I am thinking of buying a laptop and would love to get your advice on this topic.<p>Some info:<p>- Price is not that much of an issue, I see this as an investment that will pay itself off.<p>- I will be spending 99% of my time on this laptop, and it will pretty much be a desktop replacement for me. I will not be playing games on it, but will be doing most of my development there. OS is no problem since I use linux. <p>- Screen resolution is very important to me.<p>- I think a 15" would be good, not much smaller and bigger <p>- It must be <i>light</i>, I will have to be able to take it around easily and all the time
must have long <i>battery life</i><p>- the rest is simple, 1G+ RAM, 150GB+ hard drive, good graphic card ... <p><p>Questions:<p>- is there anything else I should care about?<p>- what are your suggestions, i.e. what brand and models?<p>- should I wait for something that is coming out soon?<p>- when is the best time to buy, b/f chirsmass, after it ...?<p>- I was looking at the MacBook Pro? what do you think?<p>- where are the best places to check for reviews and suggestions? (I have looked at PC mag and CNET)<p>- what do you have and are you happy with it?<p>Thanks a lot in advance for all the suggestions.
If I were you, MBP.<p>However, I would seriously consider a macbook. It is smaller, lighter, and I extremely happy with it (had it for about 1.5 years. You may have more of a need for a good graphics card and such.<p>Upgrade the ram and harddrive yourself, it is trivial, and will take ~ 5 mins.<p>I wouldnt put linux on it, again unless you have a specific reason to do so. I dev in OSX, deploy on linux.
Thinkpad T60 or T61<p>I love mine, even wrote a little mini-review here:
<a href="http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/08/best-notebook-for-linux.html" rel="nofollow">http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/08/best-notebook-for-linu...</a><p>Thinkpads are designed <i>for doing actual work</i> - "UltraNav" unit and the keyboard are to die for. They are #1 reason why I picked ThinkPad over Mac.<p>My distant 2nd choice would be MBP, and 3rd - Dell Vostro.
I have a Lenovo X60 and love it. As far as hardware is concerned, it's the Lexus of laptops. The attention to detail is impressive, and the build quality unparalleled.<p>It's light as a feather, even with the extended battery (which is a necessity) and has enough juice to last me the entire San Francisco to Cleveland flight (~5 hrs). The keyboard is pretty awesome for a laptop too, though my one gripe is that they put the Fn key bottom left and pushed CTRL to the right. That's more annoying than you may think.<p>If you need a bit bigger screen, the T series is still fairly lightweight, and is pretty comparable. I used to travel a lot though, so the extra 1.5 lbs of weight made a big difference.<p>Say what you want about OSX vs. Windows and I probably wouldn't argue, but Mac hardware has always been overpriced and underwhelming. If you're slapping on Linux you'd be nuts to go with a Macbook.
I used to LOVE the Thinkpads, but ever since they became Lenovo, the quality seems to have suffered.<p>What was once a nice rugged feeling case, now feels like cheap plastic.<p>We've had a rash of Lenovo issues lately. Failed hard drives, weird hangs, randmonly blank screens, etc.<p>Myself, I use a MacBook. I had an MBP before this, and will probably get another one soon. I went from a 17" MBP to the MB, but I miss the more powerful MBP graphics.
I love my macbook pro. It has native unix (for work) and a great desktop environment (for everything else). It's also light and thin. I like that I don't have to worry about the sysadmin shit that I'd have to deal with on a regular basis with Linux, or FreeBSD, etc.
The macbook. Just plain macbook. I have both MBP and MB and I use the MB by far more. Longer battery, cooler running, lighter, no hooks to latch shut - all magnets and here comes the most important thing of all...<p>Sleep. Yes sleep. Before I got macs I didn't think it was possible for a computer to come in and out of sleep so well. You can open and close the lid and it sleeps in seconds! Every time. Open and close it three times in a minute just to jot down a note or two. No prob. I can go days without recharging just popping it open when I need it. Forget to recharge, no prob, it has silently placed a hibernate image on the disk, just connect power, open lid, get back to work.<p>This is a class act all of the way that no other manufacturer has even come close to imitating. Sleep on windows machines is laughable at best. Linux alomst universally bungles it unless you have "lucky hardware".<p>I know, lots of people say "hey my XP laptop sleeps just fine"... No, apples do this spooky good. You just have to see it to beleive it.<p>Get it for the good hardware and good support. Love it for closing the lid and never worrying that your work will be right there for you at a moments notice when you open it again. <p>
Because it hasn't yet been mentioned, you might consider an OLPC. They're small screen size is, imo, greatly compensated for by their durability, portability, and mobility. They run debian and can be used in direct sunlight. Did I mention the price is right? Oh, they also have much better antennae than the thinkpad. :D<p>I'm not sure if the needs you outlined above are driven by some technical requirement or if that's just a list of the laptop-de-jour to which you are aspiring.<p>If nothing else, check out the hardware specs for the pure geeky pleasure: <a href="http://www.laptop.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.laptop.org</a>
I was going to suggest MBP until I saw that you'll use linux on it. I have one, but I wouldn't suggest buying it just for the hardware. But then, all your other constraints call for a MBP. So I'd say either a thinkpad or a MBP.
<i>"... is there anything else I should care about? ..."</i><p>Usage. Is this to be a min dev machine? ("99%") if so look into 3 things<p>- port replicator: some way to plug in ergonomic keyboard, mouse + external screen<p>- power & recharge (at a power point? or are you mobile all the time?)<p>- Operating system availability: (are you happy with using Windows, OSX or do you want to install <i>inux/</i>nix?)<p>- Warranty (can you extend it?)<p>For me the sweet spot is a ThinkPad T61. Reliable, durable, has necessary accessories and you can get Linux pre-installed (by third parties)
I have a macbook. It's solid but I'd avoid it for linux (which I've decided I prefer to osx) - the single-button trackpad alone makes it a bad choice for linux. If I were getting a new laptop now I'd get a high-end thinkpad with lots of RAM so I could use vmware effectively. I have a friend who has just done this and raves about it - he runs Ubuntu.<p>Some people can get X11 configured to do wacky things with the keyboard so you can run linux. I figure - why bother?
> - Screen resolution is very important to me.<p>> - I think a 15" would be good, not much smaller and bigger<p>But then: <p>> - It must be light, I will have to be able to take it around easily and all the time must have long battery life<p>and <p>> - the rest is simple, 1G+ RAM, 150GB+ hard drive, good graphic card ... <p>
You may may to make some choices. I was laptop shopping recently, and wanted basically the same features you listed, but found that light + powerful was an odd combo. <p>I decided on a Dell D830 with WUXGA 15" screen (19020x1200) and the 9-cell battery.<p>Weight: ~6 lbs.<p>
I was considering the MacBook pro, but wanted the higher rez screen. <p><pre><code> I got the FreeDOS version; Ubuntu will go on it, and went for the least amount of bundled RAM, since it is WAY cheaper to buy that separately. It's even cheaper to buy it as a separate item from Dell themselves. But better yet to go through Fry's or newegg.com</code></pre>
Acer makes really good laptops at decent prices. I've had my Travelmate for 3 years without a problem, not even a failing jack. The Sony Vaio I had before it was falling apart after less than a year.<p>My next computer may be a Mac, though. I've heard lots and lots of good things about the new MacBooks.
I've done really well with Toshiba. I've had a number of different Satellites and they've all been good. <p>Once, I dropped one when I was literally running from one end to the other of the Denver airport, trying to catch a connecting flight. It bounced on a metal plate on one of those moving walkways so hard that people turned to see what the big noise was. When I got on the plane, the case had a visible dent in it and I was sure I had cracked the LCD, but was too exhausted to deal with it on the plane. When I got home, I opened the case to find the LCD was fine and it ran like a champ. Anecdotal evidence, surely, but I've stuck with them ever since and not regretted it once.<p>But, I know several people who have switched to MB for their only computer and seem to be doing just fine with it.
I got one of these:<p><a href="http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dgc=IR&cid=11973&lid=471885" rel="nofollow">http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us...</a><p>And have had ok luck with it. The hard drive died after a few months, but on the other hand, 24 hours after calling their service department, I had a guy show up at my house in Innsbruck, Austria with a new drive - and I bought it in the US.<p>It's not all that light, though... it's sort of clunky looking, to tell the truth, but it was relatively cheap. Be sure to look for the discount codes if you buy a Dell.
I'm mostly happy with my Thinkpad Z61m. It's a 15" widescreen machine that's fairly heavy. Its replacement, the much lighter T61 widescreen should be appropriate. It's much more configurable than the MBP; base configurations are much less expensive, and comparable configurations are a bit less.<p>I think Thinkpad quality peaked around the 600-series of the late '90s (mmm... carbon fiber) and has been dropping ever since. The Lenovo takeover hasn't helped, but IBM was so far ahead of everybody but Apple that I don't think anybody has caught up yet.
I could not recommend my laptop enough - Samsung Q35.<p>There's now a Q35 Pro (<a href="http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3512&review=Samsung+Q35" rel="nofollow">http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3512&re...</a>)<p>And there's a newer model, the Samsung Q45 (<a href="http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3869" rel="nofollow">http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3869</a>). <p>I get 3-4 hours battery out of it, I really like the display, the spec is good, and it's really light and robust.
<a href="http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series" rel="nofollow">http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series</a><p>my friend just got a job at Google, and that's the laptop they gave him. it's pretty amazing. super lightweight, very snazzy dock thing. this laptop is incredibly tiny, well built, and just about perfect. like 8 hours of battery life, and you can even get a fingerprint scanner on it for like $30!<p>dont get a macbook pro. they are so expensive for the hardware, especially if you want to run linux.
Latitude D830, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel, 128MB NVIDIAX Quadro NVS 135MX<p>I use Linux exclusively and that's what I just ordered for my new laptop. ~$1300 the way I configured it (with Dell "Instant Savings"). I insist on NVIDIA so high speed drivers are ensured under Linux. Apple doesn't even make a 15" laptop that runs at 1920x1200 and the others that do charge a premium. Dell is a great option if you (like me) expect to replace your laptop every 2 years and don't care that it's not a Mac.<p>
HP Pavillion DV. I'm using a DV 2000.<p>There are Ubuntu 100s. Everything works out of the box at the end of the install with zero setup required. <p>Compiz, webcam, touch sensitive multimedia keys, wireless, bluetooth, touch slider on trackpad, multimedia card reader, and all the usual bits and pieces.<p>They're also great looking, and have won a Red Dot award to prove it.
The biggest issue of todays notebooks is the fan noise. I personally would avoid buying a notebook with a fan, because they all seem to suck. I returned several fan-books untill I happily found the Dell Latitude X1 which is fanless. It's modernised brothers are available from Samsung. <p>Another thing to look out for might be a DVI connector.
I would recommend a larger than 15" screen, and definitely get another 21"+ monitor for when you're using it at your desk. Drastically increases productivity.
Sorry guys MBP = fail. On price.<p>Get this instead (windows, but you can install linux on it if you have the chops). Its ~$700 cheaper.<p><a href="http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProcess?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921665234522" rel="nofollow">http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProc...</a><p><p>