[talk] Biannual BSD on Laptops Thread

[Isaac (.ike) Levy]

Hi All,

Now that I finally have both FreeBSD and OpenBSD happily
sleeping/resuming on my lenovo X230, I'm using it pretty heavily and
HATE the display.  Terrible for graphics work and frustrating for me to
use in dim light.  Really great display in a lit room, if you wish
others not to shoulder surf...   Anyhow, I can't take it any more.

Next thing, it's 2017, and USBC.  Holy cow, evil all around.
I'm *sortof* barely learning to live with the lack of Ethernet on
laptops, but they mostly all seem to be USBC for POWER.
Whomever thought a DMA wire protocol would be acceptable for POWERING
your rig, should be taken out and beaten in the public square.  (Can't
wait until we see USBC/Thunderbolt data-blocking cables hit the street.)

So, on to the laptops, I've narrowed it down to two (three really),
choices, and wanted to see if anyone here had words on them:

- Dell XPS 13, and XPS 15
I can't believe I'm considering a Dell laptop, but wow these look nice. 
Breaking with the entire industry, they appear to have deep
repair/service documentation, with full tear-down instructions for every
component.
RAM is soldered on board, (as with most things now), but the HDD is M.2
standard- which I can totally live with.
Big negative: USBC is the power port, just like new toy Mac hardware.
At least it *has* regular USB ports. :)

- Lenovo X1 Carbon (5th generation?)
These seem similar to the Dell models, thin and light.
Big negative: HDD is proprietary variation of M.2 mini-sata thingamabop.
 This is nearly a deal breaker for me.
Also negative, the bios/hardware-lock-in for things like wireless cards
etc... is a PITA.
Big positive: Power does not appear to be USBC, (I think?)
Also positive, these appear better supported by at least OpenBSD folks-
anyone confirming this here?

- Another Lenovo, X270
These are still a bit oldschool, ("the pointer nub"), with a newschool
keyboard (I like).
Positive: Still onboard ETHERNET!  WHEE!!!!  Also, has both MSATA and
SATA HDD bays, so like my good old x230, I can have SSD boot media, and
a cheap/big/slow HDD for a ton of storage without carrying external
drives.  Been living like this for 2 years and love the combo.
Also positive, I'm pretty sure more regular *BSD folks will keep using
this line of machine, so I expect it to be supported quite well
eventually, (if it's not already).
Negative: it's still kindof big, and the display isn't as excellent as
the other two options.  I'm looking for parity/similarity to the Apple
rigs with retina displays, so, meh...

Anyone have any thoughts here?  Andy experiences good or bad?

Rocket-
.ike