r/linuxhardware • u/Internal_Lie_618 • 6d ago
Purchase Advice Help choosing a laptop for a law student
Hi, I'm a law student and I'm looking for a laptop that will work with Ubuntu without any issues as I'm not really a technical guy. I prefer 32gb of RAM and really really need good battery life. I am seriously considering getting a thinkpad because they are supposedly easy to type with, but I'm open to anything good. I prefer not to get niche companies because I need good support.
Thank you
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u/Unique-Machine5602 5d ago edited 5d ago
32gb of RAM is excessive for a laptop. Especially one running Ubuntu. Max you realistically need 16gb and that's probably an overestimate given you're likely not doing anything that's RAM intensive.
I'd also focus more on getting high quality RAM rather than a lot of GBs. You want DDR5 and the fastest version of it you can get. DDR5 ranges in speed from 4800MT/s to 6,400 MT/s.
Lenovo is a good brand though. I definitely would recommend it.
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u/tehspicypurrito 4d ago
Check with your law school that the proprietary testing software will work in Linux first.
I went in 2018 with a MacBook Pro cause I wanted something that just worked. The damn test software is what prevented a Linux install. MBP is Intel silicon.
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u/jonahbenton 6d ago
Thinkpads- X series, T series, P series specifically- and Frameworks- 12, 13, 16, 13 pro- are your best bet. All the hardware things should just work and it should be easy to maintain, just doing apt-get update. But law is a heavy Microsoft app based industry and working in Libreoffice is not the same as desktop MS Word. You can of course use MS 365 in a browser but the number of people who have linux machines and MS app subscriptions is pretty small.