If I get a new non mac laptop I max out the warranties and accidental damage. Top service level. Then consider that real OG price. Without those extras you have a brick-in-waiting.

Contrary to popular belief the Dell and Thinkpads are really reliable as long as you buy their business laptops. The consumer laptops are often not great, but the business ones are rock solid, easy to repair and built like bricks.

You can also repair them yourself, so most people just wait until business update their inventory and you can get a cheap Dell/Thinkpad from ebay for a few hundred. I have a T480s, 24GB of Ram and a 8th Gen i7 processor that I picked up for £300. Granted the laptop is old now, but it runs all my dev software well.

I'm really inclined to install Ubuntu or something else for my "new" used Dell 32GB laptop.

The only issue is that I also installed it on my 16GB ThinkPad and the desktop experience has a lot of rough edges.

Generally most of the Linux's have rough edges on the desktop experience. I am using Debian 13 (Current Testing) and while it is pretty decent these days there are lots of annoyances. I still dual boot for gaming and at work I use Windows.

Thanks. It's Youtube keep crashing on Ubuntu 22.04 every 10 minutes and I don't know why. I turned off hardware acceleration and did a few other tweaks, but judging the look of reddit posts I found, there is no solution. That's why I also keep a Windows laptop.

I don’t use Ubuntu personally, but there should be a newer LTS out.

If you are using a nvidia card it might be worth checking if you are using Wayland or X11, Nvidia and X11 typically work better.

It's gonna be more expensive though. Might as well go with a Mac...

In my case 33% extra on top for 3 years coverage. Or approx a YT premium subscription.

Got the entire thing replaced in that time due to issues plus lots of micro fixes. Pays off when you get a lemon!

Having someone come to you is huge. Sending a laptop back for 6 weeks because of default warranty is a PITA and you need to source another laptop and then get it set up. As well as backup data, delete, restore etc.

For an apples to Apples comparison you should add AppleCare, since the accidental damage cover is in the price I mentioned.

They use a ton of electricity. Probaby not sustainable for most (unless you have lots of solar)