$1500 is quite a generous budget, all netbooks and most home laptops will fit that. Apart from the netbooks, it's still fairly difficult to find one that does not include Windows bundled into the price (though it has happened, for example in http://www.thegoodguys.com.au/ last year, or on Dells sold in the USA).
Intel graphics is still the best choice for a GNU laptop, no need to pay extra for ATI or NVidia graphics. ATI is in the process of becoming a better supported option.
If the laptop is only being sold with 512MB of RAM, an extra gigabyte is $25. If it has a small hard drive, most of them will take a 320GB or 500GB drive - you could install on that, saving the untouched Windows one for a few weeks in case of warranty claims, then put it in a $20 external USB case for laptop backups. If a netbook sounds nice but all you need is a DVD burner, a nice small USB-powered one for $115 would do the trick: http://msy.arpatubes.net/display.php?type=product&query=15125
You can take a live Ubuntu CD into the shop and try it out.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-02-09 04:39 pm (UTC)Intel graphics is still the best choice for a GNU laptop, no need to pay extra for ATI or NVidia graphics. ATI is in the process of becoming a better supported option.
If the laptop is only being sold with 512MB of RAM, an extra gigabyte is $25.
If it has a small hard drive, most of them will take a 320GB or 500GB drive - you could install on that, saving the untouched Windows one for a few weeks in case of warranty claims, then put it in a $20 external USB case for laptop backups.
If a netbook sounds nice but all you need is a DVD burner, a nice small USB-powered one for $115 would do the trick: http://msy.arpatubes.net/display.php?type=product&query=15125
You can take a live Ubuntu CD into the shop and try it out.