Analysis Paralysis - Picking a new laptop for CCNP and future study

 *update. Its early 2026, and I've just purchased a mid range M5 Macbook Air. Lol, make of that what you will. I might dig into the details in a later post

 

Oh boy, a blog post about laptops. Thrilling right?

After 7 years of service, my mid 2015 Retina macbook pro is in steep decline. 

At time of purchase, the 16gigs of ram, 2 core cpu, and 15 inches of screen real estate was a massive upgrade to the two laptops I had owned previously. A Base 2010 13inch macbook pro and a refurbished thinkpad x250.

In late 2023 I needed something for my CCNP studies and general computing. Macbooks, my preferred choice, are still way too expensive. Dropping 3 to 4k on a laptop seems a bit much, so I went crawling back to windows and refurbished thinkpads. The goal was sub 2k, decent 15+ inch screen with a 16:10 ration, 32gigs of ram, and a processor that was capable but wouldn't kill battery life. 

What I ended up with was the Thinkpad z16 Gen 1, and its been.. fine.

Its a more than capable laptop, although I do encounter occasional gremlins. Freezing, very long boot times. Okay but not exceptional battery life. all fine for a machine that will likely end up as a Linux Distro test mule. 

Its obvious Lenovo had the 16 inch macbook pro in mind when they designed and built this thing, and frankly, they did not really stick the landing. It lives in an uncanny valley between the two design paradigms. Neither a mac nor a thinkpad. rejected by both camps, doomed to wander the earth alone, ect ect. 

Random thoughts on the transition back to Windows

this will all sound a bit... bougie, and really silly.  but hear me out.  Here in Vermont. We have a law that bans the use of roadside billboards. We are not the only state that does do, Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii also have similar provisions. But in effect this leads to an environment where you no longer notice the absence of roadside errata. That is until you travel to one of the neighboring states. almost immediately you notice your unobstructed view of nature if interrupted by advertisements for roadside attractions, discount furniture outlets, and ambulance chasers. 

This is sorta how it felt to jump on windows 11 for the first time. why am i getting recommendations for recipes and trending web searches in my start menu? Why in this age of infinite distractions does MSFT fell the need to try and pull my attention away when I'm just trying to log on and do my taxes?

My windows 10 workstations at work have none of this, so I'm assuming its disabled by my employer via group policy. Jumping to windows 11 on a consumer MSFT was a lot like crossing the border to one of our neighboring states,  I followed the guide here https://www.laptopmag.com/how-to/block-ads-in-windows-11. and so far the experience seems much better. Still annoying I have to

New Laptop Build log (+ indicates task completed)

Items to download and install
[+] git
[+] github desktop
    yes, I know, I use the desktop version.
    I have used the cli before, and I really need to back in the workflow of using the native
    cli client, but I also really enjoy the workflow of the gui app. In my current role I also use git so         sparingly I forget the cli commands.
[+] cisco anyconnect - Required to take advantage of Cisco's devnet sandboxes.
[+] securecrt
[+] wsl
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
    Yup, this is the glue that makes using windows 10/11 possible
    things are also so much easier
    wsl --install in a cmd prompt. so much easier
[] docker
    https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/
[] canonical multipass

    At some point, msft added the package manager winget. While its still a bit clunky compared to                homebrew, apt, yum, and all the other options, having a pre-installed option is a huge step forward.
    this site https://winget.run/ is a great resource, just search for the package you want to download
    and you can copy/paste the appropriate command.    
    for example winget install -e --id Microsoft.VisualStudioCode is the command to install visual studio code. not exactly intuitive, but again a huge step forward.
   
[+] visual studio code
[] sublime text
[+] virtualbox
[] python
[] golang
[+]
    import anki cards
[+] firefox
[] Spotify
    I know.. but study playlists are vital. Covid has destroyed my ability to work in noisy environments,
    so pink noise on a loop has been a blessing.