Lenovo ThinkPad X1 7th Gen

For me: I have a Macbook Air M1 2020 and a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th Gen (4 years old!) running Linux Mint. I have upgraded the Thinkpad's Battery, RAM (16GB), and SSD (500GB) for the cost of the parts. I will not be able to do that on the Macbook. Ever. For what I do (browsing, videos, some writing and research) the only benefit to the Macbook is slightly better battery life. I have more software option on the Thinkpad for sure and it does not want to control everything I do. I paid WAY less for the thinkpad and I get pretty much the same performance for my needs. The THRUTH is that most people are being way oversold computing power and paying a premium for it because they are locked into the platform. And just yesterday for some reason Safari vanished and re-arranged my bookmarks for no reason. Getting my MacBook ready to sell as a matter of fact. In my mind it is stupid (and poor marketing) that the linux community is not crushing Apple with cheap, fast laptops.

I consistently get 10+ hours. I'm currently using PopOS+GNOME and my typical workload is a combination of a web browser + development in terminal (vim) + Obsidian for notes + cloud sync + listening to music + IM (but not Slack ;) ). It is to say, the workload is rather low. It is certainly not M1-like battery performance, but plenty for my average workday not to feel constrained. My current laptop is ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen from 2019 with 1080p screen, 10th gen Intel CPU, 16GB RAM, I replaced SSD for a very fast Samsung one. The laptop has a rather tiny 51Wh battery.

I use my 2019 X1C 7th Gen daily and it's been the best laptop I've owned by a mile. Never skipped a beat. I immediately switched it to Fedora and everything worked out of the box except the fingerprint reader which started working a few weeks later after a firmware update (also handled effortlessly/perfectly within Gnome - and it still gets updates!)

I'll scream about Apple's bad practices any day of the week, but I used to go out of my way to configure my Macbook Pro's with max RAM, upgraded SSD, and an i5 specifically because that meant my fans were never audible. Yeah, everything i7 was a thermal problem, but that wasn't unique to Apple. And the i9 systems were laughable. However, with an i5, I never had noticable thermal issues. If you're having thermal issues with an i5, something specific to your computer is broken. Now, my daily driver is a Lenovo Carbon X1 7th Gen. I'm quite happy, but I did the same thing. Big RAM, big SSD, and a reasonable i5. I never hear a fan.

I also have the Carbon, I believe 7th Gen. It was the first one to offer a 4k screen. I ordered the laptop with the LTE card as well. I use it for school, coding, and editing my wife's photos she takes with her camera. It has been a very solid machine. My only wish would have been more RAM. When I upgrade I will probably get the Extreme so that I can edit videos and run more VMs. :) It's so nice to just open up my laptop and have internet everywhere without the need to tether.

This. I love my current one to bits (X1c 7th gen) - almost weightless, sturdy, excellent battery life, excellent connectivity, wonderful keyboard. Oh, and the 1080 screen, which isn't great, but did help improve battery life significantly over the other offerings. I get a full work day out of mine without a charge, which is most useful whenever I'm in the field.