# In the Market for a New Laptop

## titanofold

As the subject says, I'm in the market for a new laptop. Being a Gentoo Developer, I'm obviously concerned about compatibility with Linux.

I've been shopping around a bit and the first laptop I liked is the Lenovo Edge e425. Spec'd out like so:

ThinkPad Edge E425 Express

AMD Accelerated Processor A4-3300M

Windows 7 Professional 64

14.0" W HD (1366x768), AntiGlare

AMD Radeon HD 6470M

4 GB DDR3 - 1333MHz (1 DIMM)

Keyboard US English

UltraNav with TrackPoint & touchpad

720p HD Camera

500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm

Multi Recorder Optical Drive (12.7mm)

6 cell 2.2Ah Li-Ion Battery

Bluetooth 3.0

ThinkPad b/g/n Integrated WiFi wireless LAN adapters

3Yr Base Warranty Extension

The total for this comes out to $718, which is the upper end of my budget.

Although my brother insists that I start playing World of Warcraft, I'll be doing office work more than anything. I'll be dual booting between Windows and Linux. (Windows for gaming, maybe some office work, but definitely Linux for most of my office work.) For my office related stuff, I need to run Emacs, Perl, PostgreSQL, and LibreOffice. (Work is on various versions of Microsoft Office, but I can probably get away with either Google Docs or Libre Office.) So, the work stuff is pretty lightweight given the data sets I'll be manipulating. (An entire year's worth of data amounts to ~50MiB CSV file.)

The two places I'll primarily be using the laptop have wired connections. So, if the wireless doesn't work in Linux I won't be terribly upset.

If I were to get this laptop, I'd increase the memory to 8 GiB. (Doing it myself because letting Lenovo do it means an additional $160. Ridiculous!)

The three year warranty is a must. Just parts. I'm a fairly careful person and I tumble down stairs with the grace of Fred Astaire. I don't need accidental damage protection.

Lastly, this laptop is going to replace my workstation both at home and at work. So, I don't see myself as ever being very far away from a power source. I may run on the battery for my lunch hour or for the one trip I might be taking by plane. But, I generally read my Nook on breaks.

So, thoughts? Suggestions?

(P.S.: Yes, this a cross post from techreport.com with some edits.)

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## ianw1974

I bought an Asus K51AE laptop, which was really good and everything just worked under Linux, even the HDMI port for video/sound.  Now I got a work laptop, the asus was my personal one and I have a Thinkpad T510.  Everything also working fine, but had to tweak the audio to get it to work over the Displayport/HDMI.

However, I prefer my Asus to the Thinkpad, even if the Thinkpad is better spec'd.  I was out of work for a short time when I bought the Asus and needed something to work on but cheap to buy as couldn't afford to get anything more luxurious until the cash was coming in.  I like the Asus kit, good spec and good price.

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## Veldrin

Personally I am big Fan of the (original) Lenovo Thinkpad (T, X, W series), but they usually come with a hefty pricetag.

Comparing your Thinkpad Edge E425 to the Asus K51AE proposed by ianw1974, I would definitely go for the Lenovo. Not because it is a Lenovo, but because it is smaller, lighter and better equipped (plus the asus is 1.5 years old). 

Will you be using the built in keyboard and touchpad/trackstick. If so, do you like them. 

I am using Dell Notebooks at work, and they have a horrible keyboards, next unusable, if you are used to thinkpad keyboards (again I can only speek for the X, T and W series I've used or tried).

PoV connections seems reasonable, though I would opt for USB3 than for a eSATA nowadays. 

Does the display have enough pixels? I downsized from WUXA (1920x1200) to WXGA (1366x768) when I bough my last notebook, and it still need some adjusting. 

OTOH, less pixels means less power required to play games. 

If you could give some more indicators, of what exactly you are looking for, it would help narrowing it down. 

though, if you are looking for good price, with reasonable graphic power, then 14-15" seems the best area to look.

just my .02$

V.

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## titanofold

 *Veldrin wrote:*   

> Will you be using the built in keyboard and touchpad/trackstick. If so, do you like them.

 

I will be using them. Probably the TrackPoint over the touchpad. (I've never really cared for the touchpad.) I have a full-size keyboard and mouse that I can use when I'm at home. I've adapted to my GF's laptop keyboard whenever I use her laptop. So, I'm sure I'll adjust to this one.

 *Quote:*   

> PoV connections seems reasonable, though I would opt for USB3 than for a eSATA nowadays. 

 

I don't have any equipment that'd utilize USB 3.0 or eSATA.

 *Quote:*   

> Does the display have enough pixels? I downsized from WUXA (1920x1200) to WXGA (1366x768) when I bough my last notebook, and it still need some adjusting. 
> 
> OTOH, less pixels means less power required to play games. 

 

My monitors at work and home are both 1280x1024. I find that I have less of an issue with vertical space than I do with horizontal space. I often need windows to be side-by-side. Alt+tab to switch between them isn't so bad, but I could be a bit quicker if I didn't have to do that.

 *Quote:*   

> If you could give some more indicators, of what exactly you are looking for, it would help narrowing it down. 
> 
> though, if you are looking for good price, with reasonable graphic power, then 14-15" seems the best area to look.

 

Really, I'm just looking for something that is portable, but powerful enough to do real work and play some not so demanding games, such as WoW and Guild Wars.

I'll be using a proper database for some of my tasks so access times are not mission critical, but I don't want them taking forever either.

Lately there's been a crossover in what I do at home and what I do at work. A lot of the things I need to do I know precisely the Linux tool that will do the job, but have a difficult time finding a Windows equivalent that's free. I'd like those things to just be present rather than having to jump through hoops or cheat the system to get software on my workstation at work or using SSH to access my network at home. I just need full control over my equipment.

Windows 7 Professional is a must because my understanding is that I won't be able to join a domain without it. This may not actually be important, but it may be if I travel to other branches. It'd be nice if I could say that all branches utilize similar infrastructure, but I know this isn't the case.

And, I was looking for a solution that wouldn't cost much more than building a new mid-range box. I'd say that $718 ($619 without the warranty extension) is a little bit more than I was looking for, but anything less than that doesn't really offer the performance I'm looking for.

I think I've pretty much nailed it with the laptop I've picked, I just wanted some feedback to see if what I picked is good or not. This laptop is certainly more powerful than both of my computers combined -- An Athlon XP-M 2400+ and a Pentium II 233 -- and probably my workstation at work which is some kind of ~5-6 year old Pentium, which leads me to believe I won't be disappointed.

 *Quote:*   

> just my .02$
> 
> V.

 

Thanks!

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## EatMeerkats

If you have a Visa or MasterCard, be sure to go to visa.com or mastercard.com and get the corresponding discount... on the Visa site, it's under "Personal -> Get Discounts", and on MC, I think you have to register an account to access it.  I'd almost say look at the T-series as well, but it looks like that gets a bit expensive once you add Windows 7 Professional and the 3 year warranty.  Never pay full price for a ThinkPad!

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## titanofold

 *EatMeerkats wrote:*   

> If you have a Visa or MasterCard, be sure to go to visa.com or mastercard.com and get the corresponding discount... on the Visa site, it's under "Personal -> Get Discounts", and on MC, I think you have to register an account to access it.  I'd almost say look at the T-series as well, but it looks like that gets a bit expensive once you add Windows 7 Professional and the 3 year warranty.  Never pay full price for a ThinkPad!

 

Dude! That tip there decreased the price by $40!

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## ianw1974

 *Veldrin wrote:*   

> Comparing your Thinkpad Edge E425 to the Asus K51AE proposed by ianw1974, I would definitely go for the Lenovo. Not because it is a Lenovo, but because it is smaller, lighter and better equipped (plus the asus is 1.5 years old).
> 
> 

 

I was misunderstood.  I didn't necessarily recommend my model, purely because I bought it a year and a half ago.  But in general Asus, because it is a good price and good spec.  This was noted later in my post  :Wink: 

Plus, and a big plus, I could by the Asus without having Windows on it.

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## Veldrin

 *ianw1974 wrote:*   

> I was misunderstood.  I didn't necessarily recommend my model, purely because I bought it a year and a half ago.  But in general Asus, because it is a good price and good spec.  This was noted later in my post 
> 
> Plus, and a big plus, I could by the Asus without having Windows on it.

 

I think, I missed that part. Asus notebooks have a good price, I agree, but several colleagues had issue with Asus, while other who both Lenovo or HP business models (with a heavy student discount) had never any. That might explain, why I am a bit cautious, about commercial/home-grade notebooks. 

Also, the lack of the windows tax can be an advantage (unless you really need windows)

V.

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## binro

I recently bought a Lenovo T510 and I am really pleased with it. Everything "just worked" (TM) with Linux, even the fancy 3G modem chip. The T520 seems to start at $850 if you buy it via the web.

Good luck!

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## gcb

DO NOT get an edge.

they ARE NOT thinkpads.

i made the mistake of getting a e425.

keyboard is awful. if thinkpad had any kind of satisfaction guaranteed program i'd have returned it on the keyboard alone. but they do not have, figure why...

besides that, i have a long line of Ts from work. now with a new t410. ... i can't even begin to compare. they are not the same. they look like two completely different manufacturers. not the same think at all!

also, the displays on EVERY SINGLE lenovo (edge, T, W, from my 1st hand exp)  is just screwed up. remember how you were able to see from various vertical angle but the sideway viewing angle sucked? well, since a benchmark on review sites now is the sideway viewing angle, they just rotated the LCD fabrication. now you have almost 10 degree of vertical viewing angle, and plenty of horizontal... what does that mean? you can't have a perfect vision of the full screen! there's no tilt position that will make the bottom look as good as the top, or vice versa. but now, everyone around you can see your screen just fine... worthless. that's the premium display. i never had a lenovo with the regular display. maybe it's better.

Also, if you get the E425, it has an AMD cpu (lenovo is dropping support for AMD because intel is harassing them. that's why they are discounted)

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