Business Laptop and Setup General

Lumeinshin

Thinkpads, Dells, HPs and more. Your Beefy business laptops as well as your PC setups

Many 2/3rd gen intel core i series laptops are now considered Retro i'm sure, but they can still run a modern linux distro just fine and can be good machines, that coupled with the ability to actually upgrade and customise them makes them more desirable than some of the others.

Perhaps you have an older machine that makes using some sites and such a challenge?

This is the thread for discussing and showcasing these things.
If this thread gets busy we can split them into separate ones.

Resources: (more will be added as the thread develops)
ThinkWiki

Fantasy

I wish I had bought a thinkpad. When I was buying my laptop I just picked up a cheap asus. Ended up paying too much for what I got and not liking it anyways. Very wide, very heavy, but I can't do anything with it. parts aren't available besides basic stuff so when it dies it's dead unless I can part one out.
But I see thinkpad parts all the time.
Nothing serious needs to be done on a laptop for me anyways so them being under powered is fine.
Definitely going to be my next laptop purchase when my current asus dies.

Lumeinshin

Fantasy
Yeah part availability is kinda a big reason for me as far as getting a business laptop goes. Much harder to get/find parts for more consumer tier machines

I finally set up my T420 yesterday, still have the CPU and screen to upgrade in future. But i've finally set up LVM and such. Far more difficult than it needed to be I think. It will be handy though as far as good cyber security practise goes. My desktop has never been secure enough IMO so this laptop is definitely far more so.
As far as cost, Any thinkpad 2 years old is like £350 on ebay, and if you go to 4 years old you can find ones for sub £200, given some time. Just gotta keep an eye out.

hpfs

Dell Latitudes have gone downhill. I have a newer Dell Latitude (11th Gen Intel) and it has battery issues and poor build quality. The Wireless card and RAM is removable (does anyone actually upgrade laptop RAM?). Compare to the well known to be indestructible D620.

Space Banana

I currently own an Asus Vivobook laptop. It's a consumer grade laptop and it has its issues. The internal hardware is incredibly durable, it even survived a very nasty flood, but the externals have many problems:

Weak keyboard, key shells break as well as the keys themselves
Faulty USB port, has bad contact
Weak jack port, is damaged and so it has bad contact
Screen has loose connection now (if not damaged) and so there are a few slightly noticeable vertical lines in a small area
USB-C port only charges if the cable is connected in 1 direction even though USB-C is bi directional. Docking stations only work if the cable is connected before booting the laptop

I wanted to replace it with a refurbished business laptop but that would imply a downgrade in CPU and iGPU because of 8th gen intel. Instead I opted for a Slimbook since they appear to also be highly durable and Slimbook offers replacement parts and service, while Slimbook laptops are also up to date with modern hardware. User reviews/opinions tell me that it's going to be great, and the fact that Slimbook bulk sells laptops to banks, companies and national police also reinforces the possibility of being durable like business laptops
My Slimbook should arrive in 1 to 2 weeks. I was called a marketer/shill/etc in some places but I'm not trying to shill anyone I'm just trying to explore and tell about modern alternatives to refurbished business laptops. If you have seen those posts in imageboards before about Slimbooks recently then you already know who I am

What is the alternative to Slimbook in europe? It's Tuxedo, though they are german and that implies higher prices. Both Slimbook and Tuxedo seem to order parts from the same factories so they will differ the most not in internal hardware but in external components, assembly, service, price, etc
What about USA? System76 and Framework, but both are expensive and I've heard that Framework laptops have weak external parts and build, so yeah it is repairable but it's going to be a very expensive repair adventure

Update: My Slimbook arrived and it's great. The internal hardware is very modular and the external seems sturdy. Screen is amazing though it has a bit of a yellowish tint, I fixed that with xcalib.

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