Linux

Give me something less than 15k INR and I might consider it

People will say many things. But at the end of the day, it’s the keyboard. I honestly cannot think of a company that does keyboards better than Lenovo (formerly IBM).

Bought my last few laptops from Tuxedo. Their 13" infinibook can be quite noisy, but I'm having a blast with the Polaris I bought last year.

The X1 Carbon series is popular with Linux kernel devs, so it's had a lot of TLC. It makes a big difference for some stuff like sleeping. My Thinkpads handled sleeping really well, and I could expect to leave it sitting for at least a week and come back to somewhat low battery. My Framework laptops, as nice as they are otherwise, will drain the battery during sleep in 24h, no matter what I've tried. The situation is apparently better on the newer-gen Framework laptops, and IMO Framework's open nature will lead to a similar situation to Thinkpads, but it's not quite there yet.

Apart from sleep, I've heard complaints about the manufacturing quality of some of the other options, but haven't used them myself so can't verify. Might be why some people recommend the Thinkpads, though. I do really like the quality of the Framework, and I'd recommend people take a look at them over Thinkpads now, unless they care about sleep battery usage.

To chime in with some of the other answers, price also makes a difference. Thinkpads have been around long enough that there's a nice large used market. I got a rock-solid Thinkpad T480 for a few hundred dollars from some dude on Craigslist. My Framework is higher-specced and was paid for by my work, but it still starts out ~$800. I think it'll just take time before other manufacturers have a similar situation.

I'd guess build quality is a big factor for most of those recommenders. I like Lenovo, even though other computers have better specs, because Lenovo's are tough and reasonably priced.

I love my Thinkpad.

Lots of Linux devs love their Thinkpads.

The result is that Thinkpads are very well supported. They’re also generally very well made so I hope to use it for a decade.

Not sure, but, I dont think any of them are available outside usa/europe. Lenovo has more global coverage

Thinkpads are cheap and accessible basically everywhere. They are business-grade devices and you can get one when folks retire their machines. A lot of places practically give them away. They were just gonna get thrown out anyways.

Framework is dumb expensive - a 16 even skimping out on RAM/HDDs comes out to over 3k CAD, and that's for a disassembled kit -- pre-built with full components comes out to easily over 3.5k, which is like a MacBook price for the promise of upgradability down the line.

System76 are rebranded shitty components from Chinese manufacturers. They're not better for Linux than any general consumer laptop, and their entire position is basically branding regarding freedom and 1776. Ironic that a company so deeply American in nature basically just resells garbage from China.

Look at the prices.

I bought a System76 Pangolin 11, then replaced it with a ThinkPad X13 within a few months because the battery life was trash. Total workhorse but it would die on me in meetings if I was sharing my screen.

Entroware is another you could add to the list. I had a good experience buying from them. They do the usual Clevo OEM things.

Some of these dont really ship worldwide. Not all of them offer a good bang for the buck in terms of hardware specs, and big companies sometimes offer more options (system76 traditionally didnt offer screens over FHD, most laptops are only 14"....).

Didn’t Lenovo like 15 years ago make a line of desktops that shipped with some redhat derivative installed? Or am I thinking of something else?

Had Tuxedo experience: 3/5 at most Had ThinkPad experience: 4/5 at least

Do any of these have:

• As nice a keyboard, that I don't have to worry about spilling a cup of coffee on.
• Track point or similar.
• Ability to survive a fall down a flight of stairs.
• 4:3 or 16:10 aspect ratio.
• Ports.
  While being built with repairability in mind?

I day dream about stuffing the guts of a modern laptop inside with a USB hub and an enormous battery, but that's a huge undertaking.

One factor is that laptops need a little more design work to build out main boards and validate relative to a desktop, especially considering that you optimizing for power draw and that very little of the design is socketed. As a result a good chunk of the Linux laptop market uses OEM provided designs and then tailors their software around it. Last I heard system76 was working to bring that design work in house.