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Tech savy people, I need your guidance on ultra portable laptops (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by lil_tank@hexbear.net to c/technology@hexbear.net

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Okay I'm a bit lost by the current laptop market between the heaps of bullshit companies are putting us through.

What I need is something decently powerful with the great battery life you find in ARM-based CPUs like Snapdragon and Apple Silicon chips.

I want the lightweight durable shit like Macbook Air you know, something I can realistically use everywhere.

I'm open to both Windows and MacOS because both are cringe, unfortunately I can't have Linux on it for reasons. (Don't worry I have it on my desktop). But I still can't decide whose the lesser evil, especially since all ARM Windows are boasting AI bullshit and I hate it I'm never gonna use that shit EVER anyway and I'm afraid I'm just paying a premium for their marketing bullshit.

Obviously Lenovo and Qualcomm are eyeing me for xigma-male reasons but Asus Zenbooks are looking kinda cool

But ffs Snapdragon X CPUs come in three tiers and for some reason it's hard to find the highest end (called "Elite") where I live (Europe) and I have no idea if I really need one for music production (Reaper) and coding (Godot Engine)

It's so fucking complicated screm-a aaaa

Thanks in advance for you precious help

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[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If you want good performance in an arm laptop then honestly Apple is the only way to go. If you want cheap the M1 MacBook Air goes for less than half its original price and still kicks ass. But 8 gigs in the base model is kinda lame.

But Windows arm devices are… bad? This is Microsoft’s 3rd attempt at making windows on arm and it’s been a dumpster fire. Better than the last two attempts, but Qualcomm being dicks isnt helping. Maybe it’s improved in the last few months, but the driver situation is awful. And I don’t mean 3rd party drivers, I mean Qualcomm’s own GPU drivers are nightmares and buggy as hell. Unironically windows in a VM on a Mac is a far superior option to bare metal on an arm PC.

[–] lil_tank@hexbear.net 5 points 2 weeks ago

I went for it thanks for your help!

[–] stupid_asshole69@hexbear.net 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Your only option if you don’t intend to use a very peculiar and limited set of software on it or to write your own from the most terry Davis scratch imaginable is a macbook air or pro.

The m1 air is the cheap option, but for just 3-4 times more than the secondhand price of an m1 air you can get this years m4 air with a bunch of cores and ram. Don’t buy upgrades to the ssd on anything unless you know in specific articulable terms why you need it. Usbc/lightning are plenty fast.

All you will likely need is a base model with 16gb of ram.

What’s your budget and I can actually make a recommendation instead of just broad generalizations?

[–] lil_tank@hexbear.net 6 points 2 weeks ago

Well turns out, the store I went to had a massive deal for M2 16GB RAM macbook air so I went for it and I must say that's a pretty little thing so thanks for confirming my intuition

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Buy a second hand macbook m1 or m2.

Until China deepseeks the laptop space, western OEMs are just going to keep cutting corners and shoving shit. Apple is the far lesser evil than Micro$oft especially if you're on the refurbished market. The trick to apple is to never buy anything new and never buy into their walled garden.

You can also put Asahi Linux on your apple silicon machines (fedora asahi remix) which extends the lifespan of these machines even longer if it comes to that point (AFAIK reaper and Godot can be ported over)

[–] varmint@hexbear.net 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Refurbished 14" HP Elitebook. You can get a decent one off-lease for about $400. They're small and light with great battery life

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

If you're going for a Mac, set up Homebrew on it.