Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 AMD

The new x13 Gen 6 AMD with a U-series CPU and, ideally, configured with the 70Whr battery looks very nice. Should be less than 1 kg, similar to a MacBook Air. I've used the previous generation, and it's possible to get 10 hours of use on battery with some tweaks. It's a very popular model, so it's well tested and everything should just work with the latest kernel.

ThinkPad X220 here. From late 2012 until late 2023 in service with Linux. It is still usable but finally replaced it by an X13 Gen3 AMD with Linux. The magnesium body is a bless and feels a lot better to the skin than aluminium. The HiDPI display is the biggest upgrade. The six row keyboard is sturdy but a downgrade from the seven row keyboard. I miss the notch to open the lid. It got worse with Gen4/5 which now have an awful hump (reverse notch) like a smartphone. The long usage of the X220 depends on the built quality but also on the five year replacement part support. New batteries and a new palm rest (cracked during a journey). It not just quality you pay for, it is this support level. And of course more memory. Apple still fails in this regard and barely does something when forced by the European Union. Anyway - Apple doesn’t officially support Linux therefore I cannot buy them for work. This is the part wich saddens me, they do good work and the next MacBook will also not run fully with Linux. This kind of catchup things by hackers cannot be won - until the vendor decides you’re a valuable customer. Therefore, don’t buy them that you can run Linux. You maybe can. But these devices are made for macOS only. But if you want to run Linux on a MacBook? Talk your politicians! And send „messages“ with your money to Apple. Like buying ThinkPads, Dells Developer Edition, Purism, System 76 and so on :)

As a long-time Thinkpad user, it usually helps to not go for the latest/greatest, but even so, the time between release and 99% working linux is in the region of months with Thinkpads, whereas it can be years-never with Mac. I had some issues with my AMD X13 when getting it new - but they weren't show-stopping, just annoying, and they got ironed out over the next 6 months.

I've been happy with my X13 Gen 2 AMD 32GB. Even has a nice screen at 2560x1600@400 nits. Keyboard isn't as good as my ancient Thinkpads, but still better than anything else on the market. I agree though that Thinkpad offerings can be all over the place, and quality varies. Although, to be honest, I probably would have given up on Thinkpad/x86 entirely if they didn't offer AMD, because in my experience Intel mobile processors are terrible for pro work. I got so fed up with my T480s i7 thermal throttling at pretty much any task that I gave it away.

> My X13 AMD, for example, has a powerful 32-core AMD APU, 32GiB of RAM, and a superfast 1TiB NVMe SSD. The X13 does not have a 32-core APU. The highest spec available is the 4750U with 8C/16T. > By the way, the latest MacBook Pro comes with an Ethernet port. We loved the jokes about iDongle; how about ThinkDongle? The latest MacBook Pro does not come with an Ethernet port. It is however very annoying that Lenovo requires a proprietary dongle to use the built-in Ethernet controller. > The removal of the SD cards slot and Ethernet port has made recent ThinkPads a suboptimal choice for traveling photographers and some IT professionals. The removal of the SD card reader on the X13 AMD Gen 2 is bizarre, but they can and do still offer Ethernet via a dongle. > would you read about the update procedure after you’ve done multiple BIOS updates for the same machine already? Even if you would, would you pay much attention to the Notes section? Yes, but I'm probably weird because I like to know what the vendor fixed and whether the firmware update might remove features that I use (shakes fist at Dell). I own an X13 AMD Gen 2 (20XH), and I think it's a great laptop with some small caveats. Pro: - 1600p matte display looks amazing - proper support for S3, very low S3 power consumption - super quiet, I never hear the fan and the laptop is never uncomfortably hot (even doing heavy things like compiling buildroot) - amazing performance for a laptop (5850U) Con: - no SD card reader…

> Strange, I've seen reports on the Lenovo support forums that Gen 2 laptops are also susceptible to the battery drain in S3. Was it always like this? Or was it fixed with some firmware update? I am not sure. The first thing I did when I received my X13 AMD Gen 2 (20XH) was update the firmware to the latest available version at the time (1.14) and I haven't had any issues.

Disclaimer: I've ordered it, but haven't yet received it. So some if this is inference based on other reviews. If you want something built well, portable, got some guts and has a reasonable warranty/support story - consider the Lenovo Thinkpad X13 AMD. It maxes out to 32Gb DDR4 with a Ryzen 7 4750U. It's got a 13.3" screen and weighs 1.3kg. Personally speaking, I was in the market for a portable machine with 32gb memory (was not initially considering AMD). I considered the Dell XPS 13" (32gb variant was insanely expensive in Aus at $5.2k just for the unit), the X1 Carbon (maxes out at 16gb of ddr3), and the T14 AMD (a bit too chunky). When none of these were viable I considered the Macbook 13 (a bit more $, but a horrid keyboard despite beautiful screen), and the System76 Lemur (strongly considered it, but the support story in Australia was a bit of a risk for my daily driver). When Lenovo had a sale on the X13 AMD, let's just say I could buy it + 4yr warranty + a dock for less than half the cost of the Dell/Apple, and have twice the cores. Compromises were: a fairly pedestrian screen vs other Lenovo models or Apple/Dell, no thunderbolt, and needing to pull the trigger on it when there were literally zero reviews of this device on the internet. Jury is still out on the battery life too.