Recommendations for good laptops?

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I only want something for, like, online shopping (but including ordering photo books and whatnot) and emails. Even for that, the "Linux on an old machine" solution is just not satisfactory. It takes too long to load web pages even if I have only 2-3 tabs. That's why I clicked on this thread!

A Chromebook should do everything you want.

Has anyone used one regularly? I have used them in meetings and found them clunky, but perhaps I would get used to things like scrolling up with practice?

[Syonyk]

Has anyone used one regularly? I have used them in meetings and found them clunky, but perhaps I would get used to things like scrolling up with practice?

I've used them extensively over the years.  What are you trying to do with it?  Most of them support two finger scrolling - I've never had issues with scrolling.

The cheapest of the cheap are a bit rough to use sometimes, but a few-year-old higher end model can be had for the cost of a new cheap one, and they're quite capable machines.  Ideally get one with 4GB RAM - the difference between 2GB and 4GB is very noticeable.

[Rubic]

Some updates on an old thread:

I've converted an Acer chromebook to run GalliumOS -- an Xubuntu derivative -- by flashing SeaBIOS to run Linux instead of ChromeOS. This worked pretty well for me on a bicycle trip I took last year.  Cheap and lightweight, yet enough horsepower (4GB ram) that I could still ship production code.  I'm still using it as my home computer.

Recently I wanted to experiment with Guix, but it won't run on most laptops with proprietary blobs.  So I picked up a ThinkPad X220 from ebay for $155 (8GB, 1TB HD) and replaced the bios with coreboot, and then installed a generic wifi chip ($8).  It probably won't be my daily driver, but as an alternative laptop it's pretty cool and runs only libre/free software.

(My keyboards cost more than my laptops.)

[dang1]

I use a desktop at work but personally, everything I do except downloading media is done through my tablet. I don’t miss the laptop at all.

actually with my touch screen flip chromebook which runs Android apps and galaxy s9 plus phone, i dont need a tablet

[ketchup]

I use a desktop at work but personally, everything I do except downloading media is done through my tablet. I don’t miss the laptop at all.

actually with my touch screen flip chromebook which runs Android apps and galaxy s9 plus phone, i dont need a tablet

I see no purpose for a tablet, never have.  You guys can pry my laptop out of my cold dead hands.

My own tech primary-use-devices "progress":

1996-2007: shared family desktop PC
2007: crappy laptop + shared family desktop
2008: crappy laptop + good desktop
2009-2011: OK laptop + good desktop + flip phone
2011-2016: decent laptop + shared good desktop with GF + el cheapo smartphone
2016-2017: decent laptop + shared outrageously good desktop with GF (though it's really hers) + decent smartphone
2018-now: good laptop + shared outrageously good desktop with GF (though it's really hers) + decent smartphone

The smartphone has definitely made me less likely to bring my laptop along somewhere.  But I still think tablets are dumb.  There's nothing I'd want to use one for that wouldn't be better on either a small laptop or a smartphone.