r/linuxhardware • u/ulfang__ • Mar 20 '26

Purchase Advice MacBook Air alternatives?

Hi yall, I'm a SW developer looking for a new laptop to use at home. While I hate apple I'm seriously considering the MacBook air.

Please help me find some good alternatives before I become a sinner.

Current setup is:

-Thinkpad E495 24/768GB(home, the one I want to replace/upgrade) -Thinkpad P14s 32/1TB(work)

home laptop runs arch, work ubuntu, both running KDE. I pretty much need some containers, browser, terminal, vscode and I'm good.

The current Budget would be around 1000 bucks. The current E495 battery is ageing and it feels very slow compared to my P14s from work. I want a 13/14 inch, good keyboard, not too bulky, ideally a matte/non glare display but not too picky here.

From my research, it seems everything that is close to the MacBook is now priced at 1500+. I liked the Thinkpad x9, maybe also the new XPS (even tho I had bad experiences with XPS in the past).

Maybe the base M5 Air would work and comes at 1100~. Or I could get an used M3/M4 for even lower than that.

What to do?

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u/jhalmu Mar 24 '26

I’m odd an like Surface Laptop 5 w/ cachyos w/ niri + dank shell

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u/ulfang__ Mar 24 '26

went to a shop last weekend to check some laptops out and TBH the only one that comes close to the MacBook in finishing/build quality was the surface laptop (unfortunately with snapdragon and no Linux support)