Lenovo: Ex-company gave me a NEW Carbon X1 around 2019, and the battery only lasted for less than a year (!). On the other side, I bought a used 2017 470S from the same company, added more RAM, didn't touch anything including the SSD, and I'm still using it in daily coding. I did buy a new battery last month so technically the old batteries lasted for about 7-8 years.
Dell: I bought 3 laptops + 1 desktop from Dell Refurbished (So the quality should be consistent). 2 laptops + 1 desktop are older models, and 1 is Precision 5550 (2021) that I bought last December. Everything works fine, except for the 5550, which has issues with battery (dropped from 31% to 4% in a few seconds) and (more deadly) charging port (doesn't charge from time to time). Even if I bought it new in 2021, I would be surprised that it only lasted for a bit over 4 years.
The other issue is that 5550 uses USB-C ports. I blame on myself not checking it closely before the purchase. I really hate those ports. Why is everyone copying from Mac?
What's my option? I can't really justify the 2,000+ CAD price point for a new laptop, especially if it lasts less than 5 years. I'd prefer a "low-end" workstation with 32GB memory, but because of the price point I can only afford a 16GB non-workstation one. I don't do gaming any more but I still prefer a good integrated video card. I can't afford Framework and other Linux laptops because they are expensive and usually don't operate in Canada so delivery is expensive too.
I did buy a used Macbook Pro M1 16GB (2021) from my current company last month. I haven't used it but I'm confident that the hardware is good. The problem is I don't really like the software, so I figured I still need a Linux box.
Did you find any sweet spot?
There's also the software/hardware integration side.
Power management on Macbooks is unbeatable in my experience, both Windows and Linux have really serious issues dealing with sleep and low power modes.
On the Lenovo side, the only one I'm still reasonably happy with is my Thinkpad, but it pales compared to a Macbook (Air, Pro or whatever).
I've been dealing with this recently. Linux won't hibernate if you have Secure Boot enabled, even if your swap is encrypted. So I either have to leave my laptop plugged in all the time or remember to shut it down before unplugging it so it doesn't completely drain its battery while sleeping.
> The Linux kernel disables the possibility of hibernation when Secure Boot is in use because it cannot guarantee that the swap file is unchanged. "Unencrypted hibernation/suspend to swap are disallowed as the kernel image is saved to a medium that can then be accessed."