Lenovo ThinkPad X13s
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 34 of 63 laptops by recommenders
Well-liked ARM Linux laptop with mainline kernel support and good daily use, but many users report quirks, rough edges and little help from Lenovo.
Well-liked ARM Linux laptop with mainline kernel support and good daily use, but many users report quirks, rough edges and little help from Lenovo.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 69%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good mainline Linux support
“Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “I'm returning my Framework 16” “It is my favorite ARM Linux laptop I've ever used. It has great support in Debian 13 (trixie)”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” “passively cooled, with great battery life, and great Linux support available at the moment”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” - Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Native vs. emulation: World of Warcraft game performance on Snapdragon X Elite”
Works well day to day
“The SOC is still pretty usable and it's functionality on Linux is also pretty complete.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Native vs. emulation: World of Warcraft game performance on Snapdragon X Elite” “The Lenovo x13s works pretty nicely these days, EL2 support aside.”
Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5” “I really really like the device, best laptop I've owned so far”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series” - Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series”
Favorite laptop for some users
“It is my favorite ARM Linux laptop I've ever used. It has great support in Debian 13 (trixie)”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” “I really really like the device, best laptop I've owned so far”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frustrating quirks, needs housekeeping
“it seems to be a real crap-shoot with the x13s”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5” “far from "without pain" due to endless number of small but annoying quirks”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “The end of the AArch64 desktop experiment” “it's incredibly frustrating to use in practice”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0” - Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs”
Speakers and hibernate broken on Linux
“the speakers might as well not exist in the current state on Linux”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “The end of the AArch64 desktop experiment” “hibernate doesn't work on Linux, and audio is glitchy”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series”
Other laptops people recommend
The four most recommended other laptops, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple MacBook Pro | 928 | 688 | 57% | 13 | 5 yrs248 owners | — |
| Apple MacBook Neo | 707 | 355 | 66% | 9 | 1 mo8 owners | — |
| MacBook Air | 633 | 209 | 75% | 12 | 5 yrs130 owners | Approved |
| Apple MacBook | 499 | 348 | 59% | 12 | 9 yrs77 owners | — |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X13sThis page | 11 | 5 | 69% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
20 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'm really happy day-to-day with my x13s on Fedora”
“This is depressing, I just got this x13s hoping to give this arm craze a try as supposedly it has fairly full Linux support.”
“hibernate doesn't work on Linux, and audio is glitchy”
“I really really like the device, best laptop I've owned so far”
“But would I recommend the laptop to any fellow Linux user? Absolutely not.”
“the speakers might as well not exist in the current state on Linux”
“far from "without pain" due to endless number of small but annoying quirks”
“requires a lot of housekeeping”
“That's the same SOC in the Thinkpad 13s we've had in a bit, so pretty promising.”
“it's incredibly frustrating to use in practice”
“it really feels disconnected and unsupported from all parties making these laptops”
“passively cooled, with great battery life, and great Linux support available at the moment”
“It is my favorite ARM Linux laptop I've ever used. It has great support in Debian 13 (trixie)”
“Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.”
“The SOC is still pretty usable and it's functionality on Linux is also pretty complete.”
“it seems to be a real crap-shoot with the x13s”
“I still get random reboots when doing basic things on Linux”
“feels like they got everything right, that the X13s got wrong”
“The Lenovo x13s works pretty nicely these days, EL2 support aside.”
“Thinkpad X13s and T14s (both with Snapdragon) are the best closest alternative.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.