Whats the best OEM for your money?

[clgy15]

Hey everybody,
Im on the verge of a laptop purchasing montage and I want to know what OEM is good for its word, and provides good solid laptop systems.
I know Im not a fan of dell, even more so with the news of Dell and Intel's shady deal.

[jerenept]

system76 (http://system76.com/)

[Phrea]

Well, this could be a very long discussion, based on personal preferences...

I like both Asus and Toshiba myself.
Having said that, there seem to be problems with Linux and some Toshiba systems, so I've heard.

[jimrz]

ThinkPad

[clgy15]

Oh I like Thinkpad and Asus. They have alot of customizations. Exactly what I need

[Covertoddity]

For customizations, Asus for an over-all basic good performing laptop, Toshiba

[cprofitt]

With all OEMs you have to ensure what wireless cards they are using to ensure maximum happiness. I usually shoot for Intel Wireless cards, but Atheros (most of them) are excellent as well.

I would rank them:

1a. Lenovo - Thinkpad T series
1b. Asus
2 Lenovo - L series (the R series was replaced and the L series does not quite have the build quality)

I have not had enough experience with System76, but they sell their computer with Ubuntu pre-loaded.

[clgy15]

Asus has alot of features but I can't seem to compare all the series.... I have to click on each one and there is ALOT of series

[BigCityCat]

I'm not an expert but my HP works flawlessly with ubuntu. Has for several years.

[mmesantos1]

For me HP/ Compaq works every time with Ubuntu or Ubuntu based Distro's. But don't forget the Video Card, stay away from intel, Nivida will give the best reults.

[mamamia88]

i have an hp laptop and a samsung netbook both work flawlessly with ubuntu. had to use ndiswrapper on netbook but haven't had any problems

[chriswyatt]

I'm not an expert but my HP works flawlessly with ubuntu. Has for several years.

My HP has worked great with Ubuntu, it's a DV2058ea.

It has:


Intel wireless
NVidia graphics
Intel integrated sound (Conexant)
Microdia Sonix camera


Everything except the graphics card is community supported I think, and they work great. Nice not to have to install too much proprietary stuff.

Everything works out the box as far as I can tell, sound can be slightly dodgy though, though there's a fix for my problem.

Earlier releases I had to tweak a bit to get things to work how I wanted, also a few things didn't work like adjusting brightness, wireless on/off switch. These days all these things work and my laptop even suspends and goes into hibernation which it couldn't do before! Been quite lucky really, I didn't have Linux in mind when I bought the laptop.

[McRat]

I have a lot of HP/Compaq's and a lot of Dells, some Acers and others too.

Gotta say, the Dell's have taken the most abuse and survived. Both physical abuse and running bizarre equipment with them.

My 2010 HP dv8 $$$$ notebook is getting shipped back tomorrow after 5 service attempts. $2600++ best-of-the-best is a POS. Less than 40 hours use, it's falling apart both physically and digitally.