n01getsout.com’s blog

I was looking at buying a laptop from Dell now that they come preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. I am very glad that Dell decided to start selling Linux and I wanted to buy a laptop from them to support their efforts. I almost bought one, but let me tell you why I didn’t.

The $599 Dell E1505 N laptop comes with an Intel T2060 Pentium dual-core 1.6GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM, a 15.4 inch LCD, built-in wireless 802.11a/g, and an Intel 950 GMA graphics card. Most of these features can be upgraded.

I had never heard of the Intel T2080 processor before and I thought that Intel had dropped the Pentium name, so I was curious to see some specs on it. I looked on Dell’s website and could not find anything about it, so I went over to Intel’s website. I could not find any information there at all, which worried me. Usually if a company manufactures a product, they want to advertise it to their consumers. The only information I could find on the T2080, was a review of the T2060 (the T2080’s slower brother) that said it is a dual core processor but it appears to have one channel (core) shut down.

If the T2080 processor is really only running as a single core processor, I figured I may as well buy the Acer Aspire 3680-2633 from Microcenter for $399. It has a Celeron M 520 1.6GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM, a 14.1 inch LCD, built-in wireless 802.11b/g, and an Intel 950 GMA graphics card. It comes with Windows Vista Home Basic, which I would remove and install Linux. For the same specs and at $200 cheaper, it is hard to justify the extra cost of the Dell.

But what if Linux for some reason did not work fully on the Acer Aspire 3680-2633? Would I have a computer without sound? Would the wireless network card work? I could not find it in TuxMobile’s Acer Laptop Compatibility database, although I didn’t see too many problems with similar models.

I also found an Acer Aspire 5100-5840 from Circuit City for $849 + tax - $100 mail in rebate. It comes with an AMD Turion X2 TL-52 dual core 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, an 160GB hard drive, a DVD-RW, a 15.4 inch LCD, built-in wireless 802.11b/g, and an ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 graphics card. Compared to the Dell E1505 N laptop, it has a better processor, twice the hard drive, and four times the amount of RAM. Also, the keyboard feels a like it is more durable than the Dell laptop keyboards I have used. It also comes with Windows Vista Home Premium even though I didn’t really want it, and a built-in webcam for just a few bucks more. I figured I could use half of the hard drive for Linux and leave Vista on the other half to play with or if I ever need to run a Windows only program. I played with the upgrades on the Dell to see what the same specs would cost me since I did not want Microsoft to get any of my money, but the cost went over $1000 which was definitely more than I wanted to spend.

I figured Dell would probably charge a premium for ensuring that they put fully compatible hardware in the laptop, but I was disappointed that I was not getting a better deal from Dell. The base model seemed too expensive and the upgrades were too expensive. I do like the fact that you do have a choice over the hardware that goes inside, particularly the choice of integrated Intel graphics or a dedicated NVIDIA card. I like Dell and wanted to support their move to Linux, so perhaps in the future I will buy a Linux laptop from Dell. Keep up the good work guys!