I'm still rocking the T520 thinkpad from 2012 with quad core i7. I thought I'd replace it in 2020, but here we are. I really don't see anything that is really any faster or has the linux compatiblity. Hoping it changes soon, I've used it as my main work machine all these years.
I use a Thinkpad carbon X1 with Debian. Fantastically portable with all day battery life. Just make sure to check the Arch wiki (regardless of which Linux you install) for a few special commands needed to make everything work properly.
The carbon never supported the docking stations right? I always liked a docking station so I can drop the laptop on it and have all my desk monitors come to life. But seems like docking stations aren't really popular anymore either... (which is one reason I never went with system76)
I've got the x1 carbon 6th generation with ubuntu on it and it's great. I don't have a docking station, I just have a usb-c monitor w/ usb and audio ports on it. I have to connect two usb-c cables when I get home (power and monitor). Supposedly you can buy usb-c monitors that also do power over the one cable but I guess I didn't get the right one.
They dock from the side. It works with Linux too except I have this annoying bug where my attached monitor turns off and back on randomly a few times per day.
PSA to everyone using a recent ThinkPad: Update your thunderbolt firmware. Boot into Windows if you have to... This one is a might-break-your-hardware class bug.
I went from T410s to T440p quad-core to T495, all with Fedora.
So far, I am very happy with the T495 with Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U.
The integrated Vega GPU seems better than the discrete but anemic NVIDIA GPU I had before, even though it is limited to system RAM bandwidth. The GPU driver experience is much better so far, much like with Intel integrated GPUs.
Battery life is far better, with very low idle power usage out of the box while doing everyday work on terminals, Firefox, and wifi. I've never run it down all the way yet, but it seems it would last more than an 8 hour day.
One caveat is that I have not yet attempted to do computational work with the AMD GPU or CPU, so cannot comment on drivers in that regard.
> I really don't see anything that is really any faster
Hardware has improved since 2012 along all metrics. Yes, even core count.
> or has the linux compatiblity.
Looking at the arch compatibility tables linux works completely on most models. Some don't support the fingerprint reader or minor stuff like that. Only very few have showstopper issues.
