MX Linux Forum

Hi MXLinux! This post will be long so I'm gunna do a TLDR right now.

I'm looking to buy a smaller-screen laptop, lightweight laptop in the 11"-13" range. This new laptop will run Linux exclusively, and the RAM and SSDs can be easily upgraded, especially if the laptop has a compartment that'll let me do that without taking the entire bottom off. My price range is roughly $300, but our budget could probably go as high as $400 (and of course cheaper that still will offer me the same functionally, the better!)

Now with the TLDR out of the way, here's a much more detailed description of what I'm looking for plus links to laptops I've already found myself.

Like I said, I'm in the market for a small-screen, lightweight, upgradable laptop and I'd love some suggestions. My wife and I have talked about it and our budget is in the >$400 area, probably around $250-350 give or take.  I don't care at all about what OS comes pre-installed because I exclusively use Linux. My favorite distros are MX, LMDE, Arch, and Manajro... but I'll be the first to admit I love testing different distros onto bootable LiveUSBs. 

The largest screen size would prob be 14", but I'd prefer something around 11"-13".  I want something small and lightweight that I can use as easily in bed as I could hooked up to a secondary monitor on my desk. My two biggest priorities are support for Linux as OS as well as upgradability. 

Being able to upgrade it easily myself would be wonderful.  Currently I have an "Acer Aspire E 15, 15.6" E5-576-392H" that you can see here:
https://a.co/d/4HZwvhE

It's a larger-screened, moderately heavy laptop that has a modular section on the bottom that give easy access to the RAM, SATA, and M.2 sections. In other words, I don't have to pull the entire bottom off in order to access these areas... Which I would definitely prefer since I don't want to mess anything up whatsoever!  It also allows for both EFI and NON-EGO booting, with the partitions set up for Legacy non-EFI. But that's easy enough to change since I have my /home on its own partition and I don't mind having to reformat the partitions and installing the Linux from scratch.  Still, if there are any that utilize Legacy non-EFI booting I prefer that for some reason. 

I'm going to be taking the parts from the older laptop and put them in the new one, which I believe is 16gb RAM, 2×8gb DDR4 sticks, a 2TB SATA III SSD, and a 1TB M.2 SSD. 

Since I'll be transferring my current SSDs from my old laptop to the new one, the initial storage size isn't too important as long as the laptop itself is easily upgradable... Especially if it doesn't require taking the whole thing apart and instead is intended to be upgradable with easy access to the Ram as well as the SATA, M.2, or preferably both.

I've found these on Amazon, would any of them work well for me? 

➙ ALLDOCUBE iwork20 Pro 
https://a.co/d/aDcPxFv

➙ ALLDOCUBE GT Book 
https://a.co/d/0950quv

➙ ASUS BR1100 Laptop 
https://a.co/d/j3Aag3Z

➙ 2022 Lenovo 300e 
https://a.co/d/8lAQwFT

➙ AWOW Touchscreen Laptop 
https://a.co/d/9p6Odyq

➙ 2022 Newest ASUS Military-Grade Student Laptop (384GB Storage)
https://a.co/d/eZku3U1

➙ 2022 Newest ASUS Military-Grade Student Laptop (128GB Storage) 
https://a.co/d/clslSoD

➙ Dell Latitude E7270 Touch Screen UltraBook (Renewed) 
https://a.co/d/aKGnuQB

➙ Dell Latitude E7470 FHD Ultrabook Business Laptop Notebook (Renewed) 
https://a.co/d/9ln2Ezj

➙ Dell Latitude E7270 12.5-Inch Ultrabook (Renewed)
https://a.co/d/4M1EgAi

➙ Dell Latitude E7470 FHD Ultrabook Business Laptop Notebook (Renewed)
https://a.co/d/bWtcs1N

➙ Dell Latitude E7270 Touch Screen UltraBook Business Laptop (Renewed)
https://a.co/d/6dhsGv9

(I apologize if any of these links are repeats, sometimes there are multiple listing on Amazon for the same computers. Sometimes they're completely identical, other times they have different RAM and/or SSD Storage.) 

Of those, are any of them not at all what I'm looking for so I can eliminate them immediately? 

And after that, are any of them much more suited for my intentions? I have a feeling that the two ALLDOCUBEs are probably better since their descriptions say they're upgradable. Still, I've never heard of the company and obviously I do not want to buy anything that isn't easily Linux supported. I'm not certain which distro will be my primary on the new laptop, but it'll probably be MX or LMDE, I also love Arch and Manajro. I currently use a combined version of MX & LMDE I configured myself by adding LMDE repos to MX.

I would also be remiss if I didn't ask if there's a laptop that I haven't found myself that would be a better fit for what I've described above. 

I look forwards to seeing what you all have to say. Thanks so much for taking the time to read over this post of mine. 

Since your plan is to cannibalize the old laptop for add-ons to the new (to you) machine, you should forget about any new to the market laptops because your old RAM will not be compatible.

Here's some more advice. Once you have settled on a few laptops, do a web search with these parameters for each of them: linux install on <make and model> problems.

2mcgreg - yeah, I totally understand that. The biggest problem I'm encountering is that I can't seem to find any info on whether the laptop has access for upgrading. I can take the entire bottom off a laptop, at least I have in the past, but I'd rather not do that just in case it gets stuck after unscrewing everything, you know.

So maybe I'll condence my question...

Does anyone know of a $200-$400 laptop that has easy access to at least an SSA and/or M.2 area? Access to the RAM, particularly if it's DDR4 would also be awesome. And of course, I don't want to run into any problems with wifi, video, and sound when it comes to Linux compatibility.

Does anyone know of anything with those simplified parameters?

Thanks a lot for your continued advice!

What about the refurbished/renewed Lenovo Thinkpad T480s (mind the S letter)? Something like https://www.ebay.com/itm/185595469564
Or maybe the X series?

My primary machine is T490s running MX Linux only. I haven't bought a new laptop since... a very long time :)

You can go with old and cheap Thinkpad from the X serie : X220 or X230. Easily upgradable , easy RAM access up to 16GBs, possibility to change old HDD for new and fast SSD and to add a second SSD. There are buld like tanks, not big, with good battery performance and they have a lot of users on the web who can give you some help for upgrades and modding to get the best of it...

Maybe the answer is a bit off to what you actually wanted to know, though I was in the same position as you a few month ago.
Basically 2 homepages proved as helpful

https://www.notebookcheck.com/
first to get a general overview about current and past tech that falls in the size range you are looking for.
second, they have an awkward to use search function, that proofed valuable especially consideren quality of displays.
Hardware is one point, but one thing that can't (easily) be changed is the display and finding a good one is hard.

The other homepage was as price compare site (pardon if its not suited for you as this one is mainly focused on europe / germany / austria / poland / UK )

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nb
You can use very good filters to sort out hardware you want to have in it, and this with the knowledge gained from the first site let me pick something I'm comfortable with AND could afford.

About repairability, almost all newer laptops you take off the bottom / base and work up to the keyboard.
Which is not such a bad thing to do, compared to olds ones, like the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 here.

Rob braxxman has a youtube vid on just this (sort of-I decided not to watch it). Readers posted some ones they use. Hp elite book was one and another for around $500, more or less, was the lenovo thinkpad x1 series. For what I use my laptop for I could have spent a lot less and got the same results, sans the new smell. But i wanted coreboot and to be able to remove Intel ME, which I did.

Nothing specific, but these links may help:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/choose-be ... nuxubuntu/
https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops?q=&limit=671
https://linux-hardware.org/
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/
HTH