Hardware recommendations for a refurbished cachy laptop?

Issues & Assistance
1

Hi everyone,

I could not find much information about hardware except „you will be fine with almost anything except Microsoft surface“.

My constraints ordered by importance:

  1. react native development with VS code and Android studio (must). I think that translates to 16GB+ of RAM and any CPU similar to i7/i5.
  2. Refurbished laptop (must)
  3. USB-C (Standard isn’t it?)
  4. Aim for 8+ years of usage (yes, that’s hardly possible for laptops, but it’s a goal)
  5. SSD with 128GB would be enough
  6. Lightweight
  7. Price is less of a concern, if it truly buys me anything important

Which brands are recommended? Which processors/graphic cards? European stores like refurbed and back market sell Dell, HP and Lenovo mostly. If it is truly great for longevity, I would consider Apple as well as long as compatible with cachyOS. Are there any obvious no goes for cachyOS? Did I miss anything of high importance?

Thanks in advance for your feedback and recommendations.

2

16GB RAM? you’re gonna go bankrupt.

It sounds to me like you already know what you want, just go get it, don’t worry too much about brand, they all have shit Linux support, Lenovo might be your best bet but don’t count on it.

3

Avoid Mediatek Wi-Fi chips – Intel ones work best on Linux.

Edit: it should also go without saying, avoid Nvidia

Also avoid anything from the past ~6 months or so (too new - immature drivers)

4

try if you see any AMD zen3+ laptop

5

mtk chips tend to work fine too, my last 2 laptops had these.

6

I don’t think that’s too unrealistic, with a quality laptop. I have a laptop older than that that’s been used hard and is more than fine now (disclosure - it was replaced/upgraded and then refurbed by me with a keyboard replacement, touchpad resurface, new ssd, etc.)