Laptop Recommendations?

[SteveRiley]

Getting really screwed here, for 320$ you can buy 2 x 256GB ssds, same goes for ram.
huge rip off

Indeed. In post #26 of this thread, I compared Lenovo's prices to those from NewEgg. The markup is about 100% at Lenovo.

[Teunis]

Helicopters

And Malaysia Airlines, yes that one, has a ridiculous 5 pounds or kilo restriction on carry on.
My computer bag with two Thinkpads (W520 and T430s) weighs in around 11 - 12 kilo, luckily my camera + the T430s in a plastic shopping bag fit the allowance.

Talking about in-flight systems, I just returned from Brazil and man that screen in a Boeing 777 sucks!

[millusions]

he he re: junk. i love my sony since the first i3 i had, comes with practially no bloatware, great battery time, awesome lcd..

the problem with Lenovo, in Australia, is the customer support, its terrible. At one stage, and this might not be the case at present, Lenovo had the best battery time out of all laptops.


wow, check in a laptop? not in this region, even on international flights the laptop goes in carry onboard bag and beats the inflight movie players

[Teunis]

I had two Toshiba's Sattelite's, then as last a Tecra and they lasted until no. 1 was stolen and I gave no. 2 away some 4 years later.
Presently I have a Thinkpad W520 and after +3 years it's in a great condition.

The 'problem' with the T and W series is their looks, when this one was a week old I sat down with it while waiting for a flight and the guy next to me with something iShiny remarked "That's an old one!"
I'm fairly sure by now he has upgraded

The fragility I spoke about is relative, it has a lot to do with the fact we usually have to check 'm in and they are buried by lot's of other luggage.

PS, glad you managed to lose your junk

[millusions]

Sony Vaio's have a little problem, they are fragile.
Me and my colleagues travel a lot and I've never seen (the hinges of) a Vaio live for more than ~10 flights...

But if you are mainly stationary, yes they are usually compatible.

That's a pretty broad statment,
it reminds me of people saying how fragile iphones are, when they are dropped they shatter,
i think im on my 4th of 5th iphone and yet to shatter one.


when you say sony vaio is fragile, it means as opposed to what?
what beastie laptop survives 10 flights with you?

[millusions]

Yet another reason for favoring ThinkPads is Lenovo's custom ordering capability. You can start with a base model and alter its specs to your liking. For example, right now on the Lenovo web site I'm tweaking a T540p to the way I'd like. The base system price is $899. My modifications:

* Memory: from 4 GB to 16 GB -- add $340
* Storage: from 500 GB hard drive to 256 GB solid state drive -- add $320

Getting really screwed here, for 320$ you can buy 2 x 256GB ssds, same goes for ram.
huge rip off

[Teunis]

Sony Vaio's have a little problem, they are fragile.
Me and my colleagues travel a lot and I've never seen (the hinges of) a Vaio live for more than ~10 flights...

But if you are mainly stationary, yes they are usually compatible.

[millusions]

Sony Vaio,

have used a lot of hardware / software through the years and really liking Sony Vaio laptops,
this being my 2nd after a few dells and few toshibas

thats just my 5 cents.

[marco07]

The firmware's boot order is set to boot from the hard drive first. You can probably change this in the firmware's settings..

I did this, which BTW, I thought it was already set as default by Lenovo. Anyhow, after
changing the order of boot-up device in firmware settings, I plugged in the live USB and started up the
laptop. It booted into live kubuntu with wireless detected and screen set to the deault
resolution (maximum.) I then proceeded with system installation on a 55 GB partition
in the free space of the hard drive already detected by the installer. The partition
was manually set up through the installer's partition manager.
The installation went smooth with no problem at all. Upon completion of the process, I
restarted the laptop. However, it booted into Windows system. Again here, I restarted the
system while holding down the shift key. This got me into a menu followed by a submenu with no
indication of kubuntu at all. Amongst the submenu line items, I, logically, selected a
so called HDD0... line item, which fortunately led me to the grub menu with kubuntu &
Windows being listed. Clicking on kubuntu, the system was booted up correctly.

Now I am wondering what more needs to be done to get properly into the grub (or is it
Windows boot manager) menu right when the laptop is turned on.
Thanks!

Edited later:
I forgot to mention that while setting the clock, after creating the DWORD as instructed, when I went to firmware settings menu, I could not find "Clock" any where in the menu, I Looked under every sub menus no Clock at all.
Now, my local time which was showing the correct time zone and time before, shows 7 hours ahead.
Do I need to go back and delete the created DWORD?

[SteveRiley]

I now have the fast boot disabled too. But with USB live inserted, the box still boots into Windows at start-up. I still must press shift key and restart the laptop in order to get into boot menu.

The firmware's boot order is set to boot from the hard drive first. You can probably change this in the firmware's settings.

The only item remaining to be done from SR list (his last post) is the clock set up. I have no idea what DWORD is and how to create it.

Once you navigate to the TimeZoneInformation registry key, go to the menu and choose Edit -> New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

And elevated command??

To perform system level commands at the command prompt, you have to open it with Administrator privileges. The instructions for doing that are right there in the sentence.

[marco07]

I now have the fast boot disabled too. But with USB live inserted, the box still boots into Windows at start-up. I still must press shift key and restart the laptop in order to get into boot menu. The only item remaining to be done from SR list (his last post) is the clock set up. I have no idea what DWORD is and how to create it. And elevated command??

[marco07]

@Qqmike
Thank you! My goal right now is to have kubuntu installed. Then I will pay attention to this issue. I may decide to keep it as well.

[Qqmike]

Let's not wander off-track here, marco07, but quickly, just this: "...the log in screen did not accept my own log-in credentials and instructed me that I must log in with the Microsoft registeration account's uid and pw." Rest assured, you are not alone. Happened also to me (on an Asus machine w/Windows 8.1), and others. Best advice is to either accept it or do as SteveRiley says and switch AFTER completing the setup. I do agree, it is somewhat unsettling, and I didn't like it either. Doing it Microsoft's way helps them, I guess, to help you organize and synchronize everything in their cloud-thing, Skype, social media, and such. (Btw, FWIW, I kept it as is, using the non-local MS u/n and p/w--never took time to switch it, and all is well so far.)

[marco07]

Your computer has a UEFI firmware, not BIOS. The partition style on your disk is GPT, not MBR. Therefore, ...

Thanks for explanation!

Please take a photograph of this and post it here. I'm perplexed.

Done. I hope they are clear and readable.

Don't do anything else just yet. Let me see that photo first.

Did not.

You need to disable the fast-boot feature. While you're at it, you also need to make some changes to the Windows clock. See post #4 in my knowledge base article Dual-booting Kubuntu on a Windows machine.

Could not disable (un-check) the "fast start up" box. It is greyed out

Please show the output of lspci -k here.

Fortunately, this issue is resolved when I run the live USB this time. Apparently last time when I booted the live USB from within the Windows, the wireless connection was switched off before the USB boot-up. So is the nvidia graphic card which was picked up by USB live this time around.

You do. This is not some sinister effort by Microsoft to take over your PC. Nevertheless, I think they've made it too hard to discover how to complete the install with only a local account. In the same article I linked earlier, look in post #3. I explain how to create a local account during setup. But you've already gone the Live account route. Fortunately, it's possible to disconnect your Live account and switch to a local one.

Thanks! I will decide on this later after installing the linux systems.
BTW, I did shrank the C:/ partition already w/no problem at all. But did not proceed w/installation to see if I can disable the fast start up option. Any idea why it is greyed out?
Thanks!

[marco07]

Just a quick response! I will be back to report more when more is done.
Thanks!