[ubuntu-uk] New Laptop Time

[Darren.Mansell at opengi.co.uk]

Personally I would only go for Lenovo or Dell for Linux laptops. No-one else seems bothered about broken BIOS's and ACPI implementations.

Why not Intel graphics? Whatever you do don't go ATi/AMD graphics. I'm stuck with an ATi HD 3400 R600 in this Toshiba laptop. The ACPI is broken and the VGA doesn't report correctly meaning the binary fglrx driver won't work with it. I'm having to run a Lucid kernel on Karmic with xorg-edgers git builds to get kwin compositing. Because of the buggy ACPI it won't S3 suspend, battery charging doesn't report correctly so I have no power management etc.

All because Toshiba had to break the BIOS to get it to pass Microsoft HCT tests so they could put the "designed for Windows" stickers on the case and get a 50% reduction in OEM licences...

-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Daubney
Sent: 23 December 2009 10:58
To: UK Ubuntu Talk
Subject: [ubuntu-uk] New Laptop Time

Hello,

It's that time of year again when everything will briefly become a bit 
cheaper (and I'm trying to avoid VAT returning to normal again as well). 
So am looking around for a new laptop. As far as specs go, I'd like a 
core 2 duo branded chip, something like a T6600 would do. 2-4 GB of RAM, 
don't care about HD size, would be nice to be 7200RPM though, and a 
seperate graphic card (not an intel one) would also be nice.

The main purpose of this machine is for my general purpose use, bit of 
web browsing, bit of dev, bit of office work and so on. So it doesn't 
need to be overpowered, but needs to have some kick.

I've a budget of about £500, and my research so far has hilighted 3 
possibilities:

1. Novatech X16 HD Pro - 
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/x16hd.html
2. Acer Aspire 5738 - 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-15-6-inch-DVD-RW-Premium/dp/B002IVTTJC/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
3. Samsung R520 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176506

Does anyone have any experience of Novatech laptops? I've never even 
seen one before, so the build quality is an unknown quantity for me. If 
anyone has any opinions on the others I'd be interested too, or any 
others you think fit the bill.

Any opinions welcome :)

-Matt Daubney

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