One important factor for my choice in laptops is the physical attributes of the machine. IMO, Samsung and Apple, and to some extent Asus, have very well designed machines. Maybe I'm a little bit vain, but I'd like for my Linux laptop to look good too. That's one thing Apple always got right. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is rad, but I don't really like the way it looks. I'm not sure how to reconcile that.

ZaReason and System76 are awesome companies! I purchased a small notebook from ZaReason back in '08 but returned it because it was too underpowered. I would happily buy a laptop from either ZaReason or System76 if it was in the same vein of well designed hardware like the 3 companies I mentioned above.

I'm also very familiar with the Windows tax. A few years back I tried, very hard, to get HP to refund the Windows license on 2 desktops I bought for my dad. It was futile. Here are the blog posts from '09

HP Refund for Windows Tax: So far so good - http://bit.ly/wy4zC HP Refund for Windows Tax: No refund policy - http://bit.ly/1a0FW1

Trust me, I hate seeing the little Windows 7 sticker and Windows super key on my laptop, but the hardware is good and I have no compatibility issues. Ideal? Nope. But good enough, and unfortunately that's what we Linux users have to contend with for now.