Im scared of buying a laptop!

[Dreen]

[note: if this is supposed to be in Hardware & Laptops I am very sorry and please move it, thanks]

I have always been a fan of desktops, and disliked laptops for several downsides. But the times were different for me, I was far more stationary person. Now I moved to a different country, Im going to start uni soon, and for the last couple of months Ive been moving a lot, not always being able to take my desktop with me.
I think its a good time to do some upgrade for my aging PC, but instead of buying parts, I found myself considering a laptop. Here are things which bother and please me in both:

Desktops:
+ ability to upgrade (and a lot of fun with this)
+ monitor can be a 22" pivotable greatness
+ no preinstalled vista to pay for which im going to uninstall anyway
+ upgrade will be cheaper than new laptop (*)
- have to organise transport whenever I move (*)

Laptops:
+ its mobile! The very ability to move a screen even few meters is great, plus obviously it solves my mobility problem. even going between countries is easy (*)
- broken hardware (will explain) (*)
- I dislike widescreen
- well, opposites of all the + in desktops

things with (*) are things which I actually care for a lot, the rest I could swallow I guess.

Now let me explain the "broken hardware" part cause this is actually the point of this topic ;)
My friend bought a laptop recently and asked me to change preinstalled vista to xp. I made a full dump of harware details, downloaded appropiate drivers for xp to a memory stick, wiped the drive and put on xp.

Then it turned out the company which put the laptop together cleverly changed some hardware IDs, rendering few components unusable except with preinstalled system. I made some of them work somehow, but could do nothing with the wireless card. I had an email conversation with a guy from Realtek (manufacturer of the card) and he was surprised, but we couldnt solve this anyhow so I ended up buying a usb wireless adaptor for my friend.

So this is the scare. I dont want to spend 400-500 GBP only to find some hardware unusable when I remove Vista and put Ubuntu and XP on it... And what if some company decided to change the IDs for more than wireless card?? If this scare got somehow neutralised, I would probably decide to go for a laptop...
So how would you go around this problem? Would you have any tips for me how to get this solved?
Thank you for your time reading this post.

[/home]

I just bought a HP 530 a few weeks a ago.
Don't worry just do a bit looking around site googleing

[bomanizer]

I have three letters for you:

I
B
M

...well, Lenovo nowadays, but anyway... :)

[abhiroopb]

I use a laptop because I need to be mobile, but even my parents who live in the same place use a laptop. At this point it seems silly to us to invest in a desktop. The ONLY advantage I can see is that it is easier to upgrade. Which is fine, but I don't need to be at the cutting edge, so portability is more important. If I'm at home I usually hook up my laptop to an external monitor and keyboard, and its like having a desktop. But at the same time I can pack it in my bag and go travelling. The cost difference is there but thats something that I think can be swallowed. HP, are a good brand, I've been using their laptop for the last 2 years and (touch wood), haven't had any problems, use ubuntu without any issues (except suspend doesn't work) and its great!

[Robux the great]

HI

I have a laptop and I wouldn't be without it. I got rid of my desktop at the beginning of the year after I got my Toshiba machine in the January sales.

I runs Linux very well

I do have a problem with wireless but thats only cos I can not be bothered to fix it.

I am sure there is a wireless driver available

I wouldn't worry about getting a laptop

Just go ahead and buy one

Regards

Rob

[Dr Small]

Are you afraid of bugs? :D
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=823020

[jespdj]

Then it turned out the company which put the laptop together cleverly changed some hardware IDs, rendering few components unusable except with preinstalled system.
That is strange, but the solution is simple: Don't buy a laptop from the same manufacturer.

[50words]

Why not just buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed, so you know it will work? Lenovo and Dell are both good choices for this.

You already have an external monitor, I assume, so you can always use your laptop as a desktop if you like. That is what I do at my office.

I am the opposite of you; I can't think of a good reason to buy a desktop.

[gameryoshi600]

do not fear the laptop. the laptop is your friend :)

[rickyjones]

I have a Dell Latitude D630 which is probably going to be converted to Ubuntu 8.04 soon. I have a dual boot with Vista right now and it looks like all the hardware works in Ubuntu. Still testing a few things (network speeds, WPA, WEP, etc...)

This laptop is highly mobile and probably the best machine I've used to date.

-Richard

[artir]

do not fear the laptop. the laptop is your friend :)
That's true unless you live in soviet russia, because in soviet russia you dont't fear the laptop. The laptop fears you. (cuz they dont't want to run run W$)

[mips]

i Have Three Letters For You:

I
B
M

...well, Lenovo Nowadays, But Anyway... :)

+1

[toupeiro]

I think my biggest problem with a laptop is they are still too unclone-able. I can build my own desktop, or I can buy one prebuilt and pre-loaded but I do not like the fact that I cannot do this with a laptop after all these years with the range of customization as I have with desktops. I have no control over chipsets, mobo offerings, internal fans, drive sizes or types, an array of video chipsets, etc etc... I only have what a select few models offer, and most laptop makers offer the same things. I think when laptops become truly clone-able, thats when I will buy my first one. Until then, my work provides me with a new one every 2 years on average, which will suffice until I build my first clone laptop someday.

[BreakDecks]

I bought a Dell 1420n laptop preloaded with Ubuntu. It's fast, has a long battery life, and has never given me trouble.

When I am at home, I plug it into my 19" widescreen monitor, USB surround sound, wireless keyboard and mouse. It works without any issues.

When I am out, I just unplug the monitor and USB devices.

As far as upgrading is concerned, I have full access to the hard drive (which I have upgraded to 250GiB), and RAM (which I have upgraded to 4GiB), as well as the Centrino Duo Processor (which I assume I can upgrade from the current 2.2GHz + 2.2GHz).

I also believe that the graphics card is not integrated into the motherboard on that model of laptop, and if not, I am considering upgrading to Nvidia. (which is available as an option from dell when ordering the laptop).

My only fear is breaking the screen. Besides that, laptops are pretty painless.

[scope]

I wouldn't be scared of buying a laptop because of that, that can happen to you with a desktop too, having to buy different parts in order to get them to work.
I bought a dell xps m1330 on january and i've been using vista with it since that was the os that came with the laptop. Last week I gave it a try at ubuntu again and everything works perfectly (or almost), except the media buttons and the fingerprint, although I havent researched deeply to fix them yet.

About the clone-ability of laptops, I partly disagree. You dont have any choice with some brands, but you do with others like dell. Of course you can choose completely every part, but I think that would be difficult to be done if you want light and small laptops with little room for the internal parts.

Actually, I think that you can buy "empty" laptop boxes and buy each part by separate and build it up yourself, though I think they are big laptops.

[Mazza558]

I never understood the interest in IBM/Lenovo laptops other than their Linux support. They look really, really cheap. Can anyone point me to some nice-looking IBM/lenovo laptops?

[reacocard]

I never understood the interest in IBM/Lenovo laptops other than their Linux support. They look really, really cheap. Can anyone point me to some nice-looking IBM/lenovo laptops?

The point of the ThinkPads isn't looks, it's quality of build and customer service. I own a T61 myself, and the build quality is very good. Steel hinges, magnesium rollcages, keyboard drainage holes are just a few of the innovations towards durability in these laptops. Add to that ibm's superb customer service and it's easy to see why they're popular. As opposed to my old HP, which is falling apart after barely two years of use (admittedly very heavy use), the ThinkPad feels like it'll last forever.

If you're interested in appearance however, you may want to take a look at lenovo's new IdeaPad line. Not as good build quality as the ThinkPads, but prettier.

[kevin11951]

[note: if this is supposed to be in Hardware & Laptops I am very sorry and please move it, thanks]

I have always been a fan of desktops, and disliked laptops for several downsides. But the times were different for me, I was far more stationary person. Now I moved to a different country, Im going to start uni soon, and for the last couple of months Ive been moving a lot, not always being able to take my desktop with me.
I think its a good time to do some upgrade for my aging PC, but instead of buying parts, I found myself considering a laptop. Here are things which bother and please me in both:

Desktops:
+ ability to upgrade (and a lot of fun with this)
+ monitor can be a 22" pivotable greatness
+ no preinstalled vista to pay for which im going to uninstall anyway
+ upgrade will be cheaper than new laptop (*)
- have to organise transport whenever I move (*)

Laptops:
+ its mobile! The very ability to move a screen even few meters is great, plus obviously it solves my mobility problem. even going between countries is easy (*)
- broken hardware (will explain) (*)
- I dislike widescreen
- well, opposites of all the + in desktops

things with (*) are things which I actually care for a lot, the rest I could swallow I guess.

Now let me explain the "broken hardware" part cause this is actually the point of this topic ;)
My friend bought a laptop recently and asked me to change preinstalled vista to xp. I made a full dump of harware details, downloaded appropiate drivers for xp to a memory stick, wiped the drive and put on xp.

Then it turned out the company which put the laptop together cleverly changed some hardware IDs, rendering few components unusable except with preinstalled system. I made some of them work somehow, but could do nothing with the wireless card. I had an email conversation with a guy from Realtek (manufacturer of the card) and he was surprised, but we couldnt solve this anyhow so I ended up buying a usb wireless adaptor for my friend.

So this is the scare. I dont want to spend 400-500 GBP only to find some hardware unusable when I remove Vista and put Ubuntu and XP on it... And what if some company decided to change the IDs for more than wireless card?? If this scare got somehow neutralised, I would probably decide to go for a laptop...
So how would you go around this problem? Would you have any tips for me how to get this solved?
Thank you for your time reading this post.

i have a quick question for you, what country do you live in, because if you live in the US or Canada. you can buy a laptop (with guaranteed hardware support) at www.system76.com with ubuntu pre installed.

[_DD_]

that can happen to you with a desktop too, having to buy different parts in order to get them to work.
You seem to flatter everyone by making it sound so difficult :p
You can't really go too wrong...
LGA775 != AM2
DDR2 != DDR3
PCIe 16x != PCI-x (or PCI)



If I had all the money I would definitely buy a Lenovo. Just because they look plain and boring, doesn't mean they're not well built and fast machines.

I recently bought a second hand HP NC8430 which actually is a bit of a Thinkpad copycat in its minimal styling, good build quality and most important of all... the nobby mouse pointer stick thing (although I do hate the damn things :D).

It only cost me £300 and it runs 'buntu like a dream. Everything working pretty much out the box (I only had to + the ATI drivers and fprint for the fingerprint reader). It easily exceeds the spec of any rubbish you'd find new in PC World of £300, so I'm definitely happy with my purchase.

I've never had a (decent) laptop before and always built my own PCs, and I have to say its quite nice to have a complete packaged system for once.

[mips]

I never understood the interest in IBM/Lenovo laptops other than their Linux support. They look really, really cheap. Can anyone point me to some nice-looking IBM/lenovo laptops?

It's not about the looks. If you are into looks get a Mac or Sony. The IBM/Lenovo laptops are bullet proof, reliable and have excellent support. You are buying an A-class product. Just go have a look at ebay, P3 and older thinkpads are still going strong.

It's all about the quality of the product!!!

[Dreen]

i have a quick question for you, what country do you live in


I live in UK. I also work for DSGi so I have a discount in PCWorld, Currys and Dixons.

Hmmm, maybe that laptop was just poor manufacturer choice - Ei Systems (a DSGi brand with basically no real support, or even a website) he went for low price anyway.

Anyway, thanks for bringing my attention to Lenovo, Im going to research it. Im kind of short on money though, and would like something with at least 2gb ram, around 200gb hdd and some good (nonintegrated) graphics card (preferably not ati), dual core welcome 1.8ghz+ (2+ welcome), 15 or 17 inch screen (17 better).
edit: im aiming for around ~500-600 GBP if possible

So are laptops with linux bloated with unneccesary software like windows ones? I would probably reinstall os anyway but out of curiousity.

[techmarks]

They look really, really cheap. Can anyone point me to some nice-looking IBM/lenovo laptops?

well they may look cheap to you, but the Lenovo (formerly IBM) Thinkpads
are solid built machines, they last forever (ok an exaggeration)

The Thinkpads you can put any brand of Linux or one of the BSD's without
any trouble, and Lenovo now ships some with linux pre-installed.

They're really good laptops (no I don't work for Lenovo, but I've
owned several of the IBMs)

[scope]

I'm quite new in the laptop world but I have to say that I love the design of my dell xps m1330 as well as the m1530. I read in many places that dell was a very ugly and conservative brand in laptops but with the new xps series I think that they have done a good job.

[Flag]

Running everything on a laptop for years now, will never go back to a desktop.
Only HP is on my blacklist, poor ( non existing ) service, problems from the start.
Now on an Acer Aspire 7520, no probs.

[abhiroopb]

Its great how different our experiences were. I owned a toshiba, unending problems. Horrible build. Then bough a HP, about 2 years now (touch wood) NO problems what so ever. And if there is I call a toll free number and always get through to tech support (ok so I did this once when I wanted to ask about Linux support). Anyway I would definitely suggest HP!

[jespdj]

My Dell XPS M1530 is really nice, very powerful, not that expensive, and runs 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04 great.

I also have a desktop PC (homebuilt) but I use the laptop as my main computer.

[Fedz]

I have a HP nx6310 laptop with Ubuntu/8.04 and everything works flawlessly ;-)

Ubuntu supports most common hardware with little or no user intervention and as my laptop hardware is majority intel based and a year or two old then most if not all hardware is supported :-D

Good luck and keep us informed :-)

[zmjjmz]

If what you're looking for is the mobility, yet what you still like is the monitor and such, you can just buy a small laptop (like the EeePC) and hook it up to a monitor/keyboard at home, but use it by itself on the move.

[LightB]

I don't get the people that buy laptops just to keep them at their desk at home, but that's their thing. For power, I always just stick with Desktops. I want to get a new laptop, but I'm uneasy about it because up until recently there was little hope of a nice one unless you go for high specs, expensive. Now I'm going to cheat and buy one of those UMPCs just to carry on some ocassions I might need to. I'm staying tuned to the buzz (perhaps hype?) around something called the Aspire One, it's supposedly a really trimmed down, cheap, but usable mini laptop.

[Dreen]

The cheapest laptop with good specs I found is a Dell XPS for 600 GBP.

Seriously, is it really completely impossible to find a decent laptop with NONINTEGRATED graphics for less than six hundred? Are online manufacturer stores usually more expensive than real stores? I am going to have to make a decision (and purchase) THIS week. Please help!

[damis648]

Do not be scared. This is something many companies do not do. I can tell you, Dell, Lenovo, and System76 are all very good companies that you will have few, if any, problems with.

[Pethegreat]

I own a system 76 laptop. I got a good laptop with a 8600gt for $870. I have not had any problems with it to date. I do plan on dropping in 4gb of ram and 320gb HD so I can use it as a desktop replacment.

[Dreen]

Ok, forget my last post, what do you guys think of this build:

http://3lions.pl/scripts/old/CodeScribbler/inspiron/inspiron.pdf link broken, scroll down for specs

Worth to go for? I think its affordable.

[reacocard]

Ok, forget my last post, what do you guys think of this build:

http://scribbler.way.to/inspiron/print_summary_details_popup.aspx.html

(sorry for popups if any)

Worth to go for? I think its affordable.

that url doesn't work for me, it has none of your config options selected. perhaps screenshots would work better?

EDIT: unless you meant the default?

[Dreen]

that url doesn't work for me, it has none of your config options selected. perhaps screenshots would work better?

EDIT: unless you meant the default?

sorry, I hope the PDF will work. Blast dell for not generating savable reports :P

edit: oh, http://3lions.pl/scripts/old/CodeScribbler/inspiron/inspiron.pdf

[Midwest-Linux]

[note: if this is supposed to be in Hardware & Laptops I am very sorry and please move it, thanks]

I dont want to spend 400-500 GBP only to find some hardware unusable when I remove Vista and put Ubuntu and XP on it... And what if some company decided to change the IDs for more than wireless card?? If this scare got somehow neutralised, I would probably decide to go for a laptop...
So how would you go around this problem? Would you have any tips for me how to get this solved?
Thank you for your time reading this post.

With installing XP you need to find drivers which might or might not be avalaible if your machine is Vista only and the drivers might not be available.

As far as Vista is concerned, others might disagree. But you can shrink the hard drive very easy using the built in partitioner that is unique to Vista. This will free up your hard drive.

You shrink your hard drive by 15 GB, so instead of a 120 GB hard drive with Vista. You now have 105 GB, OK? Now once you shink it. Install Ubuntu 8.04 using the text based installer alternate CD on the freed hard drive space.

You want to do this first BEFORE wiping the hard drive and installing XP and Ubuntu. Because you can experiment with getting the wireless to work in Ubuntu before you go ahead and do a full blown re installation.

What I recommend is to take pictures of the installation and any tweaking needed for wireless, (video tape/cam corder the sessions-makes it easier later on).

Once you get everything thing down and you are ready to wipe Vista. Download BELARC advisor, it is a free program that takes a snapshot of your Vista install and from here you can find out about the hardware your computer requires and from here you can gather information on what drivers are needed for that hardware to work.

Now armed with that information. Go to the manufacturer site and look for the Vista drivers and for the XP drivers. If you find there are XP drivers for that Vista machine. Then you should be good to go. If there are no XP drivers, ask around here and other helpful forums like the Vista Forums for more info. Some have used different XP drivers for a XP install on a Vista only machine with mixed results.

If you really want to save yourself a lot of time and trouble. Just buy a laptop with XP from Dell or Micro Center (they still sell XP laptops) and from there install Ubuntu as a dual boot with that.

Good luck.

[reacocard]

sorry, I hope the PDF will work. Blast dell for not generating savable reports :P

edit: oh, http://3lions.pl/scripts/old/CodeScribbler/inspiron/inspiron.pdf

pdf came out as gibberish.

[Dreen]

pdf came out as gibberish.

Dammit! Ok Ill just type it...

Dell Inspiron 1720

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5750 (2.0 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display I read they are not so excellent but better are to expensive
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
nVidia® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory reviews seem to give this one about 80-90% score on performance
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive


Price: £588.99

Its a custom build from their website. Do you know of any hidden fees in this?

[damis648]

Do you know of any hidden fees in this?

Tax and shipping?

[Ioky]

go for IBM(Lenovo), Acer, or HP, They have pretty good Linux support, I mean, Dell do officially support Linux, but only with the product that have Linux preinstalled, and for their windows machine, there is a few thing that doesn't work really well with Linux.

What you shouldn't go for is, Sony, and some "High tech" companies, They usually have some too "High tech" thing that doesn't work with Linux. I have try to install Linux in my sis Sony laptop, but after 12 hours of installation/ config. I still can't get everything working. like some Key, and the card reader to read the song card PRO something something.

So yeah, Laptop isn't that scary, good lucky with you laptop searching. I personally recommend the Ideapad, I get a friend to install Linux on it, everything just work out and it looks pretty good too.

[Dreen]

go for IBM(Lenovo), Acer, or HP
I poked around their websites, Lenovo is generally not avaliable in UK unless you want a crappy one from PCWorld Business or an expensive one from IBM website. Very tempting but too expensive.
Acer or HP are cool but still Dell beats them with price. The specs I posted above would cost around 800 GBP from HP (dunno about Acer but probably around 700).


Dell do officially support Linux, but only with the product that have Linux preinstalled, and for their windows machine, there is a few thing that doesn't work really well with Linux.
Sadly the ones with preinstalled ubuntu have crappy specs, I could get a Dell XPS with good specs and linux but strangely it will cost me about 100 GBP more than similar with windows.
What do you mean by few things that dont work? any links?

And for the specs I posted above (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5193402&postcount=38), do you guys think its good for this price? Or maybe the price seems dubious for this spec?


Thank you all for the replies so far :D

[reacocard]

I poked around their websites, Lenovo is generally not avaliable in UK unless you want a crappy one from PCWorld Business or an expensive one from IBM website. Very tempting but too expensive.
Acer or HP are cool but still Dell beats them with price. The specs I posted above would cost around 800 GBP from HP (dunno about Acer but probably around 700).


Sadly the ones with preinstalled ubuntu have crappy specs, I could get a Dell XPS with good specs and linux but strangely it will cost me about 100 GBP more than similar with windows.
What do you mean by few things that dont work? any links?

And for the specs I posted above (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5193402&postcount=38), do you guys think its good for this price? Or maybe the price seems dubious for this spec?


Thank you all for the replies so far :D

For the price it seems quite decent. Keep in mind RAM and hard drive are easy to upgrade in a laptop, while the CPU is not, so to future-proof it you could consider decreasing one of those in favor of CPU (if you can, get the T8100 or higher, they offer better performance and power-saving at the same clock speed). With that in mind, I say go for it.

[Dreen]

For the price it seems quite decent. Keep in mind RAM and hard drive are easy to upgrade in a laptop, while the CPU is not, so to future-proof it you could consider decreasing one of those in favor of CPU (if you can, get the T8100 or higher, they offer better performance and power-saving at the same clock speed). With that in mind, I say go for it.

You're right, the ram isnt very expensive, but if I downgrade my build to 2 GB (lowest option) they are going to give me 2x1024 which will fill all slots, so I will have to buy 2x2048 later and be stuck with old ones :/

T8100 is very nice but costs £60 more... I dont know, I think I will upgrade my desktop in about 3 years anyway, when I wont require as much mobility... Im not quite convinced... would you perhaps know how big is the performance difference between T5750, T5850, T7250 and T8100 ?

Thanks very much for the help so far though!

[reacocard]

You're right, the ram isnt very expensive, but if I downgrade my build to 2 GB (lowest option) they are going to give me 2x1024 which will fill all slots, so I will have to buy 2x2048 later and be stuck with old ones :/

T8100 is very nice but costs £60 more... I dont know, I think I will upgrade my desktop in about 3 years anyway, when I wont require as much mobility... Im not quite convinced... would you perhaps know how big is the performance difference between T5750, T5850, T7250 and T8100 ?

Thanks very much for the help so far though!

the T5850 is essentially the T5750 with a slightly higher clock speed, so it will increase raw computational performance marginally.
the T7250 is the T5850 with an 800MHz FSB instead of 667MHz. This means it'll have faster access to RAM and other devices in the system, but actual computational performance is basically unchanged. However, you're more likely to be able to 'feel' the difference with this one than with the T5850.
the T8100 is a completely new processor generation from the others, so it features additions such as new instruction sets and a larger L2 cache. It should perform slightly better than the T7250 but multimedia applications and battery life will see greater improvements. It also features intel's VT-x, so VMWare and other virtualization systems will perform better.


so, if you care about multimedia, battery life or virtualization, the T8100 is the best bet. Otherwise the T7250 is a good second choice.

[Dreen]

Ha, the heck with it! I read and read and just to keep sanity and confidence Im buying something really good I made a decision.

I have just become (well, soon will) an owner of brand new Dell Inspiron 1720 with:
* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.10 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache)
* 3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
* nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
* 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
for the price of £648.99. More than I wanted, but it seems like a really good investment. Too bad shipping and tax (included in price) are £147.72 but I guess I have to live with it...

Anyway, thank you very much for help, especially reacocard. Im looking forward to see Ubuntu installation progress bar on the screen of my new laptop :)

[Dreen]

A little follow-up on my purchase.

Dell cancelled my order (never mind the reason, my stupid mistake). And Im glad they did it.
I had a quick talk with several people, including some friends who repair laptops for a living. They generally advised me against Dell because of very low quality matrix (especially in 17") that goes bad usually after around 1,5/2 years of usage.
I have a reason to trust them, and I know for a fact it is not the first time I hear about something going wrong with matrix in a Dell. I also know there probably is quite low chance I get a faulty matrix - but after my order got cancelled I began looking around after a notebook from a company I could absolutely trust in this matter - Toshiba.
My family owed 3 laptops from them. Oldest is about 5 years old, and neither of them had any hardware problems ever. I actually never heard anyone particuraly complaining about Toshiba.

So I looked around and heres what I found:

1. A300-1BZ (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=150957&PRODUCT_ID=150957&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £584.99)

2. P300-156 (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=149869&PRODUCT_ID=149869&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £584.99)

3. A200-28P (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=150395&PRODUCT_ID=150395&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £629.99 or £699.99)

Problem: ATi. Toshiba does not make laptops with Nvidia cards (at least in UK). The problem I have with Ati is I heard on multiple occasions they perform worse than GeForce, and that OpenGL support is not very good.

So #1 has good CPU but medium GPU (only 128MB). #2 has better GPU (256MB) but worse CPU.
Finally, #3 has good CPU and good GPU (256MB, but older model than in #2 I think). This is my favourite but I may have to pay the full price of £699.99 in which case I am having #1 and #2 as backup. I also does not look as sexy as #1/#2 ;)

So what would you say? Is ATI a bad choice or am I misinformed about it? I think #3 is very good but I wanted to ask here first. What do you think?

[reacocard]

A little follow-up on my purchase.

Dell cancelled my order (never mind the reason, my stupid mistake). And Im glad they did it.
I had a quick talk with several people, including some friends who repair laptops for a living. They generally advised me against Dell because of very low quality matrix (especially in 17") that goes bad usually after around 1,5/2 years of usage.
I have a reason to trust them, and I know for a fact it is not the first time I hear about something going wrong with matrix in a Dell. I also know there probably is quite low chance I get a faulty matrix - but after my order got cancelled I began looking around after a notebook from a company I could absolutely trust in this matter - Toshiba.
My family owed 3 laptops from them. Oldest is about 5 years old, and neither of them had any hardware problems ever. I actually never heard anyone particuraly complaining about Toshiba.

So I looked around and heres what I found:

1. A300-1BZ (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=150957&PRODUCT_ID=150957&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £584.99)

2. P300-156 (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=149869&PRODUCT_ID=149869&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £584.99)

3. A200-28P (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=150395&PRODUCT_ID=150395&toshibaShop=false) (cost: £629.99 or £699.99)

Problem: ATi. Toshiba does not make laptops with Nvidia cards (at least in UK). The problem I have with Ati is I heard on multiple occasions they perform worse than GeForce, and that OpenGL support is not very good.

So #1 has good CPU but medium GPU (only 128MB). #2 has better GPU (256MB) but worse CPU.
Finally, #3 has good CPU and good GPU (256MB, but older model than in #2 I think). This is my favourite but I may have to pay the full price of £699.99 in which case I am having #1 and #2 as backup. I also does not look as sexy as #1/#2 ;)

So what would you say? Is ATI a bad choice or am I misinformed about it? I think #3 is very good but I wanted to ask here first. What do you think?

I have had issues with the ATI graphics on several of my friends' laptops, but their more-recent drivers are getting better. Most of these issues were with compiz or sleep/hibernate though, so if you don't care too much about those features it'll probably be okay. Do your research on how difficult it is to get that specific card working in linux first though, you don't want to get stuck with the one card that doesn't work right,

[Dreen]

whoa.... a quick search, even on this forum gives way too much instances of problems with these cards...
Why do you do this to me, Toshiba? :(
We come full circle I guess... Im going nuts ](*,)
I think I will reorder the Dell then. Maybe it wont be that bad? I mean, I will use external monitor whenever I can.. Yeah..
Just waiting for next paycheck......

[rudihawk]

Wow, man...good luck!

[abhiroopb]

Honestly HP has been the overall best option for me. I did a clean install of Hardy the other day. EVERYTHING worked. i had to do a minor tweak to search for wireless hotspots but thats it. EVERYTHING worked straight out of the box. Including suspend/hibernate, webcam, multimedia keys. I have even played enemy territory quake wars (by using the linux installer) and it is faster than in windows. My HP has a geforce card. If I were to upgrade now I wouldn't even think twice.

[mips]

I'm trying to think of that European laptop brand but memory fails me. Anyone care to list some European laptop brands.

[inportb]

While it is true that ATi's had some bad reputation with *nix in the past, it is rapidly improving and might even surpass Nvidia in the near future. AMD is working closely with the opensource community to make this happen, whereas Nvidia is still completely closed.

My Toshiba is working just fine with KDE4+effects.

[Dreen]

Another follow-up.


In the end I bought a custom-built laptop.
Here be specs:

* Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T8300 2.4GHz
* OCZ Sodimm 4GB 800MHz DDR2
* Toshiba 2.5" 250GB 5400rpm SATA
* Intel 4965AGNMM2WB WiFi
* Nvidia GF 8600M GT 512MB
* Compal JFL92 15.4" (screen, chasis, keyboard etc)
* 2MP webcam, fingerprint reader, LOADS of connectors

I bought it for 760.66 GBP (1 507.10 USD) which is still a very good price. I was able to do that due to some... financial help from some people :)

I am very happy with the config, but I cannot install ubuntu on it! I have a problem with keyboard not responding during installation... I made a new topic here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5329919#post5329919
Check it out and please help if you can.

[mips]

* Nvidia GF 8600M GT 512MB


You might end up experiencing sluggish 2D performance with that card, sorry to rain on your parade.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=847360

.