buying new laptop: need general advice?

[idiotprogrammer]

I am buying a new laptop this weekend, and I want to dual boot/wubi with Ubuntu 12.10.

Are there any videocard families I should avoid? Are there any new hardware features which I should expect to have problems with?

Any brands which are better than others (My last laptop was a Thinkpad, but I'm willing to look into more consumer-oriented brands this time to save money).

I see that there are lots of integrated Intel graphics. Do these basically work ok with Ubuntu 12.10?

Previously I had good experience with Intel's wifi card on my Thinkpad T400. Are the builtin wifi on new laptops basically wifi -n friendly these days?

I've seen the Linux Laptop Incompatibility thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...543009&page=33, and before I buy, I'll definitely search around the hardware compatibility list, but I want general advice before I get started?

Thanks.

[Yellow Pasque]

Avoid anything with hybrid graphics (especially involving AMD graphics). If you must have high-powered 3D, then an Optimus system (with integrated Intel video and discrete Nvidia video) is the lesser of two evils.