Laptop purchase
October 12, 2006 1:39 pm gnome, workJoining in the recent trend of people blogging about their laptop purchases, I need advice on hardware.
I’m looking for a laptop in a €1500 budget, which is light, has wifi and ethernet, works perfectly with free software (including projectors), has at least 1GB of RAM, and is fast enough to do some hacking on. I’m not picky.
Any suggestions (in comments or mail)? The D420 Jeff got looks cool, but is a bit over my budget.
October 12th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
ok. if you want projector compatibility, beware of the widescreens.
October 12th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
I just went through this:
http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=227
Lots of good advice in the comments. I’m leaning towards a z61t based on comments, pricing and my (good) history with IBM/Lenovo products.
Assuming that you are OK with using a very early driver, it appears that Intel’s recent driver work will make the widescreen vs. projector issue moot. You should be able to support stretched modes for the LCD as well as partial displays (just leaving the edges black with the proper aspect ratio.)
October 12th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
I’m loving my ThinkPad X60.
1.8GHz Core Duo
1GB RAM
100GB SATA HDD
Intel wireless/ethernet/gpu
And very, very light. This is model 1706-8GG and comes with those specs out of the box. The only non-free part as far as I know is the ipw3945 wifi driver, which has a binary blob. Everything worked out of the box in Ubuntu Dapper though. I’ve not yet tried projectors, but the Intel driver is the first driver to support xrandr 1.2, so working with projectors will be totally seamless with Xorg 7.2.
October 12th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
The Acer TravelMate 3000 series is also very good, there’s a number of different models with different screen/features to fit different requirements.
October 12th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Just as I posted on the other two blogs, have you had a look at system76’s offerings (http://www.system76.com)? I own a Bonobo which will probably be too large and heavy for your requirements, but is of excellent quality and compatibility. They have smaller laptops of course.
As for the problems with widescreens and projectors: no probs here, I just have to have an 1024×768 entry in my xorg.conf, and Ctrl-Alt-+/- to it when a projector is attached…
October 13th, 2006 at 12:18 am
I’d second Peter -I bought an Acer TravelMate 2420 recently. The only extra work I needed to do in order to bring it up to expectations was to install MadWifi for the wireless, and 915resolution for the screen.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Rule #1 anything that has both Intel Centrino and Intel Graphics
Rule #2 if your are thinking about stuff that have Atheros / Broadcom wifi or nVidia – ATI video, see rule #1
All in all I have a ThinkPad Z60t. It works fine, almost. Dapper prerelease was great but recent Ubuntu break the suspend. And it has an Atheros unlike IBM claimed when I did my purchase. I should have sent it back for that reason.
Avoid anything from Apple to run Linux on.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:51 am
Have to agree with Peter, the Acer travelmate is great.
All intel, ultraportable, good battery life (comes with 2 batteries):
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/tm3010.htm
or a nice white version:
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/tm3020.htm
Don’t see what the fuss is with the Lenovo thinkpads….
October 13th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Try the Gateway NX100, it the same size of the d420 but cheaper.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Gateway_NX100/4660-3121_7-6479717.html
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/hands-on-with-the-gateway-nx100-163990.php
October 13th, 2006 at 1:18 am
I recently purchesed a laptop by Zepto. They have a relatively large selection and you customize any model to fir your needs. You can also by any model without paying the MS tax, which was the main selling point for me…
October 13th, 2006 at 1:22 am
I have had a remarkably good time with Toshiba machines. Currently I have an R200, it’s a little pricey, but 1,2kg. Absolutely everything works, including the SD card reader.
It should all work out of the box too. Atheros wireless, i915 graphics, suspends and resumes perfectly, can take a second battery for 7 hours of battery life (with reasonable usage). Have had no problems with projectors, X11 appears to support monitor switching hotkey.
It doesn’t have a CD-rom, but so far I have not been bothered once by that.
As compared in size to a power drill
October 13th, 2006 at 2:06 am
I bought a dell XPS M1210 2 weeks ago and I am very pleased with it.
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/xpsnb_m1210?c=fr&cs=frbsdt1&l=fr&s=bsd
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2965&review=XPS+M1210+Review
For about 1500€ you can have :
* 12.1 WXGA screen with built-in webcam
* a fast Core Duo 2 processor
* intel GMA 950 graphic chip
* 1GB SDRAM (i had 2x1GB for the same price, don’t know if it’s still possible)
* intel 3945 wireless (works out of the box with edgy)
* 120GB HD (5400rpm), memory card reader, Dual Layer DVD burner, …
and everything works fine under Linux 🙂 (webcam image is a bit to dark, wireless doesn’t work after hibernation)
It may be a little overweight (2.1kg, 2.3 with a 9 cells battery). The screen is shiny but comfortable, and it has a good autonomy (more than 5h with 9c battery).
October 13th, 2006 at 4:10 am
I would recommend the Lenovo 3000 N100. The one I got is a 15.4″ Widescreen with onboard video. The screen is a 1580×1060 (which is pretty darn good). The machine is core due 1.66 with 512 MB up to 2 GB and an 80 HD drive.
The best part is the quality of the product, nice keybaord and PRICE. At around $900 Canadian dollars. Pretty cheap.
October 13th, 2006 at 6:24 am
And why not a Macbook… I am completly happy with mine : everything works like a charm…
October 13th, 2006 at 11:53 am
I use a Panasonic Let’s Note R3. Their Let’s Note line is all Intel and supported hardware (Ubuntu worked out of the box for me, including Wifi). The current version out or the R model is at 1kg, 1Gb memory and 10.4″ screen. It also has no internal CD player (I use a USB one when I need it which isn’t often) and no fan, so it is very silent (and completely so when it runs on battery and the disk spins down). Despite its size I am happily using it as my only machine. My only worry was the keyboard but that turned out to work just fine for daily use.
There’s a W model as well with a larger screen (12″) and keyboard, and it gets better battery life (15 hours – probably around 10-11 in practice) but is otherwise the same. There’s a couple of larger models still with internal DVD and stuff, but you’re sacrificing both weight and battery life too much I think.
October 13th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
http://uk.asus.com/products1.aspx?l1=5
has a number of models that are 100% intel