Laptop Advice.

[NorthernLight]

Hi folks.

I'm looking for a laptop in the CAD$500 to CAD$600 mark. Windows 7, and 4 GB RAM. It needs to connect to 2 external monitors, but I don't yet have the monitors so I'm easy on how it connects.

Mostly work based, no gaming, and most of the work is cloud based - so the HDD can be 250 GB or less. If there's the chance of an SSD, I'd take it - but I don't see anything like that around my price range from the usual suspects, New Egg, Tiger Direct etc.

I also like to be able to clean install Win7 on the laptop, so a manufacturer who provides a good set of drivers and doesn't restrict me to using their bloated install image is a positive.

Here's the thing though. And it's where I'm having most trouble. I want it to be able to dual boot with Linux Mint. I've struggled with Mint on my older laptops, and want to make sure I'm buying something that works out-of-the-box with Mint this time.

Anyone out there happy with a dual boot Win 7 / Mint laptop that fits the criteria?

I'm currently thinking of this one: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834313641

EDIT: It can't be a chromebook. I have a specific app I must use, which is local and does not yet work on them.

Thanks,
NL.

 

[HOSED]

Welcome to the Forum, do you only want a new machine? Also what screen size and resolution do you need?
http://dellrefurbished.ca/en_CA/browse/laptops/?navDesc=16010&sortby=P_storePrice

 

[NorthernLight]

Thanks for the welcome!

Screen size isn't *that* important to me, as the majority of the time it will be used with an external monitor (or two), keyboard, and mouse. I would say 14" or 15" would be fine - just for the times I am away from the desk.

Resolution -I don't really know. The laptop that just died on me, was 1366x768, but it was only ever plugged into an old vga monitor. Would it need to be better than that if I'm buying new monitors? I don't do anything graphically intensive.

My dead laptop, was a Tosh Satellite P100 with 2gb ram and a 60GB HDD. It's lasted me 8 years or so. I'm afraid I'm an old dog, with very few new tricks.

I don't mind a few cosmetic scratches if I went outside of new, but I wouldn't want to risk getting a half-dead battery.

 

[HOSED]

It appears you have found a very good deal. I did not click on your link until I found this machine: http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops...46C:#techspecs
The nice thing about Lenovo is the last time I checked they will pay for return shipping within the first 30 days (USA) so you can test "drive" it . I am not 100% sure if this applies to Canadian or newegg purchases.
The one I linked has VGA and HDMI so you S/B covered AFA monitors
Would running Mint in a virtual machine be an option for you? IF not this chart may be of some help http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/
(I could not find a chart like this for Mint )
FYI http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPa.../dp/B00FU83YWS

 

[TeknoBug]

You won't be finding a laptop with Windows 7 unless it has somewhat outdated hardware (like a Pentium B960).

There's some rather surprisingly good laptops between $500-600 right now (back to school sale), either find one with an i3 4000M or A10 5750M or A10 7300 (don't bother with the A10 5745M). The Toshiba L50D or Lenovo G510, or go for the slightly lower end processors like Pentium N3530 or A6 6410 if you aren't going to be doing GPU intensive stuff.

That laptop in the Newegg link is also pretty good too, kind of hard to find a laptop that is higher than 2.5GHz base these days.

 

[hoorah]

You won't be finding a laptop with Windows 7 unless it has somewhat outdated hardware (like a Pentium B960).

With Windows 8 laptops, do the BIOS chips with SLIC work with Windows 7? I mean with win 7 laptops if you had an OEM install image windows would auto-activate. Can you downgrade Win 8 laptops or is win8 the only OS that will recognize the BIOS chip?

 

[NorthernLight]

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback!

I've gone for the G510 from Lenovo. It's on Windows 8.1, but I'll adapt.

I'm still unsure on the Linux side of things - but I had to get something quickly for work - and I think I've landed on my feet. I got it in the Back to School sale for $549, and it's on it's way.

Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how I feel about it when it arrives!

NL

 

[TeknoBug]

With Windows 8 laptops, do the BIOS chips with SLIC work with Windows 7? I mean with win 7 laptops if you had an OEM install image windows would auto-activate. Can you downgrade Win 8 laptops or is win8 the only OS that will recognize the BIOS chip?

Yes it'll attempt to auto-activate if the motherboard has a product key burnt into the ROM, I think there is a way to get around that somewhere on eightforums or sevenforums (using a efi file). But yes I think it's possible to install Win 7.

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback!

I've gone for the G510 from Lenovo. It's on Windows 8.1, but I'll adapt.

I'm still unsure on the Linux side of things - but I had to get something quickly for work - and I think I've landed on my feet. I got it in the Back to School sale for $549, and it's on it's way.

Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how I feel about it when it arrives!

NL

Linux will work fine, most Linux distributions has laptop packages during installation and they're 99% of the time very laptop friendly no matter what kind of laptop you have, Linux has gome a long ways.

I was personally looking at the Lenovo G510 myself but I wanted a decent GPU so I went with one with an AMD A10 5757M.