Linux @lemmy.ml Dotdev @programming.dev 1 yr. ago

Laptop recommendation for a cs student under $600 or in India 50,000 INR

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.

55 comments

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.
- [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
  
  They go above the budget
- 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.
refurbished thinkpad or dell xps. (buying something like a business model could save you money on the long run, because you'll be able to service the laptop later on. Instead of owning one of the new cheap consumer electronics that has everything soldered on and glued shut. And is generally made more cheaply.) Make sure to save enough money to afford a replaceḿent battery. The second hand one won't be at 100% capacity any more.)
- No Dell pls. I do know that but I would like something a bit more updated.
My recommendation would be a Thinkpad
- Which one ?
  
  eBay has many used ThinkPads at pretty cheap prices. If I were you I'd look for one with a recent-ish AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7. Look for CPUs with model numbers in the format 4xxx or 5xxx. And try to get 16GB of RAM if you can.
Preowned ThinkPad. You can get a 2018 or so X1 Carbon for $400 or less on eBay.
- You mean the t480
  
  T480 is a decent machine. Had one for work (embedded dev) for three years.
  
  Then I mean a later year because my girlfriend and I each own X1s from around that time which we bought on eBay. Mine, I believe, was listed as a 2018. Hers is a year newer. So those figures might need budged but I do not mean a T480.
  
  Unless you're just recommending a T480 over an X1, in which case, I apologize for stepping all over your punchline.
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
- What kind of spec is that ?
  
  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
i dont really know about laptops but maybe get a used or refurbished one?
at least two people around me buyed refurbished ones and had no problem
- The battery backup is cut short in most refurbished.
  
  Consider refurbished or second hand, please don't buy a brand new laptop as there is so much waste in the world already. If you buy from big brands, you might be able to buy replacement batteries. If not, install Linux and use TLP. You could also ask the seller to measure the battery life. I was patient and managed to score a used ThinkPad and the battery health was 98% when I bought it.
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
A used framework laptop

Or a used MacBook pro, don't spend more then $200.
- Well can't get them in my area. Those would be my first pick if I could.
Maybe the new StarLabs StarLite. The CPU isn't the best but maybe it can do what you want.
- A bit too weak for all the things I do.
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/
- You do know that college students use heavy dev apps right
  
  Skill issue, I finished a CS degree with vim
https://linuxpreloaded.com/ has a lot of linux compatible laptop-vendors.

Dunno where you are, so can't recommend a specific laptop. Guessing from your currency I'd guess NA and looking at linux-preloaded, boy are there few options from non-oligopoly vendors in NA :/ And what the fuck are those prices in NA? Laptops with 16GB for 3kCAD? Bruh.

You might have to shell out money to a corp that cares little for linux. Maybe these guys have a good list of affordable laptops https://laptopmountain.com/collections/linux
- Im in India and for 16 GB will come in the price but the processor would be like a pentium.
Maybe buys something that you can expand in the future by adding extra RAM, replace the storage and exchange the battery. A lot of the modern laptops don't allow you to do any of those (planned obsolescence?). I know older ThinkPads are a good option but I think newer models are less serviceable. In Linux you can use tlp to tune up your battery usage and reduce the power consumption to the bare minimum. I would also recommend a second-hand ThinkPad, but just check if it is upgradeable.
People may not like the idea, but you can get pretty decent laptops from AliExpress for like 250$, which was like 50% of the price of a similar laptop from any local sales channel at the time. I did buy one for my son when he entered university and it still runs well: 5-6 hours battery life, 8 MB RAM, some older generation core i7 inside, full HD screen. The touchpad and keyboard are not great, but after 3 years they still work. The specs today would be better, I guess.
- 8 mb ? And I do type a lot I mean a lot.
  
  8GB of course, and a 256 GB SSD if my memory serves me well -_-'
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- They don't come to my region
  
  Permanently Deleted
Search on Flipkart, there's a few good laptops there. Don't know if they are full Linux compatible.

Take a look at this MSI Core i5 12th Gen - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home/4 GB Graphics/Arc A370M Intel ARC/144 Hz) Thin GF63 12HW-012IN Gaming Laptop on Flipkart

With points and a 1000 off coupon it comes in your budget.

I think you need to do something to make the GPU drivers work. See this reddit thread.

Try running Linux os live usb on it and see if everything works. If you use Linux Mint, i think you need to install kernel 6.2 since it's still on 5.xx kernel now.
- Well the point is it should be linux compatible and I don't game so it is an overkill.

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