[plug] Seeing advice on a recommended laptop

[Brad Campbell]

James Leven wrote:
> G'day
> 
> I would like to purchase a laptop to setup with dual boot Windows/Linux,
> and I am seeking some advice on recommended laptops (notepads).  Also
> looking for any good or bad experiences in terms of warranty and repairs.
> 
> I have had good experience with an ECS bought over two years ago,
> but woudl be grateful for advice from other linux users.

My 2001 vintage Acer seems to think that they do ok machines..
If you are staying in Aus one of the great points I always loved about their machines is the 3 year 
1 hour repair warranty.. Take it in to the service centre and if they can't fix it in one hour they 
either replace the machine or loan you one to get you going while they fix yours..  Which is nice 
when your lighting control laptop blows up about 4 hours prior to a huge gig.

Always worth the extra couple of $$ to get an extended warranty. I used that on my Gateway too when 
it caught fire in my lap..

My worst linux laptop experience was Sharp. (It just had to much quirky hardware and bad ACPI 
tables) Plus Portacom used to be the agent and their service sucked.

Worst laptop ever was Toshiba. (That was a long time ago though.. 7 out of 15 laptops with faults)

Best has been Acer, Gateway and Dell (On hardware and service actually)

Mitac were ok, but the battery or charge ccts usually died within 12 months

Compaq and HP have been ok.. just cheap and heavy.

These days almost any Centrino machine will work quite nicely, but take a recent Knoppix disk and do 
your homework 1st.

I take knoppix and a USB keystick.
I go through all the likely laptops and save the lsmod, dmesg and lspci to the usb keystick.. check 
basic functions.. then I go home and do my research on the hardware in each machine.

If the shop is not interested in letting me do that.. (some get funny about it) I take my business 
elsewhere.

I'd love a new machine, but a 15.1" 1400x1050 display with a real 4 hrs battery life + all the usual 
fruit and under 3kg is just so expensive... it's just not worth upgrading

I've had about 7 Linux laptops in 9 years.. but this one I've had for 5..

Brad
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