[plug] Which brand of laptop?

[Bret Busby]

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008, w0018749 wrote:

> 
> I am buying a new laptop and I want to know: What brand of
> computers are the best?  This question probably has many
> answers so just a link to another discussion somewhere would
> be enough - or even a list of brands to avoid.
>
> These are the things I need on this laptop:
> 1- big enough hard drive to have both linux and windows
> 2- keyboard with a number pad at the right (if possible)
> 3- DVD player and cd burner
> 4- wireless internet
> 5- I also need a stress-free installation process - I have
> had several attempts of installing linux and not many
> successes
>
> I plan to install ubunta (spelling?) as I heard it can be
> configured for wireless.
>
> I have been using linux for about a year on an old IBM
> "thinkpad" R52(?) laptop with 10Gb of memory.  It works good
> but its not big enough to run windows which I need from time
> to time for programs sent from Uni.  I have a DEL desktop
> but I am not so sure about that company.  If usb sticks are
> an indicator TOSHIBA looks good since you can fit two side
> by side in two adjacent ports and in the shell it does not
> have spaces in the key directory (TOSHIBA).
>
> Regards
>
> Nathan
>
>

So, how much do you want to spend?

And, WHICH version(s) of Windows, do you want to run?

To get a numeric keypad built in, you will likely need a 17" screen.
Any new laptop computer, now, will have a big enough hard drive to have 
about 4 different operating systems installed - the smallest hard drive 
now, I think, is about 160GB, so you should be able to easily have at 
last three different distributions of Linux installed, as well as one or 
two different versions of Windows, so that you can have the fun of 
multiple booting.

Have a look at the web page at 
http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop_studio_17?c=au&l=en&s=dhs&cs=audhs1 
; at the cheapest laptop on that page ($1400 at the time of writing this 
response, and, I believe that that includes delivery fee). While that 
one comes with 2GB RAM, a couple of weks ago, Dell had a special on the 
XPS M1730, with a model with 3GB RAM, for $1200 (delivered).

I have an HP NX5000 that runs Debian 4.0. That has a 15" screen (not one 
of these cheap new-fangled widescreen things.

If you are considering buying a laptop from a local physical shop, and 
you are looking at installing Ubuntu on it, you would be wise to take a 
Ubuntu live disk with you to the shop, and ask them to allow you to boot 
up a display laptop with the Ubuntu live disk, so that you can run a 
system check, to ensure hardware compatibility.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
  you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
   Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
   "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
   A Trilogy In Four Parts",
   written by Douglas Adams,
   published by Pan Books, 1992

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