Recently, I was having a bad time with my macbook, and I wrote a post sharing my experiences.
Those who know me are aware of my thoughts on technology waste, and how I try to keep and use my devices for as long as it lasts. There’s one exception, though: a product is so horrible that makes me struggle to get my things done.
After a full year dealing with multiple issues on my macbook, I decided to buy a new machine, and retire the current one.
I had a clear view of what I wanted my new laptop to be/offer:
- Non-apple;
- Bigger display of at least 15";
- Ports (not only two miserable usb-c)
- Decent amount of memory with possibility to upgrade;
- A processor that could stand for a couple of years without struggling;
- Fit my humble budget of $1400;
- Some basic repairability.
After some research, I came up with some interesting options. Among them:
- Dell XPS 15
- Lenovo Carbon X1
- Framework
- System76 Gazelle
- System76 Pangolin
Dell is beautifully crafted and resembles in some sort of way Apple machines, but it didn’t fit most of my requirements.
Lenovo Carbon X1 looks great and offers out-the-box support for Linux. What I didn’t like was the price, and after reading some reviews, I found it to have some thermal problems that can cause performance throttling.
Framework conceptually is great. I love how modular it can be, and I was considering giving up my display size requirement for this laptop, until I find out how expensive it can become. Some upgrades can cost the price of a new machine.
System76 Gazelle is a beefy machine, and it could fit to my budget playing with customizations.
System76 Pangolin This one really called my attention. The updated version has some good specs, fit my budget, and it’s not manufactured by Clevo as I was told by a System76 representative.
I was almost hitting the buy button for the Gazelle, and an article came to my attention where the author was having some issues with this machine and having a bad time with customer care and post-sales. I did some more research on online forums and there were some people complaining about battery, Wi-Fi antenna, and all that was my decision factor to keep looking elsewhere.
System76 is a company that I was considering to give a shot at. They seem to have good values and look passionate on what they do. It’s admirable how they are striving, giving how many manufactures there are out there. Maybe in the future…
By that time, I was getting a bit disappointed, and I headed to Lenovo website to see if they had other machines that would fit my requirements. Why Lenovo? Well, I have worked for a big company before, and from all desktops/laptops I had to deal with, this brand was the most durable one.
Just by curiosity, looking at the gaming laptops section, I got impressed to find pretty decent machines with fair prices, including the one from where I’m writing this post, a Lenovo Legion i5 Pro Gen7.
This laptop has been amazing so far. Its estimated price is $1,789.99, however I paid $1,364.79 (including tax). Here are my specs:
- Processor: 12th Gen Intel i7-12700H (14 Cores, 20 Threads, 24MB Cache)
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 4GB
- Display: 16" (2560 x 1600) IPS, 500 nits, 165Hz
- Memory: 16GB (up to 32 GB) DDR5 4800MHz
- Battery: 80Whr (in my tests around 5 hours)
- Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen 4 (plus 1 PCIe slot)
- Ports
- 1x Thunderbolt 4 (USB 4, DisplayPort 1.4)
- 2x USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2, DisplayPort 1.4)
- 3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1
- Headphone / mic combo
- 1x HDMI
- 1x RJ45
- 1x DC-In
Full Specs can be found here
Final Thoughts
After some time migrating my data, and setting up things here and there, now I finally have a working machine. Getting used to a new operational system has been easier than expected. Anything beyond that, only time will tell, but for now I’m happy.
It’s worth mentioning that this machine is not Linux certified, but everything works wonders out-the-box. The only issue is with suspend mode (as always).