which laptop would recommend

I am thinking of buying a new laptop, but there are so many choices that I am kinda lost. What laptops are you using and happy with it? By the way, I am not gonna play games on it, just hacking tools and programming. Also, I would mostly use linux on it.

After some search, I am thinking of buying one of these: Dell XPS 13 Thinkpad t430s Thinkpad t430u

What laptops would you recommend?

if you are a stupid person who keeps dropping his things, get a dell, and a cheap one too. otherwise, anything from a net book and up would work just fine with linux.

From all my years of experience in repairing laptops, I wouldn't use a Dell if it was given to me, Direct bottom of the barrel. Depending on what you want to spend, Those Lenovo's you listed are nice workhorses. Other than those I would recommend any Asus Like the G750JW, A little pricey but nice. The ones I see the most of are Dell, Acer and a lot of HP. You get what you pay for my friend.

Performance, desktops always win. Not only that, but if you got shit to do, you wanna leave that computer cracking passwords at home so that it does not affect your other stuff.

If you use a desktop for performance, and a laptop only for stuff you need mobile, you can save a lot of money.

I use a couple HP nc6230's as my main laptops. I have faster, but these have been reliable.

Thank you very much for the advice.

I was a bit surprised to see that HP nc series looks pretty much like Thinkpads. Although somebody on the laptop review compared it with Thinkpad as Volkswagen with BMW :) But for the price issues, hp nc might be a good choice.

Also, it was pretty surprising to see dell in the bottom of the barrel. I have seen many MIT students using dell (well, because dell provides special discount for them), and most CS students and profs there using Thinkpads, and most other profs using Macbooks. But this was 7 years ago, it might be different now.

My only concern with other brands is that they use cheap construction, like my laptop Toshiba satellite which was once overheated, and now I can use it only by disabling ACPI and still get some system hangs from time to time.

talking about thinkpads, i think this is worth to read

http://www.afr.com/p/technology/spy_agencies_ban_lenovo_pcs_on_security_HVgcKTHp4bIA4ulCPqC7SL

now, i gotta reconsider my options

ground0 wrote: My only concern with other brands is that they use cheap construction, like my laptop Toshiba satellite which was once overheated, and now I can use it only by disabling ACPI and still get some system hangs from time to time.

My Toshiba used to overheat while streaming Youtube videos. Those were the dark ages, let me tell you. My first instinct was to just give up and buy a new one because fuckit, I'm rich! Upon deeper introspection, however, my conscience ( and my wallet ) told me there had to be a better way. So I grabbed a couple beers, a screwdriver set, a power drill, and a somewhat reckless friend and we got to it. "A power drill?", I imagine hearing you say. In my fumblings I managed to strip a screw and couldn't think of a better way to get that fucker out and my friend really wanted to use his new drill for something. I do not recommend this.

In any case, long story short I was able to get all the way down to my heatsink and apply a new layer of thermal paste and it solved everything. I also found that Toshiba holds internal parts of their laptops together using masking tape. I thought that was funny.

To reiterate- if you're overheating, it's a fixable problem. Annoying, but fixable.

[ EDIT - Ohhh… my signature is too big? Tragedy, I tell you! ]

2 things that I've noticed are no longer a problem so much in new laptops - mismatching screws, and overheating.

I've seen old laptops with half a dozen types of screws, and flimsy small pieces of metal which I'm scared to lose cause they might ground something. Now days, laptops are a bit easier to open up and take apart. There's always a way. Now it's just easier.

Every laptop I get, I'll clean out any dust, remove the old thermal paste, and apply a new coat.

I'd still buy a Lenovo thinkpad. The battery life is worth it.

So, hardware backdoor hack in lenovo laptops are just nonsense, and the news is done just to decrease lenovo's reputation in the market? wouldn't sound illogical actually.

Anyways, I bought second-hand Dell E6410, and I am pretty happy with it: solid built, and looks like thinkpad a bit too. After all, it has 16:10 ratio display. I don't like those new 16:9 display laptops much.. just wondering if they will switch back to make 16:10 displays again ;)

I personally use mostly a Dell Inspiron 15R SE 7520 Win7Ultx64 got it for $800 with all the bells and warranties, Intel i5-3210M 2.5Ghz, 6Gb Ram, Centrino 2230 wireless….etc

I also have a Panasonic CF-19 and a CF-30 which are very nice in the field if your looking for rugged mobility the CF series are nice and a bit pricey. the CF-19 got for free, the CF-30 paid around $2300 for it with optional accessories.

I work with these models daily, ended up buying a couple due to their durability and the 7520 for its sleekness, well ok mostly because what i got it for and the extras, but still really good and holding up well. no issues with drivers or other support.