Typically when receiving any review hardware preloaded with Microsoft Windows I tend to run some Windows vs. Linux benchmarks just as a sanity test plus it still seems to generate a fair amount of interest even though the outcome is almost always the same: Linux having a hefty performance advantage over Windows especially in the more demanding creator-type workloads. As an unexpected twist and time consuming puzzle the past two months, when recently testing out the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 it’s faster for numerous workloads now on Microsoft Windows 11 than Ubuntu Linux.
It has been a while that I used it, but Manjaro is Arch Linux with access to the AUR enabled by default. So it is very rolling and given the malware that has been found in the AUR more than once in 2025, I am not sure how much I would recommend Manjaro.
Myself, I am on Solus KDE (rolling, but not to the extend that Arch (derivatives) are) right now and that is pretty solid. Its disadvantage over Fedora is that you have to set up a firewall yourself, as well as the fact there is a slightly larger reliance on system packages (Flathub is still accessible from Discover).