Hey brothers! (If I may call you so ) or just Hey!
I’m in need of a whole lot of advice, as sincere as possible I’ll try to summarize my “story” as much as possible:
Next week I am going to Singapore (holiday) and I was thinking of buying myself a new laptop. I am from Romania and as far as I have seen prices in Singapore are quite smaller than here(at least regarding laptops). I could anytime order it from, let’s say Amazon, from France or UK, but I still guess Singapore is a little cheaper - if you’ve been there please confirm or infirm this information.
My goal is to use the laptop for keeping in touch with friends, blogging, twittering, writing(the whole open office use), video chat(webcam), programming, 3D programming, movies and occasionally sound editing. So probably the biggest requirements come from being able to view HD movies, 3D programming. So here’s a question: Which would be the minimum specifications for a laptop to be able to view HD action movies?
3 years ago I installed my first linux distribution: I remember that being a Fedora Core 6. Since then I have been continuously testing various linux distributions to see which fits me best and decided that would be openSuse. My question related to this small story is based on this article which is called: “Intel Atom performance on a few Linux distributions”. Even though it was published in the late 2008 I wonder if the information there might still be accurate and whether it should be accurate only for Intel Atom processors. As you can see OpenSuse unfortunately scored mainly… last. How well does OpenSuse perform on a laptop? Did you experience any performance problems?
At last - I need you’re most sincere answer here. I am planning to spend 2000-2500$ at most on a new laptop, but I would even go for 1000$ as long as that fulfills my needs, like playing HD movies in 1080. I am very unsure whether I should have openSuse on my new laptop or get a MacBook or a MacBook Pro. What I like at openSuse is the community, the console (though I’m far from being an expert, I am quite interested to learn) because you actually see what’s happening with your computer and the “total freedom” feeling. Yet some friends of mine strongly suggest Machintosh, which I am sure it’s quite good, though I can’t say I used it. My dad has one so probably I’ll try to get a feeling of how it works. Then… Machintosh is quite a brand when it comes to laptops and I don’t know how good does OpenSuse perform on a laptop.
FWIW, I like Apple’s OS X OS and their hardware seems to be ok, so I would be happy to lean towards a MacBook Pro (if I had the money). Having said that, I like my ThinkPad (3 yrs old now) because it is robust with titanium lid and the chipsets are all supported.
I am actually already doing a lot of “research” for this issue of mine, as it is in my interest.
But besides searching some sites myself I thought posting it on these forums will also provide me with valuable information.
Getting 10 different answers from 10 different people would be a blessing although I get your point. After your post I am leaning more towards Apple as I have just checked their web site, which makes me even more confuse :S as I am thinking I will be missing the strong community behind a linux distro, but neither can I have 2 laptops
See my Signature.
Lenovo R61e came with Vista Business. But I shopped carefully for this Laptop, I knew it would work. Vista was so slow. Deleted it.
SUSE is a dream on this laptop. Mind you I don’t have or intend to a webcam.
As for the price. I suspect the high price you suggest will deliver a M$ bloated, vendor locked machine and very probably hardware that is really only M$ supported.
never forget or overlook the value of having someone to return the
laptop to, if in three or six months it goes dark due to a
manufacturing defect…
i’ve never shopped in Singapore, but i guess all of the equipment you
buy there is either genuine and covered by warranty stations in
Singapore; or are what is known as “gray market” which is real goods
distributed outside the manufacturer’s ‘approved’ distribution chains
and may or may not be serviced by ‘authorized’ repair stations in any
country; or “black market” which might sell you a ‘brand name’
product, which is not…
be careful, ‘they’ (the bad guys) can (and do) print authentic looking
warranty documents for wherever you live…
and, while there you can pick up a few $9,000 Rolex watches for $5,
brand new, in the box with full warranty and authentication documents…
SebMuraru adjusted his/her AFDB on Sunday 12 Jul 2009 21:56 to write:
Only one thing that I no doubt you are aware of is the graphic chipset, make
sure it is a Nvidia or ATI ( Intel will do but not at the moment with the
fiasco of the recent release modules )
I still have a rush buy laptop here that I “needed” there and then ( I was
going abroad and had to get one for the next day ) as my other one had just
blown so no online delivery and just went to the nearest shop and got the
only one in my price range.
Bad mistake it has the sis chipset which will never do 3D on linux.
The rest of the machine is fine and a great big lump and a good workhorse,
it now serves as my media server and has been on for weeks in the cupboard
serving stuff around the house.
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
I think I know what I’m gonna do: I’m going to buy myself a new Mac and have openSuse on it, using bootcamp. It’s the only “agreement” I could reach with my mind
SebMuraru adjusted his/her AFDB on Monday 13 Jul 2009 23:06 to write:
>
> Thank you very very much for the responses guys!
>
> I think I know what I’m gonna do: I’m going to buy myself a new Mac and
> have openSuse on it, using bootcamp. It’s the only “agreement” I could
> reach with my mind
>
>
That is actually a good choice, if I had the option I dare say I might take
that route, at the moment my lappy is deciding it has had its day and now
the DVD will not read, one more prob and a new one is needed so I might
think about a Mac+SuSE myself.
Enjoy
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
That is actually a good choice, if I had the option I dare say I might take
that route, at the moment my lappy is deciding it has had its day and now
the DVD will not read, one more prob and a new one is needed so I might
think about a Mac+SuSE myself.
My ThinkPad’s still going strong, but I’d like to investigate this option when the time comes!
deano ferrari adjusted his/her AFDB on Tuesday 14 Jul 2009 10:26 to write:
>
>> That is actually a good choice, if I had the option I dare say I might
>> take
>> that route, at the moment my lappy is deciding it has had its day and
>> now
>> the DVD will not read, one more prob and a new one is needed so I
>> might
>> think about a Mac+SuSE myself.
>>
>
> My ThinkPad’s still going strong, but I’d like to investigate this
> option when the time comes!
>
>
Well one of my Toshiba`s decided that the SATA drive wanted to take a rest
just after I had put 11.2 M3 on it ( no relation it was acting flaky anyway
), and the keyboard also went west so that is now in the spares bin.
My good old trusty no-namer laptop has been resigned to the cupboard serving
media to the lan because it needs a new DVD.
Plus another Toshiba just took great umbrage to Mr Soldering Iron and
released all the magic smoke that made it work, I found that the inside was
full of dead, dusty electrons afterwards and so I presume it has expired.
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
When you go to Singapore, you need to know the absolute BEST price you can get in Europe. If you do not know that, you may find you do not get the best price possible. And hence this means (to me) that you need to have narrowed down your list to maybe 3 or 4 laptops, anyone of which will meet your requirements (where presumeably proven EASY Linux compatibility is on the top of that list). Note the emphasis on EASY. Once you have that short list, WITH the best price you can get in Europe, then and only then are you in a position to be able to negotiate in Singapore. Else IMHO you will end up paying more.
not to disagree with oldcpu (because i don’t) there is one other
consideration:
if you follow his advice and have a list of Linux easy machines…that
will only hold true if they produced the SAME machine for all the
different markets…or if they didn’t change some hardware between
the time you do your research AND when you see those on the shelf in
Singapore…
i guess what i’m saying is: have a list of the specs for the machines
you want, AND a knoppix (or similar) to see what is on the machine you
wanna buy…(the printed docs may be phony, or just out of date)…
a) I agree on the advices to have a very clear idea about prices in EU and watch out about the requirements of the border police when you come back. Sometimes the taxes are higher than the gain of money. And they DO control (especially in Frankfurt)!
b) When you go there: do not allow the machine to be packed before having it in hand. Try it out and switch it on. Be sure to have a life cd to test the amount of Ram and HDD installed. Look at the form of the power plug. If they sell you anything different from you standard make sure that the power plug corresponds to EU standards and that the exchange plug needed does not cost more than the EU standard price, all included. There is a lot of “hanky panky” business going on.
c) Bargain like an Arab if you can. If you show availability of just going away, because the price is not of your agreement, they will lower it.
d) be updated on last models available. Since you are undergoing all that trouble, ask the best you can possibly get.
) or just Hey! 
