Hi,
I'm looking for a laptop with the following requirements:

1. What type of laptop are you looking for? (Desktop replacement, ultraportable etc)

A good compromise between portability, computing power and battery life. Consider this will be my only pc.
Btw I _need_ Linux on it.

2. What will be your uses for the laptop? (Net browsing, word processing, gaming, video editing etc)

I am graduating in particle physics so I do a lot of programming (I write the code but the actual analysis is done by data farms), reading and web browsing (multitasking a lot in the end). Data farms run linux that's why need it so bad.
I will also watch movies and play games sometimes, I will also generally tinker with it, just because I'm a geek.

3. What is your total budget?

between 1200 and 1600 euro (you can probably translate 1E = 1$ = 2/3 (0.666) taking into account Italian higher prices).

4. How portable does the laptop need to be? (how often will it be moved around, where it will be taken)

I will take it around daily from the library (wifi, few power outlets), lab (ethernet, power guaranteed) and home.
I also go back to my hometown once or twice a month (3 to 4 hours by train).

5. What type of screen do you want? (widescreen, glossy, size)
widescreen would be best
13'', ideally, but I am willing to consider 14'' too 12'' too
I'll work on it a lot so a glossy screen is a plus

6. How much battery life is required?

about 3 hours is required, more is better.

7. What type of processor/ram/hard drive/optical drives do you want?

I considered systems like:
Pentium-m between 1.7 and 2.0 GHz with 2Mb L2 cache
512 to 1024Mb of DDR2 RAM (no DDR)
80Gb of hard drive is good but 100 or 60 is ok
cd dvd burner (double layer)

8. If you want to play games, what type? (titles would be useful)

Sorry, I'm not sure...
I won't be playing Doom 3, but I'd try Metal Gear 3 if I could (but it's not a must), a MMORPG (World of Warcraft, Lineage 2), or a strategic (Warcraft 3, ********* 40000: Dawn of War). I will occasionally play with stuff requiring OpenGL (detector simulations and so on).

I'll not play regularly so I guess an entry level gpu like an ati x300 or a Ge force go 6400 would be ok. Anything better is welcome as long it does not hurts battery life or price too much.

9. Are there any specific things needed (e.g. ports)

In order:
Being able to run linux (I'll check at tuxmobil.org and linux-laptop.net before buying)
WiFi. Well, I have a spare mini-pci wifi card so wifi is not strictly required (but then a free mini pci slot is).
Bluetooth (to connect to gps, phone or pda) would be nice.
Infrared can be useful

10. Which things are you willing to compromise? (e.g. gaming laptops do not have long battery lives)

I can accept every kind of video card except intel IGP (my old laptop had little or no hw video acceleration and I really suffered from it).
I can probably compromise on everything else. If you show me a turion or a Pentium 4 M that mach my needs I'll consider it.

11. What laptops have you considered? (post links) Are there any brands you like/dislike?

Acer 5500 (http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4.do?dau22.oid=13709&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=17&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=1875536929) (about 1300E here in Italy)

pros:
- x700 is an awesome gpu
- It ships with the 8 cell battery -> about 3h of battery life

cons:
- heavy (2.7 Kg)
- big (compared to the Sony)
- its often described as a gaming laptop (an x700 is probably well over my needs)

Sony vaio s5m (http://vaio.sony-europe.com/view/ShowProduct.action?product=VGN-S5M&site=ite_en_GB&category=VN+S+Series) (aka s580 (http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=yZFAiw0b0QJA3E7AtWFKgEIWW9XMxyuVPxo=?Cat egoryName=cpu_VAIONotebookComputers_SSeries&Dept=computers) in the USA ) (~1500E)

pros:
- very portable
- nice screen

cons:
- The Go 6400 is the bare minimum (32Mb of vRAM only)
- the Ge force 6400 gpu has bad linux support. I would have to choose between 3d acceleration and the ability to suspend my laptop (under linux).
- a lot of forums reported overheating issues (http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=18&threadid=87966&enterthread=y) (link) even if a bios update is reported solve them making it louder (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1215131&postcount=53) (wich is a big problem for me)

- no bluetooth

can you help me?
Bye,

Emme

One idea is to buy at a store and take live CD of Mepis (or your favorite distro) with you. Watch for a sale.

Watch for sales -- I'd list shopping sites, but I don't know if US shopping sites would be useful in Italy

http://www.notebookreview.com is a good site

See if there is discount plan, such a student or employee (there are some employee purchase plans almost anyone can qualify for)

Look at Dell and Dell Outlet and Dell Business (unless you're sure you don't want Dell)

Good luck

I have Toshiba M45-S331 and HP L2000 (I won the second one in a contest, didn't need 2)

Both running Mepis Linux, no problems, but the Toshiba has more proprietary features, so it's a little harder to set up.

Mike

If I was to conside buying a turion what would be yor advice?

If you buy Turion, you'll be a little more ready for new developments, possibly ...

My HP L2000 is Turion ML-37, but I have not tried a 64-bit distro -- I guess I'll be ready, tho

HP (and AMD Turion in general) seem to be slightly more designed with Linux in mind, and use less proprietary features (though the L2000 has Broadcom wireless -- working with ndiswrapper) and L2000 has Conexant winmodem (I haven't tried to get this working in Linux -- these 2 devices vare common to many HP/Compaq laptops)

I would think any 64-bit HP with a fast Turion would be a good choice

Recently I found these 2 links in the Ubuntu forum

http://prinsig.se/weekee/index.php/Table_of_Contents
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsHewlettPackard

My HP worked very nicely out of the box with 32-bit Mepis Linux -- I did not try any 64-bit yet, but would not expect much difficulty

Be sure to update your BIOS -- I did need noapic nolapic on boot parameters until I updated (flash) BIOS from HP support web page

Mike