Which Laptop to get?

[admiralspark]

Hello all,
I'm in the market for a new laptop that I'll be using for the next four years. Because of that, I'll be getting a laptop that's significantly upgraded so that I can hold out getting a new one for awhile. I managed to survive 4 and a half years with my Compaq Presario, I have faith I can do it again. I'm going into Computer Engineering, and also enjoy playing games.

Here are the three I'm comparing at the moment: Newegg Comparison (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2034940032%204022%201040633097%201292318470&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&CompareItemList=32%7C34-146-777%5E34-146-777-02%23%2C34-157-113%5E34-157-113-TS%2C34-114-803%5E34-114-803-TS)
My requirements are:
1) Must be $1000 or less (or thereabouts, NOT exceeding $1100)

2) Must have either an i7 or one of the faster of the i5's.

3) Must have 1GB decent graphics card, think Ati: Radeon HD 5650/5730 or Geforce GT 230M/330M for playing games. As long as there is basic 3D in linux I'm fine, but I think all the aforementioned cards have good drivers (I'm willing to put the time in for configuration).

4) Must have 4gb RAM.

5) Must have 500GB HDD (or larger), preferable 7200rpm but I'll live with the 5600.

6) Unfortunately, to maintain compatibility with the campus programs, I have to have Windows 7 of some sort. I have a legal copy of XP Professional, but I'll need 7 in the years to come.


Of those three laptops on the link, the Toshiba is probably out of the question because of the many complaints about the video card going haywire. The Lenovo and HP both have good reviews (though the Lenovo is harder to find).

What are your opinions?

[dnairb]

You could have a look at Zareason (http://zareason.com/shop/home.php?cat=250) or System76 (http://www.system76.com/index.php?cPath=28) for pre-installed laptops.

I have a recently-bought Lenovo G550 which runs Lucid very well.

[admiralspark]

I've heard good things about Lenovo, and I happen to be typing this on an IBM Thinkpad running Mint 8. I'm leaning towards that unless I find another laptop out there...

[The Flying Penguin]

How about the Asus ul30jt? It's the predesor to the ul30vt which I am one happy owner of. If you like ultraportables with some power, this may be the laptop for you.

The only thing is its not out yet. I think the ul30vt is still selling too well :p

I'm hearing different specs from different places. It should have either the i5 or i7 (Asus seems to contradict itself), 4gb DDR3 ram, up to 640gb hard drive, and hybrid graphics with some Intel card and Nvidia 310M with 1GB DDR3. Like the ul30vt it is under 4lbs, has a 13.3" 1366x768 led, and has amazing battery life.. Asus claims 10 hours (the ul30vt claims 12).

Its not for sale yet so specs are not concrete and vary depending upon the source. It should cost right around $1,000. I would have bought this instead of my ul30vt but I didn't want to wait.

Now if you'll allow me to make a recommendation that is slightly off from your requirements, I'd like to also recommend you take a look at the ul30vt.

It has Core 2 Duo 1.3ghz (safely oc to 1.7ghz), 4gb DDR3 (upgradeable to 8gb), a 500gb 5400rpm hard drive (I believe 7200rpm is available), and Intel 4500mhd and Nvidia G210M 512MB DDR3 hybrid graphics. I paid $760 on Amazon.com. I'm able to play Gears of War at max res and max graphics settings extremely smooth.

http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/01/08/asus-ul30jt-hands-on-review-ces-2010/
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=dh1loes9V1IGKwCA
http://www.technotalks.com/reviews/asus-ul30jt-ultra-portable-notebook/
A quote from the last link:

"..the device also provides users an Intel Core i7-640UM CPU, which boasts of giving 1.2GHz (2.26GHz alongside Turbo Boost Technology),,,,"EDIT: And btw, it should come with Win 7 64bit just as my ul30vt did. If it's like my ul30vt though, there is no disc so you will have to download one yourself if you want to do a fresh install or run it on a virtual machine. Obviously, it comes with a Win 7 license so you should be ok downloading one. Someone correct me if I'm wrong as I'm no lawyer.

And I imagine Linux compatibility should be good. I believe the Nvidia 310 is fully supported under Linux using the proprietary drivers. I enjoy virtually full compatibility under Lucid 64-bit with my ul30vt. It only took a little tweaking.

[samalex]

I'd suggest a System76 Pangolin Performance because spec'ed out with a Core i5-520M Processor, 4 Gigs/Ram, and 500 GB 7200 RPM HD comes to $1013, but the only option for video is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 w/512MB Ram. I have a PanP laptop and it's amazing, and with a similar video card (mine's one year old) I can say everything I've ran on it looks great, games and all.

As for Windows 7, System76 does have Windows 7 drivers (http://knowledge76.com/index.php/Panp7) so you can either dual-boot or run Windows 7 in VirtualBox, which is what I do with Windows XP.

For more questions visit the System76 forum (http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=341) and see what other options they may have because if Linux compatibility is a must-have I think these guys are the best option.

Sam

[admiralspark]

Wow, the Asus UL30Jt looks just exactly like what I want! If the price tag is around $1000 I'll definitely get it. I can wait until August to get a laptop, so I'll hold off until it's released. The Vt looks nice too.

As for the laptops preloaded with Ubuntu, I can't justify spending $1000 for the hardware and not getting a copy of Windows 7 with it. I know, it's very contradictory for an Ubuntu addict to say it, but I need a legal version of 7 for my Engineering course. I have a legal copy of XP Professional that I'll use also, but this has to have the 'newest' Windows since I'll have the laptop for the next four years.

[samalex]

As for the laptops preloaded with Ubuntu, I can't justify spending $1000 for the hardware and not getting a copy of Windows 7 with it.

Is the version that comes preloaded the Home Edition? Most companies will throw that one on there for next to nothing, but to get Ultimate edition they jump the price up a decent amount. I can't see someone going from Linux to Windows and being happy with the limitations of Windows 7 Home.

Sam

[admiralspark]

Yes, it'll be W7 Home Premium 64 bit, and I plan on booting W7/XP on separate partitions and then Ubuntu/Backtrack in an extended partition. I need 7 for the applications and new games, XP for compatibility with the older stuff I have, and then Ubuntu as my primary, non-classtime OS. And Backtrack because it's useful stuff to know.

As you can see, I have a bit of Grub2 magicmaking that I'll have to deal with, but I think I can sort out any troubles and pull off this quad boot.

EDIT: I also know windows XP and Vista quite well, but need to learn 7 so that I can help people with my local business. I do computer consulting housecalls, and 7 is not an OS I'm familar with. And I'm trying to be legal about it ;-)

[kamaboko]

Hello all,
Of those three laptops on the link, the Toshiba is probably out of the question because of the many complaints about the video card going haywire. The Lenovo and HP both have good reviews (though the Lenovo is harder to find).

What are your opinions?

I have a Toshiba laptop and like it very much.

[admiralspark]

That specific Toshiba with that graphics card was reported by many, many people all over the internet to randomly freeze up, until the user would force reboot it. I agree, most Toshiba's I've used worked great and were of excellent quality, but that specific model had some sort of software/hardware conflict that Toshiba hasn't fixed yet.

[samalex]

Yes, it'll be W7 Home Premium 64 bit, and I plan on booting W7/XP on separate partitions and then Ubuntu/Backtrack in an extended partition. I need 7 for the applications and new games, XP for compatibility with the older stuff I have, and then Ubuntu as my primary, non-classtime OS. And Backtrack because it's useful stuff to know.

As you can see, I have a bit of Grub2 magicmaking that I'll have to deal with, but I think I can sort out any troubles and pull off this quad boot.

EDIT: I also know windows XP and Vista quite well, but need to learn 7 so that I can help people with my local business. I do computer consulting housecalls, and 7 is not an OS I'm familar with. And I'm trying to be legal about it ;-)

What about getting the laptop maxed out with RAM and running Windows virtually. Unless you need hardware acceleration for gaming Windows XP and 7 run great in VirtualBox. I run 32-bit Windows XP on my 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 system via VirtualBox and it works great. Even Flash and streaming from Netflix and Hulu looks great, plus it works with my Tom Tom GPS and a few other devices that have Windows-only drivers.

May be less stressful than trying to setup a duel or triple boot system. Plus given you have the RAM and CPU power you can run all three concurrently which IMO is an awesome perk.

Sam

[98cwitr]

Lenovo > *, but at those specs Lenovo is going to be > $1000

I like this one though
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157113

[admiralspark]

Both a Lenovo Y560 and that HP will be $999 (on Newegg), which is right at my price range. Both good stuff and have good reviews, and there's also a $200 student discount coupon for HP's if you buy them direct from the company; however that dv6 isn't made anymore, apparently you have to get a dv6t or dv6z which don't have the same options (certainly not for $1000).

@Samalex: I tried experimenting with virtual machines but didn't get that far. I've heard that the VM can't use the hardware like wireless card etc that's already being used by Ubuntu? If that's true, it makes it almost useless to me. Also, there's the whole part about getting a copy of 7 legally, since I don't want to attract unwanted attention to my laptop. ;)

[admiralspark]

So, I think I've settled for now. I am able to purchase a Lenovo y560 with an i7, 500gb 7200rpm drive, ati 5730 1gb dedicated, and a free upgrade to 8GB ram, which with my student discount comes out to $1,086.

Done deal.


Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

[Welly Wu]

Have you installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on this Lenovo Y560? If so, then can you post your experience on what works and what does not work? Thanks.

[oldsoundguy]

How about a bullet proof one (literally!) Get the one that is the favorite of the troops .. Panasonic Tough Book .. you can get it with Linux installed already .. but you will need about 3+ grand US to get one with all of the bells and whistles.

[pinguy]

All I am going to do is repost what I have said in the other forum.
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1535648)

This is pretty cheap and will work great with Ubuntu.

Presario CQ61-417SA: £359.00
http://tinyurl.com/2b3ufqr

The only thing I would get for it would be 2 more Gigs of ram.

Or if you can get the Boss to cough up a bit more money go with this one.

Presario CQ61 - 406SA: £399.99
http://tinyurl.com/2d439b8

All I would say is get one that has a 64-bit processor and uses a ATI graphics card as the open source driver for Ubuntu works great, so HDMI and composite/compiz works out of the box. Also remember that a shared graphics card will use the RAM that's already installed. For an example if the laptop says it comes with 3GB of ram and a 1024MB shared graphics card the system will only be able to use 2GB of ram.

If you want a SSD drive it will be much cheaper to fit your own then buy a laptop that has one already installed. They have dropped down in price by quite a bit recently, and are very easy to fit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U23F8JuKKE).

Kingston 30GB V-Series 2.5" SATA SSD: £69.74
http://tinyurl.com/2cdg78o

And just put the old HD into a 2.5-Inch USB Enclosure (http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=221180) so you can use it to put your Documents/Files onto.

[admiralspark]

Hello everyone!
Very sorry I haven't been on, I've been busy with several other projects (and college).
I purchased the Lenovo Y560 and love it! I'm currently triple-booting with Windows 7/Linux Mint 9 (both x64) and it works really well. I had to use the FGLRX driver but both 3D rendering and Compiz work slick. Linux Mint is the more polished version of Ubuntu 10.04, and I'll be upgrading to the 10.10 equivalent as soon as it's out. I've had no problems with it other than having the tg3 module load before the broadcomm module, but that's a common problem that can be fixed elsewhere. I'll probably be posting a full review up here sometime soon, but I'm typing this from a Dell in the library, and I can't remember the specifics. But in the end, bluetooth/cd&dvd playback/3D rendering/sound/wireless all work with little and mostly no hassle.