&keywords=hp+probook&qid=1692637046&sprefix=hp+probook%2Caps%2C240&sr=8-4
