See title. I’m curious if there’s one independent from the US, and if possible also from China.
Or well, at least as independent from Big US spy tech as possible. While Apple is nice, it’s proprietary and I don’t trust them in the long term.
See title. I’m curious if there’s one independent from the US, and if possible also from China.
Or well, at least as independent from Big US spy tech as possible. While Apple is nice, it’s proprietary and I don’t trust them in the long term.
Aren’t these all Clevo rebrands? I know at least Tuxedos are. Clevo is a Taiwanese company.
Tuxedo (based in Germany) are Clevos. Slimbook (based in Spain) sells Clevo and maybe Tongfang, not sure.
StarLabs assembles their own laptops in the UK, but I think their parts are still Chinese/Taiwanese because where else are you going to buy laptop parts?
Personally I would not rule out buying Tuxedo/Slimbook just because the manufacturing is in Asia. Ultimately the components for any laptop will be sourced from there anyway and at least you get support from a European company.
Slimbook looks interesting. If the parts are from Asia, I hope it’s Taiwan – this looks promising. They sadly advertise with an “AI” part, which, ew. But they seem good other than that.
Starlabs is also very interesting, they got a few privacy features. They’re UK-based, though.
Tuxedo seems like it’s good but mostly focused on people who just want a laptop that works.
Out of all options mentioned in this thread so far, those three seem like the best options - they offer Linux and are more European. I think I will go for the Starlabs one, the customisation is clear and easy, and they do have privacy features.
I think to everyone I’d tell:
Dumb question, but are all of these laptops customisable in terms of OS? Like custom boots, etc? And what regarding their security?
That’s just what AMD calls their latest laptop CPU line. I don’t like the name either, but performance-wise they look really good from what I’ve seen.
I haven’t bought any of these laptops so far, I just looked into them because I was considering it. That said, all of them offer various Linux distros, Windows, or no OS at all. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to install whatever you want on them.
As for security I’m really not the person to ask. The way I see it, a computer is as secure as you make it. StarLabs shipping with coreboot out of the box does seem interesting though, if you want to go full tinfoil hat :)
Ah. If you can’t get “perfect”, always try for “better” and hope to drive evolution.
(But see also USA election failure 2024)