You might want to take a look a the comments here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503951" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503951</a>
I bought the IdeaPad 700, specifically because it's 1080p (not messing with scaling). Works 100% out of the box (with ubuntu gnome, at least). you can find it here: <a href="http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/700-series/700-15-inch/" rel="nofollow">http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/700-series/700-...</a><p>I have the 1049 USD model, but the specs are similar enough between them (just CPU/RAM/HDD differences) that they should all work similarly.
I just got a Thinkpad x260 and I'm running Ubuntu MATE on it. The wireless card is Intel, so no problems with drivers or anything.<p>It comes with mini displayport too, but I've had some issue where the laptop will freeze up when the display port is plugged in and the laptop screen is also on. Other than that it has HDMI and about 17 hours of battery life.
"best" will heavily depend on what you expect / want to use it for. So, you should probably specify this more clearly.<p>On the "for linux" part: most (not too) current hardware is fine, compatibilitywise.