What laptop do you use or recommend? You might have seen a previous post by me asking about a ThinkPad T480. I decided against ThinkPads because Lenovo apparantly has been caught stuffing their firmware with malware at least three times.

Friendly reminder that Lenovo has repeatedly shipped laptops infested with malware and backdoors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in…) sometimes doing so in exchange for money. They’ve also hidden malware in UEFI so that even reformatting your hard drive wouldn’t help.

In one case, after they were found out they first claimed “we have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns” and only after it started being reported by more and more news orgs did they finally admit to what they’d done and release instructions on how to fix it.

Sadly, those instructions removed the bloatware, but left the vulnerability it introduced in place giving users a false sense of security, and only after they were caught out for that in the press did they finally release a “removal tool”

The wikipedia page doesn’t even list all their offenses or the most recent events. See also : https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-patches-uefi-vulnerabil…

Repairable or not, use Lenovo at your own risk.

Source

(There’s a lot more on this topic elsewhere on the Internet. It’s not just this one user claiming this.)

So I bought an AMD HP Elitebook 735 Gen 5 and installed Fedora on it. Unfortunately there seems to be some sort of firmware bug that prevents the Linux kernel from reliably loading, which is a shame because it’s a beautiful lightweight laptop that works really well when the kernel can actually load, which is about 25% of the time. (The webcam, microphone, Wi-fi, and Bluetooth worked immediately on Fedora. I don’t know if it was a software or hardware issue, but Fedora tended to lag when the microphone volume was rapidly adjusted. Also, the laptop couldn’t hibernate for some reason; this may be related to the above issue). A user said that downgrading to firmware version 1.00 would fix the problem, but I’m not too comfortable with the idea of running 6-year-old unpatched firmware, so I’m thinking about returning the Elitebook and buying another.

Which leads to the crux of this post: Does anyone have a laptop that they know works effortlessly on Linux that they can recommend to me? This is what I want in a laptop:

  • Not a ThinkPad
  • 2019-2024 laptop (A 2018 model might be fine if it’s really good, but I’d prefer to stay more current if possible. I need this laptop to last around 3 years.)
  • Decently powerful processor for virtualization, compilation, and BitTorrent (so 4-core, 8-thread or more)
  • Easily replaceable/upgradable battery
  • Upgradable RAM
  • Upgradable storage (preferably 1 TiB+ NVMe SSD)
  • Webcam
  • Microphone
  • Hassle-free Wi-fi
  • Hassle-free Bluetooth
  • Ethernet port
  • USB ports
  • Hardy frame (nice but not required)

OSes that I want to use:

  • Fedora
  • Guix System with normal kernel
  • Possibly Debian and Arch (to test compatibility if nothing else)

Also, my budget is 250 USD. It seems that 2019-present used laptops have a nice blend between power and price, but I can’t figure out what actually works on Linux, and don’t want to get burned on another bad purchase. Help!

P.S. If you know of a guide to downgrade Elitebook 735 G5 firmware with a USB flash drive, please tell me. I can’t find a guide, and I want to try that before returning the laptop too hastily.