Lenovo ThinkPad T-series T14s

I've been running Linux on my laptop and on my workstation since the 90's. Still using it as my main driver. Fedora Kinoite is my distro of choice, and Lenovo AMD Thinkpad T14s the laptop. Everything works flawless, and it's still pretty fast even though it's two years old already. And I do not miss at all the Microsoft bullsh*t on tracking and advertising. Or the general sluggishness of Windows.

I use thinkpad (T14s now, X1 Carbon and X220 in the past). The hard drive is just m.sata and very easy to upgrade. You really can't upgrade the disk on a Mac?

There's not much difference between the keyboard of the X13 Gen 6 and the keyboard of the MacBook Pro M1. I own both devices. The keyboard of my T14s Gen 1 on the other hand is noticeably better.

If you have an old M1 Macbook lying around, you use that to run a local model. Then it only costs whatever the electricity costs. May not be a frontier model, but local models are insanely good now compared to before. Some people are buying Mac Minis for this, but there's many kinds of old/cheap hardware that works. An old 1U/2U server some company's throwing out with a tech refresh, lots of old RAM, an old GPU off eBay, is pretty perfect. MacBook M1 Max or Mac Mini w/64GB RAM is much quieter, power efficient, compact. But even my ThinkPad T14s runs local models. Then you can start optimizing inference settings and get it to run nearly 2x faster. (keep in mind with the cost savings: do an initial calculation of your cloud cost first with a low-cost cloud model, not the default ones , and then multiply times 1-2 years, compare that cost to the cost of a local machine + power bill. don't just buy hardware because you think it's cheaper; cloud models are generally cost effective)

I also have T14s Gen 3 (AMD) and to me this is a pinnacle of laptop design. Latest Fedora KDE edition runs buttery smooth on it.

Almost two years ago I bought an opened but never used ThinkPad T14s from eBay very cheaply. It's not too specced but it does the job and it will easily last me 2-3 more years at which point I just buy another one. I see what Framework is doing, and they probably need the support of customers to get the scale of Lenovo/Dell to lower the cost of production.

I've used basically every Windows on Arm machine - I actually quite like my X Elite ThinkPad T14s Gen6, compared the the X13s - feels like they got everything right, that the X13s got wrong

ThinkPad T14s is silent, keyboard is known as one of the best across all laptops even if it has got thinner. Trackpoint is there for a reason. The display I will grant you, it is not as amazing as Apple's. But I'm using my laptop to code not watch movies.

Thanks for the info! My current laptop is T14s Gen 3 which I find perfect, but the screen size is a big insufficient for programming. I will be looking for a 16" laptop and currently there aren't that many options with a centred keyboard.

A few years ago, I compared the trackpad on a ThinkPad T14 and a T14s and found that while on paper they are similar, the T14s has noticeably less friction with better tracking accuracy. I'll put blames on the PC vendors for playing around with their trackpad to sell higher end machines.

For me power draw is about battery life. If you occasionally need to work without a power plug, or carrying your laptop from meeting to meeting all over the office, you really appreciate when the power lasts all day. My T14s battery draw of ~6.5W on the 57Wh battery will last me ~8 hours, good enough for a day unplugged at the office. (I'd love a bigger battery, but it is what it is...)

I have used Manjaro with i3wm (a tiling window manager) on a number of different Thinkpads and it's generally been pretty trouble free, and a lot of fun sometimes! Currently have an AMD T14s. Fwiw I tried Ubuntu desktop a few times before settling on Manjaro/Arch about 4 years and and it never clicked for me (though I'll happily use Ubuntu servers).

Kind of a weirdly written article. Only one model removed the nub, and it's from one of its "we're trying to be MacBook" lines (the X line, like the Z line, are more about form than function). And all that tech shipped in its other lines for a while, afaik. I recently sold a Z13 because it had so many quirks (low battery life due to OLED, trackpad and trackpoint were crap, bluetooth barely worked through the dense metal chassis, display didn't fold down 180 degrees, felt heavy af). I got a T14s instead. Holy crap, it is so much better. Feels lighter, the touchpad and trackpoint are great, 500nits low-energy display is "ok" but battery can last all day. I use the trackpoint all the time (partly due to the touchpad drifting for some reason, and partly just to have a more precise pointer for fine work). The only downside is the lack of more USB-C ports. A random upside if you order it with Ubuntu: it comes with Secure Boot set up correctly. But then a downside: Linux kernel prevents hibernate from working if Secure Boot is enabled, unless you set up an encrypted swap and jump through hoops to set up the bootloader right (and of course it's not set up on Ubuntu). I can't believe it's still such a pain to get otherwise-standard laptop functionality with Linux.

I have a T14s (AMD) which works very nicely, battery lasts for long 7-8 hours and things generally work. Before that, I had a P14s Gen1 for work. No matter what, that system runs a bit hot and battery times are awful. I haven't dedicated days to searching for fixes, but that's my point, it used to _just work_, and in this case, it works poorly. It used to be the case that outside of certain specific setups (like a dual-GPU machine), Lenovo Thinkpads would just work, Ubuntu certified or not. But that P14s G1 really soured my experience. I would advise you to check the return policy, maybe double-check if anyone has blogged about their device. FWIW I have had many thinkpads over the years, they _mostly_ work well. But there have been more misses as of late. I will add that I also own a Z13 Gen 1 and that it works well. Albeit the battery drains much faster because of the high-res oled screen. And I do think the palm-rest is a bit uncomfortable, the edges are too sharp, but that's not a Linux issue :D

Different tastes I guess. As the previous owner, I've tried the exact keyboard from the blogpost quite a bit, and have been using ThinkPads for the last 20 years or so. I really enjoy the chiclet keyboard on my T14s g2. Sure, some things were nicer on my T400 (7 rows, media buttons), but the really old ones from 1992 and 1995 that I've also owned were much less nice to type on.