- 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!
If you’re able to code from a terminal, and care about longer battery life (my main concern when working from a coffee shop or elsewhere), I’d recommend getting a used android tablet, pry something from xiaomi or oneplus. You can find a decent model used for around that price with > 8 hour battery life easily.
Get a good stand, a solid bluetooth keyboard (logitech makes some great portable ones), and put termux on it (can probably handle light python locally).
If you need it to do CPU powerful tasks, use termux to remote into a VPS or your home server, and let a plugged in linux machine do the work so you can save your device’s battery life. This is how I code at least.