I’ll list the hardware I use:
- Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro X (14ARH7) - daily relaxed driver. No complaints whatsoever - signal video calls work great, Google Meet video quality was kinda grey but generally good. It was running Windows where I used WSL a bunch up until I recently replaced it with Aurora. Not great for intensive applications despite the Nvidia GPU.
- Thinkpad T480 - bit of a junker as it was released 2018 - use to test stuff with, but it can actually do relaxed browsing and it’s what I’m using right now running Universal Blue Aurora. Two batteries - one is hot swappable - so I loaded a bigger one bought on Amazon. Historically touchpad was terrible on Linux so I tended to keep Windows on it unless I was testing a distro. But when I loaded Aurora on it a few weeks back, the touchpad was fine - maybe libinput quirks were figured out, or the kernel is better.
- Framework Laptop 16 (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series) - I was very disappointed with the touchpad experience when I loaded Linux (forgot which distro) on this a while back. It’s currently running Windows and I’m not using it too much, but plan to install Aurora on it soon. Finger crossed the touchpad is good with Aurora.
- Kubuntu KFocus Ir14 GEN 2 - most recent purchase last month. I see this as my goto for the long-run, especially for intensive programming, as they do actual quality assurance on the hardware + KDE desktop. I haven’t spent a ton of time using it yet. Not sure if I’ll replace the Kubuntu which they test and warrant with Aurora.
- Dell Latitude 9440 14" - bought it more for a family member to use a “PC” instead of a Macbook - touchpad was unusable on Aurora so I put Windows back on it. One reason I bought it is that I was curious about the feel of Dell’s “haptic” touchpad, but haven’t really been able to understand the difference.
Work is mostly Windows / Mac so it’s handy for me to have hardware running that (the Dell above + an old Macbook Pro) for ease of reference personally.
I like the idea of using old cheap hardware like my Thinkpad T480 for simple downtime tasks and whatnot, but every so often I do notice the lag so may not run it into the ground.