this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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[Question] What laptop to get? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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So, I'm finally getting around to buying a Linux first laptop. I'm familiar with Macbooks, and so far liked them. I've also live stick used Fedora w/ KDE (though Gnome might fit too) and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and liked them.

But I do want to have more freedom and privacy. My most important considerations are:

  1. The laptop is European (or at least, not from the US, unlikely to go Chinese either).
  2. Good specs for gaming (if need be I could virtualise for playing Mac games). I don't play shooter games, but do play Paradox games which iirc are more CPU heavy. Edit: the most intense user case is probably Cyberpunk 2077. I have no idea what makes a good processor - at least with SSDs and the like it's clear that 'higher number = better'. For me, battery life is important, as well screen resolution, clock speed, and graphic card and processor.
  3. Looks - I like the Macbook touch and feel. I don't want a numpad.

The four main laptops I'm considering are in no particular order:

  1. Star Labs (Starbook Horizon or Starfighter). British. Lookswise they are a great match but the specs I'm not sure. How well would they hold up to an Intel Macbook Pro from 2017?
  2. Tuxedo (Infinitybook Pro 14 or 15) Bit more well-known German brand.
  3. Slimbook (most likely the Evo). Spanish brand. Seems more customisable but again, I do not know shit with graphic cards and processors.
  4. Novacustom (PrivacyGuard V54). Dutch brand. Not a fan of the tiny ass arrow keys. 7 hours for battery life is also not much, imo.

If any of you know something better, please do tell!

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[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not what you've asked, but I'll give you this as a perspective (which you can discard if you wish):

Gaming laptops combine too many compromises to be worthwhile. Big, hot, noisy, expensive, nerfed performamce. Portable gaming can't really be portable if you have to find a desk and a power socket and carry around a controller separately.

I would recommend:

  1. Buy a secondhand enterprise laptop (Dell or HP or whatever you like, as businesses like these and they tend to flood the secondhand market after spending their prior life on a desktop dock in some office). If it's just for office work, browsing, etc then just get an 8th or 10th Gen Intel or something. I got a pristine condition Dell with i7 10th gen and 16gb RAM and 512GB NVME for £150 (couple of years ago). It has been great for work. Put Linux on this.

  2. Buy a proper handheld console for games. Steam Deck used to be the obvious option, but after the price hike some of the secondhand ROG devices give better performance and price. Put Bazzite on this.

Both of the above combined will probably still be cheaper than most decent performance options for gaming laptops.

If you're going to have a desk based workstation then the handheld console alone might be good enough with a USB C dock as your desktop PC too. This is how I got into Linux in the first place..... Sold my laptop to fund a new PC build and had to use the Steam Deck as a full time workstation for 2 months while I waited for good deals on PC parts. Works out surprisingly well.