Laptop Purchase

[insanekat]

I hope this is the correct area for this topic...

I am thinking of replacing my laptop at some point and thought where is a better place to get advice than from this forum?

I want a laptop that is high on storage capacity and obviously all the usual things (fast, not too pricey, etc.). I am not looking for something to do crazy things on, really all I do is go on the internet, use it for school, listen to music (that's a biggie) and occaisonally watch TV/movies.

I have considered HP as a brand since I know many people who have them and they seem good to me. However, any search through any of the major retailers or through the manufacturer themselves, comes up saying "Windows 7 included!". Well, I don't want Windows 7 included, or anything for that matter. But I have absolutely no idea if A. this is possible or if B. it wouldn't really make a difference price-wise if it's included. I have looked into the HP Envy and that seemed good to me, so I was thinking of something along those lines.

Any help, advice, or tidbits of wisdom are greatly appreciated here. I am really just looking to see what's out there and to see if I can find something that suits my needs at a reasonable price.

[dv3500ea]

These websites sell laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled:

http://www.system76.com/
http://zareason.com/shop/home.php
http://www.ubuntu.com/dell


Also, have a look at Ubuntu certified laptops:
http://webapps.ubuntu.com/certification/release/10.04%20LTS/laptops/

[camorri]

No dought, you can buy a laptop with linux pre-installed, and no ******* tax.

I just went through this, and found you can buy the laptop cheaper with some flavour of win 7, than with linux.

I put the .iso I installed on my 8 gig memory stick, added UNetBootin, stuck the usb stick in, booted from it, deleted the ******* partitions, repartitioned, formatted, and installed.

It took less time than typing this.

I don't think you will find regular retailers selling linux installed laptops.

I like HP hardware as well. My netbook is HP and works well. I bought the wife a new laptop with Vista, well, at least the hardware is not a problem. If you are not going to use it for *******, 1 gig of ram is enough. More won't hurt anything but your pocket book. Get as much cpu as you can afford, at least a dual core, and as much disk space as you budget allows.

Wireless can be a pain. Get one with an Antheros chip set if you can. Those seem to work well. Broadcom adapters will work, but a lot of distros can't seem to install the drivers. It becomes a manual job after the install. Just do a search on wireless and look at the problems people have.

Hope these thoughts help.

There are some deals out there now, so have a good look around.

[Austin25]

Even better, ask if you can get it with no OS, then install it.

[insanekat]

Thanks for the replies all! The help is appreciated and I will definitely check those sites, I've already looked at a couple in the past :)

As for asking if I can buy without Windows, do you think this would then lower the price?

[LowSky]

As for asking if I can buy without Windows, do you think this would then lower the price?

Nope not really... the Windows Tax is really a urban myth these days.

Most PC manufacturers will install a few extra programs that subsidize the price of the computer in effect giving you Windows for free.

[Wobblybob]

you could try this company, you get to config your own lappy and can choose not to have an o/s, I've not bought a lappy from them but my latest PC came from them and am very happy with it and the service.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptop-computers/

[drawkcab]

http://www.powernotebooks.com/

You can customize an ASUS, Sager, MSI, Compal or whatever these guys have going. All are good brands. Actually they're rebranded "power pro" notebooks are the best deal. Same thing, just choose no OS. I've bought two units from these guys and they're great.