[Discuss] Yet Another Laptop Recommendation Thread

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

Either the backlight or the inverter died in my 5-year-old Dell D820
laptop. Fixing it doesn't make financial sense, though I may throw it
on my rack and hook it up to my KVM for "something", as I've figured out
how to tell X to disable the internal monitor and use the external
monitor as the primary.

I've decided I want to go with a desktop machine for my main computer,
so I can use a better keyboard and bigger monitor, but I still need
something portable, too. I'm looking for a laptop that doesn't have to
be a desk-melting screamer, but it also doesn't make sense to put money
in anything *too* wimpy. I plan on splitting the hard drive to
Windows/Kubuntu 12.04LTS, so I need a supported video card.

Really the only reason I want to get a laptop NOW is that I don't want
Windows 8, otherwise I would put it off.  I find Windows 7 relatively
stable and inoffensive.

Through work I can get significant discounts on Lenovo and HP laptops,
so I'm focusing on them.  I just priced out a ThinkPad T530, and
it was over $900 with the discount, and I picked the slowest i5
processor they have and 4GB RAM (though the better video card).  That
seems a bit much.  Maybe I should look at i3 processors.  Many of the
models had ~14" screens, and I want at least  15".

Any comparisons of HP vs Lenovo, or specific models that have worked or
not worked with Linux would be great.

Thanks.