What laptop should I buy?

[aaaantoine]

And the customer service sux monkey balls...literaly.

Ew... Still, what they do on their personal time has nothing to do with their quality of service.

rasmus, why not AMD?

[Atomic Dog]

I did not see the $1500 spending limit. For $900 you can get a really nice centrino laptop -for $1500 you could get a really sweet setup. I like HP and Dell laptops equally, but have more exposure to HP offerings.

I like Intel centrino laptops because they give me no trouble with Xp or Ubuntu -everything seems to just work with no fussing. I also think the intel laptops perform better.

[dasunst3r]

I would also put in my vote for computers with Intel Centrino technology. If you want to have good graphics and stuff, you should also go for a laptop with an nVidia graphics card. As others have also said, Dell, Lenovo, and System76 are good options.

As for why you should not go with computers with AMD processors: They are always equipped with Broadcom wireless networking cards, and they are one of the things I swear at most when working with Linux.

[Black Mage]

It is me or no one really suggest Apple laptops, even when you can get one at $1,000 dollars. I wonder why that is.

[Specter043]

I have an HP that ran me like $800 when I was planning on about $1000. You could go with something around $900 and get some nice accessories. I'd say go with an HP.

[bashveank]

You know what, I would like to be able to run compiz, but I've heard that the Intel chipset that the Mac uses, and the nVidia Quatro that the ThinkPad uses are incompatible. Has that been fixed yet?

[spamking2000]

OK... don't know about the AMD processor being bad with Linux or the Broadcomm wifi adapter, but HP is probably the only laptop I'd buy right now. My brother has one with an AMD X2 processor and it screams and he hasn't seen any problems with battery life (AMD's typically use more power).

I've had Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads for years and every one I've purchased has had some problems along the way. On my last T41 I had to replace the screen, the DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive and the hard drive over the course of its 3 year life with me. I do like the Trackpoint rather than the touchpad for a mouse which is something you'll only find on Lenovo.

For me though, if I had to buy one today, it would be an HP because on the touchpad there is a button that disables the mouse - which is great for when you're typing and your wrist hits the touchpad. One more touch to the button and the mouse is back on, which for me if I were to do without the trackpoint would pretty much be a requirement. I haven't seen any other laptops with that feature.

Otherwise - I think most processor specs are pretty much over-rated and anything you get will last w/o being obsolete - granted as long as you don't install Windows Vista.

My main desktop is still an AMD Athlon XP1800+ based machine and while I've added a couple bigger hard drives and another gig of RAM (came with 512mb), its never been a slow machine. Linux requires a lot less system resources to do the same processes as Windows in general and its pretty rare that I go over the 512mb or RAM that came with the machine.

Desktop or Laptop... I'd agree with the nVidia graphics card though.

[Arkenzor]

I myself haven't had much trouble with my Dell Latitude 'top (which I bought for basically the same reason you might want to do it - my university had discounts on them), at least nothing about battery duration issues and the such. So if you want to stick with Dells because of the discounts there's probably no problem with it.

Beware, though, because Dell loooooves Broadcom cards, which usually won't work at all (like mine), or not without some serious work. A friend of mine made sure to get the exact same card as those shipped with those Ubuntu Dells and says the bcm43xx driver worked right out of the box, si maybe this one would do. Or you can simply add 50$ to your budget and get yourself a Linux-friendly PCMCIA card...


As for graphic cards, low-end Dells usually get Intel cards which are somewhat inferior to nVidia models, but then again they don't depend on a proprietary driver, so why not...

[Pethegreat]

I am looking at a system 76 laptop. I am looking at the Pangolin Value laptop. I would add on the 8600gt and 120gb HD bringing my price up to around $900. I would up the ram to 2gb my self saving my self about $30. I have looked at Dell's offerings and none offer the 8600gt. I have also heard of many people having trouble with support. Does it seem like a good deal for a "works for sure" Ubuntu laptop?

[Whiffle]

I can run compiz on the intel GMA 915 in my T43 quite happily... some of the fancier effects go slow but it runs.

What do you want to do with said laptop? I specifically got mine without a fancy graphics card because I bought it to do work, and a graphics card would just make it easier to get distracted.