- I’ll buy used, so don’t want latest and greatest. It won’t be my main laptop.
- to run linux obviously.
- good battery life, light, not too small to use, but large enough to type on (obviously can do without numeric keypad). not too fragile!
- I’ll be doing some light python work, perhaps some c/c++ but I’m not after a workhorse, just something for quickly fixing bugs, or making notes on
- sub 200 GBP / 250USD I guess
I’d be interested in hearing recommendations, and also what to avoid!
I think what just_another_person means that Lenovo, specially at the beginning when they got the Think-brand from IBM years ago, tried to ride the brand and released sub-par laptops under ThinkPad -brand. At least some of the L-series were closer to what you could get from your local supermarket than actual work machines.
The brand-riding is now greatly less and the crappy ones generally aren’t the models you can find refurbished from 3rd party retailer. I’m currently using T495 and it was ~300€ from a sale couple years ago, now you apparently can get L13 for less than that. And of course, when you buy used units do your homework and only make deal with a reputable seller, there’s always an option that previous owner didn’t treat the thing nicely.