I’m considering buying a laptop from Tuxedo, but I’m in Australia and I’m not sure how bad that idea is. Does anyone have experience or recommendation? I would not buy from any american company though. Is there a risk to not go through the country, or that I would have to pay a massive tax on it?
I bought 2 lenovos before. It seems to be getting worse for Linux and Amd. My first one was awesome, the second one had so many issues and I have to use a usb wifi and blacklist the internal one, so I probably want to skip lenovo this time, even if I have to pay a lot more.
I went with Laptopwithlinux for my last one, I don’t remember the reason (probably the shipping too). I’m quite happy, don’t recall having to do any workarounds to get my distro running.
I’ve also had Slimbook and Tuxedo (when I was living in the EU) and my takeaway is that no laptop is perfect. The Slimbook was great because of the aluminium case, like dialectalraveling says, but the monitor’s light leakage was a bit too much for my taste (same goes for LWL). Tuxedo was great because I have never found such a great power/weight balance, but the case (magnesium I think) took very few years to start chipping. LWL feels like a reasonably priced in-between (but I miss the others’ FlexiCharge, now I need to unplug the charger manually).
You could also try and find the corresponding white label model (TongFang, Clevo…), maybe some Australian company sells them without having to go through customs. Unfortunately I can’t recommend Metabox though: at work I have one, the specs are good but the trackpad and the most used letters on the keyboard started “peeling”(?) after very little time of use (I swear I don’t eat at my desk).
When you say it took very few years to ship, do you mean days, weeks, months, or actually years?
They seem to have some nice stuff too. It seems that all Linux oriented shops do. All this enshitified garbage of not letting you upgrade memory or hard drives seem to be bullshit of big companies just like the mobile phone ones do too…
But so far I’m researching, it seems that since amd embraced “AI”, talking about enshitification, the CPUs are barely better than my current one, while using a lot more power. It seems that if I want to have the same power consumption I’ll actually have to downgrade, while paying more.
I may be better trying to find a used laptop that has the stuff I want and just replace the battery. Weird days where buying a new laptop after years will get you something worse and more expensive than you bought…
Intel’s new core ultras are aparently extremely power efficient.
Years. I don’t know how many, but less than 4 or 5, not super bad, but annoying enough specially in the corners. Also by the 5th year the rubber “feet” had started to crumble.
Oh… chipping. The case was breaking. Sorry… I thought you mispelled “shipping”, that it took a very long time for them to send you the laptop.
Yeah, that’s important for me. My current lenovo, although higher end than the previous, doesn’t compare. The first one is all metal. I dropped it several times on concrete and it survived without barely any issue. While this one even being so careful gives me a headache.
No point buying something expensive that will die on the first time I’m not careful and I’m usually not careful.
If you need sturdy, nothing like a refurbished old Thinkpad, but probably the expertise needed is too much for me.
I run a Slimbook as an American. I chose it because it was hard to find a powerhouse laptop with ANSI keyboard layouts. The keyboard was the only reason I did not go with Tuxedo. It’s fine. Not good, not great. I think my previous System76 had better integration with the hardware. However, I like the aluminum shell on the Slimbook more for daily abuse.
I did not have to pay exorbitant taxes to import. But your mileage may vary.
This company https://slimbook.com/en/kde?
They seem to have everything I want. Multiple drives, sd card, lightweight, etc. I just can’t find the actual power requirements.
Which one did you get? What are you not happy with on the hardware integration? And do you know what happens if you need warranty?
The only think I don’t like is that this AI 9 365 seems to be just slight better than my current one, Ryzen 7 7840U, so many years later, while much more expensive. But I guess the days of getting twice the performance every 2 years died a long time ago.
It has “AI” in the name, so that makes up for the lack of real improvement /s
Edit: further researching, it seems that although the performance is not much better, the power consumption is much higher. That seems to be the case for all this new “AI” stuff. So maybe I’ll keep with my problematic lenovo that doesn’t require a new solar panel…
I got a Titan with expanded drives. I increased the RAM size myself which was inexpensive at the time. I wanted a laptop capable of large CAD projects and other nonsense that I have to do for work.
The PSU brick is a 19.5 V supplying 230 W. I have a dock which supplies power over USB-C, but that seems to act only as life support. The computer needs a lot of juice. However, it it pales in comparison to my desktop computer requiring a 1kW psu to boot. Your frame of reference may be different from mine.
Hardware integration is fine, but not perfect. I have had trouble with their built-in core priority scheme which seemed to struggle with eco mode. I tend to leave it docked at one of my workspaces though, so I leave it on high CPU mode.
With my docks, I run 2 screens in Ultra HD quite easily in addition to the laptop maxing at 2560x1440. This includes when I do something stupid like compile code with a CAD drawing on another screen while watching shows in a browser with a million tabs open.
I run into weird challenges with the hardware that might be only specific to me. E.g., I hate black metal laptops because I do a lot of field work. Summer means burnt wrists. But, this comes with the territory of a laptop targeted for gamers. This may be relevant depending on how far in the outback you are with that solar panel!
The speakers suck, but that’s more of a laptop problem than a this-laptop problem.
The company was responsive when I had questions. I had an SSD die (not their fault), and they supported well to help me buy a replacement from a US vendor to reduce cost of shipping it back to Spain.
The Ryzen 9 5900 laptop had just been released by them when I bought it. The timing was right for me. I don’t know your needs, so I can’t help with that. Of course, looking for Linux-first hardware you will be limited by the slower lifecycle and availability due to demand.
This was not the “perfect” laptop for me when I bought it, but it was the one that ticked enough boxes to be “good enough” in my budget. I am still happy with my choice.
I smell bullshit with the AI thing, but that is just branding I suspect. The specs look similar enough and match my use case. What I call a CAD box or CUDA box somebody will use for AI.
I know you are avoiding US manufacturers, and I’m not here to convert you on that. However, I recommend looking at the System76 computers, since they still seem to be what many upstart Linux-first shops chase. It will give you an idea of what you should look for as good options elsewhere.
I’ve indefinitely borrowed an old underpowered Lenovo Miix from my friend which I pretty much fucked up. It used to run Windows 10 b4 I nuked it w Arch the instant I got it. it installed just fine and connected to the WiFi in the live ISO but it doesn’t on baremetal. doesn’t matter if I do lspci or whatever, the NIC’s a bloody ghost. I’ve yet to figure this out but tried a remedy that failed. can’t even distro hop to LMDE or downgrade to Win10. none of these ISOs even load to memory cuz it barely has any. this “laptop” even has an Arch Wiki entry. apparently the NIC works on Ubuntu but even that I can’t install lol. my PC doesn’t have WiFi so this’ the first time I experienced the Linux WiFi NIC debacle.
regardless if you ever buy Lenovo again, please make sure to identify the NIC and that it actually works on Linux rn. don’t buy one that’s planned to be compatible.
Yup. That’s my lesson. Or avoid lenovo altogether and go with a company that respects Linux, like old lenovo used to.
On my one the wifi is just blacklisted. Might as well remove it. I use a tp-link tiny usb dongle. It’s a pain to have it always connected but I can live with it. Definitely not acceptable for what I paid for the laptop though… not even counting the headaches with the battery.
But… you borrowed someone’s computer and installed arch? I imagine they were never expecting to get it back…
for the most part he didn’t really have a use for it, so I asked if I can buy it off him. he told me it’s really underpowered and told me to test it out. if I could live w it then I can pay him. it’s been a few months now and we’ve both got busy w our lives and it comes up once in a blue moon. I’ve asked him a few times if he wanted it back but neither of us have a use for a shitty laptop w no WiFi lol.
