I was initially waiting for Windows 10 to be officially unsupported before I switched to Pop_OS, but today, I just got sick of looking at the Windows 10 UI and decided to jump the gun.
As a complete normie, I am so glad I didn't fuck up my computer because my laptops settings to get into the BIOS was completely different than how most videos instructed.
I've been playing around with it for a bit, and I most say that using this distro is a lot easier than I expected! The Pop Store is a lifesaver! I'm not sure if I could've made it if I had to manually install my browser and all that.
I feel like my laptop is now a bit slower and the graphics look a bit lower? Maybe I missed something when reading the rec specs. Oh well...
I think is more of the loading power of my computer, sometimes there's a bit of a delay when I open an application or try to close it, opening some setting will have more loading time than others. Although now that i think about it, I most likely had this problem with Windows, so its probably a hardware thing. My laptop is "old" by today's standards (or at least, that's what HP thinks lol). I have an HP Pavillion x360 2017 model. It has 8GB Ram, Intel Core i3 7th Gen processer, Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 620 and a 1TB SSD.
That is an older laptop. I run an even older HP laptop on Arch that still feels zippy, even compared to my gaming desktop pc. One thing to remember is POP_OS! is designed for newer computers as it is built by a company who sells them. There are known issues with POP_OS! and Mesa drivers. The Mesa driver might not be efficiently handling the graphical demands of the default POP_OS! desktop. I'm not suggesting to switch your distro, just keep in mind going forward that it is made for newer systems.
Some further troubleshooting you can try:
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgradein the terminal .htop,btopor the built-in system monitor to see if the CPU or RAM is maxing out when opening a program.I'll try that out, tysm!
In regards to your last point, this is something I always overlooked and couldnt understand why my laptop was severely underperforming (thermal throttling)
Ive never seen a distro utilise any form of fan control that works with my hardware, but utilising NBFC and its GUI has completely fixed the issues that have been plaguing me for the past few years.
you definitely encountered similar performance in windows. the processor isn't speedy, by any stretch. kaby lake u-series i3 is slower than a desktop 4th gen i3.
How many ms do you think it usually is? Those specs aren't that bad for Linux but given it is an old laptop, maybe needs some maintenance work. Run some hardware tests and check.
If it is possible on your laptop model, I recommend upgrading to 16GB of RAM.