What is the best current gaming laptop that comes with Linux pre-installed? I don’t want to “pay Microsoft” by buying a Windows-licensed machine. Please suggest the best value-for-money option (original retail price) with 32 GB or more of RAM. I’m willing to upgrade hardware myself, but I want a high-quality, durable machine — I plan to use this laptop for more than five years.
“What is your budget?”
around $1,400 USD, but if there is a $2000 laptop with higher ratio of quality / price I would choose that one.
“What size do you want?”
Any normal size.
“What screen resolution?”
Any, as long as it’s not 720p.
“Which GPU?”
As good as possible, I care more about highest ratio of quality / price
“And if you want warranty, which country are you in?”
I don’t need a warranty.
I’m choosing now between Framework laptop and System76 laptop. Both seems great, but System76 laptop seems to have a better quality judging by the looks of it?
System76 laptops are in my experience worse than frameworks.
But they are also less effort. So pick your poison.
I went with a Framework 16 and upped it to 48gb ram with the graphics extension. That thing is a powerhouse. I didn’t get it for gaming, but for design work. Still, it can play anything out now on the highest settings and is fully modular so I’m planning to be buried with this thing.
ETA: I also went the Linux route and don’t have any regrets.
Framework laptops are really cool, but the modular design seems to make them more vulnerable.
I had a FW16 for about a year. I got fed up with the poor fit and finish, and utterly unreliable USB-A expansion modules.
System76 sure ain’t perfect either, at least my pangolin 15 leaves a lot to be desired between the shit trackpad, awful battery drain during suspend, and extremely limited BIOS config options. But it’s put together way better than a Framework 16 is