I currently have a Microsoft Surface Laptop Go, Gen 1. I'm running Ubuntu 22.04 on it. It works very well - I feel like a heel for even complaining - but there are some things I would change, and I'm starting to think about what comes next.

Thing is... I think I may have stumbled on a unicorn the first time and I'm not sure a better 11" range Linux machine exists. I'll break it down and see if anyone else has a suggestion that fits the same niche.

What's good about it?

* Dimensions! 10.95” x 8.10” x 0.62”. It is TINY. Yet the keyboard is really good and the IPS screen is great too. I never feel like it is "too small," yet it (just barely) fits in a Xincada shoulder bag that you might carry if you weren't carrying a laptop at all.

* Weight. 2.45 pounds.

* Storage. 230GB SSD.

* RAM. 16GB RAM. (Not listed on the MS site, but they offered it for the education market, and I was lucky to catch some offloaded on Amazon)

* Processor. Intel Core i5-1035G1, 1ghz, burst speed 3.6ghz.

* Price. I paid $500 for a new unit.

* Everything "just works" in Linux, thanks to the Surface Linux project. Those patches are in Ubuntu 22.04 now, so apart from dinking around with safe boot it was easy to set up.

OK, so why are you even thinking about replacing it?

* The fan. It comes on a lot and it's loud. It's especially fast to turn on if the machine is on my lap, doubly so if I'm in bed or wearing a robe. Why is this true for a machine with top-mounted vents? Who knows.

* The battery life. On Windows these have great battery life, but on Linux it is more limited, more like 3-5 hours depending on use.

* The CPU? Maybe? If I can even do better in this size class. Not sure it's possible. I'm actually able to do my day job with it, which is handy in a pinch & if I just feel like working at a coffee shop. See CPU comparisons below.

Starlabs StarLite

* OK, so the cool factor here is high. It's purpose-built for Linux from the ground up.

* The battery life should be excellent.

* 16GB RAM - they didn't cheap out.

* And it's fanless.

But: the CPU is an Intel N200.

This is a very efficient chip, which is why the battery life is so great. Only 6W versus 15W!

Unfortunately however CPUBenchmark says it's a good 20-30% slower than the CPU I already have. I am very reluctant to go backwards on performance.

And, price:

$627 base price, plus over $100 for the magnetic keyboard, sold separately.

Also, dimensions: it's bigger. OK it's not a lot bigger, I can get a new bag, I'd live. But still.

Apple M1 Macbook Air 1st gen

The good:

* It's Apple. The build quality is there, even secondhand.

* CPU. If CPU is my beef, this is the answer. Literally 2x faster. Apple silicon is undeniably cool. Plus it has a vastly better GPU, not usually my thing but nice.

* Fanless.

* Price: an "amazon renewed" M1 Macbook Air 1st gen can be had for around $500-ish on amazon.

The bad:

* Size! The smallest so-called "Air" is 13" now. Not really what I want.

* RAM. 16GB RAM is the minimum for me. It'd pay $750 or more for that, refurbished on eBay.

* Linux support. I don't want MacOS for personal use, I want Linux.

That means Asahi Linux, an incredible project that works 500x better than it has any right to, just the coolest thing. But I'm already concerned about battery life running Linux on a Microsoft Surface, which is weird hardware, but not nearly as weird as this, and Microsoft seems friendly to it as long as you accept it voids your warranty. Apple not so much.

What else?

Any great 11"-class machines out there for Linux that I should consider? Maybe something more vanilla and less "weird" hardware-wise that would deliver solid battery life and not cheap out on RAM?

Thanks!