# Which Laptop

## ilovebeer

Hey all, i've had a lenovo sl500 thinkpad (alleged) for a couple of months now and have decided to replace the hunk of junk with something new. i thought i was buying a thinkpad but apparently i got an ideapad wearing a thinkpad dress! i'd like to hear your thoughts on brands of laptops that  excel in linux and mostly work without me being a performing animal. i sorta favour toshiba but am definitely open to suggestions. i've had to use vista for the last couple of days just to get broadband internet working and my goodness from a personal perspective, vista sucks arse. my oh my it's slow! i'd be very intersested to hear your thoughts on a suitable replacement.

regards.. ilb

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## GODhack

hmmm... I am using Pentium 3 Dell Latitude as my laptop.

My desktop is more powerful Pentium quard core.

--

Suse has good (or the best) hardware working with Linux list. You can check here if your favorite laptop works.

http://en.opensuse.org/Hardware

Generally if it works on Suse it works on all Linux.

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## ilovebeer

thanks godhack, i must admit i've never considered suse but i'm downloading it now and will be very interested to see if it's hardware detection is better than the others. what are the benefits of a quad core?

ilb

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## GODhack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2#Kentsfield

I do not think that Suse hardware detection is better is is only better documented.

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## Abraxas

Thinkpads are great for linux if you actually get one.  Dell used to be fantastic for running Linux but I'm not sure now.  I stopped using them a while back when quality started slipping.  There seems to be some nice Latitudes now though.  If you  really want something durable and not junky I would recommend getting a business series laptop from whatever manufacturer you go through.  They are just built better.

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## psych

The real Thinkapd   :Wink: 

Dell Latitude e6500/e6400 ... great Linux support (Kernel 2.6.27.7).... great Led Display.... I love it.

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## DirtyHairy

Well, if you get a real one  :Wink:  , thinkpads have a reputation of being great linux machines. I've been working with my T60 (gentoo) every day for two and a half years now and never had a single complaint about the machine; everything works great with linux. It also seems to be more robust than other machines I've seen, it has yet to show any signs of wear, even though I'm really not overly careful with it.

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## Abraxas

 *DirtyHairy wrote:*   

> Well, if you get a real one  , thinkpads have a reputation of being great linux machines. I've been working with my T60 (gentoo) every day for two and a half years now and never had a single complaint about the machine; everything works great with linux. It also seems to be more robust than other machines I've seen, it has yet to show any signs of wear, even though I'm really not overly careful with it.

 

I concur.  I also own a T60 and have found that it is rock solid.  I try to be careful with mine but I'm not the most graceful person.  My T60 looks brand new still and I have owned it for two years.

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## d2_racing

Hi, I have a T60P and it rocks  :Razz: 

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## psych

Thinkpads T-Series are nice...but the thinkpad t500 has a very bad Display...   :Sad: 

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## d2_racing

I will have one at work in January, so I can give a feedback at that time.

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## Abraxas

 *psych wrote:*   

> Thinkpads T-Series are nice...but the thinkpad t500 has a very bad Display...  

 

You can get the T500 with either a LED backlight or a CCFL backlight.  I assume that would make a big difference.  For what it's worth I have a 14 inch display for my T60 and the IPS option was only available for the 15 inch version so my display is not so great either but it's good enough for me and the rest of the notebook is so well built that it doesn't bother me (except in the rare case that I am using it outside in full sunlight).

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## p-hi

Try to avoid anything with ATI graphics in it unless you don't mind waiting a few months for stable drivers.

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## DirtyHairy

That's not necessarily true, the ATI X1300 in my thinkpad worked basically from day 1 with fglrx, suspend, xv and everything (I had some trouble with xv at some point for some borked driver revisions, but other than that. it worked just fine).

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## ilovebeer

Hey all, thanks for the input so far. The years I've coveted a Thinkpad and boy was I done over. I've had a shit of a time with this sl500 and trying to get it all going cohesively, and where the hell's the thinklight? so, I reckon i'm gunna give Lenovo the arse. The final straw came with Lenovo selling me a wwan card that isn't compatible with Australia's largest and most popular ISP. I told the sales person that I could only get Telstra where I live... he shoud've known what I now know ... it don't work  :Sad:  i've been using Vista for a week now because I can't connect under Linux and man  that Vista os makes me damn angry. I'm so used to typing something in under gentoo and it just works. No such luck under click/tap happy Vista. I'm sure it suits a lot of people but I find it annoying as a blind pimple. if Vista were an employee I'd sack him/her.

Enough of my ranting  :Wink: 

It's now between a Toshiba Portege or Satellite or a Dell Inspiron or Xps (although Pyche's view on Latitude's has me vaccilating). Anybody had dealings with any of these models? Would appreciate your thoughts.

I'll probably purchase in January when all the post Christmas specials coupled with the economic downturn prices arrive.

Thanks

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## zyko

Thinkpads are the best laptops, as a general rule. Of course, there are some black sheep in the Thinkpad family (SL500...)  :Smile: 

All Thinkpads with a combination of the letters R, T or X and the numbers 60 or 61 are great (ergo T60, R60,...).

Imho, HP makes the second best notebooks. HP 6910p or HP 6930p will probably not disappoint you. Like the Thinpads, the HPs are serious working laptops, not glossy plastic toys. The new Toshibas and Dells on the other hand are glossy plastic toys (imho).

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## d2_racing

 *zyko wrote:*   

> All Thinkpads with a combination of the letters R, T or X and the numbers 60 or 61 are great (ergo T60, R60,...).

 

In fact, always get a RTX serie, because the SL is very cheap.

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## ilovebeer

Hmmm, appears that the general consensus is that thinkpads are the laptop of choice for a lot of users. Guess I'll have another look at Lenovo r,x,t series'. although lenovo australia doesn't appear to have the 60-61 series. Most seem to be 500. e.g. t500, r500 etcetera. Maybe they use a different naming convention in Australia. Was fascinated to see that Lenovo offer DOS as an option for some models. Have Lenovo shifted away from embracing linux?

Thanks

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## DaggyStyle

 *ilovebeer wrote:*   

> Hmmm, appears that the general consensus is that thinkpads are the laptop of choice for a lot of users. Guess I'll have another look at Lenovo r,x,t series'. although lenovo australia doesn't appear to have the 60-61 series. Most seem to be 500. e.g. t500, r500 etcetera. Maybe they use a different naming convention in Australia. Was fascinated to see that Lenovo offer DOS as an option for some models. Have Lenovo shifted away from embracing linux?
> 
> Thanks

 

freedos, not dos, freedos means no os installed.

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## ilovebeer

Cripes, I wasn't aware that Lenovo were altruistic enough to offer computers sans microsoft.

A different issue here still regarding laptops. I've been fiddling around with my broadband stuff and with an small plugin usb modem I get a signal of 3 or 4 out of 5 but if i transfer sim to the internal sierra mc8775 which I've at last got to work (even uder gentoo) I get a piss weak signal that barely registers a signal except at 3am where I get a signal of at least one bar   :Shocked:  ! If I carry the computer outside under the big gum tree i get a 2 which still always fails to connect. This indicates to me that the built in antenna of thinkpads is not that good. Hopefully this is just another sub standard component of an sl500 and not across the board! Anybody had good/bad experiences with the built in aerials?

Thanks

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