[TriLUG] your favorite lowish cost thin laptop

Mark Kempster mark at kempster.org
Mon Jan 17 07:55:10 EST 2011


I'm looking to replace my aging dell latitude d620 in the next 6
months, and am starting to scan the field for a replacement. I'd love
something I could actually call 'thin', but that's got enough guts to
display hd to my tv. I normally run the following tasks, in addition
to the regular browser / email / music business.

1. java development with eclipse
2. squirrelsql
3. jboss
I use this machine in large part to work on java web applications, and
typically run items 1, 2, 3 together, along with pandora and dropbox.
4. Oracle / postgres (this is less of a concern)
5. mythtv frontend

While I'd like to run oracle (xe) along with the development tools,
it's not really working today.

Current hardware: cpuinfo tells me "Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU
T7200  @ 2.00GHz" with a MHz of '1000.000'. Meminfo reports 2GB. Came
from dellfinancialservices as a refurb - similar hardware sells there
for $300 or so.

I'd like to keep the price under $500, which makes this more of an
interesting challenge. Screen size isn't a big deal, presuming I can
plug an external monitor. My current machine is a 14" widescreen,
which is perfect. Much bigger and it gets more difficult to lug
around, much smaller and, well, it's smaller.

I ran across a dell 'vostro v130' which seems like a fairly reasonable
option ($430, ships with ubuntu) but I'm not sure about the single
cpu. I'd prefer to purchase either a no-os or a linux distro (to avoid
paying for a windows license that I won't use), but System76 is a bit
beyond my price point. I'm happy to consider refurb gear, and can
handle a minor hardware upgrade (mem, disk, keyboard, etc. No
motherboard replacements for me.)

If you have a thin laptop that you love or hate, would you mind
telling me a little about it?
Anything you'd stay away from?

Thanks for your advice.
Mark



More information about the TriLUG mailing list