- 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!
Horrible cooling is the last couple of years of Intel MacBooks. Nothing to do with Linux.
If you run them with a “balanced profile in Linux, they run a bit slower but the fan stays quiet. It is probably what macOS does.
Before 2019 or so, they run awesome. I mean, the newer ones are faster so they run great too even in balanced. I guess it depends what you pay for them.
The older ones are crazy cheap these days and, in my view, great value.