I tried quite a few replacements, including ThinkPad X1 and LG gram. Something felt off in all cases, until I realized that 16:10 aspect ratio for 13in laptop was key. That frankly eliminated quite a few options. Additionally, X1’s trackpad and Gram’s keyboard felt quite bad.
At the end, in a whim, I tried a cheap Motile 142 from walmart ($329 at the time). 14in monitor seems to offset the aspect ratio quite well, the trackpad and keyboard are decent. Additionally, it is Amd 3500U, which seems well supported by the newer kernels. Upgrading with 16gb ram and NVMe ssd, also pushed the performance and usability of the machine.
At the end, I don’t think there is an universal answer to this. But with some experimentation, I’m pretty sure you can find a nice machine that works well for you.
PS: Motile laptop is also 2.55 lbs, which is a great weight for that size.
I've been wondering about getting a razer blade stealth 13" for some time, I'm just worried a bit about its built quality.
I do prefer Mac OS as a daily driver, but I would like to be able to do some light proof of concept ML training on a laptop with an nvidia card, and also sometimes some CAD (I've had terrible experience dual booting windows on this current mbp)
I'm currently trying google colab to see how much I can do with doing everything in the cloud
At the end, in a whim, I tried a cheap Motile 142 from walmart ($329 at the time). 14in monitor seems to offset the aspect ratio quite well, the trackpad and keyboard are decent. Additionally, it is Amd 3500U, which seems well supported by the newer kernels. Upgrading with 16gb ram and NVMe ssd, also pushed the performance and usability of the machine.
At the end, I don’t think there is an universal answer to this. But with some experimentation, I’m pretty sure you can find a nice machine that works well for you.
PS: Motile laptop is also 2.55 lbs, which is a great weight for that size.