Hi,

A problem I have been coming up against is that a lot of the newer, budget Windows laptop (which I will immediately replace with my distribution of choice upon receipt) have memory soldered on the motherboard. This is a decision which brings the utmost distate to my mouth; I’m looking for budget laptops around the $300 mark (new) that let me upgrade their parts. Which models should I be looking at?

I am aware that the used market is fairly decent right now but I’d like to take a look at what’s coming up alongside looking at used gear. Thanks.

  • @MigratingtoLemmyOP
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    38 months ago

    Thank you, I was simply surveying the market to see if there are any new laptops in this range to look at. Seems like that is not the case, so off to the used market I go.

    • @[email protected]
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      8 months ago

      It doesn’t necessarily need to be a ThinkPad either. Any used good quality business laptop should do the trick. My grandmother recently got an used EliteBook, and it’s working quite well for her. I’d look for mid- to high-end models, with parts that aren’t soldered - you should be able to find that out on the data sheet for the model in question.

      Any i5/R5 and up in a machine that isn’t too old should handle pretty much everything most people expect from a laptop - for me that is running a browser, a Latex editor, a notes app, and an IDE, for the most part.

      I’d reccomend Linux, but that might be based more on my personal convictions, and a machine like that should also be able to run current Windows with no problems.

      • @MigratingtoLemmyOP
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        18 months ago

        I’m going to run Linux alright, and maybe BSD if I feel up to it. It would seem that the older Dell Latitudes are comparable to the older Thinkpads as options