Ask HN: Which developer laptop should I buy?

ThinkPad T530 or W530 with the 1920x1080 screen upgrade. The W530 is marginally heavier but cheaper in some configurations and takes 32GB instead vs the T's 16GB. Install an aftermarket Samsung 830 (not 840) SSD if you have the money. The 840 uses cheaper flash chips than the 830, which is a top quality SSD.<p>ThinkPad build quality is unrivaled. The keyboard is almost as nice as my HHKB. The hinges are rock solid. The keyboard has drainage ducts. Everything is designed to be serviced.

Good powerful and light developer laptops include:<p>The Lenovo X230. Downside: Only a 1366x768 screen.<p>The 13" Vaio S. Upside: Pretty much the lightest full-power 13.3" laptop, 1600x900 screen, a comfortable keyboard, $880. Downside: None? The screen is only pretty good, instead of being a high end, high color gamut screen? It lacks a Thinkpad keyboard. It has HDMI instead of DisplayPort. This is a good general purpose laptop.<p>The Lenovo T430s: The downsides relative to the 13" Vaio S is that it has a worse quality screen, it's slightly bigger at the same resolution, and has worse GPU, as if that even works on Ubuntu. The upside is that it has a Thinkpad keyboard and the DVD player can be replaced with a hard drive bay or battery, and it has a mini-DisplayPort port.<p>The 15" Vaio S: The lightest 15" laptop option in your price range, at 4.45 lbs. You can get a quad core processor (without VT-d support, though, and I'm not sure about staying under $1000), and it has a 1920x1080 IPS screen (with orange tint problems).<p>I'm told the Vaio S's work fine with Ubuntu. However, you should carefully check forums online to make sure of their hardware support.<p>If you want to consider ultrabooks, the X1 Carbon is worth checking out, but a version with 8 GB of RAM is expensive with marginal benefit compared to, say, the 13" Vaio S, or the ASUS UX31A for that matter.<p>I'm a fan of Thinkpad keyboards but if I had to own only one computer, it would be the 13" Vaio S, because of the GPU and better screen, and (to my subjective opinion) better size. If you don't care about GPU at all, and if you don't care about screen color or viewing angles that much, a T430s is a good bet. Both are below the threshold for me where descreasing the weight further doesn't matter.

I would suggest the new Retina MBPs, but apparently it is ["a sod to get working"](<a href="http://www.hackermusings.com/2012/08/booting-linux-on-a-retina-macbook-pro/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hackermusings.com/2012/08/booting-linux-on-a-reti...</a>)<p>When I ran ubuntu on my (relatively old, 2009) MBP earlier this (<i>edit: last</i>) year it was an OK experience, but the multitouch gestures weren't on a par with OS X. Battery life was fine, hardware support other than multitouch was also fine, sleep on lid close was great, etc. no problems.<p>I'd recommend an Air from your description, nice and light, and Apple make the best hardware by far, especially if you do have the $1000 it costs.

After a lot of deliberation, I just picked up a Lenovo x230 for about $950 pre-tax. Running Linux flawlessly was one of my primary criteria for purchase. It arrives tomorrow so I'll comment then when I know whether or not I've made a terrible mistake.<p>I think the touchscreens are just gimmicky toys. Useless to me. But since Intel soon won't let you call your thin laptop an "Ultrabook" unless you include one (and Windows 8), and non-developer consumers are obsessed with tablets and consuming Internet with their fingers, it's getting difficult to find new hardware without one.<p>I wrote about how I arrived at my choice, among others including the $1500 Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (Includes Ubuntu), the $350 Asus Q201e (Includes Ubunutu), the $500 Asus Q200, the Samsung Chromebooks ($250/$550), and a $150 used Asus 1015PX Netbook: <a href="https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P6BH" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P...</a><p>I also considered momentarily the $900 ZaReason Ultralap 430 and the $670 System76 Lemur Ultra. I would have liked to support Linux-only vendors, but both at 14" were too big for my preferences. I tried an Asus 1025CE but the recent Atom CPUs require crappy proprietary video drivers from a Linux-unfriendly vendor, it was a mountain of pain to try to make it work.<p>One comment: If you buy a custom machine from Lenovo.com, ignore the lies they tell you about shipping dates and just assume it will take 30-45 days at least.

I just got a Thinkpad T530 though without the full HD display. It goes to 1600x900 which is the minimum acceptable resolution in my opinion and on the 15" screen that gives you quite a bit of real estate. I've been a Thinkpad user for many years now and they never fail (almost, the T61p had a limited life span due to a faulty Nvidia chip but that problem wasn't limited to Thinkpads).<p>My criteria when I buy a laptop is (in that order): 1. Does it reach the min acceptable resolution of 1600x900? 2. Does it have a Matte screen (non reflective)? 3. Will it run my editor, a web server, two databases, a few other server apps and daemons and Chrome with many tabs open including some heavy Javascript apps.<p>I've had the T530 for over a week now, and it doesn't disappoint. My only complaint at the moment is that the power supply is a 135W one and its very big. I'm looking into using my T61p power supply which is 90W (but same voltage), so that might solve it.<p>Having said all that, I was very much tempted by the new Ultrabooks, in particular the X1 Carbon and the Asus Zenbook but in the end resolution, matte and screen size won.

I would highly recommend the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. I'm typing on it right now and the keyboard is a joy. See my first impressions of it here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375</a>

Just wanted to point out that I had a macbook for a couple years on Linux. When it died, I decided to try other ones. I was <i>very</i> disappointed for lots of different small reasons - but can be summarized as "it felt cheap". Cheap trackpad, not great touch on keyboard, no backlight on keys. Anyhow, 3 weeks ago I bought an air.. formatted everything and put back Arch on it and loving it. It's a few hundred bucks more than your 1000$ but I think it's worth every penny. Some like to say (and I believed them) that you can have something as great for half the price.. but that's just not true. It may be cheaper, but they've screwed on parts that are not necessarily obvious.

Why limit yourself to a $1,000 budget? If you're writing code, that's a small percentage of your yearly income. If a more expensive laptop makes you 5% more productive, it's worth buying purely for economic reasons.

I picked a new machine for my job a couple of days ago, so this is still fresh on my mind. Keep in mind that this is from the perspective of the UK (US is generally MUCH cheaper, oftentimes machines cost 50% of what they do here).<p>---------------<p>First, my criteria for the new machine are:<p>- Portable, screen size between 12" - 14", preferably as thin &#38; light as possible<p>- SSD (No weird HDD/SDD hybrids)<p>- Reasonable resolution. 1080p here is overkill, 1366x768 leaves something to be desired<p>- No graphics card, I don't have a use for it, excess power usage &#38; heat, another part that takes up space, adds weight, can break and needs driver support<p>- No optical drive (same reasons)<p>- Battery life 5+ hours<p>- Reliable brand. Good ones are Apple, ASUS, Samsung, Toshiba, Lenovo. Sony maybe but only with expensive models. Acer &#38; HP are immediately disqualified. I really like Dell for some stuff (monitors, towers) but they seem to have a bad reputation for making reliable laptops.<p>- Good value for money. I really dislike over-spending even if it's not my own money<p>- Good Linux support<p>- Solid build quality<p>I don't care that much about performance. Sandy/Ivy Bridge is generally fine for me, and for the stuff that I care about (mainly reading/writing text) raw CPU power doesn't matter that much.<p>This filters things down quite a bit and brings us to the following models:<p>- Macbook Air 2011 (including this as it's a very similar machine to the 2012 but with apparently better Linux support)<p>- Macbook Air 2012<p>- ASUS Zenbook<p>- ASUS Zenbook Prime<p>- Lenovo X1 Carbon<p>- Samsung Series 9 900X3D<p>- Samsung Series 9 900X3C<p>- Lenovo X220<p>- Lenovo X230<p>Another requirement is dual external monitor support. Doing this on a laptop and under Linux turned out to be quite the tricky problem and the issue that probably consumed most of my time spent. For laptops with only 1 display out, there are 2 ways of working around this:<p>1. USB to HDMI adapter. Basically an external graphics card. This requires USB 3.0 for bandwidth reasons (USB 2.0 gives 35 MB/s. 1080p @ 32bpp is 8 MB / frame, meaning single-digit FPS rates at most) which disqualifies the MBA 2011 since it only has USB 2.0. Even with USB 3.0 from most of what I could find, these things are not really supported under Linux and probably best to avoid.<p>2. Matrox DualHead2Go. This is a cool invention that pretends it's a 3840x1080 display to the OS and then splits the signal digitally into 2. Costs about 120 GBP, but with not letting the OS know that it's actually 2 displays, also comes the OS not knowing that it's actually 2 displays: Fullscreen doesn't work properly for a lot of applications. And even though this could be made better through some window manager trickery, that feels like hacks, piled on top of more hacks. I also don't want to carry around this box just to drive 2 external monitors.<p>So, that means all laptops with only 1 display-out are out! (The X1 Carbon actually has a USB 3.0 Port thing with 2 DVI outputs but it seems to depend heavily on drivers (they only support Windows and are "working on" Mac support) so I've excluded it) Leaving us with:<p>- ASUS Zenbook<p>- ASUS Zenbook Prime<p>- Samsung Series 9 900X3D<p>- Samsung Series 9 900X3C<p>- Lenovo X220<p>- Lenovo X230<p>I used the Zenbook Prime and Samsung 900X3D in-store and initially liked the Zenbook Prime keyboard more than the Samsung. However more research reveals that ASUS seems to have big quality control issues with these (endless stories about shipping and re-shipping faulty units). This seems to be an especially big problem with the touchpads &#38; SSDs of the original Zenbook. Also in the UK, they only carry one almost maxed-out Zenbook Prime configuration with SSD, which costs about 1500 GBP (linked above). A more sensible (albeit still expensive) configuration is also available, however only from Germany. Going through the order flow, the delivery time from Germany is listed as 3-18 days. Ordering an item like this where lots of people have complained about quality issues from another country seems to be asking for trouble. In addition to that, support under Linux seems to be non-straightforward <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime" rel="nofollow">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime</a>, and I'm not thrilled about 1080p on a 13" screen.<p>The Samsung Series 9 looked great from everything I could see. It's super light and yet solid. However since it is so thin the keys lacked notably in pitch. It's uncomfortable to type on (and I went multiple times over multiple days). In comparison I enjoyed typing on the Macbook Air much more even though it's similarly thin. The keyboard seems like an afterthought on the laptop. Since typing is really what I care about the most and I've gone through the pains of having a laptop with a keyboard I don't enjoy typing on with the model I'm currently writing this email on, this also seems like a sub-par choice.<p>So the Lenovo X220 / X230 is the last laptop standing! There are 2 choices here (or really 4 with the tablet versions), they are all pretty much twice as thick as any other model, though similar in terms of weight (others 1.1-1.5kg, X220 / X230 1.3-1.7kg depending on configuration). I think the X220 is the better choice here even though technically "discontinued". They're both standard voltage CPUs (compared to some of the ULV CPUs on other units) so performance is easily enough for my needs. In addition to that the X220 seems to be the laptop of choice for Ubuntu kernel developers <a href="http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&#38;q=x220+uds" rel="nofollow">http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&#38;q=x220+uds</a> , while I've read about a lot of people having problems with the X230 and the Linux 3.2 kernel (Ubuntu 12.04 and Debian Wheezy). Also with the X230 they've switched from their traditional ThinkPad keyboard design to a chiclet-style keyboard for reasons that are not ultimately known to me, though probably some combination of standardisation (every other major vendor has been using them for years), cost-reduction, ability to add back-light, size reduction and other factors. In terms of typing experience there isn't a lot of data online, with some people saying it's "good" on both and others decrying the typing experience on the X230. I think the X220 is slightly preferable, especially considering how much cheaper it is now. The standard X220 goes for 600 GBP and 825 GBP for the tablet version while the X230 goes for 1100 GBP and the tablet version for 1700 GBP. All of these with HDD and thus requiring adding about 200 GBP extra for a SSD. So it seems that the X220 wins in almost all regards. The X230 does have slightly less weight (I think about 100-200g), and faster CPU/GPU performance but those factors are negligible to me. I think I like the tablet version on the X220 more as comes with an IPS screen and I can see myself use the laptop in "tablet mode" a lot.<p>--------------<p>In the end I picked the X220 and ordered it off ebay (new). The gist seems to be that unless you want to run a bleeding-edge Linux kernel I would recommend staying away from new (3rd gen Ivy Bridge e.g. i5-3xxx) laptops such as the ASUS Zenbook Prime / Lenovo X230 / Macbook Air 2012 as there's frequently issues w/ them.

Remember to check <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/</a> for laptops certified to work with Ubuntu. This is an easy way to ensure compatibility.

&#62; <i>Has anyone tried running Ubuntu (dual boot or otherwise) on a Macbook Air</i><p>There's a very good resource here: <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook" rel="nofollow">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook</a><p>I've recently installed freebsd (as the only OS, no dual boot) without any hickups what so ever. Full disclosure: It was an older macbook, about 4-5 years old, and I can't tell if it works for or against its chances of running Ubuntu.<p>I was surprised that it went about so easily, I must admit.<p>If wanted, I could write a blog post on my exact instructions, but all in all, you may need a tiny bit of OSX at hand to get the install going (seeing as a MacBook Air does not have a bootable device, such as a CD/DVD drive).<p>So in conclusion, Ubuntu on a MacBook Air should be very possible: <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookAir4-2" rel="nofollow">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookAir4-2</a> with the only exception of <i>Thunderbolt</i>

If you're going to run ubuntu as a primary OS, the Bonobo Extreme is worth investigating from system76.<p>I have a high-end Latitude E65* without any issues, and a Thinkpad W530 that is also working well - both are running CrunchBang. I didn't encounter any software/Linux-specific issues on the Dell that weren't on the Thinkpad. The Thinkpad feels nicer, but it cost a lot more.<p>The system76 machine costs less than both (spec for spec), but I haven't used one. That said, they only build ubuntu machines - which might be right up your alley. If you want to save a little money, they have cheaper models in the 15.6" size too.

I will go for a good linux-supported ultrabook with a lot of RAM and a decent SSD. Look at the ASUS ones.<p>Look here, BTW <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3719720" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3719720</a>

I'm running Ubuntu on a Thinkpad X230 (with the IPS screen), and loving it. The windows 7 install it came with was the usual crapware trainwreck, but not really my problem - the Ubuntu install was quick, smooth and trivial.<p>It's a lot zippier than I was expecting, and even the intel 3D was surprisingly quick.<p>My only real niggle is the trackpad - it seems to jump multiple pixels at a time under ubuntu, and feels very rough. I suspect pointer acceleration is being applied more than once, although I never use the trackpad so I've not investigated in any depth.

The Asus Zenbook is great, and fits within your budget (a number of options starting from $700-$1200). One of the first ultrabooks to support Ubuntu well. We use these at work.

I just went through this a couple of weeks ago, looking for a personal laptop to do some independent work on. I'm a huge Thinkpad fan, and both of my desktop keyboards are Thinkpad USB trackpoint-only keyboards, so that should tell you something about my biases...<p>Anyhow, I wasn't looking for something particularly portable, my work laptop is an X200 (pre-trackpad) which is the perfect travel companion. Unfortunately as others have noted the X-series is plagued by minimal resolution, so I wanted something with a much larger screen. We issue X230's and T430's at work, so I am very familiar with them. I'm not a huge fan of the 430s, it's size I want, but they don't offer it with a FHD IPS screen.<p>So I ended up buying a T61P with the 1920x1200 screen off ebay for $230, and put 8G RAM in it (unofficially supported by the 965 chipset, check thinkwiki.org for more information). It's in near perfect shape except for loose hinges! Installed Xubuntu 12 on it and everything works wonderfully. All the secondary channels are lousy with T6x's, spare parts are plentiful and Thinkpads have the BEST factory repair manuals bar none.<p>So pretty damn happy for &#60;$400 invested.<p>If you wanted to run dual/triple monitors, take a look at the Advanced Dock, you can install a PCI-e? card in it. Right now my ghetto "triple" head setup is my x200, t61p, and t60 ($50 with the 1400x1050 IPS!) all running synergy, so I can at least have multiple reference sources open on the x200/t60 while working on the t61p and copy/paste between them.<p>If you do get a Thinkpad, seriously consider looking at the used market, they're usually crazy cheap used.

I have been running Precise Pangolin on a Samsung series 9 15" (NP900X4C) for a while now (with Xmonad, too). It works wonderfully and all the external hardware I've tested (Logitech HD webcam, USB headphones, ...) have worked fine. Only recently, I've been hitting a hard wall trying to use WebGL (for Acko.net's MathBox, specifically). Despite trying for the past two weeks, I could not get this to work and have resorted to dual-booting to Windows 7 (where WebGL does ... just work). This seems to be an issue with Intel HD 4000 graphics under linux (which System 76 laptops and the Lenovo X1 Carbon have in common). It was not obvious from the RedHat website whether RHEL suffers this, so I've sent them an email (but no reply yet).<p>If anyone knows an actual fix (i.e. not just the various things suggested in obvious search results), I would buy you a beer. But, yeah, replacing this machine with a System 76, or re-partitioning and dual-booting, or buying RedHat are all options I'm willing to consider, so there's that. Other than WebGL, I heartily recommend the Series 9 laptops (I had a 13" series 9 previously, as well).

Whatever you do, do NOT get anything with Windows 8 on it. I got a beautiful Acer Aspire M which has a great screen, backlit keys, decent CPU, less than 5 pounds, 15" screen, ultra-thin, you name it. The pain of getting Linux to run on it, I can't even begin to tell you.<p>Worst part is, I like it so much that I would buy one again (if I could get Windows 7) without hesitation.

I've been using the Dell XPX 13 with Sputnik. Got the laptop off Ebay with 256gb SSD for about $800. Been pretty happy with it.

As a user of X31, X41, X301, I expect that X220 or X1 will give you resistance to direct spills on the keyboard, and accidental dropping to the floor and convenient experience. But wouldn't try any GPU development there. If you want fast compile times you may also want to move something with faster CPU - X series always had slower ULV.

I purchased a Dell XPS-13 through the Sputnik program ( <a href="http://dell.com/sputnik" rel="nofollow">http://dell.com/sputnik</a> ) and Ubuntu was pre-loaded, it worked fine. I did not like the mouse much, but I don't like any of the touchpads - I bought it specifically for the Sputnik program, not the hardware - but I found it overall to be very nice and useable. I am generally a ThinkPad fan.<p>It was fast, could run development environments in VirtualBox well, had a long battery life, etc. Even the speakers and microphone where better than I was used to for Skype and etc.<p>Unfortunately it was stolen before I ever had the chance to get involved the Sputnik stuff. It was kind of expensive as laptops of that size go, and I have to decide if I should get another one or not.

There's a database of desktops and laptops compatibility on <a href="https://friendly.ubuntu.com/" rel="nofollow">https://friendly.ubuntu.com/</a> which helped me to decide which laptop to buy a while ago. I ended up buying a Dell Inspiron N4050 at that time, zero regrets.

I have an x220 with both touchscreen and pen running Arch/xmonad. I almost never use the touch capabilities, though I use the pen a fair amount for screen annotation and photoshop. I like pens but if you are a serious developer on a laptop you are in text/keyboard mode most of the time and just don't need a touch screen, imo.<p>Also, love the keyboard. I use the extra slice battery for it and get about 10-11 hours per charge on that slice plus the standard battery (real world, though I think they make a claim for more).<p>I have a great lenovo charger that includes usb ports, but sadly I think they discontinued it. I use it constantly for charging my mobile devices even when not charging the laptop.

I am currently looking for an ultrabook but for the last couple of years I have used the following setup:<p>* (Acer) eMachines E732Z bought on clearance for $400<p>* Drive bay adapter + SSD to replace the DVD drive<p>* Upgraded to 8GB/RAM<p>Total is &#60;$800AUD (even less because the SSD was a spare)

x220 (8gb with samsung ssd, ips) running ubuntu. works fine, but i'm thinking it's way over your budget. x220 has been around long enough that refurb or second hand is probably a good deal...<p>[edit: huh, look it's now x230...]

They are over your budget, but I would still consider the Asus UX31A (the A is important) or the Asus UX32VD, both the models with full HD 1920x1080 IPS displays. The UX31A comes with SSD, but the spindle HDD in the UX32VD (it also has a small SSD soldered in) can be easily upgraded to SSD. Also, the UX32VD has an NVIDIA GPU.<p>When you're programming, you don't want to be held back by a bad and low resolution (anything below full HD) screen. Also, there are a number of positive reports of getting Linux going on both these models.

System 76. Just Google it. They bare built specifically for Ubuntu and are within your price range. Their laptops are actually Clevo/Sager remade to work perfectly with Ubuntu.

Since you're planning to run Ubuntu and for $1000 the only thing you can get from Apple is the low-end 11-inch Macbook Air (64 GB HDD), I'd suggest to go for a Thinkpad. I've had nothing but great experiences with Thinkpads in my company, even the low-end ones.<p>Then again, maybe it's worth to give OS X a try - you can run the same software as you can on Linux but you can also run all the Mac software which is just so much better than anything else out there with a GUI.

Several people commenting here have X220s. Anyone have one with the IPS panel? Is it worth it? I hate how the colors on my laptop shift as my viewing angle changes.

IMHO, for non-compute bound developers the single most important thing on a development machine is high resolution.<p>Both the Dell Latitude e6500 and the Lenovo Thinkpad T500/W500 are 15", high-end Core 2 Duo machines with WUXGA (1920x1200) screens. You can probably snag one on Ebay for $300-$400. Add in an SSD and max out the ram for another couple hundred dollars would be my suggestion.<p>That's the best developer machine short of a Retina MBP.<p>edit: updated Thinkpad models, added header.

I just got the System 76 Lemur Ultra a few weeks ago. Intel i5, 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM. It's amazing. Ubuntu works perfectly. All hardware works perfectly. Their support is top-notch and almost instant. With shipping, total was like $860.<p>Peace of mind going forward with new Ubuntu releases is priceless.

No Lenovo, it just sucks. Some friend of mine and I have Lenovo devices, most of them got problems in short. Maybe it just happens in China, but all I want to say is "lenovo sucks"! Seems ASUS Ubuntu Netbook fits you most, but I prefer Macbook Air+Mint Cinnomon.

Any machine can be made adequate for programming. Hack at it. So the only concerns I have left are: design, portability, durability. This thing is moving bits from space to space! It goes on subway adventures and inter continental. Macbook Air with Fedora Linux.

X220 here (with SSD), happy with it.

I'am on a Asus Zenbook Prime ux31a with ElementaryOS Luna(Cool Ubuntu Distro). It's a 13,3 Ultrabook with a 1920x1200 Resolution. I'am a webdeveloper and always on the go. Somepeople say it is a Macbook Air Clone but it is not ;)<p>i payed about 1050 euro for my version

Asus N56VJ-DH71 15.6-Inch - not an ultralight but not a monster either. Personally I want the fastest cpu I can get even at the expense of battery time. Less than a $1000 with a proper cpu. Just swap in an ssd and go.

Wait for the upcoming WQHD Samsung Series 9. [0]<p>[0] <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/samsung-series%209-wqhd-ultrabook-matte-display/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/samsung-series%209-wqhd-u...</a>

Hi,<p>I recently bought a Toshiba Portege Z930, running Linux Mint 13. I just had to upgrade kernel to have it working without any problem (before I experienced some random freezes). I am very happy with it.<p>Cheers, Mat'.

I just got a macbook air (13" 8GB). It's very nice and fast and well designed. I probably won't run Linux on it, but if I do I'd just do it in VirtualBox.

Get last years Vaio Z. It trumps everything in this thread and can be had for about 1k if you scrounge eBay. It has every single thing you want and beyond.

I really like my Sager laptop with a OWC Mercury Pro SSD in it. I've had really good Linux support with it. [Baring NVidia Optima].

I know that some of the Mac crowd love the small-screen options and my previous laptop was a 12" 1280x800, but I can't imagine working routinely on a screen that small in either inches or resolution these days.<p>The biggest question is how are you going to be using it? Mostly at a desk with an external monitor as well? On airplanes in coach? Any client presentations?<p>What I ordered earlier this year is a Lenovo T430 with the resolution bumped to 1600x900 ($+50) on a 14" screen; they now also have the T430s (slim) and T430u (ultrabook) which are both thinner and lighter. If you want larger, the T530 lets you go up to FHD (1920x1080) but at a significantly higher cost.<p>Looking briefly now, the T430u drawbacks include a limit of 8GB (probably a single slot), no mSATA or WWAN slot, and a display of 1366x768 with no choices. That last would've disqualified it for me immediately.<p>The T430s weighs a bit more and has more options, but also starts around $950 and that extra money really only buys you about 12 ounces less weight. I was looking hard at budget, so it also wasn't an option.<p>I'd recommend the T430 with a third-generation processor (specifically for HD4000 graphics). There's a nvidia option using Optimus, but I'm not sure how good it is under Linux (or whether it really buys you much performance). Bump the screen to 1600x900, bump the Wifi up to the 3x3 option (both things you can't really add later and which don't add that much to the cost). DO Add the fingerprint reader; smart cards and color sensors only if they fit your needs. Also add the backlit keyboard - you can't get it later, and when you need it it's really kind of nice to have. Also add Bluetooth up front. If you're ordering one, start with the lower model (not the "with Faster Processing" one), you can upgrade the CPU during the selection process but not downgrade it from the more expensive starting point. Starting from the lower model also lets you get Windows 7 (Home or Pro) instead of Windows 8 if you're going to keep Windows at all and don't like the Metro UI.<p>I stuck with the smallest HD and stock 4GB, adding another SODIMM to go to 12GB was dirt cheap, and I'm easily able to run KUbuntu in VMWare Player under Windows 7 Pro. You can replace the optical drive with a HD caddy for under $20 and have a second SATA III drive; you can add either WWAN -or- a mSATA drive (SATA II), there's some form of caching that can be set up with mSATA but I didn't bother. If you're going the full disconnected user route, you can add assorted battery options to get you up to (theoretically) 30 hours, 6-8 is easily feasible by just upgrading the stock battery - I haven't seen the "up to 9.7" with the 6-cell battery but I suspect that going to a SSD would be a big part of that.<p>After you get it, set up a power-on and hard drive password in the BIOS and configure the fingerprint reader under Windows to let you bypass those with a swipe. Throw on TrueCrypt and encrypt the entire drive as well.<p>One caveat with the newer ThinkPads, they did fiddle with the keyboard but it's still great. The big key I miss is the Menu key (right-click equivalent), but you can emulate it with Shift-F10 on Windows.<p>Physical keys that aren't present and workarounds: Context Menu/right-click = Shift-F10 Break = Fn-B SysRq = Fn-S ScrLk = Fn-C Pause = Fn-P<p>And finally the page/screen forward and back buttons were replaced and the pageup/pagedown buttons moved to be with the cursor keys.

I've been loving my Zareason Ultralap. Ships with your choice of linux distro, and is thin enough to impress the Macbook kids..

Linuxshopper.com is a pretty cool site for browsing compatible machines.

Lenovo Thinkpad - accept no exceptions.

very happy with x1 carbon

15" Retina MacBook Pro.