16 ms·

Can’t trust them since the multiple spyware incidents. Fool me four times, shame on me Eg, > But it did more than that. It injected a self-signed root HTTPS c

Can’t trust them since the multiple spyware incidents. Fool me four times, shame on me Eg, > But it did more than that. It injected a self-signed root HTTPS certificate, which allowed them to hijack any and all encrypted traffic Different incident > This malware was hidden in the laptop's firmware, and abused the anti-theft feature in Windows 8 and 10. Whenever the laptop booted up, the executable would be extracted from the firmware at boot-up and installed https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/now-three-pre-installed-malwares-lenovo-laptops/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/now-three-pre-installed-malwar... Secondary source that mentions FTC fines > Lenovo cannot install any bloatware on its laptops without customers' express agreement, under the terms of its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the Superfish scandal. > On top of a $3.5 million fine that the company agreed to pay in September, Lenovo will now be required to obtain express consent from consumers before any preinstalled software is able to run on a laptop, as well as provide an easy means of uninstalling any Lenovo tools. https://www.itpro.co.uk/desktop-hardware/29396/lenovo-settles-superfish-spyware-lawsuit-for-35m https://www.itpro.co.uk/desktop-hardware/29396/lenovo-settle...

young_unixer 5y ago
This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-breaking-https https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-...
- remuskaos 5y ago
  Have you considered a Framework? frame.work, mostly open, modular laptop
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    No official Linux for Framework yet. While its certainly possible to install it.
- donw 5y ago
  I'm looking at a Librem. System76 also does laptops, as does Pine.
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    I'd like to see Pine offer a larger screen and battery.
    - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      PineBook is fine the way it is, but the keyboard is abysmal, that's the only thing that made me switch from it as daily driver to my old Frankenpad.
- winrid 5y ago
  I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug. No reset can fix it. They have to replace the motherboard. They had it four months before I finally got them to just replace the machine.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug. See, you should have picked the "Discrete" option instead. Happens to the best of us! (Apparently there is a workaround where you can remove the hard disk from the machine to make it easier to enter BIOS, then trigger the "Reset to factory defaults" and "Save and exit" options by blindly pressing the right key sequence on the keyboard. It might or might not work for anyone experiencing this.)
    - winrid 5y ago
      Hahaha. What a typo. I didn't know about the workaround. The repair facility didn't either, evidently. It wouldn't even show anything on the screen, or light up the keyboard caps lock etc...
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    Their entire graphics setup on the X1 and P1 laptops is atrocious, and I've definitely bitched about it here before. Basically, you can't turn off GPU without loosing the external HDMI, so you need to leave it on if you use an external monitor. But that eats battery. And you can't easily turn the GPU on/off whenever you "go mobile" - it requires an Xorg restart. There's some software crap you can do (Bumblebee? Primus?) that works on some distros but it's a total pain in the ass on others. There isn't a clear consensus on which to use either, and I haven't found a single sane set of instructions for it anyway. Avoid avoid avoid.
    - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      Isn't it the way Intel designed their reference motherboard?
- liveranga 5y ago
  I'm happy with my System76 Lemur Pro. It's refreshing to buy a nice laptop from a linux vendor who are maintaing their own (ubuntu based) distro and actually shipping a very polished gnome experience. Edit: Forgot to mention they ship with coreboot too.
  - Freak_NL 5y ago
    After two System76 laptops I have now switched to Dell. System76 is good, but it's just too much of a hassle when buying from the EU; particularly when dealing with hardware defects under warranty. After all those years I had hoped System76 would have partnered up with a representative in the EU internal market, but alas. Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way. The XPS 13 (9310) is available with Ubuntu 20.04 installed, but it's not possible to pick it in their Dutch online store like you can in the US one. You can buy it in the Netherlands (and presumably all of the EU) by calling them though. The Dutch Dell salesperson did find a way to configure it that way (with a proper 32GB of RAM too), but that took a bit of prompting and they were genuinely baffled that this option existed and that the configuration tool accepted it (they were cooperative; the knowledge just wasn't available).
    - neverminder 5y ago
      Calling them may be a drag, but when I did so last year, the rep pulled the specs that I've chosen on their webshop and gave me a 5% discount, which is quite a bit considering a £4500 laptop.
    - usr1106 5y ago
      I was forced to use Dell by my previous employer for many years. After a couple of kernel upgrades in the beginning everything was smooth and rock-solid. I bought several unused ones for a symbolic price from that employer and they still serve well as family machines (running Linux), despite being over 10 years old now. Because I don't fiddle with my machine a lot I liked the way you just enter the service tag into their support site and even years later you got all relevent information about the machine including the full configuration when it was built. Recently I had to do support for a new a Dell, some XPS 15 really high end machine. I was disappointed to see that they seem to have closed their Finnish internet store altogether, the links to the resellers are broken, the support page only tells me that the machine has run out of warranty 3 months ago (lasted obviously only 1 year). So no more Dell for me in the future.
- Darmody 5y ago
  I think Slimbook is also a brand that is worth considering.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  I'm going to buy a steam deck and plug a keyboard into it. Perhaps carry around a really nice portable monitor as well.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The Steam deck is certainly an intriguing device, but it isn't even out yet. It will be interesting to see what can be done with its "native" gamepad input and touch screen, might enable some interesting use cases for actual useful work on the field.
- Joff 5y ago
  The Framework laptop seems to be a safe purchase. Even though the company is still young, all the reviews are praising it.
  - distances 5y ago
    Framework is only available in the US now, and no AMD option. Despite all their past shenanigans, I got a Lenovo as they have solid Linux support. Erased Windows from it right away.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    No Linux support yet. Which is a real shame. If you sell an open laptop Linux should be the first OS you support.
    - locusm 5y ago
      I think latest Fedora runs out of the box.
- scns 5y ago
  It depends. If you wan't to run linux, then on your location. If you want to run Windows, i can't help you. As others have allready mentioned, take a look at System76 if you reside in the US. Another option would be https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/ Slimbook was mentioned, they are in the UK IIRC. If you are somewhere else, https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ might have something for you.
  - tome 5y ago
    I have recently become aware of https://laptopwithlinux.com/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/
    - scns 5y ago
      Looks good, thank you for another option.
  - cfinnberg 5y ago
    Actually Slimbook is from Valencia (Spain). But AFAIK they send worldwide. At least I got mine in Finland at a reasonable shipping price.
    - scns 5y ago
      I see, thanks for the correction. didn't check up on them. Had them mistaken for Starlabs, mentioned in your sibling.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Starlabs systems as well.
    - scns 5y ago
      Yes, thank you. Took Slimbook for them cause i didn't check.
  - scns 5y ago
    (edit) Tuxedo is based in germany. Addendum for folks who might have favourited/bookmarked this, contains mainly additions to the excellent comments by others (credit where it is due): Slimbook is actually from Spain, they are the guys who offer the KDE laptop, they donate a part of the price to KDE: https://kde.slimbook.es/ https://kde.slimbook.es/ No idea how they get away with only 1 year of warranty in the EU though. Starlabs is the company i confused Slimbook with, they have 2 laptops on offer: https://starlabs.systems/pages/laptops https://starlabs.systems/pages/laptops Laptop on Linux (https://laptopwithlinux.com/linux-laptops/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/linux-laptops/) looks really good, they are based in the Netherlands. They sell Clevo barebones without additional branding, interesting IMO. They offer a liquid metal by Thermal Grizzly as a paid upgrade instead of Arctic MX-4. Pricy at 47€ but going from 8.5 W/mK to 73 W/mK should be worth it for people who dislike loud laptops.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  I actually have an X280 in my hand. The reason why wanted it was so I would get 5 years of international warranty on it. Turns out most countries don't actually accept the accidental damage coverage from another country(I paid about $600-$700 in coverage, so for the first 3 years it's no better than an AppleCare, which is international as well). Also when I wanted to switch it for an X1C because the new ones came out while I was waiting for the stock to arrive(and well they shipped me the wrong model without LTE). They wanted to charge me 15% restocking fee not only on the device, but also on Tax and Insurance. Currently my touchpad randomly dies when the device goes into sleep. I suspect it's related to some recent firmware update that happened. The amazing premium Lenovo warranty that everyone talks about must have been before my time. But given that I want international coverage, I really don't know what options I have. Currently it seems better to just buy a framework laptop, save my money on the insurance and just pay for parts as I go.
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    For $600-700 you can get a backup laptop.
    - unraveller 5y ago
      Dell lets you pay $100 for a "long-life" one-year extended warranty battery when new batteries are, you guessed it, $100. It's actually the exact same battery your laptop normally comes with only this one refuses to quick charge even after the warranty period is over, no matter if its done low cycles.
  - freemint 5y ago
    The same problem touchpad issue also exists on my Lenovo L380 Yoga. I don't think it is due to firmware issues as the problem existed with the original and the replacement motherboard. I had two repairs done and a good experience. One time a fan and one time a motherboard replacement. Both times the Lenovo comes to you service promised dates were a day off. This was due to a regional holyday they could have scheduled for.
    - 5y ago
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  What a shame. I was about to recommend Dell as an alternative, based on GitLab's public documentation that recommends it for GitLab employees and indicates decent linux support. [1] I made the mistake of sticking with Lenovo due to the expectation of good Linux support, and while most stuff works, I can't say I'm particularly impressed. Aside from a loud fan (not sure if that is due to poor Linux support or just a property of the device), the service in the Lenovo online store was impressively bad. Wrong descriptions of the hardware, insane shipping dates that were pushed out over and over, refusing to simply remove the unavailable component without cancelling the order and going to the back of the queue, and last but not least, Lenovo defrauded me by first having me jump through hoops to claim their 'best price warranty' promise then simply refusing to honor it altogether. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/team-member-enablement/onboarding-access-requests/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/team-m...
  - sigg3 5y ago
    I've 3 ThinkPads and never really dealt with Lenovo. The reason why Linux users love ThinkPads is because they're mostly supported OOB by the kernel (not by Lenovo themselves). This wasn't true of most other laptops for quite a few years. I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous. My point being, it's not really Lenovo supporting Linux but the linux kernel drivers that for a number of years supported ThinkPad OOB where all(?) other brands required a lot of fiddling. (And you probably just need to install thinkfan if you have full speed fans. Check out the ThinkWiki for your models.)
    - caskstrength 5y ago
      > I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous. No, it is not. "Modern standby" on most laptops can't be disabled and will discharge your battery overnight. Also, non-Intel WiFi is buggy 90% of the time. And don't get me started on fingerprint readers...
    - 5y ago
- squarefoot 5y ago
  According to the project at the Github page, the online check has been superseded by a newer one: https://badssl.com/dashboard/ https://badssl.com/dashboard/
- tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
  I've been buying Fujitsu laptop for all of my friends, relatives, and family for the last 10 years, and all the issues I've had is one dead fan and one shitty touchpad. Tough, reliable, no bloatware, "Made in Japan" sticker... why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?!
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?! Probably little to no corporate availability? My past jobs have had Dell or Thinkpads as an option, none has ever had Fujitsu. But now I am interested in it as a personal laptop. What would be the Fujitsu equivalent of a Thinkpad Carbon X1 or a Dell XPS 13?
    - _trampeltier 5y ago
      I have a U939X and I'm very happy with it. Very light (<1kg), a lot of ports, even a Ethernet port. Nice keyboard, full sized cursor buttons, real PgUp, PgDown buttons. Pen and mate touch display. Does run linux without trouble. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U939X-Review-A-business-convertible-with-a-lot-of-functionalities.480248.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U939X-Review-...
      - ianai 5y ago
        Where did you buy it? I get exclusively old/reused machines when searching for Fujitsu laptops. Hardware-wise, these do actually seem very compelling! Like a breath of sane design after a decade of worse and worse design.
        _trampeltier 5y ago
        I'm from switzerland and bought it from Dicitec (digitec.ch). They are not the cheapest, but they run forever. No bloatware, also my moms notebook does still run nice after 10 years. I just swaped the HDD to an SSD some years ago.
    - 5y ago
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  Taiwanese laptops? Asus is a contender in every weight class. Acer maybe too. Or Japanese. I personally don’t like Sony, but they and Fujitsu are alternatives to crapware from the PRC too.
- badjeans 5y ago
  I have a Huawei matebook x pro and I would highly recommend it. Great build quality and 3:2 screen.
- MrPatan 5y ago
  If spyware concerns keep you from Lenovo and you then consider Huawei.... I don't know, man.
  - jsilence 5y ago
    I read that as a 'tongue in cheek' comment.
- nsizx 5y ago
  Nah, it's not. Buy a MacBook.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Using preinstalled OS is weird. Just reinstall it front the scratch. Issue with Lenovo was that their BIOS injected their malware anyway. Dell is not so advanced.
- sneak 5y ago
  The M1 macs are insanely amazing machines. I look forward to using Linux on them shortly.
aorth 5y ago
Honest question: how does this firmware spyware affect Linux? If I get a ThinkPad and overwrite the pre-installed OS with my own, would spyware like this be able to do anything on Linux? I guess they could do the same thing, extract some binary from the firmware pre-boot and inject it to /boot to mess with the boot process... but does that give them viable persistence and ability to do stuff in Linux once the OS is booted?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The "anti-theft" firmware exploits a Windows misfeature where the BIOS can include stuff that Windows will simply install automatically at boot. So it wouldn't directly affect Linux just yet. But firmware can do other shenanigans that would render any system fundamentally insecure (e.g. via SMM).
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    This is something that could be addressed by coreboot/libreboot, but it will probably require some time until most recent models are supported. https://www.coreboot.org/ https://www.coreboot.org/
- jopsen 5y ago
  Ideally it should if you format your laptop. But the problem is working with a vendor that has a track record for compromising its customers. How do you know they aren't inserting backdoors in the firmware? The problem is the lack of trust. To be fair, I'm still spotting an X1, but next time I might consider librem, or something else.
  - gonzo41 5y ago
    Everyone who's calling out Lenovo should be calling out apple and talking about how they can't use any apple product lines, for the same security concerns. Nothing is safe!
    - jopsen 5y ago
stanislavb 5y ago
Yup, no one should trust them given their reputation of installing spyware + being Chinese owned. I thing Dell is amongst the top choices nowadays with regards to Linux laptops. P.s. I miss the old Thinkpads (the IBM era)
- herbst 5y ago
  I have a t420 as my daily driver. Nothing to miss, it's still a good device by any standards
squarefoot 5y ago
I wouldn't use the preinstalled OS anyway, no matter if it's Linux or not. The good thing about them offering Linux is that they must ensure hardware compatibility (though I don't recall it having been a problem with Thinkpads) and be ready to give some support, and I also would expect the machine to cost a bit less for using a free OS.
jeremiahhs 5y ago
Yep. Never ever buy Lenovo. Personally, I buy HP and sometimes Dell. But Lenovo is forever off my buy list.
ekianjo 5y ago
This only concerned Windows and non thinkpads from Lenovo. Dont spread FUD.
usr1106 5y ago
This thread is about Linux. I know they have been caught for spyware on Windows more than once. Has there been anything similar bad as worse Intel ME by Lenovo on lower level? (Serious question, I don't know) I would buy a Linux machine from them mainly to know that drivers exist for all components and not to pay the Microsoft tax (symbolic reason, I don't think you really see a difference in price). I would still install my own Linux as I prefer it. So their spyware would not apply to me, I'd hope. Of course ideally one should not support shitty vendors. Unfortunately all of them are, just in different ways. Edit: Well, maybe System76 is not shitty. But they are expensive and still seem to have no European support whatsoever. So not an option for me either.
- paulcarroty 5y ago
  Do you think Linux magically will stop them from integrating UEFI backdoors or something hardware-related? I don't wanna test it and don't buy Lenovo.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    Technically it won't stop them. But have they been caught for it? I hope lack/price of skills will stop them. Windows programming is cheap compared to UEFI programming. As long as they can address >90% of their spying "needs" by Windows I hope they stick to that. It's all about trust. But whom should I trust? I don't trust Intel for their ME, their Meltdown and whatever. But still I have to use them in real life.
DGopher29 5y ago
really
markrobin 5y ago
you should move from china
Stratoscope 5y ago
That makeuseof article from six years ago has little or no relevance to any new ThinkPad you might buy today. Lenovo's consumer and business divisions are best thought of as nearly separate companies within one conglomerate. Lenovo (formerly Legend) sold laptops and desktops for years before they acquired IBM's personal computer business. But they didn't just buy the ThinkPad name, the people came along with it. The old Lenovo became the consumer group, and the IBM team became the business group. It's very common to find different approaches on hardware and software between the two lines. As an obvious example, every ThinkPad (with some recent exceptions) has a TrackPoint, but no other Lenovo machine does. This applies to software too. If you see something bad that happened on Lenovo consumer machines years ago, it's very unlikely that it affected ThinkPads. It just wasn't the same people making these kinds of decisions. The ThinkPad team's bread and butter is not individuals like you or me, it's corporate customers who buy hundreds or thousands of machines at a time - and have IT staff who scrutinize the hardware and software. The 2015 makeuseof article made three points. Let me address them in reverse order. (3) BIOS-Based Malware. The source for that reporting is this Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenovo-used-windows-anti-theft-feature-to-install-persistent-crapware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenov... Lenovo followed up quickly with a description of the security issue and provided a removal tool: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/lse_bios_notebook https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/lse_bios_n... Near the bottom of the page is a list of the affected models. Note that they were only consumer machines, not ThinkPads. (2) SuperFish. This was really stupid on Lenovo's part, but again, it was the consumer team who did this. The ThinkPad team would never have allowed something like that, and didn't. (1) Lenovo Is Spying On You. Some guy bought two refurbished ThinkPads in 2014 and claims they had some Windows spyware. And this is somehow supposed to have anything to do with a Linux ThinkPad you may buy today? Give me a break. Full disclosure: I am a major ThinkPad fan. I got my first one in 1998, and I have four of them within arm's reach right now: an X1 Extreme and X1 Carbon from work, and my personal P1 and old Yoga 460. Also have a mostly retired W520 and X220 Tablet in the other room, and a few older busted machines. I'm always happy to talk ThinkPads with anyone. :-)
- mrtweetyhack 5y ago
  You're also glad to have your privacy invaded
luke2m 5y ago
This is why you always install your own OS on a new computer.
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  They used rootkits

young_unixer 5y ago

This is the only thing stopping me from buying an X1 Carbon. I had decided to buy a Dell Latitude instead, but apparently Dell did something similar [1], so now I don't know what to buy. Maybe a Huawei? AFAIK they haven't been caught in these shenanigans yet, but I still don't feel comfortable with them for some reason. God, the laptop market is awful. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-breaking-https https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/superfish-20-now-dell-...

remuskaos 5y ago
Have you considered a Framework? frame.work, mostly open, modular laptop
- ekianjo 5y ago
  No official Linux for Framework yet. While its certainly possible to install it.
donw 5y ago
I'm looking at a Librem. System76 also does laptops, as does Pine.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  I'd like to see Pine offer a larger screen and battery.
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    PineBook is fine the way it is, but the keyboard is abysmal, that's the only thing that made me switch from it as daily driver to my old Frankenpad.
winrid 5y ago
I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug. No reset can fix it. They have to replace the motherboard. They had it four months before I finally got them to just replace the machine.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug. See, you should have picked the "Discrete" option instead. Happens to the best of us! (Apparently there is a workaround where you can remove the hard disk from the machine to make it easier to enter BIOS, then trigger the "Reset to factory defaults" and "Save and exit" options by blindly pressing the right key sequence on the keyboard. It might or might not work for anyone experiencing this.)
  - winrid 5y ago
    Hahaha. What a typo. I didn't know about the workaround. The repair facility didn't either, evidently. It wouldn't even show anything on the screen, or light up the keyboard caps lock etc...
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  Their entire graphics setup on the X1 and P1 laptops is atrocious, and I've definitely bitched about it here before. Basically, you can't turn off GPU without loosing the external HDMI, so you need to leave it on if you use an external monitor. But that eats battery. And you can't easily turn the GPU on/off whenever you "go mobile" - it requires an Xorg restart. There's some software crap you can do (Bumblebee? Primus?) that works on some distros but it's a total pain in the ass on others. There isn't a clear consensus on which to use either, and I haven't found a single sane set of instructions for it anyway. Avoid avoid avoid.
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    Isn't it the way Intel designed their reference motherboard?
liveranga 5y ago
I'm happy with my System76 Lemur Pro. It's refreshing to buy a nice laptop from a linux vendor who are maintaing their own (ubuntu based) distro and actually shipping a very polished gnome experience. Edit: Forgot to mention they ship with coreboot too.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  After two System76 laptops I have now switched to Dell. System76 is good, but it's just too much of a hassle when buying from the EU; particularly when dealing with hardware defects under warranty. After all those years I had hoped System76 would have partnered up with a representative in the EU internal market, but alas. Dell is also acting corporately weird by the way. The XPS 13 (9310) is available with Ubuntu 20.04 installed, but it's not possible to pick it in their Dutch online store like you can in the US one. You can buy it in the Netherlands (and presumably all of the EU) by calling them though. The Dutch Dell salesperson did find a way to configure it that way (with a proper 32GB of RAM too), but that took a bit of prompting and they were genuinely baffled that this option existed and that the configuration tool accepted it (they were cooperative; the knowledge just wasn't available).
  - neverminder 5y ago
    Calling them may be a drag, but when I did so last year, the rep pulled the specs that I've chosen on their webshop and gave me a 5% discount, which is quite a bit considering a £4500 laptop.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    I was forced to use Dell by my previous employer for many years. After a couple of kernel upgrades in the beginning everything was smooth and rock-solid. I bought several unused ones for a symbolic price from that employer and they still serve well as family machines (running Linux), despite being over 10 years old now. Because I don't fiddle with my machine a lot I liked the way you just enter the service tag into their support site and even years later you got all relevent information about the machine including the full configuration when it was built. Recently I had to do support for a new a Dell, some XPS 15 really high end machine. I was disappointed to see that they seem to have closed their Finnish internet store altogether, the links to the resellers are broken, the support page only tells me that the machine has run out of warranty 3 months ago (lasted obviously only 1 year). So no more Dell for me in the future.
Darmody 5y ago
I think Slimbook is also a brand that is worth considering.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
I'm going to buy a steam deck and plug a keyboard into it. Perhaps carry around a really nice portable monitor as well.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The Steam deck is certainly an intriguing device, but it isn't even out yet. It will be interesting to see what can be done with its "native" gamepad input and touch screen, might enable some interesting use cases for actual useful work on the field.
Joff 5y ago
The Framework laptop seems to be a safe purchase. Even though the company is still young, all the reviews are praising it.
- distances 5y ago
  Framework is only available in the US now, and no AMD option. Despite all their past shenanigans, I got a Lenovo as they have solid Linux support. Erased Windows from it right away.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  No Linux support yet. Which is a real shame. If you sell an open laptop Linux should be the first OS you support.
  - locusm 5y ago
    I think latest Fedora runs out of the box.
scns 5y ago
It depends. If you wan't to run linux, then on your location. If you want to run Windows, i can't help you. As others have allready mentioned, take a look at System76 if you reside in the US. Another option would be https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/ Slimbook was mentioned, they are in the UK IIRC. If you are somewhere else, https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ might have something for you.
- tome 5y ago
  I have recently become aware of https://laptopwithlinux.com/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/
  - scns 5y ago
    Looks good, thank you for another option.
- cfinnberg 5y ago
  Actually Slimbook is from Valencia (Spain). But AFAIK they send worldwide. At least I got mine in Finland at a reasonable shipping price.
  - scns 5y ago
    I see, thanks for the correction. didn't check up on them. Had them mistaken for Starlabs, mentioned in your sibling.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Starlabs systems as well.
  - scns 5y ago
    Yes, thank you. Took Slimbook for them cause i didn't check.
- scns 5y ago
  (edit) Tuxedo is based in germany. Addendum for folks who might have favourited/bookmarked this, contains mainly additions to the excellent comments by others (credit where it is due): Slimbook is actually from Spain, they are the guys who offer the KDE laptop, they donate a part of the price to KDE: https://kde.slimbook.es/ https://kde.slimbook.es/ No idea how they get away with only 1 year of warranty in the EU though. Starlabs is the company i confused Slimbook with, they have 2 laptops on offer: https://starlabs.systems/pages/laptops https://starlabs.systems/pages/laptops Laptop on Linux (https://laptopwithlinux.com/linux-laptops/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/linux-laptops/) looks really good, they are based in the Netherlands. They sell Clevo barebones without additional branding, interesting IMO. They offer a liquid metal by Thermal Grizzly as a paid upgrade instead of Arctic MX-4. Pricy at 47€ but going from 8.5 W/mK to 73 W/mK should be worth it for people who dislike loud laptops.
rjzzleep 5y ago
I actually have an X280 in my hand. The reason why wanted it was so I would get 5 years of international warranty on it. Turns out most countries don't actually accept the accidental damage coverage from another country(I paid about $600-$700 in coverage, so for the first 3 years it's no better than an AppleCare, which is international as well). Also when I wanted to switch it for an X1C because the new ones came out while I was waiting for the stock to arrive(and well they shipped me the wrong model without LTE). They wanted to charge me 15% restocking fee not only on the device, but also on Tax and Insurance. Currently my touchpad randomly dies when the device goes into sleep. I suspect it's related to some recent firmware update that happened. The amazing premium Lenovo warranty that everyone talks about must have been before my time. But given that I want international coverage, I really don't know what options I have. Currently it seems better to just buy a framework laptop, save my money on the insurance and just pay for parts as I go.
- sam_lowry_ 5y ago
  For $600-700 you can get a backup laptop.
  - unraveller 5y ago
    Dell lets you pay $100 for a "long-life" one-year extended warranty battery when new batteries are, you guessed it, $100. It's actually the exact same battery your laptop normally comes with only this one refuses to quick charge even after the warranty period is over, no matter if its done low cycles.
- freemint 5y ago
  The same problem touchpad issue also exists on my Lenovo L380 Yoga. I don't think it is due to firmware issues as the problem existed with the original and the replacement motherboard. I had two repairs done and a good experience. One time a fan and one time a motherboard replacement. Both times the Lenovo comes to you service promised dates were a day off. This was due to a regional holyday they could have scheduled for.
  - 5y ago
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
What a shame. I was about to recommend Dell as an alternative, based on GitLab's public documentation that recommends it for GitLab employees and indicates decent linux support. [1] I made the mistake of sticking with Lenovo due to the expectation of good Linux support, and while most stuff works, I can't say I'm particularly impressed. Aside from a loud fan (not sure if that is due to poor Linux support or just a property of the device), the service in the Lenovo online store was impressively bad. Wrong descriptions of the hardware, insane shipping dates that were pushed out over and over, refusing to simply remove the unavailable component without cancelling the order and going to the back of the queue, and last but not least, Lenovo defrauded me by first having me jump through hoops to claim their 'best price warranty' promise then simply refusing to honor it altogether. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/team-member-enablement/onboarding-access-requests/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/team-m...
- sigg3 5y ago
  I've 3 ThinkPads and never really dealt with Lenovo. The reason why Linux users love ThinkPads is because they're mostly supported OOB by the kernel (not by Lenovo themselves). This wasn't true of most other laptops for quite a few years. I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous. My point being, it's not really Lenovo supporting Linux but the linux kernel drivers that for a number of years supported ThinkPad OOB where all(?) other brands required a lot of fiddling. (And you probably just need to install thinkfan if you have full speed fans. Check out the ThinkWiki for your models.)
  - caskstrength 5y ago
    > I bought my T61 in 2008, and the ThinkPad recommendation was old then. Things change with time. I believe most laptops these days are rather standardized, so linux support is ubiquitous. No, it is not. "Modern standby" on most laptops can't be disabled and will discharge your battery overnight. Also, non-Intel WiFi is buggy 90% of the time. And don't get me started on fingerprint readers...
  - 5y ago
squarefoot 5y ago
According to the project at the Github page, the online check has been superseded by a newer one: https://badssl.com/dashboard/ https://badssl.com/dashboard/
tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
I've been buying Fujitsu laptop for all of my friends, relatives, and family for the last 10 years, and all the issues I've had is one dead fan and one shitty touchpad. Tough, reliable, no bloatware, "Made in Japan" sticker... why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?!
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > why does nobody in the US talk about Fujitsu laptops?! Probably little to no corporate availability? My past jobs have had Dell or Thinkpads as an option, none has ever had Fujitsu. But now I am interested in it as a personal laptop. What would be the Fujitsu equivalent of a Thinkpad Carbon X1 or a Dell XPS 13?
  - _trampeltier 5y ago
    I have a U939X and I'm very happy with it. Very light (<1kg), a lot of ports, even a Ethernet port. Nice keyboard, full sized cursor buttons, real PgUp, PgDown buttons. Pen and mate touch display. Does run linux without trouble. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U939X-Review-A-business-convertible-with-a-lot-of-functionalities.480248.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-Lifebook-U939X-Review-...
    - ianai 5y ago
      Where did you buy it? I get exclusively old/reused machines when searching for Fujitsu laptops. Hardware-wise, these do actually seem very compelling! Like a breath of sane design after a decade of worse and worse design.
      - _trampeltier 5y ago
        I'm from switzerland and bought it from Dicitec (digitec.ch). They are not the cheapest, but they run forever. No bloatware, also my moms notebook does still run nice after 10 years. I just swaped the HDD to an SSD some years ago.
  - 5y ago
MagnumOpus 5y ago
Taiwanese laptops? Asus is a contender in every weight class. Acer maybe too. Or Japanese. I personally don’t like Sony, but they and Fujitsu are alternatives to crapware from the PRC too.
badjeans 5y ago
I have a Huawei matebook x pro and I would highly recommend it. Great build quality and 3:2 screen.
MrPatan 5y ago
If spyware concerns keep you from Lenovo and you then consider Huawei.... I don't know, man.
- jsilence 5y ago
  I read that as a 'tongue in cheek' comment.
nsizx 5y ago
Nah, it's not. Buy a MacBook.
vbezhenar 5y ago
Using preinstalled OS is weird. Just reinstall it front the scratch. Issue with Lenovo was that their BIOS injected their malware anyway. Dell is not so advanced.
sneak 5y ago
The M1 macs are insanely amazing machines. I look forward to using Linux on them shortly.

aorth 5y ago

Honest question: how does this firmware spyware affect Linux? If I get a ThinkPad and overwrite the pre-installed OS with my own, would spyware like this be able to do anything on Linux? I guess they could do the same thing, extract some binary from the firmware pre-boot and inject it to /boot to mess with the boot process... but does that give them viable persistence and ability to do stuff in Linux once the OS is booted?

zozbot234 5y ago
The "anti-theft" firmware exploits a Windows misfeature where the BIOS can include stuff that Windows will simply install automatically at boot. So it wouldn't directly affect Linux just yet. But firmware can do other shenanigans that would render any system fundamentally insecure (e.g. via SMM).
- squarefoot 5y ago
  This is something that could be addressed by coreboot/libreboot, but it will probably require some time until most recent models are supported. https://www.coreboot.org/ https://www.coreboot.org/
jopsen 5y ago
Ideally it should if you format your laptop. But the problem is working with a vendor that has a track record for compromising its customers. How do you know they aren't inserting backdoors in the firmware? The problem is the lack of trust. To be fair, I'm still spotting an X1, but next time I might consider librem, or something else.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  Everyone who's calling out Lenovo should be calling out apple and talking about how they can't use any apple product lines, for the same security concerns. Nothing is safe!
  - jopsen 5y ago

stanislavb 5y ago

Yup, no one should trust them given their reputation of installing spyware + being Chinese owned. I thing Dell is amongst the top choices nowadays with regards to Linux laptops. P.s. I miss the old Thinkpads (the IBM era)

herbst 5y ago
I have a t420 as my daily driver. Nothing to miss, it's still a good device by any standards

squarefoot 5y ago

I wouldn't use the preinstalled OS anyway, no matter if it's Linux or not. The good thing about them offering Linux is that they must ensure hardware compatibility (though I don't recall it having been a problem with Thinkpads) and be ready to give some support, and I also would expect the machine to cost a bit less for using a free OS.

jeremiahhs 5y ago

Yep. Never ever buy Lenovo. Personally, I buy HP and sometimes Dell. But Lenovo is forever off my buy list.

ekianjo 5y ago

This only concerned Windows and non thinkpads from Lenovo. Dont spread FUD.

usr1106 5y ago

This thread is about Linux. I know they have been caught for spyware on Windows more than once. Has there been anything similar bad as worse Intel ME by Lenovo on lower level? (Serious question, I don't know) I would buy a Linux machine from them mainly to know that drivers exist for all components and not to pay the Microsoft tax (symbolic reason, I don't think you really see a difference in price). I would still install my own Linux as I prefer it. So their spyware would not apply to me, I'd hope. Of course ideally one should not support shitty vendors. Unfortunately all of them are, just in different ways. Edit: Well, maybe System76 is not shitty. But they are expensive and still seem to have no European support whatsoever. So not an option for me either.

paulcarroty 5y ago
Do you think Linux magically will stop them from integrating UEFI backdoors or something hardware-related? I don't wanna test it and don't buy Lenovo.
- usr1106 5y ago
  Technically it won't stop them. But have they been caught for it? I hope lack/price of skills will stop them. Windows programming is cheap compared to UEFI programming. As long as they can address >90% of their spying "needs" by Windows I hope they stick to that. It's all about trust. But whom should I trust? I don't trust Intel for their ME, their Meltdown and whatever. But still I have to use them in real life.

DGopher29 5y ago

really

markrobin 5y ago

you should move from china

Stratoscope 5y ago

That makeuseof article from six years ago has little or no relevance to any new ThinkPad you might buy today. Lenovo's consumer and business divisions are best thought of as nearly separate companies within one conglomerate. Lenovo (formerly Legend) sold laptops and desktops for years before they acquired IBM's personal computer business. But they didn't just buy the ThinkPad name, the people came along with it. The old Lenovo became the consumer group, and the IBM team became the business group. It's very common to find different approaches on hardware and software between the two lines. As an obvious example, every ThinkPad (with some recent exceptions) has a TrackPoint, but no other Lenovo machine does. This applies to software too. If you see something bad that happened on Lenovo consumer machines years ago, it's very unlikely that it affected ThinkPads. It just wasn't the same people making these kinds of decisions. The ThinkPad team's bread and butter is not individuals like you or me, it's corporate customers who buy hundreds or thousands of machines at a time - and have IT staff who scrutinize the hardware and software. The 2015 makeuseof article made three points. Let me address them in reverse order. (3) BIOS-Based Malware. The source for that reporting is this Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenovo-used-windows-anti-theft-feature-to-install-persistent-crapware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenov... Lenovo followed up quickly with a description of the security issue and provided a removal tool: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/lse_bios_notebook https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/lse_bios_n... Near the bottom of the page is a list of the affected models. Note that they were only consumer machines, not ThinkPads. (2) SuperFish. This was really stupid on Lenovo's part, but again, it was the consumer team who did this. The ThinkPad team would never have allowed something like that, and didn't. (1) Lenovo Is Spying On You. Some guy bought two refurbished ThinkPads in 2014 and claims they had some Windows spyware. And this is somehow supposed to have anything to do with a Linux ThinkPad you may buy today? Give me a break. Full disclosure: I am a major ThinkPad fan. I got my first one in 1998, and I have four of them within arm's reach right now: an X1 Extreme and X1 Carbon from work, and my personal P1 and old Yoga 460. Also have a mostly retired W520 and X220 Tablet in the other room, and a few older busted machines. I'm always happy to talk ThinkPads with anyone. :-)

mrtweetyhack 5y ago
You're also glad to have your privacy invaded

luke2m 5y ago

This is why you always install your own OS on a new computer.

faeriechangling 5y ago
They used rootkits