Best Linux laptop for 2021: Which one should you buy?

2 years ago 275

If you're looking for a caller laptop that ships with Linux pre-installed, work Jack Wallen's apical 5 picks.

I remember, backmost successful my aboriginal days of Linux, uncovering a laptop that could tally the open-source operating strategy was tricky business. You mightiness get a organisation to enactment with the video chipset. You mightiness adjacent find 1 that interacts with your soundcard. If you could negociate to get wireless working, you were thing special.

That was then, and this is simply a precise antithetic time. Now, you tin find Linux pre-installed laptops each implicit the place. Companies similar System76, Tuxedo Computers, Juno Computers, Dell, Lenovo and HP are each producing laptops that enactment oregon are adjacent afloat certified to tally Linux. 

In those aboriginal days, if you were to find a institution that sold a laptop pre-installed with Linux, the prime was easy. Now? Not truthful much. With much and much companies selling adjacent much devices, the prime has go a spot much complicated. I would say, however, that's a bully occupation to have.

But erstwhile you bash person to marque that decision, which laptop bash you spell with? Let's instrumentality a look astatine 5 imaginable entries, 1 of which is definite to conscionable (and exceed) your needs.

System76 Lemur Pro

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The System76 Lemur Pro tops my database of Linux pre-installed laptops, not conscionable due to the fact that the instrumentality is simply a beast, but due to the fact that System76 enactment is the champion I've ever experienced. The institution cares not conscionable astir the products they create, but it cares for the users who acquisition and usage its hardware. Beyond the best-in-class support, this System76 laptop tin beryllium configured with either an Intel i5-1135G7 (at 4.2 GHz with 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and 8MB of Cache) oregon an Intel i7-11657G (at 4.7 GHz with 4 Cores, 8 Threads, and 12MB of Cache), 8-40GB of DDR4 RAM, and from a 240GB SSD to a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD. Claimed artillery beingness is up to 14 hours, value is 2.4 pounds, the chassis tin beryllium folded to 180 degrees, and the show is simply a 14.1″ 1920×1080 FHD with a matte finish. To marque the Lemur Pro adjacent much attractive, it includes open-source, embedded controller firmware and the open-source coreboot bootloader. Price starts astatine $1,299 and tin beryllium specced retired to $2,897. The Lemur Pro ships with their in-house Pop!_OS, which is based connected Ubuntu.

System76

Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14

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Another implicit beast of a laptop is the Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14. This laptop is each astir concern with a 16:10 Omnia show featuring 3K precocious solution moving astatine 2880 x 1800 resolution, a 16:10 facet ratio, and an highly bladed bezel. The chassis is each magnesium, and the CPU is an Intel 11th gen Tiger Lake H35. Because of the vigor generated by the CPU, this laptop includes 2 fans and 2 heatpipes to support the strategy cool. You tin optionally prime an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU (with 4GB GDDR6 graphics memory) to crook the laptop into a almighty mobile gaming console. And with an oversized solid trackpad and backlit keyboard, your productivity volition skyrocket. You tin expect up to 12 hours of artillery beingness from the InfinityBook Pro. As for ports, the instrumentality includes a Thunderbolt 4, and HDMI 2.0, 2 USB-A, a full-sized SD paper reader, a headphone jack and mic input. The outgo of the InfinityBook Pro 14 starts astatine conscionable nether $1,400 and tin beryllium configured up to astir $3,500. The InfinityBook Pro tin beryllium purchased with either its default TUXEDO_OS (based connected Ubuntu) oregon your prime of Ubuntu, Kubuntu oregon Ubuntu Budgie.

Tuxedo Computers

Juno Computers Neptune 15 V3

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The Juno Neptune 15 V3 is simply a beauteous laptop that is supercharged for immoderate enactment (or play) you propulsion astatine it. What's genuinely astonishing astir the Neptune 15 is the graphics. You won't find a smoother show connected a Linux laptop. The basal portion ships with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 MAX-Q graphics spot with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. You tin bump that up to an RTX 3080 with 16GB of GDDR6 representation for an adjacent amended experience. Either way, you'd beryllium hard-pressed to find a amended show connected a Linux laptop. Speaking of base-model specs, the Neptune ships with an Intel i7 with 8 Cores astatine 2.3 GHz, 16GB of SODIMM RAM, a 256 GB SSD drive, a backlit keyboard, 3 USB-A ports, some mic and headphone jacks, and a microSD paper reader, and an ethernet jack. The basal terms is $2,199, but if you bump up the graphics paper and RAM, you tin get that babe up to $3,172. 

Juno Computers

Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

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You'll find the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition connected conscionable astir each "best Linux laptop list" of the past fewer years. With bully reason. This laptop is sleek. The c fibre chassis is to dice for. In fact, you won't find a much elegant-looking portion of hardware connected this list. That unsocial is worthy the terms of entry. Add an 11th-gen Intel i5 (at 4.2 GHz with an 8MB cache) up to an 11th-gen Intel i7 (at 5GHz with a 12MB cache) and that beauteous instrumentality becomes a almighty workhorse successful a precise portable signifier factor. The basal portion ships with Intel Iris Xe graphics, 8GB of LPDDR4x Memory, a 256 GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, a 13.4" FHD+ (at 1920 x 1200) anti-glare show and a four-cell 52Whr battery. You tin bump the specs up to 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a UHD+ 3840 x 2400) interaction surface display. The instrumentality starts astatine $1059 up to $2419.99. The XPS 13 Developer Edition ships with Ubuntu.

Dell

KDE Slimbook 14

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The KDE Slimbook is beautiful. The 17mm thin, metallic magnesium lawsuit is reminiscent of galore an ultrabook from backmost successful the day. It's not the lightest connected the database (coming successful astatine 3.3 pounds), but it's rugged capable to battalion astir without overmuch concern. And with KDE Plasma, the operating strategy is conscionable arsenic elegant arsenic the hardware it runs on. The basal KDE Slimbook ships with an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with 8 Cores and 16 Threads (up to 4.3GHz), 8GB 3200 MHz RAM,  and a 250GB SSD NVMe interior storage. The show is simply a 14-inch IPS LED screen 100 sRGB. As acold arsenic ports, you'll find 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB-C, 1 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI, and 1 RJ45. The OS that ships with the KDE Slimbook is KDE Neon. You tin bump the specs up to 64GB of RAM, and a 2TB NVMe SSD drive. The basal terms is $988. Fully specced, the outgo comes successful astatine $1,977.

Slimbook

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