The endless journey for a new laptop

Hi, i’m not sure how everybody else buys their products but i’m a very sceptical person and usually i do a lot of research before buying something. I’ll try to get some points quickly explaining what i want on a new machine and some short description of what i think are good specifications for a new machine.

Maybe first i should try to explain my reasoning (AKA my user case): i’m a university student, i need my laptop to study and develop. After that what i do most is surf the web, watch some anime, movies and tv series. Do i play games? Not really, maybe just some case of really rare playing like the Humble Bundles that i bought (yes i bought all of them). Important to note here is that i carry my laptop a lot, from home to university, all around the house (going to the bedroom then the living room, etc) and i spend lots of time reading stuff. As you should know i use GNU/Linux and the rare times i need windows i prefer launching some virtualization solution.

What kind of laptop do you have now? – would you dare to ask. An Asus M51Vr (specs) of around 3Kg (use google to convert these units if needed ), 15.4”. The quality? Pretty bad, right now i have just one hinge supporting the screen, the lower of the pc is hot, the hdd is full of dead sectors, it’s noisy and have i already said heavy? Yeah, it really is. Why did i buy it? – should you want to ask too. It was cheap at the time (3 years ago on a media markt promotion – 666€. It was around 1100€) and it was my first laptop and i needed something to use when entering the university.

So, on the present, the hinge broke around 3 months ago and since then i’m looking for a new laptop. 3 months is a really long time to be with a broken laptop on the verge of collapsing. In the meanwhile i tried to order an hp 5320m and only after one month had passed and after going to the shop some times they were able to tell me that i couldn’t order that one anymore. Great service. Since then and with the coming of many new sandy bridge laptops and new AMD APUs i’ve been stalling and searching a lot to find a good new machine.

Main specifications that i’m looking for:

• Weight: should be light, so not netbooks, something like what they call today the ultra-portable. Less than 2,2Kg.
• Cpu: if i’m buying new, should be recent. i5-2410 at least, or amd Llano A6-3400 or A8-3500.
• Graphics: INTEGRATED. I don’t want 2 cards on my pc, so a intel HD3000 or the card from the APUs is enough. And NO NVIDIA (bad linux support on the open-source drivers).
• RAM: at least 4GB because we are talking about a machine that should run at least some kind of virtualization.
• Hard drive: the smallest in capacity is enough, just want it to be stable and silent. Later maybe upgrade to a SSD of my choice.
• Optical drive: i don’t think they are needed. I have my current laptop since 3 years ago and i can count with my fingers how many times i used it. On the 21st they are useless. Specially if i can get a lighter laptop without this i’m all for it.
• Size: 12.5” i think is to small, 13.3” should be fine, 14′‘ would be good but normally comes with external graphics, optical drive or numpad, so 13.3” is where i can avoid these “features”.
• Screen: for god sake, i want a matte screen, my current laptop burns my eyes, i’m many hours on the pc. Should be decent enough to see some multimedia.

Other, more secondary specifications:

• USB 3 support. I want a new laptop with recent cpus, they all have usb 3 support, so i want it. No excuses.
• Number of usbs: don’t know, at least 2, at least to support Pen-to-Pen copy.
• E-SATA support. I need it. My current laptop has one, i use it, i want it on the new one. These days laptops even save space using a combo with usb.
• VGA, HDMI or VGA, Display port. Is the minimum.
• Card reader support of course.
• Webcam, i don’t use it at all. Kill it with fire. Actually all recent laptops come with it so i can’t do anything about it…
• Fingerprint reader. I don’t use mine, but i’m not sure with this. Becomes Optional.
• NO NUMPAD. I don’t like mine. I can’t use the PgUp and Down shortcuts on linux console like i used on the destop in my current laptop. Kill it with fire too.
• NO MODEM. C’mon, seriously, take hp’s laptops, who seriously need it? I don’t at least. (i’m talking about the old old one that did some amazing music connecting).
• Bluetooth, i don’t really use it, but it’s possible it could become handy. So, optional feature.
• Network card, at least 1Gbit.
• Wireless card, mine has N support but i don’t use it, but maybe it should be included, just like the gigabit card and bluetooth 3, they all offer the most recent connection technologies.

Have i already covered everything? … No, keyboard should be good enough quality, i like the looks on those new chicklet keyboards. Touchpad should be good enough too as i only use it without any external usb mouse. Then i just want what everybody wants: good and resistant body construction, really silent, good airflow because i don’t like to get burned, and a reasonable price for these specs (not over 800€).

And cherry on top of the cake? WITHOUT MICROSOFTcrap. I don’t care if it comes without OS, with Ubuntu, with OpenSuse, whatever the case i will install archlinux on it. Even if i want Miscrosoft OS i have access to MSDNAA so i don’t want to pay for something i can get legally and free. So the laptop should have good linux support, but everything said above is compatible with it, so i see no problems. Obviously finding a laptop like this and without Windows pre-installed is just an utopia.

Should be easy to find laptops with these specs? I would say yes, but it seems that manufactors don’t really know what consumers (or am i that special?) want and just throw out random kinds of configurations and poor built laptops. It’s really sad. I’m looking for a new laptop since 3 months ago. I waited for the AMD APUs to get out, now i’m waiting for laptops to come with them, if i wait longer i’ll be waiting for ultra-portables, then wait for return to school laptops launching, etc…

Give me a good laptop today!!