Cheap laptop for linux

[ender.exe]

I've been looking for a cheap laptop for some basic linux use (web browsing, some light programming) for a while now. I found a bunch of people recommending the Lenovo Thinkpad T480, because of its build quality, but i worry it might lack some performance. So I searched for a Laptop that would still be in my budget, and i found the Acer Aspire 3. But now im torn between the two. The T480 is just 150€ (refurbished) with a Intel Core i5 7300U 250 GB SSD and 8 GB ram, I think this should be fine but the Acer for 300€ (new) with a AMD Ryzen 5 7520U cpu, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd seems way better. I don't really want to spent more if I don't need it but both are in my budget and the acer seems like a great deal.

 

tldr;

which one should i get for basic linux usage:
Acer Aspire 3: 15,6"  Full HD  AMD Ryzen 5 7520U  8 GB RAM  512 GB SSD-Speicher  AMD Radeon Graphics  Battery Life: 11 h  1,8 kg

Lenovo ThinkPad T480: 14,0" Intel Core i5 7300U @ 2,6 GHz 8 GB DDR4 250 GB SSD 1920 x 1080 FHD Windows 10 Professional

 

I don't really care about:
- OS

- Storage Capacity

- Screen Size

[jaslion]

Whilst the buildquality of the acer sucks it is so much faster its hilarious.

 

But really just get a dell latitude, hp probook with a ryzen 4000 series or newer used with 16gb of ram. Easily doable in your budget

 

 

No reason to get an overpriced dual core slow lenovo or a crap build acer

[ender.exe]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Whilst the buildquality of the acer sucks it is so much faster its hilarious.

 

But really just get a dell latitude, hp probook with a ryzen 4000 series or newer used with 16gb of ram. Easily doable in your budget

 

 

No reason to get an overpriced dual core slow lenovo or a crap build acer

Hey, thanks for the reply. I found some nice refurbished Dell Latitude 5400 I5-8365U and  Dell Latitude 5300 i5-8365U with 256GB ssd and 16gb ram in my area. Do you think those are good or should i look for some others?

[Biohazard777]

2 hours ago, ender.exe said:

I've been looking for a cheap laptop for some basic linux use (web browsing, some light programming) for a while now. I found a bunch of people recommending the Lenovo Thinkpad T480, because of its build quality, but i worry it might lack some performance. So I searched for a Laptop that would still be in my budget, and i found the Acer Aspire 3. But now im torn between the two. The T480 is just 150€ (refurbished) with a Intel Core i5 7300U 250 GB SSD and 8 GB ram, I think this should be fine but the Acer for 300€ (new) with a AMD Ryzen 5 7520U cpu, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd seems way better. I don't really want to spent more if I don't need it but both are in my budget and the acer seems like a great deal.

 

tldr;

which one should i get for basic linux usage:
Acer Aspire 3: 15,6"  Full HD  AMD Ryzen 5 7520U  8 GB RAM  512 GB SSD-Speicher  AMD Radeon Graphics  Battery Life: 11 h  1,8 kg

Lenovo ThinkPad T480: 14,0" Intel Core i5 7300U @ 2,6 GHz 8 GB DDR4 250 GB SSD 1920 x 1080 FHD Windows 10 Professional

 

I don't really care about:
- OS

- Storage Capacity

- Screen Size

I'd go with L390 instead of T480, but even that is getting old now... battery life would be 2-3 hours on a used one. Only worth recommending if you budget is bellow 200$.

Anyhow, even if you don't plan on running Arch I suggest checking out what the support is like for the model you end up picking.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop#

 

3 minutes ago, ender.exe said:

Hey, thanks for the reply. I found some nice refurbished Dell Latitude 5400 I5-8365U and  Dell Latitude 5300 i5-8365U with 256GB ssd and 16gb ram in my area. Do you think those are good or should i look for some others?

They are like the L390 I mentioned earlier, they are fine for light use, just don't expect long battery life... and do not pay more than 200$ for them.

[ender.exe]

11 minutes ago, Biohazard777 said:

I'd go with L390 instead of T480, but even that is getting old now... battery life would be 2-3 hours on a used one. Only worth recommending if you budget is bellow 200$.

Anyhow, even if you don't plan on running Arch I suggest checking out what the support is like for the model you end up picking.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop#

 

They are like the L390 I mentioned earlier, they are fine for light use, just don't expect long battery life... and do not pay more than 200$ for them.

Good to know, but this makes it way harder. I can't find the dell latitudes or the aspire on those lists. And i did plan to have like at least 7h of battery. Atleast the Lenovos seem to be supported

[Biohazard777]

18 minutes ago, ender.exe said:

Atleast the Lenovos seem to be supported

Yep, that is one of the reasons you'll see lots of people recommending Lenovo laptops for Linux use.
It doesn't mean all other laptop manufacturers and models won't work... but they might require some fiddling at best or at worst have some features missing (like unable to hibernate or BT not working).

 

18 minutes ago, ender.exe said:

Good to know, but this makes it way harder. I can't find the dell latitudes or the aspire on those lists.

If it isn't on the list, 2nd best thing is searching for your model on google and appending "linux", "reddit" to the search.
I know, kinda obvious thing to do, but plenty of people asking questions on LTT forums do not do enough research on their own.
Anyhow, you probably aren't the 1st person looking into running Linux on a particular model.
 

18 minutes ago, ender.exe said:

And i did plan to have like at least 7h of battery.

Uff... to hit that you are gonna have to buy something new (which comes with even higher risk of something not being supported, so do your research before purchase).
Older laptops (the ones you and I mentioned are at least 4-5 years old) have less power efficient components in them... and batteries simply lose capacity over time.

[ender.exe]

Yea, i think i might have to go new. which prob means the aspire, even with its bad build quality. I think it shouldn't be too hard with linux bc all similar models seem to be supported and the version i'm getting comes with Free Dos which no one actually uses and everyone just installs something else on.

[Biohazard777]

15 minutes ago, ender.exe said:

Yea, i think i might have to go new. which prob means the aspire, even with its bad build quality. I think it shouldn't be too hard with linux bc all similar models seem to be supported and the version i'm getting comes with Free Dos which no one actually uses and everyone just installs something else on.

Searching for Acep Aspire 3 with the specs you provided leads me to Acer Aspire 3 : A315-24p
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/686178/aspire-3-a315-24p-what-type-of-wifi-and-what-type-of-bluetooth

Quote

The Bluetooth 5.0 adapter is MediaTek combined with WIFI (6), same card, either MediaTek MT7921LE, MTK7902 or MTK7663.

Looking up MTK7902 linux kernel driver:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-wireless-networking-41/mediatek-mt7902-wireless-driver-support-for-linux-4175728598/
Looks like your WiFi might won't work if it comes with MTK7902
Like I said, you gotta do your own research (especially for newer models).

[jaslion]

8 hours ago, ender.exe said:

i did plan to have like at least 7h of battery. At

Yeah for that you'll need like a more modern ryzen laptop with a decent sized battery. Which is above your budget.

 

The acer does 4-5 hours mostly due to having a tiny battery but is a crappy device in terms of everything except its specs.

 

The others you mentioned is like 2 hours of battery or less these days.

 

Id say save up a bit. A ryzen 4000 laptop that wasnt crappy will do 6hours+ still like the black hp (NOT ENVY) x360 I got here 4 years ago now still an easy 6 hours used they are 400 ish however.