Ask HN: What Laptop Should I Buy?
I need to buy a laptop and cannot figure out what to buy. My requirements:
- Windows - Supports dual monitors - lightweight and doesn't have to have a big screen - powerful, fast and reliable
- Windows - Supports dual monitors - lightweight and doesn't have to have a big screen - powerful, fast and reliable
I also got a Dell Mini 9 to go along with it for $50 more, as part of some promotion they were, and maybe still are, running. So, I have a tiny lappy for when I'm traveling light, and a big lappy for when I'm doing real work. I think it's an acceptable compromise for me. My prior lappy was a 12.1" widescreen model, and a little lighter.
I'm very happy with it, so far. Fedora 10 installed in a dual boot config without a hitch, and after installing the nVidia drivers suspend/resume began working. With the Open Source nv driver it failed to resume, though I read that's fixed in the next kernel release. Anyway, I opted to upgrade the WiFi to Intel to have Open Source drivers, so it worked out of the box, but the Broadcom WiFi it comes with by default is supposed to work with drivers from Dell; but they're closed source, and will always be something you have to add, which I didn't consider worth saving 30 bucks over. Even the built-in web cam worked in Linux right off. Since you're wanting Windows, you don't care about that, but Linux compatibility was vitally important to me, and this was the nicest new laptop experience I've ever had.
The chassis is really nice and simple. Some sort of alloy, so it feels quite sturdy. Massive metal hinges. Tremendous battery life with the 9 cell battery I upgraded to. Something like 8 or 9 hours when not working it too hard, though I haven't timed it out precisely. But, it's good enough that I don't even think about whether I have the charger with me when I take it places.
It feels as solid as the higher end ThinkPads I've used, and even has a nipple mouse. I haven't put enough time on it to know if it'll hold up like a ThinkPad, but I have an old Dell Inspiron that's over three years old and has held up well, including weathering a couple of pretty big drops. So, I feel pretty good about its reliability.
Comparing to the MacBook Pro, it is roughly the same weight (depending on configuration), roughly the same size (1" high vs. 0.95" in the Mac), and slightly less powerful on the video front (the nVidia Quadros 160 is roughly a 9300, though with lower power, and a few enhancements). Appearance-wise the Mac looks prettier, but only by a little. The black alloy with small silver Dell logo is very swish, and looks better in person than on the web.
I own and use an inspiron 640m. It's about 340 dollars with shipping on eBay right now. It's a core duo, runs 3D apps pretty well, runs pretty fast once you put 2 gigs of ram in it.
Some of you might be thinking how slow it must be... but for text editing and compiling? Computers aren't getting much faster nowadays, just more cores. The primary slow down on most computers is the hard drive and RAM. In that regard, it runs more than adequately. I can do normal computing stuff: Code::Blocks/OpenOffice, play some low-end games, watch movies (it supports 720p). Boot time is very good on Ubuntu 9.04 - about 40 seconds. It's also very light at only 6 pounds. Battery life is good too, on full bright I can get about 5 hours still.
At this price, you could get 5 or 6 of these instead of one high-end computer. Hard to go wrong with that. I would even recommend getting this if you like the idea of a net-book but don't like the small screen. I love this computer :)