Hello everyone,

I am new around here. I am getting into pentesting for career and was looking around to get a laptop which will run my kali and be primary portable attack station. I have come down to System76 or Lenovo and I would appreciate some help in choosing the brand and the laptop.

I am most likely going to be doing all sorts of dev work as well, so the pc will run either 2 linux os or windows & kali to support this. I am thinking 500gb on each (ssd) + 1TB hard drive for each (2tb) either internal or external.

What I am not sure is which brand is better and how much I should invest.

For System 76:
  • They allow for heavy customizations.
  • I am looking into Seval WS or Bonobo WS customized
  • I would prefer 17inch
  • After some upgrades
    • Ram: 16GB DD4 2666mhz
    • Storage: 1TB SSD NVMe + 2TB HDD
    • CPU: 8086k
    • GPU: 1070 nvidia
    • They end up around 3500-3800$

For Lenovo Thinkpad:
  • I heard that their quality is better. I have Thinpad 480s for work, so they are not bad
  • The problem is that the system cannot be as powerfull even after customization like System 76
  • Model Carbon X1 6th gen I get
    • CPU: 8650u
    • Ram: 16gb 2133mhz DDR3
    • HDD: 1TB SSD Nvme but I will need external hard drive for anything else
    • GPU: Intel internal
    • Comes about : 2000-2300$

Questions

  1. I am looking for long-term investment here, so is saving up $1500 worth giving up the performance? Or in other words would you justify spending $1500 more for the performance increase?
  2. Anyone know if system 76 is reliable? I read some negative reviews saying that their build quality is not good? Any experience with them?
  3. I read that thinkpad is fine with linux but some have problems, any experiences here?


So essentially,

Should I spend more and get system76 or save up and get thinkpad?
Usage: Pentesting + Devs