Help me find a Laptop for my son

Lounge Linux lounge
1

Hi Endevournauts!
My son is in 6th grade, he is sharing a computer with his older sister, who demands to not share anymore. So a PC for my son must be ordered. I asked him if he prefers a desktop, which he replied with “Wait, I can choose? Great! I choose a laptop, like you have for work!” So that was decided - a laptop it is.
My son is quite rough with his stuff (he is an energy-laden 12 year old…), and ofc AI makes everything more expensive, so I was looking for maybe some refurbished stuff, but there are soooooo many options. Too much for me to make an informed and sane decision, so I ask for ideas, help or remarks here.
His demands are quite low: Minecraft. EndevourOS. Okayish screen and keyboard, as he will most probably use an external screen and keyboard. But maybe later more games with higher demands. Full HD, nothing more. O, and I am full blown Team Red, Intel CPUs are quite good, but the iGPUs are lacking. Nvidia is poopootown.

So, any Ideas? I was looking into something like this:
https://www.notebooksbilliger.de/lenovo+v15+arp+g6+83uu0016ge+912852
or this:
https://www.notebooksbilliger.de/lenovo+thinkpad+t495+796090

Thx for help!

2

Part of why I still haven’t gotten myself anything yet. Take it slow and compare and don’t feel pressured to buy from a sale would be about the only advise I could give.

3

Maybe you can find a Thinkpad at itsco. Refurbished hardware is always a good idea.

EDIT: Itsco is out. No AMD available there

4

I was gifted with this laptop so not sure what it’s worth dollar wise but does everything I could ever wanted. Even touch screen works.

Like others above, be sure to take your time and get what you want.

System:
Kernel: 7.1.13-200.fc44.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.2.1
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.7.4 Distro: Fedora Linux 44 (KDE Plasma Desktop
Edition)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 82XM v: IdeaPad Slim 3 15ABR8
serial:
Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0T76463WIN
serial: Firmware: UEFI vendor: LENOVO v: KYCN42WW
date: 04/15/2026
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 48 Wh (98.6%) condition: 48.6/47 Wh (103.5%) volts: 12.31
min: 11.31 model: Sunwoda L23D3PF0 status: full
CPU:
Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 7730U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
type: MT MCP arch: Zen 3 rev: 0 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 4 MiB L3: 16 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1096 min/max: 411/4548 boost: enabled cores: 1: 1096
2: 1096 3: 1096 4: 1096 5: 1096 6: 1096 7: 1096 8: 1096 9: 1096 10: 1096
11: 1096 12: 1096 13: 1096 14: 1096 15: 1096 16: 1096 bogomips: 63881
Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a
ssse3 svm
Graphics:
Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Barcelo vendor: Lenovo
driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-5 bus-ID: 04:00.0 temp: 38.0 C
Device-2: Chicony Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
bus-ID: 1-3:2
Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.13 compositor: kwin_wayland
driver: gpu: amdgpu resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: radeonsi,swrast platforms:
active: gbm,wayland,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: N/A
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: amd mesa v: 26.1.8 glx-v: 1.4
direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi renoir ACO DRM
3.64 7.1.13-200.fc44.x86_64)
API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 drivers: radv,llvmpipe surfaces: N/A devices: 2
Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo,
xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir/Cezanne HDMI/DP Audio
vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 04:00.1
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Audio Coprocessor vendor: Lenovo
driver: N/A bus-ID: 04:00.5
Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Ryzen HD Audio vendor: Lenovo
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 04:00.6
API: ALSA v: k7.1.13-200.fc44.x86_64 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.8 status: active
Network:
Device-1: MEDIATEK MT7921 802.11ax PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [Filogic
330] vendor: Lenovo driver: mt7921e v: kernel bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac:
IF-ID-1: ca-tor-wg-206 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Foxconn / Hon Hai MediaTek Bluetooth Adapter driver: btusb v: 0.8
type: USB bus-ID: 3-4:4
Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: bt-v: 5.3 lmp-v: 12
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 7.45 GiB (1.6%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: KIOXIA model: N/A size: 476.94 GiB temp: 26.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 474.35 GiB used: 6.84 GiB (1.4%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
ID-2: /boot size: 1.9 GiB used: 604.2 MiB (31.1%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 20 MiB (3.3%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
ID-4: /home size: 474.35 GiB used: 6.84 GiB (1.4%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 32.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 39.0 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 13.47 GiB used: 3.61 GiB (26.8%)
Processes: 415 Uptime: 35m Init: systemd
Packages: N/A note: see --rpm Compilers: N/A Shell: Bash v: 5.3.9
inxi: 3.3.41

5

I’ve gone through a lot of laptops over the years, do not get MSI or Asus, absolutely not. Lenovo seems like the go to brand for reliability, evne if they are a shadow of their former selves.

Also do not underestimate the weight of minecraft. You need a good cpu for it and preferably a good gpu as well.

The radeon 660m will work, but it won’t be pleasant, if you’re going the igpu route you want at minimum a radeon 680m, ideally 890m or better.

With these kinds of igpus even if he decides he wants to play something a bit more demanding he should be able to make it work out (though probably with heavy reliance on FSR)

Basically just try to get him something with a good amd cpu with a high end igpu like the ones i described and at least 16gb ram (preferably 32gb, reason being that the igpu draws from the system ram for graphical memory and 16gb is cutting it awful close, if you get a laptop with a dedicated gpu 16gb system ram should be sufficient though). Also should have an SSD, 512GB is probably enough but it’s bare minimum.

When I say good cpu, for minecraft your main metric is per-core performance (look at single threaded benchmarks).

Just find a laptop that meets this minimum, the igpu is key, 890M is good enough for steamdecks, so it should be good enough for your son.

Also does it have to be a laptop? You might be able to get a cheaper deal by going for a minipc, might be worth looking into. I have a minipc that meets these demands, and i bought it barely used (honestly i’m not sure if it was used at all) for like half of what that laptop you linked cost.

Also a tip, less is more when it comes to dislpay resolution for gaming on low end laptops. Avoid more than 1080p resolution unless you go for a laptop with a dedicated gpu.

6

AMD Ryzen 5 (3000 Serie)

That like almost retro

AMD R5 150 is a rebranding of the Ryzen 5 7535HS

Avoid both of this.
Unless you looking for real potatoe PC.

You want 8000 series and newer.
Or intel Core Ultra 200 series.

I cannot find where this site has any catalog thing.

Try to find options with fast soldered RAM (6000+)

If you on tight budged and cannot find anything that I recommended for reasonable price - go with AMD R5 150 CPU thing.

7

I see prices go x2 for some models since few years ago BTW
And Europe has some huge extra premium on them for some reason…

Looks like MacBook Air 13" is right choice for new laptop in 2026 - they just reasonable priced. :rofl:
What a times.

8

Check https://www.itsco.de/notebooks

9

That’s a nice one. It wasn’t listed an hour ago.

10

Oh I see not only me knowing itsco :wink:

11

I had a lot of good experience with https://www.afbshop.de/ here in Germany (seems you might be not too far aways from here, too. If you go with Lenovo, even if it looks boring, Thinkpads are built way more durably than their consumer brands like the Ideapads. They will live through spilt drinks or even some higher falls. Most Thinkpads are working fine with Arch / EndevourOS. On a sidenote: you should look at the screen: though I would always go for a matte finish, kids might find that glossy is less boring, even if he is not using it every day :slight_smile:

12

Whether the ram is soldered or not doesn’t matter much, there’s a slight performance boost but it’s usually not worth the tradeoff of not being able to add more ram.

13

Depends.
From my experience, I add ram only once, right after purchase, if it is even planned. Usually long term upgrades just wont happen, ever :melting_face:

And performance differences on AMD get huge when iGPU involved. Also power consumption.
On Intel - they somehow still has their memory magic so impact not so big.

On modern laptops CPUs like thous I mention, iGPUs not just display adapters. They actually can do the work.
For previous generations - RAM speeds and such not so important indeed. Altho you want dual channel anyway.
I just recently bought used Fujitsu laptop and put there 16G of ddr3. Perfectly capable machine for lots of task. And there is not much performance difference from it up to recent AMD and Intel CPU/iGPUs… So, it depends.

14

I’ve recently become quite taken with this. But of course, it depends on the use case.

https://slimbook.com/en/evo

Edit: sorry I didn’t read that you are aiming for a refurbished option.

Maybe this is an option:

Lower price:
https://www.hp.com/de-de/shop/products/laptops/hp-omnibook-x-flip-14-fk0750ng-bf9u2ea-abd

Nicer hardware:
https://www.hp.com/de-de/shop/products/laptops/hp-omnibook-x-flip-16-ar0772ng-bf9t2ea-abd

15

Last year about this time I bought a small fleet of refurbed Dell Latitude 14 5430s. Generally Intel Alder Lake 12th Gen i7-1255U, although an i5-1245U crept in there. Iris Xe i915 graphics. Prices I paid ranged from $225 to $300USD.

Each one has been a flawless performer, and I’ve dropped one or two along the way with nothing beyond cosmetic damage.

I run Arch and CachyOS (v3). Grub, ext4 (LUKS), Plasma. Completely uneventful installation and use. I’ve upgraded RAM, SSD and WiFi. Also uneventful. (I’m in a large apartment building where 2.4 and 5GHz are clogged. So far, I’m the only tenant on 6GHz, WiFi7, BE200 chip.) Note: If you add a second bank of RAM, HDMI output drops from 4K to 1920x1080. If you need 4K and more RAM, replace the existing RAM, keeping the second bank empty.

I have a far stronger recommendation for a vendor.

Free Geek is associated in some fashion with The Linux Foundation. Their devices generally have Linux Mint pre-installed. Profits support zero or low-cost computers to bring digital literacy to the underserved.

Their sales are through an eBay store. Shipping was prompt, packaging very good, recyclable and not excessive. Some arrived with new batteries (albeit, the lower-capacity one, but still). Available with or without 65W USB-C charger. I have plenty already, so I ordered without.

EDIT:

Sorry I missed that. When I did see it, I thought you meant Republican. :upside_down_face:

When I buy new, I buy AMD. Still, I have been completely satisfied with these.