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View Full Version : What are the best 13" or 14" two in one laptops to run Ubuntu on?



Omnios
June 11th, 2021, 10:43 PM
Greetings, I am wondering what would be a good low cost 13" to 14" two in one that can run Ubuntu Linux on that is not to expensive? Mostly to have something fairly small to take on trips. Preferably AMD or ARM. Will be mostly used as a backup computer and web serf on trips away from home. Generally the cheaper the better as it will be used to replace a Acer Inspire switch 10 that will not run Linux.

TheFu
June 12th, 2021, 02:41 AM
Probably want to avoid ARM still. Some programs haven't been ported to ARM architecture.
For long battery life, intel has a proven track record. If battery isn't important, then it probably doesn't matter once you get a brand with a keyboard you can stand. Of all the brands, only Dell hasn't had a keyboard that failed in the first 2 yrs or so. I've had Acer, Toshiba, Asus, and Dell laptops. My next laptop will probably be a used Dell with 9th-gen or later Core i5. 14 inch or smaller. Dell does a good job of supporting Linux.

For my home desktops, I prefer newer Ryzen CPUs. But for laptops, I've become addicted to the battery life that intel provides and the on-board GPU is always well supported. Can't say that about AMD CPUs in laptops, I'm sorry to say.

My current laptop is an Asus Core i5-8250U, which was $305 used. I regret buying it mainly for 2 reasons. 15 inch screen and dying keyboard. Have a 13.3 Inch Toshiba that weighed less than 2 lbs. It cost more, had only 4G of RAM, and the keyboard died after 2 yrs. Besides that it was a beautiful machine. I miss it.

I did see a $200 laptop that seemed a deal, but the passmarks were only barely over 3000. My 2015 Toshiba was 3700 passmarks. The Asus is 7800 passmarks. My Ryzen desktop is 13200 passmarks. Just some points to consider.

sudodus
June 12th, 2021, 07:48 AM
Some years ago I bought a refurbished Dell Latitude E7240 with a 1920x1080 touch-screen, and it works well with Ubuntu. I think that only some of the E7240s have touchscreen, and this may be the case also with other models.

him610
June 14th, 2021, 03:21 AM
I was considering this very thing a few weeks ago by searching for refurbished 13"-14" laptop sections of Newegg, Amazon, the Dell Outlet, etc. - there are probably others. I have always heard that Lenovo and Dell were fairly receptive to installations of Ubuntu, but one still needs to know what one is doing.
Never went through with it because I came into possession of a very good Acer 15" laptop - a bit larger than I wanted, but it will do just fine.