Excigma

I've used an Acer Spin 5 and Dell Latitude 7440 with Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora and NixOS over the years without many issues.

I've heard that the x360 laptop you have may be a little troublesome but you can always test things out on a live Linux USB.

• I've heard that the sound quality might be degraded on Linux, or certain speakers don't work
• The flip switch doesn't work, meaning that the keyboard and trackpad aren't disabled when flipped.

Ofc, there are a few x360 laptops so it might not apply, I'd encourage you to just give it a go with a live USB.

For using your stylus for note taking, I'd recommend trying Xournal++ and/or Rnote

I think it handles congestion better and saves energy for the cell tower. It's a good choice for crowded city centres, near university campuses and train stations where many people frequent

I'm a bit late but mid range Dimensity chips are generally more power efficient than last gen Snapdragons (888, 8 Gen 1) which means the battery should last longer - not just for a single charge but for overall battery health, as you don't need to charge it as often

Seconded. You can try usb redirection in libvirt, and if that doesn't work, you can try passing through the usb root hub as a pcie device

Webcam on Intel may not work due to drivers that Intel hasn't written/upstreamed for IPU6 cameras. Looks like it's in the work now... for certain sensors. Intel has taken literal years to get anything out. the Core Ultra 200 series is out but drivers for these webcams which have in use since Tiger lake (almost half a decade ago!!) still don't work.

"Greg KH Recommends Avoiding Alder Lake Laptops" https://www.phoronix.com/news/Greg-KH-No-ADL-Webcam-Laptop

Nor the integrated cameras or the IR camera worked out of the box on my laptop. Some hacks could be done to make it work but it breaks after the system is updated. It never worked when I needed it and image quality was limited to 720p and worse. From what I understand, current methods to get the camera to work use minimal software processing to process the images, instead of the dedicated silicon.

Not all Intel laptops use IPU6. I know some HPs do not.

Haven't had many issues with the Intel AX211. Very rarely, the wifi settings will disappear after my laptop suspends and a reboot is needed.

The battery capacity also doesn't seem very big, I'm not sure how efficient the AMD CPU is but I'd be worried that Intel would deliver less battery life.

GPU performance might also be better on AMD? (haven't checked).

I've had an Acer Spin 5 and Dell Latitude 7440 2-in-1, and with regards to autorotation and keyboard disabling, it has just worked out of the box for me on every distro I've used (apart from Arch which needed an extra package for rotation). The keyboard disabling also works in BIOS on both laptops, so perhaps it is done at a firmware level for these laptops. Some of my friends have trouble with the keyboard on their HP 2-in-1s.

Summoning the OSK is okay on GNOME, you just need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen, but the experience with the keyboard automatically popping up is worse on Wayland :(. Generally my experience has been the opposite of yours though, it has been quite good!

Hopefully the framework will drive more attention to this area though, the OSK is a particular pain point I think, Windows 10/11 does a great job here.

the processor it uses, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, is pretty notorious for poor efficiency. I have a phone with it and it heats up a lot (battery reports 45C) from more demanding tasks (such as gps), battery life isn't the best either.

That said, my battery life has not been as bad as yours... 2:30hrs seems quite poor.

doesn't bother them if they're a property investment company

Oh, that's a pity. It's nice to go down the nostalgia lane of old apps and games you used to use though, haha

It appears that some other brands like Xiaomi use higher amperage for their fast charging instead of higher voltage to deliver more power in addition to potentially more proprietary communication through the data lines. PPD likely has a lower current limit at the voltage a VOOC phone charges at too (apparently around 10A?). Mainstream 100W wires (20V 5A) might probably be "incompatible" even if the power supply were rated for higher amperage.

I do totally agree with you and hope for PD fast charging to be adopted, or for the PD standard to be made more flexible so that manufacturers can have what they want (but then again we will have the issue of USB-C where one connector does all but not all wires are made equal..).

Things just working as you expect them to is always very nice. If I buy a high wattage brick, I expect it to fast charge my phone.

My phone unfortunately doesn't seem to support PD/PPS, but supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge.. meaning that it'll charge in 2-3 hours from my laptop or a 25W/45W/65W PD/PPS brick.. only at either 5W or 10W.. but it'll charge in an hour with a Qualcomm QC compatible brick or 30 minutes with the original 100W brick... :')

Also as an aside, the Find X8 seems to be using a silicon carbon battery - I thought that silicon electrodes expanded and contracted much more than previous generation batteries causing long term health to be worse...

It will be interesting to see if the battery health on these models really does stand the test of time. With the more efficient chip drawing less power, we can hope :)

You may be able to find the app in the list of not installed apps! There's also a possibility that the app is now abandonware and no longer works on modern Android versions though :(.

With some apps (unsure if any open source ones exist), Android can become a Bluetooth Keyboard for a connected computer too! The keyboard isn't very useful, but having a portable trackpad for a laptop during presentations may be helpful