Which laptop to buy...???
 

I'm looking to buy a new (inexpensive) laptop, what brand does everyone recommend (more bang for my buck)? And yes, of course I'll be installing Linux Desktop on it.

I currently have an old Toshiba Pentium 4 running Ubuntu Hardy, but it's just getting too heavy and cumbersome to lug around though I love the fact is has a nice 15" screen (I'm already blind as it is). Most everyone else at the office are using Dells but I wanted to either stick with a Toshiba and more recently have been checking out some Lenovo laptops.

What do you professionals think & why?

I like Dells as I find it's easy to get most of the hardware working; that being said, however, I recently purchased an Inspiron 1545 and I will be damned if I can get the wireless card to work via ndiswrapper or even Broadcom's proprietary drivers! However, do not let this deter you from considering Dell - my model is the only one I have had an issue with, hardware-wise.

I have a Pentium-3 (clunker) of a Toshiba, and it works nicely, everything's wonderfully supported, but aside from that, Toshibas (and Lenovos) have always been a bit out of my price range.

I know what you mean, I love my P4 but just too big now compared to everyone elses. I've been checking out both Toshiba & Lenovo, they're getting a little more inexpensive these days :)

Lenovo
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...nd-home-office

Toshiba
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/laptops.to?price=Less%20than%20$600

Thanks for the info, I value your opinion :)

check this thread from earlier today..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-linux-717795/

Awesome THANKS! :)

Also have a look at tuxmobile.com to see which one has better chemistry with Linux :-)

Be aware that the Lenovo ThinkPad series are excellent (but not cheap); although lenovo do have a consumer range 'below' the thinkpads, they aren't as well built and Linux support isn't necessarily as good out of the box.

Having said that, I am typing this on a Lenovo 3000 N200 (a non-ThinkPad); the webcam doesn't work (largely because I don't care...I assume it would if I cared enough to make an effort); the fingerprint reader is 'mis-recognised' as the one in a ThinkPad and doesn't work (not that I care much again, which is the real problem, I guess, but it would probably have worked 'automagically' with a ThinkPad).

Now the real thing, if anything, that gets me irritated is that the keyboard, which doesn't have as as good a feel as as the one on a Thinkpad. And I could have had an 'end of line', low-end, ThinkPad for about the same cost, but it had Vista and I didn't want that...should have 'downgraded' the Vista to XP on a ThinkPad.