[mato]

My most recent Linux laptop upgrade as of 10/2022 was:

FROM a refurbished Panasonic Let's Note CF-SX3, Intel Core i5-4300U, ~2013 vintage, 8GB RAM, aftermarket Intel 400GB DC S3610 Series SSD, purchase price EUR ~1500 ex VAT plus random hassles with customs importing used tech from JP to EU

TO a refurbished Dell Latitude 7390, Intel Core i7-8650U, ~2018 vintage, 16GB RAM, 512GB SK Hynix NVMe SSD, purchase price EUR ~600 ex VAT

The new one unexpectedly came with 16GB RAM instead of the advertised 8GB, lucky me. My main reason for upgrading was "want Thunderbolt / DP capable of driving 4K display", which turned out to be a mixed blessing.

This person's compromise was going from 64GB of RAM to 32GB, and from 2TB of storage to 1TB.

You young whippersnappers are so spoilt.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

PS. Now that you know the exact CPU I run, I'll invite you out to dinner at a Michelin restaurant of your choice in exchange for my private key of your choice.

[kilolima]

7390s have been sub $200 on ebay for the last year or more. They are circa 2019.

Great machine, I'm looking for a replacement currently but the new latitudes have moved the power button onto the keyboard and removed the touchpad buttons.

[mato]

Yup, they even get firmware updates via LVFS/fwupd!

The relative high-DPI-ness of the internal display in combination with worsening eyesight forced me to migrate from X11/openbox to Wayland/Plasma. That has mostly turned out OK, with the caveat of getting used to/working around a non-zero set of desktop bugs in my daily workflow.