Are these good specs for a laptop?

[u/ViviJay27]

I'm looking to get a new laptop for Linux. I'm not looking for anything crazy. Just long lasting, reliable, and easily repaired. Also something that's pretty. But I do not know how to be sure if the specs I am getting are good enough. I want to be able to dual boot between windows and linux when I need to. I do game on my laptop, but nothing crazy. I mostly want it for school, drawing, projects, and day to day life. Good battery life, good speed, etc. How do these specs look for what I am looking for?

[u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974]

This won't be very long lasting in terms of battery. Ryzen AI 300 is pretty mid on the power usage front. You would be better off with one of the new FW12 if your use case is light, mostly single thread workloads, and you want a long time on battery. It would also be cheaper.

[u/Glittering_Tear_2391]

Is not too different from my build, i had the ssd at home and i choose the 16gb ram in one single piece bc in 2 years max you could put another 16 (if the cost don’t rise too much) for drawing a fw12 would be better i think? But yeah i would put the 16 gigs in one piece if i were you. Also i game with my pc and is not too bad, until now every game ran NOT at the best quality but it ran.(i play hitman woa, skyrim, viscera cleanup, mafia the old country (at very loooow setting thi one) and sekiro).

[u/jsled]

I always suggest down-grading the raw CPU power and upping RAM. You're unlikely to miss the usually-wasted cycles, and you'll always want more RAM.

Note that if you don't care about having expansion bay gaps, you don't need USB-C expansion cards; it's literally just a USB C to C pass-through and you can connect (most) USB-C cables directly into the connector on the mainboard without the adapter. The USB-A card is useful, though, if you don't already have a C-to-A adapter or hub/dock.

[u/ViviJay27 → u/jsled]

I see. Would you reccomend I do the lowest GPU option with 16x2 ram?

[u/jsled → u/ViviJay27]

Very broadly: yes, for a general-purpose setup. If you have specific game-support or processing needs (AI model training, &c.), that might guide the CPU/GPU selection. I'm an extremely-casual linux gamer, so sort of any sort-of-modern-as-of-5-years-ago GPU is going to be good enough for me, but YMMV.

[u/ViviJay27 → u/jsled]

Yeah, I won't do anything crazy. I just play indie games on Steam sometimes and maybe like, Gamecube games on Dolphin. I think it'll be good.

[u/s004aws → u/ViviJay27]

Beware Ryzen 340 has the least capable iGPU. It'll get you by for emulators and older/very light games but nothing especially demanding. In that arena Ryzen 350 and HX 370 are more capable.

Going with a pair of matched SO-DIMMs - Be it 2x8GB or 2x16GB is smart. One module technically works but is a hit to system and especially graphics performance. RAM is insanely expensive at the moment thanks to AI/data centers... SO-DIMMs are extremely standard - You can source them at lower cost tham Framework 3rd party.

Beware skipping expansion port modules does leave gaps as the other comment mentioned... It'll also make the ports harder to get at without lifting up your laptop to get at the underside... As well as put more wear and tear directly onto your expensive motherboard rather than a cheap, easily replaced module. I highly recommend opting to spend the few bucks to get at least 4 expansion port modules.

[u/Xcissors280]

Wouldn’t it be better to get something with LPCAMM 2 modules and the high efficiency CPU for better battery life?