barebones laptops

[cptrohn]

OK, so I hear alot of folks saying that they want laptops without windows installed...

Well here you go... This outfit sells different models either completely barebones or you can configure what you want without an OS installed.

http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php

[3Miro]

Actually this looks awesome!!!!

Do you know anybody who has bought a machine from them?

[Lucradia]

OK, so I hear alot of folks saying that they want laptops without windows installed...

Your website's good, there are other places that will allow you to choose no OS (but won't have an option for Linux.) However, removing Windows won't change the price much, if at all.

Also, what's up with this laptop: http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=30065

Check the video card dropdown. Cleary, this website is bugged for some reason. I'd rather have them fix it before I go ordering anything. Are any of these laptops AMD? I hate Intel.

[gopherofdoom]

Similar thing for people in the UK: http://pcspecialist.co.uk

I got my netbook from them, and lovely it is too. Dropping Windows saved me ~£70, which I used to choose an SSD instead of HDD. :)

[Mateo]

I wouldn't buy a laptop that didn't give battery life specs. It's the single most important thing for a laptop.

[Lucradia]

I wouldn't buy a laptop that didn't give battery life specs. It's the single most important thing for a laptop.

This too, I need to know possible battery life based on specifications I choose.

[3Miro]

I wouldn't buy a laptop that didn't give battery life specs. It's the single most important thing for a laptop.

Battery life depends on the software. It makes a difference which kernel, which DE and what kind of desktop effects you have.

If they had default OS, then they could give a battery life estimate, with no OS, they cannot know.

[aysiu]

Battery life depends on the software. It makes a difference which kernel, which DE and what kind of desktop effects you have.

If they had default OS, then they could give a battery life estimate, with no OS, they cannot know.
This is simply not true. My HP netbook gets about 2-2.5 hours of battery life regardless of what OS or kernel I use. My Macbook Pro gets about 8-9 hours of battery life whether it's running Mac OS X or Ubuntu. There is a little bit of variability with battery life, but there's no way a battery that has 3 hours of battery life in Windows will suddenly jump up to 10 hours just because you use a different OS or kernel

[cptrohn]

I wouldn't buy a laptop that didn't give battery life specs. It's the single most important thing for a laptop.

Seems like you should be able to add up the voltages that you would be using and be able to reference that with the voltage of the battery and be able to get an idea on what the battery life would be..

[Lucradia]

Seems like you should be able to add up the voltages that you would be using and be able to reference that with the voltage of the battery and be able to get an idea on what the battery life would be..

Which one of the three measurements of the battery should be trusted though? Wattage Capacity? Amperage? Voltage or all three?

Because Batteries don't usually have Wattage stamped on the specification chart on these sites. (Nor amperage nor voltage unless it's not best buy or newegg or circuitcity or tigerdirect or if you know the battery model number.)

If we don't know any of these, and can't get the info before we buy, how can we tell?

I still want to know where to find an AMD custom laptop site for the states.

[3Miro]

This is simply not true. My HP netbook gets about 2-2.5 hours of battery life regardless of what OS or kernel I use. My Macbook Pro gets about 8-9 hours of battery life whether it's running Mac OS X or Ubuntu. There is a little bit of variability with battery life, but there's no way a battery that has 3 hours of battery life in Windows will suddenly jump up to 10 hours just because you use a different OS or kernel

I know that 2 hours cannot become 10, but you can easily get 30 minutes depending on the DE and amount of desktop effects.

Another problem is that none of the laptops have "standard" CPU. You can select from i3 to i7 and that should also affect the Battery life.

GPU is the biggest drain on power, but I don't think they can get good estimates on the consumption form GPU alone.

[Blasphemist]

The problem I have with this is that I can walk into the local Best Buy and get a good Toshiba Satellite with good specs for $400. I love the idea of stuff like this but it just never seems like it isn't better for me to get the dang windows and kill it myself.

There is a company near me that even sells with Ubuntu already installed. Granted their low end specs are a good bit higher than the Toshiba at best buy that I mentioned but their bottom end price is $699 too. That's too much unless I can get them to let me work there. :D

[aysiu]

I know that 2 hours cannot become 10, but you can easily get 30 minutes depending on the DE and amount of desktop effects. But that's my point. When people say they want to see battery life, they want a rough estimate--is it a 3-hour battery life or a 10-hour battery life. A half hour here or there is neglible.

[drawkcab]

R&J tech, XoticPC and Powernotebooks.com all get good reviews from folks on notebookreview.com's forums. The owners and employees participate on the forums regularly. There are a few others out there now too. The company to stay away from is cyberpower PC.

I've bought a couple of laptops from powernotebooks and, despite their scary right-wing jesusland website, I have been happy with them as a company.

These outfits really aren't trying to attract the low-end crowd that's looking for a $400 toshiba anyway. They're getting folks who want a custom-built laptop with discrete graphics and 1080p screen for $800-$2000 to improve their gaming experience. If the prices seem unfair consider the fact that powernotebooks, for example, offer their in-house brand (rebranded compal, asus and msi) with a free three-year warranty.

Also last week I noticed that Lenovo has a page of thinkpads that ship sans OS:

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/thinkpad-laptops-with-dos.shtml

[Blasphemist]

That's an improvement that lenovo has some no OS options, and links to distro's right there. It's weird to call them DOS notebooks though. I sure can't tell that the buyer is saving any money at those prices.

[drawkcab]

That's an improvement that lenovo has some no OS options, and links to distro's right there. It's weird to call them DOS notebooks though. I sure can't tell that the buyer is saving any money at those prices.

I agree. The consumer might be better off just paying the full price and keeping the windows partition around just in case.

What frustrates me even more is that I love the thinkpads (my mom has one and it's excellent to work on) except for the fact that they all have relatively poor graphics cards. Meanwhile many of the multimedia and gaming Levonos have gimmicky keyboards and relatively poor screens.

[3602]

AVADirect.