Best Laptop For Arch Linux – Reviews

Looking for the best laptops for Arch Linux?

You have found the right place.

You don’t want to get your hands on the wrong laptop regarding Arch Linux. With hundreds of options available in the market, going for one model can be very challenging.

That’s why we have taken it upon ourselves to bring you the best laptop for this version of Linux.

Without further ado, let’s dive into it.

Best Laptops For Arch Linux

1. ASUS ZenBook 13 – Editor’s Choice
2. Lenovo ThinkPad P52 – Runner Up
3. Acer Aspire 5 – Budget Pick

1. ASUS ZenBook 13 – Editor’s Choice

Our Editor’s choice for the best laptop for Arch Linux is the ASUS ZenBook 13.

The ASUS ZenBook 13 is a wholesome laptop with all the features you need for a perfect Arch Linux experience. It is compact, powerful, and beautiful, which makes it an excellent companion for those interested in dealing with Arch Linux.

The display on this laptop has a 13.3-inch one with full HD resolution, and it comes with an IPS panel underneath. The IPS panel gives you immersive colors that are true to life.

The viewing angles are also excellent, making his laptop accident for making presentations and sharing content with your friends.

The display is one of the best ones you can get on a laptop. It is perfect for browsing the web, media consumption, research, and everything related to Arch Linux. The maximum brightness of 400 nits allows you to use this laptop under the bright sun.

In addition to all these wonderful features, the display doubles as a touchscreen. The touchscreen allows you to use your fingers to browse the operating system elements, giving you a wholesome Windows experience.

The bezels around the display a superthin, and ASUS has done a fantastic job. This design tweak has allowed ASUS to reduce the laptop’s footprint by a significant margin. They have managed to fit a 13.3″ laptop into the footprint of an 11.6″ laptop, which is very impressive.

When it comes to durability, the ASUS ZenBook 13 stands tall. It is made up of a single block of aluminum and is stronger than the machine that puts it all together. The laptop will survive a few drops here and there, but the height at it should drop will play a significant role.

How powerful is the ASUS ZenBook 13?

In terms of sheer power, the ASUS ZenBook 13 is a potent laptop. It comes equipped with an i7 processor that belongs to the 10th generation of Intel chips. This processor comes with 6 physical cores and 12 logical cores. With a maximum clock speed of 4.6 GHz, this is undoubtedly one of the best processes.

This processor is probably overkilled, for most people were planning to use Arch Linux. It can handle your daily use without any issues whatsoever. Managing complex applications is also not a big deal, as this CPU brings a lot of power to the table.

The memory department on this laptop is loaded with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. This is a lot of memory, and multitasking with this memory is a piece of cake. You can run several apps together without impacting the performance of the laptop.

Unless you’re going to do something super heavy on this laptop, you are not going to use up the entire memory. This means you should be comfortable with the memory on board for a long time.

There are no issues regarding the storage on this laptop. We have a solid-state drive with a storage capacity of 256 GB. The solid-state drive gives you ample space for all your data while bringing performance enhancements across the board.

The graphics card in the ASUS ZenBook 13 is an Intel UHD graphics card. This is an integrated graphics card, and it comes with decent performance regarding gaming and other heavy graphics requirements. If you’re not a gamer and if you don’t work with graphically intensive applications, then this GPU should be more than enough to tend to your everyday needs.

You get quite a few connectivity options on the ASUS ZenBook 13. There is a single USB type C port, a USB 3.0 port, are USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, an SD card slot, and a headphone jack. With 802.11AC Wi-Fi and Bluetooth five support, this laptop does really well on the connectivity front.

The battery life on the ASUS ZenBook 13 is splendid. The laptop lasts about 8 to 10 hours, depending on your workload. If you’re planning to do something heavy with Arch Linux, then expect the number to go down, but it will still be better than most laptops we have tested.

Overall, the ASUS ZenBook 13 brings many features to users at a not-so-expensive price. In more ways than one, this laptop is, without a doubt, the best laptop for Arch Linux.

2. Lenovo ThinkPad P52 – Runner Up

The ThinkPad model we have here is the more expensive model that comes with even more features, but we had to place it in the runner-up position because of the higher price, and not everyone will be willing to pay a premium for running Arch Linux.

The ThinkPad is also comparatively a bigger laptop, so carrying it around will be a challenge. With the 15.6-inch screen, the laptop will weigh around 5.5 lbs, making it a bit harder when it comes to portability.

This ThinkPad model is a great business laptop. But it also allows you to install Arch Linux on it and is one of the best laptops to run this version of Linux on. One of the best features of this laptop is that it comes with excellent battery life. Even for a bigger laptop, this one manages to clock eight consistently with a decent work routine.

The 13.3-inch display is a solid one. This is not a touchscreen like the one in ASUS ZenBook 13, but the full HD resolution does pop up some impressive pictures that are great for your eyes.

The colors on display are vibrant, and you can see that the contrast ratio is pretty good here. The viewing angles and also neat, thanks to the IPS panel underneath. This display is great for media consumption, browsing the web, your everyday work, and so much more.

The laptop comes with an eighth-generation Intel Core i7 processor. This is a six-core processor, and it comes with a maximum clock speed of 4.5 GHz. Being one of the most powerful processors from the eighth generation, this one can handle pretty much anything you throw at it.

The processor gets outstanding assistance from memory on board. Here, we have 16 GB of RAM that are of the DDR4 type. This memory gives you the right to run as many applications as you want concurrently without slowing the system’s performance.

This memory is also great for running multithreaded applications as well. If you are into virtual machines, this memory will serve you well. When running an operating system like Arch Linux, having extra memory can always be helpful; in this case, it is very accurate.

We have a dedicated graphics card in the Nvidia Quadro P1000. This impressive graphics card comes with a dedicated memory of 6 GB of RAM. When it comes to handling graphically intensive applications, there is more commercial in nature; this graphics card does an excellent job.

The graphics card also is convenient when it comes to playing games. You can play most of the recent games at high settings, which is pretty good if you are a serious gamer.

The solid-state drive in this ThinkPad model comes with a capacity of 512 GB. This is a good amount of storage for you to play with, giving you all the space for your videos, music, and other valuable data. The SSD ensures the performance is on point, which is nice.

In addition to all these features, the laptop also comes with a fingerprint reader. This provides you the security you need to save all your data on the laptop. It also allows you to log in to your user profiles without typing your password every time, which is a neat, time-saving trick.

The laptop comes with a couple of USB 3.0 ports, one USB type C port, one mini display port, one ethernet port, one HDMI port, and a headphone jack. With support for Bluetooth 4.2, this laptop can connect with external devices that are within range. You also get access to high-speed Internet with built-in 802.11AC Wi-Fi.

The battery life of this Lenovo ThinkPad laptop is pretty good. With light work, you should be able to get around 8 hours from this laptop which should last you the entire day.

Overall, ThinkPad laptops are great for businesses. In this case, they also proved to be a worthy companion for installing and running Arch Linux.

3. Acer Aspire 5 – Budget Pick

Our best budget laptop for Arch Linux is the Acer Aspire 5 laptop.

With a price tag of under $350, this Acer laptop brings in a bundle of features that will come in handy for those who want to run Arch Linux on their laptops and are short on money. Sometimes, it takes a budget laptop to show us how much we can achieve with minimum hardware.

Once you open the laptop, you get a good view of the keyboard. We have a full-size keyboard with a separate number pad to its right. The keys are backlit, which is an excellent addition to a budget laptop.

The typing experience on this keyboard is pleasant even though we have used better keyboards. The backlighting in the keyboard comes in handy when you are using the laptop and in dark situations. The trackpad is the standard one you see in Acer aspire series and does well.

Though this is a 15.6-inch laptop, the laptop does not weigh a lot. With a weight of 4.4 lbs, this is one of the most portable laptops in this size category. You can easily take this laptop with you wherever you go, which is nice.

Let’s talk about the display of this laptop. The 15.6-inch laptop comes with excellent colors and a decent contrast ratio. Thanks to the full HD resolution, you get sharp text and vibrant pictures on display. The IPS panel guarantees excellent viewing angles, which means you can enjoy a movie on the weekend with your friends, and you will see the same thing.

The laptop comes equipped with an AMD processor. This AMD Ryzen 3 3200U processor is a dual-core chip and is an entry-level processor. The processor does well when it comes to handling everyday activities. After installing Arch Linux, you can see that this laptop can run applications and the operating system itself perfectly.

There are only 4 GB of RAM in the memory department, and if you are a light user, this shouldn’t bother you. Though we recommend having a minimum of 8 GB of RAM to have a carefree multitasking experience, this is a budget laptop, and there is nothing we can say regarding memory.

You can still do a bit of multitasking with this 4 GB of RAM. Working in office apps with music running and some downloads in the background shouldn’t be much of a problem with this memory. You can also do other workflows, but this is just an example of what is possible.

For storage, the laptop comes with 128 GB in a solid-state drive. This SSD gives you enough space to install the operating system, and there is some space left to store your data. 

Some of you might feel that this is inadequate for storage, but we feel that light users might be okay with this. You can always upgrade to 256 GB, or more storage is essential.

The battery life on this laptop is impressive, considering this is a budget laptop. You can squeeze out 5 to 7 hours of battery life with light use. When doing something heavy, this number is likely to come down, so be sure to have a power outlet near you if you can’t afford to lose all your progress.

Overall, the Acer Aspire 5 laptop to help your Arch Linux conquest. If you’re looking for a budget laptop that will take care of all your everyday computing tasks, then this is easily one of the best budget laptops for Arch Linux.

What To Look For In The Best Laptops For Arch Linux?

Okay, you decided to go out there and find the best laptop for you. We applaud that decision as it is everyone’s right.

But before you make the final decision, we urge you to consider certain factors that play a key role in Arch Linux.

How much processing power do you need?

Arch Linux, as an operating system, does not need a lot of processing power. The power you need depends on the applications you wish to run.

As a thumb rule, we always say that something less than an Intel i5 or an i7 processor could be a better idea. That rule is very relevant in this case as well.

When picking the processor for your laptop, follow the rule and ensure that the base frequency of the processor is high enough. Anything above 1.5 GHz should be okay.

Dual-core processors are fine but if you feel like you will need more power in the future, then go for quad-core or even Hexa-core processors depending on your need. For light users, dual-core processors are perfectly fine.

Memory 

For the best experience, we advise using a minimum memory of 8 GB or more. This memory will allow you to simultaneously use as many apps as possible without creating any substantial lag.

Certain budget laptops will only come with 4 GB of RAM. If you are really stuck on a budget, then it’s okay to go with that amount of RAM, but if you can afford it, do not go for anything less than 8 GB.

Storage

If you’re going to be dealing with a huge library of files, then obviously, you’re going to need more storage. If you are a light user and you can work with a very small amount of storage, like 128 GB, then you’ll be fine with it.

Make sure that you are not compromising when it comes to battery life. You need a laptop that will last an entire day without forcing you to charge your laptop for a second time. If you are a student, then this is a must-have criterion. If you are working and have access to power outlets all the time, you don’t have to worry about this a lot.

Make sure that the laptop does not fall back when it comes to connectivity. You need all the essential ports on your laptop to use any device without needing adapters.

The laptop should also have built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Make sure the laptop comes with super-fast 802.11AC Wi-Fi, as it is multiple times faster than its previous versions.

These are some of the factors we would focus on so that you don’t end up with a laptop that doesn’t provide you with the best Arch Linux experience.

Conclusion

That’s all we have for this article.

If you feel like we have missed something or if you could add anything valuable, please don’t hesitate and leave a comment below.