What would you recommend for a Linux laptop. Will multiboot with Windows 11.
Both with i5 10th gen. T490 with 24gb ram and 5410 with 16gb ram.
$200 USD for the dell and $260 USD for the Lenovo.
Just want to do basic office/web stuff. Only gaming would be Minecraft. looking for a quiet laptop with good thermals.
Everyone is saying lenovo, and while I don’t disagree, I really wish my T480 had a nicer bottom clamshell. If you want to swap a drive or ram you have to take the whole bottom off. Cue tiny plastic clips breaking.
I’ve seen decent laptops with the cutouts and a single screw on the bottom for swapping ssds and ram. Those are awesome. Lenovo should do that.
I say this because I like to distro hop on my laptop. I wish I could keep a drive with a linux OS that I like and have setup, but then swap out blank drives for distro hopping, play around, and go back if I want. But the bottom prevents me from doing it easily.
Older ThinkPads have that, my T440p has three drives, one easily swappable where the DVD was and one NVMe in the WWAN slot (actually the fastest), great for hopping. For the T480 you can do the WWAN NVMe trick, or use an external TB3 drive (enclosure maybe), which is fast enough to play around.