Buying my first laptop

[TheBob]

Hey all
I wanna get myself a laptop for Christmas. I am by no means a newbie. I have 2 desktops. A SFF core2duo e4300@3.2Ghz, 9600gt and a full tower Q9650@3.4Ghz(watercooled), 2x4870s. I play a lot of games. Mostly Team Fortress 2 though. I have never owned a laptop so I really don't know what to buy. I want something I can throw ubuntu on and play around with that and browse the internet. Maybe a little light gaming. I have $800 to spend. I really don't wanna go over budget. My old 7600gs will play TF2 so I don't need a super GPU. I was looking at the 9600M as a gpu. I like the look of this MSI one here. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152073) I also like the new netbooks coming out. I don't think I would be doing much gaming on them, but would they run Compiz Fusion?

Thanks for the input everyone!:D

[Bobsama]

Consider an Asus N10 netbook--Intel Atom of course, 1-2GB, GeForce 9300GS, and 160GB-320GB hard drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220456
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220385
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220385

[TheGanG]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220349


ASUS M51 Series M51TA-X2 NoteBook AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-82(2.20GHz)
15.4" Wide XGA+ (1440x900)-4GB Memory-250GBHDD 5400rpm
DVD Super Multi-ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650-BlueRay Option

It has dual GPUs; Radeon HD 3200 + M Radeon HD 3650


http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/1483/22222mv6.jpghttp://img516.imageshack.us/img516/7436/11111ny0.jpg
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/2913/44444fj6.jpghttp://img516.imageshack.us/img516/7271/33333zp6.jpg

[Baleful]

All the options posted above are viable. I don't game on any of my laptops, but I own a Lenovo X60 Tablet, and a Lenovo Z61m and they both run Ubuntu with Compiz just fine. One thing that helps Compiz out alot is RAM, so whatever machine you pick out make sure you have atleast 2GB of RAM.

[Martijn]

From personal experience I can add that you often only find out the downside of laptops as soon as you have used it a week or two.

I just bought a new HP Compaq 8510W notebook, and it turned out to have anti-shock pads just beneath the keyboard. I have got rather greasy fingers, so you can guess it already: those pads got all greasy and there are now two stripes on my LCD where those pads touch the LCD. Also, the touch-sensitive quick-launch buttons don't really work as well as ordinary buttons.

I am currently using this:
T9300 (2.5Ghz)
2x 2GB DDR2-800
NVidia Quadro FX570 256 (basically a 8600GT-M)
200GB 7.2k HDD
15.4" LCD with a resolution of 1680x1050.

The FX570 isn't a bad card. When overclocked it can do 5k in 3D06. It runs COD4/5 just fine on medium settings and I even played Crysis Wars on it at a LAN.


If I were you I'd find some of the notebooks you like, then find as many reviews as you can to give you an idea of what it's like to use everyday. If you have the possibility to test or at least look at them at your local retailer, don't hesitate to do so.
Also, you'll want to consider having a glossy screen or not. If you are going to use your laptop outside or near a window a lot, I wouldn't go with a glossy screen. I've used both and even though the colours of the glossy LCD are more vivid, I prefer the matte version just because it's way more practical when being outside. Also, I would go with a high-res screen. 1680x1050 or even 1920x1200 on a 15.4" LCD is simply awesome.

[Klarko]

If your looking for a netbooks, i would suggest checking out the acer one, msi wind, and asus books, all are decent for what you will be using them for :)

[Baleful]

Also on a side note, since you're wanting to use Ubuntu, you need to be conscience about the hardware you purchase. Linux is very quirky with hardware, in one version of Ubuntu your hardware may work perfect, in another only half may work right. If I were you, I would look through the Laptop section of the ubuntu forums and see which laptops are having the best luck with video cards and resolution. Right now i'm working on several linux machines that are equipped with Nvidia cards, to get their resolution working right. I'm not sure, maybe someone else more knowledgeable on the subject can comment, but doesn't ATI use open source drivers for their linux stuff? I thought I remember reading that somewhere, if they do, ATI would probably be the way to go as far as mobile graphics cards.

[Papu]

Dell Xps 1530 with 8600M plays tf2 beautifully , i know from experience

or any laptop with 8600M

[__-_-_-__]

http://www.flextronics.com/arima/ViewProduct.asp?View=174
arima flexitronics W840DI aka ocz whitebook

[Chaos116886]

Gateway P FX may end up higher with shipping

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4090488&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&cm_mmc_o=TBBTkwCjCVyBpAgf%20mwzygtCjCVRqCjCVRq