laptop buying advice

[thomas.hoyland]

hello forum people

as some may know i bought a laptop - ace specification - crap build
it sounded like a mosquito whistling when it came to sound
and a jet engine with the fan

lol

however im now considering a dell latitude d620 with core2duo and broadcom wireless

anyone out there able to advise me on their past experience and just overall opinon

regards,
tom

[Miguel]

Hi Thomas,

I don't know if you have, but it might be interesting to look for reviews of your laptop in notebookreview.com. I would put a direct link, but so you can look at similar laptops. From what I've seen, Latitude Dells are of better quality than Inspirons, and a D620 (if you are in the US the D630 should be out one of these days) is a nice 14'' laptop. It's a bit "heavy" (2.5 Kg, 5.5 lbs) for my likes, although it's only 200 grams heavier than a macbook and has a larger screen. Another good thing is that Dell laptops are common, so Linux usually works better or sooner in these machines.

Anyway, before I put my personal experience, what kind of laptop do you want? I mean, there are basically three questions you have to ask yourself:
What is your budget? (country?)
What size do you want/need? Classer are ultraportable (12 or smaller), thin and light (13.3 and 14), mainstream (15.4'') or big desktop replacements.
Integrated or dedicated graphics?


Well, there are other concerns, such as build quality and widescreen format, but these will come later.

I personally have a Dell Inspiron 8600 bought in July 2004. It's a tad heavy and I am not really happy with it's build quality. Another 15.4 laptops I've used are my parent's Sony FE and my cousin's Sony FH. These have a better feel, although I'm more comfortable with the Dell's keyboard. I've also "played" with some friends' laptops, such as Powerbooks, Sony SZ's and an Acer. A laptop I would consider for buying now is an HP nc6400. Another candidate is a ThinkPad T61

[bobbybobington]

I would be concerned with the broadcom wireless:(
There is no native driver support for broadcom cards, and getting it to work would be a pain.

You may want to see what dell will have for their laptop models with ubuntu preinstalled, as they will use supported hardware. I think they will be releasing them late may or early june.

[thomas.hoyland]

hi there,
im in the uk and im not too bothered about dedicated gfx, i dont play game etc.
im after thin/light or ultraportable
i did get a 12" once, but that was the one i spoke about - terrible experience lol

regards,
tom

[Miguel]

The problem with Dells with Ubuntu is that these are the Inspiron or e-series ones, that is, the low quality models. If you are getting a dell, I'd strongly suggest getting a Latitude. I've never seen an XPS in person, but these also should be better than the inspirons. HP also has nice business laptops, especially their professional nc series.

Anyway, will you travel more than you type? I ask because if you travel a lot, the inconvenience of a small keyboard may be overcome by ease of portability (crappy english, I know).

Also, bobby is right with the Broadcom drivers. In Linux, you need ndiswrapper to make these work. Anyway, in semi-configurable systems (dell, hp outside spain), you might get the option to have the intel 3945 one. There is also a new intel 4965 wireless chipset, part of the Santa Rosa platform, but it has no linux drivers as of today (heck, it's been on the market for a couple of days!).

[thomas.hoyland]

lol, now you put it lke that i type more than travel, lol
im not so bothered bout broadcom as ive got broadcom in my notebook now (asus a2000) and found out how to get it sorted.

ive seen the new 630, however id be getting a good 620, so what you all recommend.

thanks for the feedback by the way - all very helpful and it is appreciated

regards,tom

[Miguel]

Hi again,

Well, if you've seen the D620 and you like it, go for it. Really. It's a nice laptop (I suppose you have seen reviews of it elsewhere), and the only thing that Santa Rosa adds is slightly more speed in memory-intensive number crunching applications. Well, that and draft-n wireless, worthless IMHO.

A couple of D620 reviews: one (http://www.laptopmag.com/Review/Dell-Latitude-D620.htm), two (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2846&laptop=Dell+Latitude+D620+Review) and three (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3037&review=Dell+Latitude+D620). Please note that these reviews use the Core Duo processor, while new D620s have the 64bit Core 2 Duo.

Finally, some other options: Thinkpad T60 (14 inch, 4:3 aspect), HP nc6400 (14 inch widescreen), Sony Vaio SZ (13.3 widescreen). Of these, the T60 is probably the most expensive, and curiously, is only 4:3.

[prizrak]

If you want a Dell I suggest you hold off for a little bit until they start selling Ubuntu preloaded ones. I know that you'll have to wait and waiting sux but it might be worth it just to make sure your hardware will work perfectly. You might also get some fun extras such as media codecs and possibly something to play DVD's ;)

[Miguel]

The problem with Dell is that they will only install Ubuntu in the low-end Inspiron and e series laptops. The D620 is a business Latitude laptop which, as far as I know, is outside the Dell-Canonical agreement. These might get SUSE or something from Novell, but that's only some rumours that I've heard.

[thomas.hoyland]

i know that waiting is a good thing, but i really liked the laptop,
what do you mean about something to play dvd's?

[prizrak]

The problem with Dell is that they will only install Ubuntu in the low-end Inspiron and e series laptops. The D620 is a business Latitude laptop which, as far as I know, is outside the Dell-Canonical agreement. These might get SUSE or something from Novell, but that's only some rumours that I've heard.

Hmm I thought Dell was going to put Ubuntu on business laptops.
what do you mean about something to play dvd's?
Right now there is no legal way to play DVD's in Linux (save for the ROM driven LinDVD on HP laptops). It is likely that Dell might make an agreement with some company to preinstall a Linux DVD player with their systems. This is all speculation obviously I have no clue what they are planning but it's a real possibility since they do the same for Windows.

[maniacmusician]

The problem with Dell is that they will only install Ubuntu in the low-end Inspiron and e series laptops. The D620 is a business Latitude laptop which, as far as I know, is outside the Dell-Canonical agreement. These might get SUSE or something from Novell, but that's only some rumours that I've heard.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they were putting it on one of their XPS models as well?

[afljafa]

After reading a number of positive posts on this site i`ve ordered an XPS1210 with a Nvidia upgrade.

It appears that it is a fairly painless install and a pretty robust machine as well.

[thomas.hoyland]

hey there
i bought that laptop - dell d620 with core 2 duo + 1gb ram
intel 950

ill tell you when it gets here so you can help me set it up

any thoughts on the version of ubuntu to install?

[Miguel]

any thoughts on the version of ubuntu to install?


I'd go without doubt for Feisty. If only for the network manager, because it makes WiFi roaming so much easier. Then choose either Gnome or KDE according to your likes.


You might also get some fun extras such as media codecs and possibly something to play DVD's


I'd bet that libdvdcss is perfectly legal in the UK. The same goes for MP3 playback. But it's nice to have it preinstalled, and the same for "ugly" gstreamer codecs. Well, at least they are legal in spain, and as we are both members of the EC.

[thomas.hoyland]

cool!
i tried fiesty on my laptop (asus a2000) however it crashed out when it came to loading because of firewire - lol
other than that, im looking forward to having a serial port (you may laugh) as it means i can connect to my palm vx (old school yeh)
lol

[Miguel]

Mmm... if you have the alternate install cd, you could install it and then blacklist the ieee1394 module. If it's firewire giving you problems, this should do it. I'm sure there is another way to do it on the live CD, but I just don't know.

[thomas.hoyland]

right boys and girls

my latitude d620 should be here today!
so i should be setting it up soon!

[Miguel]

Hi Thomas,

Don't overstress waiting for your laptop ;-). Best wishes for your ubuntu install. Could you give us your first impressions after a couple of days or so? You know, mobility, linux compatibility, screen... those things.

[thomas.hoyland]

Hi Thomas,

Don't overstress waiting for your laptop ;-). Best wishes for your ubuntu install. Could you give us your first impressions after a couple of days or so? You know, mobility, linux compatibility, screen... those things.

indeed i will!

[thomas.hoyland]

right ok....
its here,
i removed windows xp faster than you can say windoze
and attempting a feisty installation......stay tuned

[Miguel]

OK, great. Did you accept the license and all that? If you don't want XP at all and are stubborn enough, you might get a couple of quid back.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your impressons. It's a bad thing I still have work to do.

[thomas.hoyland]

OK, great. Did you accept the license and all that? If you don't want XP at all and are stubborn enough, you might get a couple of quid back.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your impressons. It's a bad thing I still have work to do.

i tried to ring them 3 times and once i got cut off before talking to someone - the queue was massive
i was thinking about it and that was why i was ringing, but ive been told its vv difficult to get it actually happening

[dannyboy79]

lol, now you put it lke that i type more than travel, lol
im not so bothered bout broadcom as ive got broadcom in my notebook now (asus a2000) and found out how to get it sorted.

ive seen the new 630, however id be getting a good 620, so what you all recommend.

thanks for the feedback by the way - all very helpful and it is appreciated

regards,tom
hey there, I don't know where you live but are you willing to sell the asus laptop you're replacing? it's basically just what I have been looking for. It's just a mobile machine for me, no graphics or anything is important. I currently ahve an ancient hitachi 266mhz pentium mmx with 128mb ram and I have xubuntu fiesty on it and it is tolerable to use for surfing with opera, email with splyheed (or whatever the name is), im with gaim (pidgin) and other small stuff (i already have a netgear wg511T which I love and works out of the box).

Anyway, if you'd be willing to part with it let me know what you'd want for it, I'd pay for shipping depending where you live.

[Miguel]

Any news on the laptop? Comments?