
Best ultrabook for linux? [April 2013 edition] - loxs
What would you recommend? What do you use? Do you know of something interesting about to be released?<p>Please, do not recommend me to use Windows or Mac OS, we are not discussing this right now. I am specifically interested to find a nice ultrabook to use for programming on linux.<p>Yes, I am aware of the most popular things like the Dell Linux Ultrabook and the Chromebook Pixel (and I might choose one of them). But yet, someone might know of something better.<p>So here are the rules:<p>1. It's OK if it comes with another OS, as long as it's not very hard to install linux. The hardware must work well with linux. Some minor exceptions are acceptable (eg - not working fingerprint reader)<p>2. Full HD or better.<p>3. SSD<p>4. Keyboard of great quality.<p>5. Good battery life.
======
bmurphy1976
I currently run Ubuntu on a 2008 MacBook (runs near flawlessly) and a 2012 top
of the line Dell Latitude (buggy as hell).

A lot of the responses here are along the lines of "I think you should look at
this laptop", not "I have personally run this laptop and it works great."

I bring this up because my experience with the Dell which is otherwise the
best laptop I have ever used and technically meets all the right specs has
been dreadful.

My advice is to seek out answers from people who have actually done what you
are trying to do and get some real world feedback. Also, if all else fails, I
believe the shear volume of technically inclined people who own an Apple
laptop compared to products from other companies should be taken into
consideration.

Good luck and make sure whatever you get has a solid return policy!

~~~
loxs
Yes, good points. Of course I value most answers from people with actual
experience. But I'm also happy with answers of the kind like "see,
manufacturer X is going to release model Y in 2 months"...

Same observations about Dell, except for the cheap class (which I don't want)
which is extremely good for its price.

------
theirishpenguin
Would totally recommend the X1 Carbon - though it's a while since it was
released so maybe there is something recent that trumps it. Build quality is
top notch - AFAIK it has the only trackpad and keyboard that can compete with
the MBA (Asus Zenbook - I've heard - falls down on the track pad front,
despite more pixels). SSD is fast. And it charges in 30 mins to full charge,
which I didn't care for when I bought it but is really really useful. I would
recommend the i5/8GB RAM version. And Linux works great on it. I'm running
Ubuntu.

The X1 is insanely portable. The extra bit of real estate the 14 inch screen
provides is great for everyday work. Ya, I loves it!

~~~
cjbprime
Downsides: doesn't have full HD, and you can't upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB
without paying for many other additions that you don't need.

~~~
theirishpenguin
Agree with you on the full HD front.

As I said, I'd go for the 8GB out of the box. This means you can only get an
i5 processor (there isn't enough space for an i7 + 8GB in the machine). But
all these processors are type U anyway so they're wayyy slower than i5/i7
series - so i5U vs i7U prob isn't a factor.

But ya, moar pixels is always good :)

~~~
benjiweber
I have an X1 carbon with both i7 and 8gb ram. Perhaps this restriction only
applies to older models? Mine is the newer model with 1600x900 display.

~~~
theirishpenguin
Interesting to know. My i5/8GB RAM X1 also has the 1600x900 display. Perhaps
as you say there's newer internals. But cool!

------
richo
Dell just released their native-linux-running XPS:

[http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-
lapt...](http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-
laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz)

1080p screen and you can assume the hardware works with linux.

~~~
qznc
No NVIDIA or ATI card? How is the graphics performance?

~~~
14113
After my current experiences running linux on a laptop with an optimus enabled
graphics card I can safely say that I am never again going to buy a laptop
with discrete graphics to run linux. It's been a pain getting Bumblebee to
work (optimus drivers), and even with it working certain parts of the hardware
are still closed off, thanks to limited driver support.

------
kstenson
Have a look at the Zenbook UX32VD,
<http://zenbook.asus.com/zenbook/?c=prime_ux32>

It's full HD 1080p IPS screen, switchable intel HD/ nvidia graphics,
expandable RAM and HD. I've had one since November and find the keyboard and
build quality to be excellent.

Since I bought it I've upgraded the HD to a SSD and add a additional 8gb for
ram to bring it up to 10gb total.

Linux compatibility seems good <http://www.linlap.com/asus_ux32vd>

~~~
cjbprime
Also consider the UX32A [edit: I meant UX31A], which doesn't have switchable
graphics (which don't work well under Linux anyway), has an SSD instead of an
HDD (good), doesn't have upgradable RAM (bad), and is cheaper. Same screen on
both.

~~~
loxs
Hmm, I can't seem to find a machine with these specs. Especially I can't find
one with Full HD screen. Maybe because I am searching in European stores...
(where I live)

On the other hand, I found a UX32VD with 2x256 GB SSDs. This is a little too
much. Also I don't need the nVidia graphics card.

But in general, the Zenbook is probably my current favourite.

~~~
cjbprime
My mistake -- that should be UX31A.

------
octo_t
Macbook Airs (or 13" MBP Retina) is (in my experience) the nicest choice for
an ultrabook.

\- Installing Linux is really easy

\- Macbook Air isnt' full hd, but the retina is obviously better than full hd

\- they've all got SSDs

\- Macbook keyboards are amazing

\- my air will last for about 8-9 hours of light use (vim etc) between charges

~~~
gambiting
Does it really work that long with Linux? I have the 13" Air(2012 Ivy Bridge
model) and while on Mac OS and only using Eclipse/XCode for work I never get
it past 6 hours mark.

But in any case, I honestly don't see many reasons why would I install Linux
on it in favour of Mac OS. I can see why would I swap Windows for Linux,but I
find myself able to do 99% of linux stuff on MacOS just fine. It's got the
terminal, it's got mostly the same tools, so why?

~~~
tammer
It's really a preference thing. I have the opposite feeling, i.e. why keep OS
X when you can run Arch?

As for battery life, Linux can very _greatly_ depending on settings and
distro. Don't expect to beat Mac OS without any configuration/tweaking, but if
you go far enough you can get match it or do better.

~~~
alcuadrado
Someone that thinks like me! I'm not alone!

------
jhill925
I did quite a bit of research for a new ultrabook. I am a software consultant
and needed a hardware update. One of the surprising things I found was that
most of the ultrabooks do not have dedicated home and end keys which I
regularly use for coding. I finally came across the Lenovo Yoga book, it was
almost high-def, had all of the keyboard keys including home and end, however
as soon as I got the laptop out of the box, the keyboard had different "flex"
in different areas of the keyboard. When typing "0" in the upper right the
whole keyboard actually moved. This was disappointing as 3 other Yogas I tried
had the exact same problem.

I returned the Yoga and found the Acer S7 (It does not have home and end keys,
but it has dedicated page up and page down) which I plan to remap to home and
end. (The base Acer ultrabook does not have these).

I have been quite impressed with the S7, the screen is incredible, keyboard is
nice. Battery life is not excellent, but that is not a show stopper since the
longest of my in-person meetings are less than a few hours.

Good luck! Finding just the right "ultrathin" ultrabook for development can be
a little tricky right now.

This laptop was not in any of the big-box retailers in my town, so I had to
get it on Amazon. Below is the affiliate link. If you care, just copy out the
asin...
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AVYPLPY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AVYPLPY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AVYPLPY&linkCode=as2&tag=bnc010-20)

~~~
BruceIV
Hope it works out for you - this is purely anecdotal, but anyone I know who's
owned an Acer laptop (n = ~6) has had it break on them within a year and a
half or so.

~~~
jhill925
I should have added that to my post, I waited this long because I learned a
few years ago never to buy the first-model revision. (I had a bad first-year
redesign Honda Accord of all cars and will never make that mistake again) I
saw the same thing on the first-gen ultrabooks (pre Asus Ultrabook Prime). (It
seems the manufacturers were rushing to play catch-up with Apple).

------
dustin999
Whatever you do, DO NOT get an ultrabook with a discrete graphics card to run
Linux. As someone else said, it's a pain in the ass, and it actually ruined my
Dell XPS 15 that managed to live just long enough to get out of warranty.

I had been running bumblebee for months, and yes, you can install it and make
it work and get almost as much battery life out of linux as you get on
windows. That said, bumblebee is error prone, sometimes doesn't survive kernel
upgrades, etc. Several times I installed basic Ubuntu updates only to find
bumblebee was disabled and my battery life gone to hell.

Sounds like an easy fix (just turn bumblebee back on), but in my experience,
laptops aren't made to absorb the heat from a discrete graphics card all the
time. I'm 90% sure that's why my Dell XPS 15 bit the dust after just a year,
due to a shoddy implementation in powering the Nvidia card up on demand.

In my case, I just bought a new system to replace my Dell XPS15, and opted for
a 13" Macbook Pro running OSX. If I wasn't running OSX, I'd probably go with
an ASUS, again without the discrete card. Get a nice display, with an
ultrabook, I think that's extremely important.

------
cjbprime
I'm considering getting the Pixel and running Linux on it, but am extremely
annoyed by the lack of upgradable storage.

The $250 Samsung ARM Chromebook has USB3 (~100MB/s) and a fast (~50MB/s) SD
card controller. The $1300 Pixel only has USB2 and a slow (USB2) SD card
controller and no real PCIe slots, which means that you can never get more
than ~17MB/s when trying to increase the tiny internal storage.

~~~
jonnydover
Honestly, the $250 ARM Chromebook is among the very best things you could do
for development (in my opinion). I can use ChromeOS for when I'm not doing
anything hardcore and then just open a chroot jail (via crouton
<https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton>) with a full xubuntu/xmonad install
when I really want to get cracking. Both open so quickly it's almost
disorienting, either from start or from sleep. It's the same size and weight
as a Macbook Air and the battery life is outstanding (I've come quite close to
the 9 hr mark when I'm not listening to music on speakers). The only downside,
at least for the purposes of this question, is that it isn't fully HD, or
rather isn't 1080p which is what I assume the OP meant. Still, I'd say that
this is by far the best computing investment I've ever made, and I'm happier
with this than I am with the $1000 laptop I got 6 months ago.

~~~
cjbprime
It's 1366x768, which is the worst resolution available on modern laptops. The
resolution makes it unusable for development, in my opinion. (I have one too.)

~~~
peatmoss
If Samsung makes this model laptop with a high res display, I will happily buy
it as my next machine. The wife has the current model and loves it, but the
screen is not quite up to scratch. Otherwise, a brilliant little device.

------
felixc
I'm very happy with my Samsung Series 9.

Different marketing people mean different things by "full HD", so I'm not sure
if it meets your specs, but 1600×900 is decent enough for me on that size; and
it really, really is a gorgeous display.

Battery-wise, when I was travelling and had wifi/bluetooth off, low screen
backlight, etc, it was pushing 9 hours.

~~~
davewasthere
I'd agree with that. I actually prefer the keyboard on my backup laptop (An
x121e Thinkpad), but yeah, love the Samsung's screen. Battery life isn't
brilliant at 5-6 hours though. I miss my old Samsung x360 which used to give
me closer to 8.

Ubuntu installed just fine on the S9. Everything seemed to work OOTB. But
ended up reverting to Win7 for a contract I was working on while travelling.

The new 1080P Series 9 would be okay, but I'd be sorely tempted on a
Chromebook Pixel.

------
thelittlelisper
My favorite options are the Air (11 / 13) and Thinkpad x220.

Other options include Thinkpad x230 (newer than the x220) but worse keyboard,
x1 Carbon, Dell XPS, Chromebook Pixel, Asus and Samsung.

I ended up buying both an Air 11 (my own money) and a x220 (my employer). Both
machines are really well supported under Linux (most hardware is Intel). The
only drawback is their low resolution screen, which IMHO is not a dealbreaker
given how small they are.

I manage to achieve 5-6W in both, which leads to stunning battery peformance.
This requires some powertop monitoring and some simple tweaks.

x220 is great because it is serviceable, has an IPS screen, a full keyboard, a
non-ULV processor, better connectivity, and a more sturdy design.

The Air has a much better touchpad, is more silent, and comes with a blazing
fast SSD from Toshiba (64 or 128 versions).

~~~
abelsson
I personally would get an Air over a x220 after having used the x220 for the
last 6 months. The x220 is my fourth Thinkpad over the years, and it looks
just like the X30 I got 10 years ago.

And honestly, the design has not kept up with the times. For its weight class,
it's pretty big, thick and clumsy. The trackpad is atrocious (that's not a
problem if you like trackpoints, but my fingers end up hurting after an hour
of using them). I also found the x220 quite slow, and the fan spends a lot of
time running even with just basic browsing. Battery life is decent though, it
probably won't break just by you looking at it sideways, and the keyboard is
good - its a classic Thinkpad. But next to a modern Ultrabook it looks quite
dated.

However, if I were to spend my own money, the Dell XPS 13 Ubuntu edition looks
appealing. I haven't had a chance to try it though.

~~~
Erwin
I've had the new XPS for about 2 weeks now. It's nice and light, good screen.
Worked with Ubuntu out of the box except hibernate -- which ran into some
problems with encrypted swap before it could work (could be my fault for
saying Yes to encrypted home dir when setting up the preloaded Ubuntu). I gave
up on the trackpad though (maybe it can be tweaked to be usable), and am using
a mouse. I never liked the trackpad on my previous laptop (some kind of
netbook) nor the trackpad or the red thingy on the solid Thinkpad T42.

With an i7, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD it's nice and fast. Suspend, hibernate
are quick. Sound is decent.

I tried an Asus zenbook and the Samsung series 9 in a store, and was not happy
about the keyboard. I think the Dell XPS keyboard is nice. Not as nice as on
my 2005 Thinkpad, but the XPS is far lighter and thinner.

Here in Denmark it was hard to find a good selection of laptops to try in
store. My other alternative was the X1 carbon... but I really wanted something
that worked with Ubuntu out of the box with 100% guarantee.

Overall, it feels solid and sleek yet light (1.4 kg or so). It fits into the
same tiny Victorinox laptop bag that my 2009 10" netbook fit into, yet it is
much more powerful (of course, also 3x the price).

I found one wifi hotspot that the Ubuntu or wifi hardware mysteriously refused
to connect to, where I had to connect via my Galaxy S3 phone and share the
connection via the USB port (which worked pretty well).

While the screen is nice, I've increased the font size to "Large" in Ubuntu's
universal access settings, and have zoomed in on several web pages with
Chrome. So I'm not yet sure about the benefit of the high resolution screen
(Linus Torvalds however swears to his Pixel and its 2560x1440 or so screen).

------
pajju
This decision is purely a function of cost, portability, features. And you
might have to compromise on something, be prepared.

My choice: Asus Ultrabooks.

In my case, I couldn't afford a Macbook Air, (I badly wanted a MAC, I couldn't
buy with my budget, but just somehow managed to get an ASUS Ultrabook with
EMI's)

About Asus Ultrabooks--

Compared to MAC's:

\- They are much much cheaper, ( almost half the price) not compromising on
the build quality, comes with Aluminium Chassis.

\- Has 24GB SSD, Hybrid storage with 750GB HDD( you can configure SSD, and
install important apps)

\- Excellent MAC like Keyboards.

\- Suggestion: Get an 8GB extra RAM, everything works smooth.

\- Finally excellent battery life, 4hrs guaranteed with 4cells, if you are
looking more get 8cells, but pay extra.

Good luck. :)

~~~
pyre
(Pedant alert)

MAC => <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address>

Mac => <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh>

~~~
gems
That was completely unnecessary. There's no reason to think that it's a
reference to the former in such a context.

~~~
pyre
True, but there's also no need to capitalize it. It's a shortened version of
Macintosh, not an acronym.

------
sctechie
I recommend buying a piece-of-shit Dell and putting an aftermarket SSD +
memory in there. Personally, I develop on cheap Dell slammed full of RAM
running a Linux VM inside of Windows. I know the 'cool' kids aren't into Dell
and Windows and all that but you can get a faster machine for less money if
you stay away from Apple.

Unless you are running a server, there is no reason to be running Linux
directly on your hardware. You can, of course, but it's not a good idea.

I'm not a Mac fanboy so take that for what you will. I look at these fanboy
'bro' developers running around with overpriced hardware and laugh. You might
not have the same reaction.

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Same - windows offers reliability, especially when your hardware drivers get
forgotten when they no longer work with updated software and updated kernel
down the road.

I run CLI Arch Linux in a VM and use samba for shared folders. Usually I just
end up coding right in the SSH terminal. You also develop good habits when it
comes to deploying to a production environment, plus capable of managing
multiple environments and keeping them separate.

Edit: BUT, for Ultra Books, I am looking at buying an Asus Zenbook Touch UX31A
with an i5. Top quality build and nice keyboard, has great reviews. The Dell
XPS ultrabook looks good too, but doesn't have the same quality as the Asus.

------
w0ts0n
I really like the x1 Carbon. Nice and light, touch screen is optional and
Lenovo is pretty good with Linux support.

~~~
loxs
At least in European stores, I can't find one with more than 1600x900 pixels.
That's too old nowadays.

~~~
w1ntermute
Have you actually used a 14" laptop with a 1600x900 screen? When I got the X1
Carbon, I was worried that I was giving up a higher resolution screen in order
to get a ThinkPad ultrabook. But I've found that even 1600x900 is actually too
high a resolution for me, without scaling. For example, I've got HN scaled
right now to 125%. A friend of mine has an ASUS ultrabook (the Zenbook Prime
UX31A) with a 1080p screen and it was impossible to read anything on it, the
text was so tiny.

You can read about my experiences with the X1 Carbon here:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848375>

I'm typing on that same laptop right now and loving it.

~~~
loxs
At the moment I type this from a T410 with 1600x900 resolution. I want better.

~~~
bebna
T400@1440x900 here, one word: MORE!

------
supar
I got an HP EliteBook Folio 9470m at work (not my personal choice), but I
though I should share my impressions.

I was genuinely impressed by the fact that this is the only ultrabook I've
seen with a _swappable_ battery. Yes!

The ultrabook in itself is fine, and the build quality is excellent. 8gb of
ram, 256gb SSD, HD4000 graphics. I wasn't able to boot the latest ubuntu with
EFI, but "hibrid" boot works just fine. Basically there's not a lot of
hardware variation in terms of ultrabooks, so everything works more or less
correctly. I was personally able to work for 5 hours on the battery (I'm a
developer, so you can imagine my workload as slightly higher than average
browsing).

I do have some remarks:

\- The keyboard is generally good enough, but I've always found HP keyboards
to be sloppy compared to ThinkPads, and this is also true for this ultrabook.
\- The touchpad is ok (synaptics), but the touchpad _buttons_ are crap, like
all HP I've ever used. HP doesn't seem to get buttons. When you hear the click
it doesn't mean you have clicked. Wake-up HP, I've been using elitebooks since
the '90 and this _HAS NOT_ changed! \- Not a fan of the "nipple" in the middle
of the keyboard, wastes space for the key. \- Useless fingerprint scanner,
like most HPs.

Both points are moot if you are fine with HPs in general, since this is
absolutely equal to any other HP elitebook.

\- Some problems with the latest iwlwifi driver (some panics during network
scanning in the last weeks), though _hardly_ an HP-only problem.

Comes preloaded with Windows 8, which was easy to zap. Run-time on battery
between linux/win8 was equal after for me, contrarily to what other people
mention. I used windows 8 for about two weeks (to give it a spin), using
Visual Studio, etc. 5 hours of work on battery is the longest I've ever had so
far for a laptop. Being able to have a spare battery is a big plus.

------
mvermaat
I've had an Asus Zenbook Prime (1920x1080, 256GB SSD) for about half a year
now and am generally very happy with it. I run Debian testing (with Linux
3.7.1 at the moment) and as far as I know everything works.

Compared to my girlfriend's Mcbook Air I have to charge the battery much more
often, but I'm not sure if that's the hardware or the OS. Another minor
nitpick is the rather high fan speeds it prefers, even with low temperatures.
This makes a noticeable noise in a quiet environment (I don't hear the Air).

Keyboard is not great but ok (better than that of the older Zenbook), I love
the screen (this resolution is new for me) and wrt size/weight/form
factor/price it's pretty much equivalent to a Macbook Air.

As I said, I'm happy with it, and would probably buy it again. The only other
model that made me just a tiny bit jealous is my colleague's Lenovo X1 Carbon,
but it's quite expensive and wasn't available half a year ago.

HTH.

------
nrivadeneira
I'll have to add in my vote for the Zenbook Prime UX32VD. I use it as my work
laptop and it's awesome. Go for the UX32VD over the UX31A. The UX32VD comes
with a 24gb SSD (which I use for my Ubuntu install) and a 500gb HDD (used for
a Windows 7 install and the /home directory of my linux install). The benefit
is that you can easily swap out the HDD for a SSD and you can also upgrade the
RAM to 10gb. The UX31A and Macbook Air both have soldered, non-upgradeable
RAM.

I've heard people mention the fan noise but I honestly don't notice it. The
one thing I'll say isn't that great is battery life. Due to the discrete GPU,
I get about 3 hours of battery life. There are some things you can do to turn
off the GPU, such as installing Bumblebee.

Check this out: <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime>

~~~
b6
Based on the good reviews, I got a Zenbook Prime (UX31A).

I really didn't like the keyboard. Shift-insert, normally a right-hand-only
operation, became a both-hands operation (I had to hit Fn with my left hand).
There were other keyboard layout problems, and I just didn't like the feel. My
typos went way up.

I ended up selling it and getting a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

------
datagrok
After being loyal to ASUS for many years, I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad x230 in
January. I like it, but there are some things to nitpick:
[https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/PR4efB7D...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/PR4efB7D4ev)

I wrote about the decision process that led me to choose that model:
[https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/avV5eL1P6BH)

And earlier, I wrote about why I gave up on getting an ASUS machine. (TLDR:
Windows 8 refused to dual-boot. I felt ripped-off but too weary to fight it
into working.)
[https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/jfDVKGyx...](https://plus.google.com/106336989542410513415/posts/jfDVKGyxxgd)

------
iisbum
I've been really happy with my laptop from System76
(<https://www.system76.com/laptops/>).

Although I got the Gazelle for more horse power, the Lemur seems like it would
fit your needs: <https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemu4>

~~~
jsnell
The ultrabook spec is loose enough to be meaningless, but even so I find it
hard to believe that a 3cm+ thick brick would qualify. Also, a 1366x768 screen
is probably not what the OP meant by HD...

------
codemonkeymike
Thinkpad T430, +1600x900HD screen upgrade +All function keys are compatible
with all major distros of linux +Best keyboard on a 14-13 inch I have used
+Upgradeable battery lasts 8-9 hours(in text editors/browsing the web)

Avoid System76 if you need battery life, which was the main reason I chose the
T430 over the Gazelle

~~~
mbergins
I'll second the T430 series. I've had good luck with the T430u with the base
configuration and ubuntu. Ubuntu installation was simple using a bootable USB
drive and the latest Ubuntu desktop.

The screen on the T430u is not full HD, but cheaper than the regular T430
though.

I believe an SSD is available as an upgrade, but I suspect doing the upgrade
yourself would be easy. I upgraded the RAM to 8 GB, which was an easy upgrade
following the manual. The hard drive looks to be similarly easy to upgrade.

The keyboard is acceptable and I have found that I have adapted to it quickly.

I haven't pushed the battery life, but I would estimate 4-5 hours with web
browsing and the screen brightness up.

~~~
codemonkeymike
I too upgraded the ram, just have to find one with the same timing on Amazon
and pop it in(4gb stick). And as for the SSD I got myne on Newegg for $85
(128gb Samsung 840) also very simple to put in, remove a screw pull out the
old and mount the new.

------
Dalek_Magnus
Saw this in an interview with Cory Doctorow. His information regarding
Thinkpad warranty is excellent.

[http://lifehacker.com/5993401/im-cory-doctorow-and-this-
is-h...](http://lifehacker.com/5993401/im-cory-doctorow-and-this-is-how-i-
work)

------
pasbesoin
Does anyone have a good timeline for the release/availability of the next
iteration of Intel CPU's?

"Mobile" as much or more so than "desktop/server".

At this time of year, this factor is a major point for me in making a decision
about when and what to purchase.

------
bliker
How about Lenovo IDEAPAD U510 ? I own U310, not the best performance but
keyboard is amazing and price is very low compared to competition. ...and it
looks nice.

~~~
loxs
15+ inches is too big. My 14 inch ThinkPad is too big. Now I want something
more compact

------
silasb
While I don't have one, I've been researching the NP740U3E.

------
mariusandreiana
What about Novatech nFinity <http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/?s=3> ? They do
sell w/out Windows installed.

------
linust
Chromebook Pixel. It's all about the display.

------
jamespo
lenovo x220 for me - I got a new one for £500 from ebay with 16gb memory.

Then installed a 2nd HDD (msata) to run linux.

Only problem is not full HD.

------
chinchirrin
Please, let us know which one you chose

