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If you are looking for a Linux compatible laptop that is somewhat similar to MacBook Air, look for Asus Zenbook UX* line. Excellent display, good but not awesom

If you are looking for a Linux compatible laptop that is somewhat similar to MacBook Air, look for Asus Zenbook UX* line. Excellent display, good but not awesome battery life, fast hardware and really good keyboard for its size. I've bought two UX31A's, one for myself almost two years a go and one for my dad last Christmas. Everything else works straight away with Ubuntu other than ambient light sensor. I think there isn't any workarounds for that. I got Lenovo X1 Carbon (2014, Touch) from work couple months ago and while it has better CPU, bigger SSD, more RAM and better GPU than my two year old Zenbook, it's just worse. The Zenbook lid can be opened with one hand, Lenovo requires both hands. Lenovo has too heavy display and too light keyboard part combined with too tight hinges, so when trying to open the lid with one hand, the whole computer lifts up from the table. Also, Zenbooks have normal keyboards. I hate the keyboard on X1 Carbon. Instead of normal function keys, there's are adaptive touch keyboard thingy that tries to figure out what kind of special buttons should be shown in there with each program, but it just fails. And feels like... well it does not have real buttons, so I can't feel a thing while using it. Also, delete button is in the upper right corner in X1 Carbon. And backspace is on the left hand side of it. And that makes no sense. Backspace is used way more often than delete, so it should be easier to hit. And upper right corner is easier to hit than almost upper right corner. And Zenbooks have normal arrow keys that are not too crowded. Lenovo decided to put page up and down right next to up arrow. When ever I accidentally hit page up or down instead of up arrow, I feel like I'm totally lost. And almost forgot, Zenbooks have good touch pads, X1 Carbon touch pad moves up and down, so it's like a huge button. Really annoying when you just move your thumb on it and accidentally press too hard, so it registers a mouse click even tough you did not raise your finger. So, in short Asus Zenbook UX* laptops pack awesome hardware, work with Linux pretty much perfectly and have really good build quality.

allegory 12y ago
Or just buy an older ThinkPad X201 / X220 / T410 with 1440x900 display and get a new 9-cell battery. The things are really cheap, have a proper keyboard, are bomb proof, every part is replaceable for minimal cost, they are 100% supported by all operating systems, have excellent docking support and you can just sling them in your bag. Mine lives down the back of the sofa cushions when not in use. I knackered the headphone port on mine from overuse. 5 mins on ebay, £7 spent, new board installed in 5 mins with a Philips screwdriver and the service manual. For every day tasks, I use an i5 X201 with 8Gb of RAM and a Samsung 840 Pro and it's no different to the stacked HP Z620 I have in the office to use. If I need more power then I use that remotely. Totally awesome machine and I paid virtually nothing for it. PC tech is moving so slowly now it's a better investment to buy two older machines so you have a backup unit than one new one if you ask me.
- tonyedgecombe 12y ago
  I just bought a second hand X240 and am really pleased with it, the only thing it lacks for me is a backlit keyboard.
  - possibilistic 12y ago
    I've always been curious--what's the use case for the backlit keyboard? At the surface, backlighting seems largely aesthetic to me; I have muscle memory of my keyboard layout and do not need to reference the keys at all while in the dark. (A huge tactile cue is the TrackPoint in the keyboard.) I understand that there are lots of variables: not everyone uses their machine as frequently or may not have a keyboard amenable to this. Does anyone here feel backlit keyboards are essential? Why or why not? What is the consensus rationales?
    - allegory 12y ago
      Anecdote. I had a 2011 MBP with backlit keyboard. Never used it once. In fact, the machine ended up with windows on it because MacOS made me want to smash the thing (despite being a Unix guy) and the Boot Camp drivers didn't switch the backlight off reliably which annoyed the crap out of me. If you're sitting in a place dark enough to need it, it's not good for you staring at the contrast between the screen and darkness so turn the light on. Plus I don't look at the keyboard anyway.
      - Fuxy 12y ago
        I never understood the turning the lights on bit I found bright ambient environments hurt my eyes more when trying to concentrate looking at the screen then dark environments. Then again most websites I use regularly have been re-skinned to have dark themes since white hurts my eyes regardless of the ambient environment.
        allegory 12y ago
        Sounds like you need to see the optician. I had the same trouble and they sorted it :)
irv 12y ago
Yes, I have the 2013 model of the X1 carbon and it's about perfect for me (running Debian). But I have no idea why they ruined the keyboard on the latest model.
Fuxy 12y ago
There's hacks and patches on Arch Linux for getting all sensors working I believe. I have the Asus Zenbook UX301LA see 'helpful links' at the bottom for your model. I would argue their not the best with Linux since they have a lot of fancy sensors that don't work out of the box but their quality is excellent. [1]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_UX301LA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_UX301LA [2]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31...

allegory 12y ago

Or just buy an older ThinkPad X201 / X220 / T410 with 1440x900 display and get a new 9-cell battery. The things are really cheap, have a proper keyboard, are bomb proof, every part is replaceable for minimal cost, they are 100% supported by all operating systems, have excellent docking support and you can just sling them in your bag. Mine lives down the back of the sofa cushions when not in use. I knackered the headphone port on mine from overuse. 5 mins on ebay, £7 spent, new board installed in 5 mins with a Philips screwdriver and the service manual. For every day tasks, I use an i5 X201 with 8Gb of RAM and a Samsung 840 Pro and it's no different to the stacked HP Z620 I have in the office to use. If I need more power then I use that remotely. Totally awesome machine and I paid virtually nothing for it. PC tech is moving so slowly now it's a better investment to buy two older machines so you have a backup unit than one new one if you ask me.

tonyedgecombe 12y ago
I just bought a second hand X240 and am really pleased with it, the only thing it lacks for me is a backlit keyboard.
- possibilistic 12y ago
  I've always been curious--what's the use case for the backlit keyboard? At the surface, backlighting seems largely aesthetic to me; I have muscle memory of my keyboard layout and do not need to reference the keys at all while in the dark. (A huge tactile cue is the TrackPoint in the keyboard.) I understand that there are lots of variables: not everyone uses their machine as frequently or may not have a keyboard amenable to this. Does anyone here feel backlit keyboards are essential? Why or why not? What is the consensus rationales?
  - allegory 12y ago
    Anecdote. I had a 2011 MBP with backlit keyboard. Never used it once. In fact, the machine ended up with windows on it because MacOS made me want to smash the thing (despite being a Unix guy) and the Boot Camp drivers didn't switch the backlight off reliably which annoyed the crap out of me. If you're sitting in a place dark enough to need it, it's not good for you staring at the contrast between the screen and darkness so turn the light on. Plus I don't look at the keyboard anyway.
    - Fuxy 12y ago
      I never understood the turning the lights on bit I found bright ambient environments hurt my eyes more when trying to concentrate looking at the screen then dark environments. Then again most websites I use regularly have been re-skinned to have dark themes since white hurts my eyes regardless of the ambient environment.
      - allegory 12y ago
        Sounds like you need to see the optician. I had the same trouble and they sorted it :)

irv 12y ago

Yes, I have the 2013 model of the X1 carbon and it's about perfect for me (running Debian). But I have no idea why they ruined the keyboard on the latest model.

Fuxy 12y ago

There's hacks and patches on Arch Linux for getting all sensors working I believe. I have the Asus Zenbook UX301LA see 'helpful links' at the bottom for your model. I would argue their not the best with Linux since they have a lot of fancy sensors that don't work out of the box but their quality is excellent. [1]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_UX301LA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_UX301LA [2]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31...