Hi Nick. Thanks for this. I would agree somewhere around 500 is a decent affordable threshold. In fact as an IT pro I've been using laptops at around this price pretty exclusively since forever. I can understand gamers spending more, but for most of us lesser mortals these look pretty decent, so when my current Arch powered Dell workhorse comes up for replacement I'll certainly take a look.
Same. A few months ago I adopted from my company a Dell Latitude 5500 with an 8th Gen Core i5 processor and 16 GB of RAM. It was destined for the scrap heap but since Linux runs great on older hardware I convinced my manager to let me have it. But I've had my eye on the Elemental as its eventual successor. It's a much better value proposition than the equivalent Tuxedo Aura which lists at $250 more.
A $550 8gb ram 256gb ssd 1080p i5 12th gen Intel cpu laptop is expensive. I would find a windows laptop with the same cpu (i.e. was released a year ago, so there's a big chance that Linux has the drivers for the track pad and wifi controller...) and it's usually cheaper.
Not bad specs for the price at all. The rgb backlit option is really great for some people. If this is available in India for comparable price, I'll definitely get these instead of others.
honestly not too bad, I'd go for it even today but I don't want one with Intel cpu and its weird uhd garbage xd I will w8 for one with AMD and I'm buying it!
I think if you want a Linux laptop for less than these the best choice is an old Thinkpad. In University a lot of us had them, reliable, cheap new battery and they were fast enough (I was an outlier with a Hp Elitebook).
Hey! I was wondering if you could make another video on linux on M1 as asahi is already out of beta! As an m1 macbook owner I'd love to see how it works but I simply can't compromise my only current work machine. Many thanks and greetings from Spain :)
I always prefer used, you can find unbeatable deals if you know what you're looking for, but when Linux support is involved, yeah there's not really a second-hand market for Linux laptops. So, these look very solid for the price for Linux native machines and a great alternative to used if it's required!
I'm almost sad my comment didn't make the intro hahaha. How well does the gpu compare to the steam deck's gpu or an older destop gpu? Are there any good amd options in that price range?
Bro I wished this video was here when I was buying a new laptop wanted it to be a Linux laptop but ended up getting a windows 11 budget gaming laptop it’s about the price for this one
5:00 Very "interesting" Position for a power button. I was hoping that HP (who put it right next to the backspace) was the only company with the placement of the power button being that idiotic. I'm sorry, but did general intelligence left the field of creating laptops? It's incredibly (in a negative way) how many stupid design decisions (which could not have been tested at all by any quality control personell) made it into the final product in the past years!
Did you buy the devices or were they sent to you for free? You might want to clarify it in the video (unless I missed it, in which case I apologise in advance).
so why the heck you make free ads when there is a lot laptops with better quality of other vendors? Linux have GENERIC drivers to support huge varity of devices and you still make ads for shitbook gg just unsubbed @@TheLinuxEXP
They are great options to run Fedora out of the box for those that wanted the Fedora Slimbooks but couldn't afford them! We highly recommend Slimbook's work! 💙
It's almost never worth buying a new machine, unless you have some specific reason. 200-300 euro Thinkpad beats all such devices easily. Nonetheless, I am surprised by their quality and features for this price range, definitely more worthwhile than what other manufacturers can provide. If only they had bigger batteries...
I enjoy the reviews of the high-end stuff, but do thank you for this. I hope Linux-native machines catch on. I keep just putting it on Thinkpads, or XPS's, both of which work great for low-ability tinkerers like me.
The new Lenovo p1 is one of the new range of laptops which the new CAM format RAM Memory. The ThinkPads series generally supports linux but this change from micro and Samsung may effect the performance of unix Linux in a positive or negative way ?
What the heck is a 'Linux laptop'? I've always just bought laptops, wiped off Windows or whatever other shit OS came on them, and installed whatever distro I wanted ...
Super cool timing! I was thinking about buying one 14" Model this year! Always wanted a modern but affordable Linux laptop and my Thinkpads are showing there age when it comes to battery live. Maybe with some tweaking you can get out more of it, but since I'm planning to use them for writing text/markdown I guess this will increase it a little bit. Thank you for the video!
RISC-V as a very little chance of becoming a mainstream CPU ISA... And it's large chunk of work to port software and OS to another ISA... All eyes are towards ARM but x86(Intel & AMD CPUs use the x86 ISA) won't disappear anytime soon...
A few things I felt were missing: As said gaming is not the target for these models, why then not focus on media consumption instead during the review, i.e testing watching videos in the most popular codecs, different resolutions, CPU usage during media play? Also, there wasn't any mention of the BIOS, e.g. it would be cool if it supported coreboot. They also seem pretty good for upgradeability (e.g. non-soldered RAM) but how about repairability? Can the owner easily replace components; how easy is to get parts for it? Thanks for the review, there's not enough coverage of these alternatives.
Please stop doing panning shots when showing us the ports on devices, especially since you don’t read them off in the order they’re flying past us on screen. A fixed shot of each side as you read them off would be much better.
>Affordable >under 550 euro Hell what? I got my study laptop (just regular office laptop, running modern Intel and soldered 8GB of RAM) for ~360 euro and I still find it very expensive and think maybe I should've gotten a used one for cheaper instead.
Is a Good initiative to show sub 600 notebooks, but you need to show the internals of the machine, is here the consumers spot bad engineering and see the possibility of maintenance (change the thermal paste, if the data bay is easy to access, etc)
This one I think about. The 14 inch with i7. Do you think it is ok to cut videos? What is the weight of it? Ok, online I read USB C chargeable, so for travel ok, just forget about the barrel charger and it shouldn't make problems I guess. Would you recommend it for travel and video cut? What distro would you pack on it?
Cette vidéo vient trop tard, j'ai déjà pris mon Lenovo (très satisfait de mon achat d'ailleurs). Mais il est vrai que, avant l'achat, je cherchais des recommandations de portables, et je ne tombais que sur des machines à des prix démentiels. C'est là où l'on voit la limite des chaines parlant matériels.
I didn't actually expect the laptop to be that good for the price, except the CPU should've been i7 1355u and i5 1335u. Kinda puts me off immediately for getting a 2 year old CPU for 700 euros or 630(I only care about 15 inches).
I recently installed manjaro to test linux. Every thing except my iGPU decoders and battery works. For some reason, manjaro refuses to properly use my iGPU and battery life is well, HORRIBLE! WHY? linux is supposed to be light weight. Indeed I get better performence but battery life is bad. I wish the devs focus more on laptops than desktops. If you have suggestions for a better battery life distro, drop down a comment. It absolutely must use kde.
Probably it's the only review on RU-vid and, yet, congratulations for the effort and honesty!! Considering to buy it in the future for a non-heavy use outside home : )
I'll never buy a Slimbook anymore. Mine (bought 3 years ago) started giving me troubles after a few months with the main fan rattling. A few weeksafter that, artefacts (groups of single-colour squares randomly spread) started to appear on the screen, probably denoting a problem with the video RAM or video card itself. At another day, the computer completely froze and even the power button was ineffective (pressing it for more than 10 seconds did absolutely nothing). I've had to open the case, voiding the warranty and unplug the battery connector... while the computer was still running! Needless to say I'm pretty much disappointed with Slimbook. That's why I'll never buy them anymore. Ever. I've tried to contact Nick a few months ago but he didn't respond.
550 euros is still almost twice my monthly income, so not really affordable. But my trusty dualchip laptop from 2012 is still going strong with LinuxLite.
The problem with using the term "adorable hardware" in the Linux community is that you'll always find a group of Linux users that have a lower bar than the last for what they would consider "affordable", it ranges from something tame like this actually affordable 550 range, to literally getting their laptop out of the garage lmao
Say I wanna press the volume keys on the function row, are they direct press keys or Fn + Key ? That's something that I miss from my old HP laptop and loathe about my current Asus. If they were 16:10 instead of 16:9 I'd consider selling my current laptop to get a replacement. Cheap, decent for work and nothing else. Backlit keys and so on. Everything I need and nothing I don't. I'd love to get a framework because I like what they represent and they fit my needs so well, but my budget says Slimbook
Seems the shop has 2 countries, Spain or US. If I select the US, is it just the language that change or does my laptop get shipped from the US? If I want it from an EU shop to avoid import fees and taxes, do I have to buy from the Spanish version or is it just the language that change and all their gear ships from Spain?
There is no shuch thing as "linux laptop" it is a regular raptop with regular cpu, ram, etc, with just a linux distro. I can jet u a "linux" laptop with the same powerhorse at 90% of the price of this
These are damn solid machines! Except for gaming, this should be more than enough for most of the casual users. No need to spend more money except for unnecessary style or power.
And I'm waiting for its arrival (version with 32GB of RAM). I ordered it on January 8th, so exactly in the day when components should be available. 3 weeks have passed (2 work weeks) and I'm still waiting. The status has stuck on "installing". Judging from the time it takes (over a week), it's more about installing components, not the software. I just sent them a message to let me know what is the delay and what is their estimate till it's ready for shipping. I'm OK with waiting a bit more, but need to be kept in a loop. It's not OK, to have delays and keep customers in the dark. I'm replacing my old Alienware R17, which is already 9-10 years old. I already exchanged the battery twice, exchanged the keyboard and power brick. If those break again, I'm not sure if I can find parts. Besides, had to play BG3 with the lowest res and 10-20FPS... I finished the game that way, and it was great, because the story matters there more than graphics, but still, this was a bit a stretch. Time to upgrade, hopefully for the next 10 years. Originally I was planning to buy something with Nvidia, but I started investigating and both Slimbook and Tuxedos computers had issues. Wayland doesn't work on newer cards properly, suspension is hit-and-miss, etc. I realized, that to have a full normal experience, I need full AMD laptop and there it was.
I like the affordable Linux laptop reviews Nick! they're hard to find since everyone is always reviewing the high-end :) Weird design decision though to not include the webcam shutter on the bigger model where there is more space available. Hola Slimbook, if you're watching along: Make an AMD version for some more battery life(or a bigger battery?) + iGPU gaming power and preferably add the webcam shutter on the 15 inch and you've got yourself an amazing laptop :)
Interesting review, I would've like to take a look at the internals, cooling design, screen brightness numbers (because a screen below 350nits is so bad in well lit environments or next to windows) and the hinge system, because that chasis resembles vaguely to a lenovo chasis that had hinge problems, nonetheless judging by the price, and upgrade path is very good for it's purpose tasks and users. On a side note, I fully and totally agree with the 1440p screen debacle, for a 14 inch display is pointless, specially for the internals and cooling it must have. I preffer a 1080p with 350 + nits screen (400 nits would be awesome but pricier) and well built laptop than a low brightness 1440p or 1440p that will go to waste for the form factor design and internals that struggle to run the stuff.
Lenovo makes a lot of affordable laptops that will function well with Linux and they ship world wide. I've been using their laptops for decades! Most of their laptops are Linux ready out of the box, but check their hardware for compatibility.
Lenovo laptops are not "affordable" laptops, and never really have been. Even their Linux compatibility has gone downhill since... The only good thing about thinkpads is that you can buy some cheap old, secondhand ones for a good price, but those ones are also really out of date and not great usage for modern times.
Indeed, a good portion of Lenovo's Thinkpad lineup have the Ubuntu certification and are also in the LVFS. I actually just asked Nick on Mastodon about the possibility of getting a Lenovo unit for review, but unfortunately he said Lenovo hasn't responded the last time he tried contacting them. I wonder why... 😐
Nick, your videos are always so interesting, thank you! Do you plan to make any videos about Linux basics - e.g. what it is, pros and cons, and how to get started? I would like to be able to explain those things to my friends and family, but you do it so much better.
There's this old dude with the rectangle glasses with a channel where he talks a lot about Linux for everyday people, focuses on Mint a lot, I reeeeeally wish I remembered the name of the channel rn
@@colbyboucher6391 Thinking of Christopher Barnett at *@ExplainingComputers* ? I only found out about him recently through a podcast, apparently his videos are quite layman-friendly and he himself uses Mint as a daily driver! 🪴
For my pocket affording a 550€ laptop is much easier than to afford one that is double or three times the price. That said, I could see myself using the 14" model, specs seem fine and since these receive newer revisions too, I might keep an eye on it.
$A840 is not bad, but shipping to the arse end of the world is never cheap. Still hard to beat the old Lenovo laptop. The $A100 laptop i installed lubuntu on is still the best linux experience i ever had. I just Australia was big enough to have a linyx integrator.
I wish Slimbook can ship their products to Indonesia and be cheaper than other competitors in Indonesia. And I wish to get consumer services too from Slimbook in Indonesia
I could have bought a laptop for 550€ for school, but my Steam Deck + dock + portable keyboard ended up cheaper than that and I can even play all of my Steam games on reasonable settings. Nothing beats the Steam Deck on price to performance. It's brutal. Edit: it's semi-practical as it takes a few seconds to set up and also a few more to put it back in my bag, but I personally don't mind it. Also it looks badass!
Cool. Did you know that some chinese manufacturer used to release laptop+dock, basically a portable display and keyboard built in a laptop shell? Oh and it comes with batteries too. Using 'lapdock' with a steam deck is a good idea imo
I don't think both devices are for the same purpose. The Steam deck is for gaming mostly they can even go to desktop mode and do many things. That laptop in the video can be good for other things like coding which the Steam deck is not.
@@rogercoello6801 I do code on it too and I like it. I have good eyesight, so for me the small screen ist not an issue. Also since I learned to write cleaner code, I don't need that much screen real-estate anyways. But yeah, I sure see where this might be a big issue for a lot of people, so I disagree on the inability to code, but I offer to agree that for most people it is highly impractical nonetheless.
@@rogercoello6801 Now that the Steam Deck natively supports using nix packages it's actually really really good for coding and development. I mean, you aren't going to be building AI or Games, but building a website, or a command line app works really well. I've got my Steam Deck running, VS Code and Jetbrains Goland. I have no problem editing Javascript or Go projects at all (as long as I have a real keyboard that is).
The Lenovo laptop with Ryzen 7320U I got is originally 4000 DKK (about 537 euros) with 25 % VAT which got discounted during black week to 2222 DKK. Such discounts will be hard to find for Linux laptops (if one wouldn’t call Chrome OS for Linux, lol). Though that laptop does seem better than the Lenovo one I got without the huge discount. As I can understand why Framework started with Intel, it is because they are easier to work with as a startup. It is a shame AMD isn’t easier to work with so more Linux hardware startsups can more easily also use AMD instead of Intel being the only viable option. Though with the latest Intel mobile CPUs it is getting on par with the current AMD lineup. If Framework got a great 2nd hand market that could potentially be a great cheaper option for people who dare to buy used hardware and dont mind tinker at bit with the hardware.
I would love to see you review a Framework laptop, especially if it's the 16 inch offer, since it's one of these rare beasts that are AMD based both for the CPU and for the GPU - which is something the world of linux yerns for
The page up/down buttons directly next to the left/right arrow keys are a deal breaker on the 14". Apart from that, they look pretty good for the price
You've convinced me these are decent laptops to use, but when I check on their site, the price is 600€ (i5) and 700€ (i7) for the 15.8", and one € less for the 14". Still _very_ cheap for this category, though not 550.
Das wichtigste ist wirklich eine normale Auflösung, weil Skalierung einfach nicht gut unter Linux funktioniert. Habe ein matebook 13s mit hoher Auflösung und keinen Spaß am Linux. Gnome ist ok, aber VLC in Qt oder so schon wieder Schrott.
