I am surprised how many responses there were with little mention of Toshiba and none of Compaq! I have been running Linux and windows xp/vista on both for many years. I would say by far the toshiba had ZERO Linux install problems (openSuSE 10.3) and the windows installs were fine. As far as durability, I throw mine around in a backpack all day everyday. I have never had any hardware problems. The only problem I have had however is a monitor cable n the compaq broke down and I had to replace it after 3 years. From what I hear this is the norm for compaq and the way the harness is routed..

---- Vaughn Treude <vltreude@deru.com> wrote: 
> Hello everybody!
> 
> I'm planning to buy a new notebook, as my Vaio is now 8 years old, and 
> shows signs of getting ready to give up the ghost. (Specifically, the 
> LCD backlight occasionally doesn't come on.) So I've been doing some 
> serious online shopping and I'm trying to make a final decision. This 
> being a computer-savvy group, I thought I'd ask for some feedback.
> 
> The goal:
> As high-performance as possible for $2000 or less. In particular, I want 
> to be able to boot as fast as possible. (I will of course install Linux 
> and tweak it to start only the most essential services.)
> I plan to make it dual-boot, because it would be useful to have Windoze 
> available so I can run Visual Studio. I detest Vista, so this means the 
> notebook should have XP as an available option. (If it's super-cheap, it 
> _might_ be worth buying an XP CD and blasting away Vista, but I'd like 
> to avoid this if possible.)
> 
> The minimum parameters:
> 15" wide screen WXGA+
> 2.4 GHz CPU
> 2 GB RAM
> 100 GB drive @ 7200 RPM
> Read/write DVD.
> Wireless "n" version support
> Bluetooth support
> 2 USB ports, preferably 3.
> 
> The finalists:
> Dell Inspiron 1520 - with all the options I want it's around $1500. (But 
> one of the reviewers claimed its physical construction was flimsy.)
> Toshiba Tecra A9 - also around $1500 with options.
> Lenovo ThinkPad R61 - the fully-loaded version is on sale for around $1200.
> Mac Book Pro - the 2.4GHz 15" version, with the high-speed drive option, 
> is $2100, a bit out of my range. I _could_ set it up triple-boot with XP 
> (and Linux, of course) which would bring it up to $2200. But I've always 
> admired the Mac's design, the fact that OS X is based on Unix, and the 
> Mac's excellent video-editing software. (I've been unhappy with the 
> hassle of setting up this kind of stuff on Linux.) So I'm still 
> considering it, but don't know if it would be worthwhile.
> 
> At the moment I'm leaning toward the Lenovo. As far as I can tell, its 
> primary drawbacks are relatively short battery life, and the fact that 
> it is (IMHO) one butt-ugly machine. The battery isn't that big of a 
> problem, as I have two externals I bought for my ailing Sony, and I can 
> live with ugly.
> 
> Any comments or relevant experiences any of you could share?
> Thanks,
> Vaughn
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