I'm currently looking in 13-14" laptops with no immediate needs for one but just because it's exciting. I love my Dell XPS but I feel I should support companies with which I share more common views. I could make the effort to go a with a less attractive look (especially for bezels) but I don't want to go wrong with hardware so what are your thoughts on Framework, Starlab, Purism, and System76? I'll be running Arch and I tend to have a preference for Framework for now.
Do you have feedback (positive and negative) to share on any of these companies?
Thanks for the knowledge you'll bring me. That'll be extremely useful when time comes to go with a new machine.
Update 1: Still wonderful to be part of such a great community. Thanks for all the great feedback (looking for more :) ).
So far everyone is standing behind Framework. Anyone with a less positive experience or who would like to speak for the other companies?
Update 2: Thank you fellows for the time you've spent to share your honest feedback! I didn't want to influence your inputs but you all confirmed the Framework picture I had in mind. It's a piece of mind to read real world experience so thanks again. I was surprised to not see the system76 community speaks louder. Anyway, when time comes I will (virtually) push Framework shop's door.
Personally I'm holding out for a laptop based on the snapdragon elite X arm chips coming out later this year. Should be great for battery life (like 28 hours) and very fast. We'll see how the linux support turns out. And also which manufacturers pick it up - would like framework but haven't heard anything about that from them. Lenovo already released a system based on the old snapdragon chip so seems likely they'll release one based on the elite X too.
Got this one. I like it but support is really rough. Not officially supported but they are helping somewhat the motivated guys getting it upstream.
Was advertised with 28 hour battery life as well. You can get 12 hours in linux, less in windows.
Peformancewise it is flawless. The weight is awesome. Very comfy on the lap. But its almost two years and very much is missing.
If the new generation doesn't have official linux compatibility I would not recommend buying it on release.
Sorry to hear! I really want to say it again: The manhfacture has to support linux officially. Otherwise there are things not mentioned in the documentation and the maintainers are working nonstop across multiple repositories to make it work.
Thinks of the top on my head not listed in the wikis:
6 or 8 cores with 100% CPU load drains the battery more then it can load (for now?)
no sound via HDMI/display port
doesn't detect external monitor when booting. Forcing one to replug.
These issues are somewhat mentioned.
So I do not want to nitpick. Instead contributed some solutions/hints for things I was able to infer.
So please don't hate me. I'm new.