[kminehart]

> Finding a laptop that works well is annoying, however.

It doesn't exist at the moment. :\

I would pay 2x the price of a macbook for a linux laptop with the same hardware quality.

The battery life and power/efficiency of my m4 pro is insane. It's so good that it's really hard to justify using anything else right now.

[bombcar]

It's sad that the best Linux laptop right now arguably is a M4 Mac virtualizing Linux.

[treesknees]

Why not run it natively with Asahi Linux?

[lylo]

Framework?

[risho]

this is a psychotic question but have you actually tried doing that? like using a macbook as a vessel for running linux under parallels as a primary use?

[viraptor]

> The battery life and power/efficiency of my m4 pro is insane.

They're coming. Look for AMD Strix Halo chips. They're in the comparably comfortable efficiency range.

[srid]

> AMD Strix Halo chips

Do you happen to know any laptop that has a) equivalent screen quality (retina resolution), b) keyboard, c) trackpad but with full Linux support where all hardware pheripherals just work?

[benoau]

The performance seems to rival Apple's Pro / Max chips but the battery life can only do that for light workloads or videos.

[csomar]

I've asked this question very recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44319903

Spoiler Alert: There really isn't anything that comes close to the macbook (even at 2x price).

[thewebguyd]

Same. Just give me my M4 Macbook Pro, but Linux compatible.

I'm sure people will chime in and say framework, or other Linux-first vendors but they still make too many compromises.

Speakers suck, or the display sucks, or the microphones suck, or they get too hot, or they are too loud, or battery life sucks in comparison, or the chassis feels like cheap plastic and cracks and breaks easily.

There is no other laptop on the market that beats the Apple silicon macbooks right now.

I continue to tolerate macOS just for this hardware, and the rest of the OEMs seem to have zero intention at all to trying to catch up.

[kaladin-jasnah]

I'm hoping maybe the Qualcomm laptops make some progress on battery life. I had an LG gram that had honestly surprisingly good battery life on Linux, and maybe the ThinkPads are good too.

[TuringNYC]

Well the Qualcomm SnapDragon chips literally compete on operations-per-watt. But it depends on what you need -- raw horsepower with a mostly tethered laptop or on-the-go freedom.

[andrepd]

That's ridiculous. Thinkpads, Zephyrus G14, Framework, they all have performance, build quality, screens, battery, etc, comparable to a Mac.

[mbernstein]

Do they? So far I haven’t found anything that matches battery life, build quality, or trackpad quality.

[backscratches]

Try starlabs, best build quality I've ever seen after apple

[worthless-trash]

what models have you used, specifically.

[moralestapia]

>I would pay 2x the price of a macbook for a linux laptop with the same hardware quality.

Same, and I've been wanting this for 15 years now ...

[kminehart]

Before their arm64 CPUs you could get a thinkpad or an xps and not have really bad FOMO. But now... it's just not even close :\

[benoau]

It's messed up TBH, the only laptops competitive on battery are Qualcomm which comes with a different set of sacrifices instead!

[Theodores]

> I would pay 2x the price of a macbook for a linux laptop with the same hardware quality.

How about half the price?

Huawei are probably banned in the USA these days, however, the hardware quality is top notch and everything Linux works just fine out of the box. Not everything is perfect though, it all depends on what you want to do. If you are okay with integrated graphics (so no Blender or other 3D applications) but do need genuine Intel floating point single-thread performance, then give Huawei a go.

I have had plenty of Dell XPS, Lenovo things and much else over the years and all of them have poor thermal management and tend to creak if you use less than four hands to pick them up. The Huawei machines are in a different league.

As for battery life, I think you are right, but I am inanely loyal to genuine Intel and that means plugging in. I don't have problems with that.

People do get triggered by Huawei though, because the dreaded communists will steal your soul and brainwash you into hating the American way of life. So you might want to just cover up the badging lest anyone be offended. Ironically, a Huawei Matebook X Pro running linux is the laptop that is least likely to spy on you because the camera folds down into the keyboard.