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by Micah Elliott.
Original Post: Choosing a Hacker-Friendly Laptop
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I just bought a brand new highly juiced Lenovo R61 laptop for $760. This post documents my selection criteria, and I hope it will help you with your next purchasing decision. Some guys over at Hacker News were recently discussing laptop criteria, so I figured I would add mine here.
Some people really care about having a sleek, shiny, ultra-light, luminous, bells-and-whistles laptop. Not me. When you're thinking about selling your house to start a business you're really considering the budget all the time. Or maybe I'm just utilitarian.
(Pictured to the right is my work-issue T61. Like the blocks I borrowed from my kids? This setup is not earthquake-proof!)
Criteria
Must be able to run Linux (Ubuntu)
Cost is very important ($300-700, upper end negotiable :-)
Needs an exceptional screen (extremely high resolution, I have great near vision)
Supports dual head with big-screen external monitor
Enough RAM to run Firefox, GIMP, and more
Decent processors (Core 2 Duo would be nice) necessary for developing parallel apps
Ugliness is not a problem
Portability is nice (not too clunky/bulky/awkward/heavy)
I'll take some extra features if they're cheap add-ons (more RAM, camera, bluetooth)
I went to Best Buy in hopes of cashing in on some Memorial Day sales, and came home empty-handed. Then I shopped around at NewEgg, Dell, and Lenovo. It appears that most places just offer pre-packaged sub-optimal configurations, and you probably won't be happy with any of those. Bottom line: save some gas and just point your browser to Dell.com and Lenovo.com, or some other customization site I didn't discover.
Interesting Findings
In my shopping and research there were a few interesting findings. Maybe some of these are obvious to you, but they surprised me.
Best Buy doesn't offer any "I don't want the stinking OS" discounts. And I'm not going to bother pursuing any "Windows Rebate" offer alleged to exist.
You can't find a top-notch screen at Best Buy. Or probably at any other common electronics shop. The young salesman had to ask about this, but he came back to tell me that they didn't carry anything in 14x9 resolution, except in 17"+.
Best Buy only offers "shiny" screens. I personally think those suck, but maybe there's some reason it's become a trend. Do people actually prefer the reflection, or is it just shelf-appeal?
Going with a pre-built Linux laptop really doesn't save you any $$ on OS royalty fees. Although Dell and Lenovo now claim to offer Linux, there are very few available configurations, and they're not as customizable. E.g., Dell wouldn't let me add a built-in camera presumably because SUSE (do people actually use SUSE by choice?) didn't support it. So just get the free Vista (which supports cameras/bluetooth) and blow it away after you've booted once and confirmed that it supports the resolution you're after.
Lenovo and Dell's menu-customization features are critical for getting what you really need. If you can't customize, you won't get the right screen, processors, memory, etc.
There is a little bit of jargon you need to know, especially screen resolution: XGA and WSXGA. Refer to those links often during your search. Don't forget about the "+".
There are discount codes floating around the web. The easiest to search for/obtain is "lenovo coupon code", which you'll find updates for on a daily basis. Simply plugging in the current day's code in the coupon box will probably save you at least a hundred bucks.
14" and 15" are the price sweet spot. It would be great to find a really light 13", but you can add $400 for that. Going up to 17" also jacks up the price, squelches battery life, and will give you a back-ache.
A 15" WSXGA+ screen is an equivalent resolution to most 22" flat panel standalone monitors. That's 1.76 million pixels. That means that if you sit close enough, you can probably stare at ~500 lines of code on a single virtual desktop. Compare that to the best 14" at 1.29M pixels. That's why I spent $60 more for the 15". The best you'll find at Best Buy is probably 0.79M pixels!
Lenovo (R61) offers higher screen resolutions than Dell (Vostro). But they'll cost $50-100 more. I think that's worth it.
Dell generally has better deals for business class than home user class. Look for the Vostro, and consider yourself "business class" whatever your situation.
EEE PC is just too small. Have you actually used a 7" screen?
You can get a decent old laptop on Ebay for $300, but they're just not good enough for hacking work. They might even have enough RAM, but they probably won't support dual-head or high-res.
In summary, I recommend Lenovo over Dell if you care a lot about the screen and processors, and are willing to spend an extra ~$50. Otherwise, it looks like a wash. I hope this helps you in your quest for the perfect Linux laptop. Do you have any tips? Any good reason for dropping $2K for the high end?
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