[plug] Which brand of laptop?

[Peter Taekema]

Hi Nathan,

On Mon, 2008-08-04 at 19:37 +1000, 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.

As has been said, you are likely to get *LOTS* of personal opinions
and/or experiences.  Having worked in IT for many years and having
worked with a variety of brands, I can only suggest the most brands make
both good and bad laptops.   (You usually - but not always - get what
you pay for) I suggest picking a few you like the look/feel of and then
googling some review sites to get a basic 'feel' for the quality.  

Personally, I like Dell.  I have a Latitude D400 (3yrs old) and a more
expensive Precision Workstation M60 (12 months).  Both run Linux
(debian/Ubuntu) including wireless, etc without a hitch:  I make 'em
hurt!  

I also use lots of Dell machines at work.  Dell's support has been
excellent but then I work for a large 'corporate' (gov't) customer, so
they look after us!

> 
> 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
> 

Most of this should be covered on modern laptops.  For point 5, Look for
brands that support linux:  IBM/Lenovo, Dell, etc.

> 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
> 
> 
Take your time to do some research (you are already doing that
obviously) and you can be confident of finding a good machine.

Cheers,
Peter

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