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Consider PowerNotebooks.com. I'm using one right now (a PowerPro) and it works well running Fedora Core GNU/Linux. You can get PowerNotebooks to install some GNU/Linux distribution for you or you can get it without an OS and avoid paying the Microsoft tax. I don't work for them or make anything for referrals.

I went through the same thing... but there are small-name vendors which sell very good equipment without windows, or even with linux preinstalled. I bought a C3:16 from powernotebooks.com, and I've been quite happy with it.

If you're looking at buying an alienware notebook, first look at this site.

Alienware rebrands the Sager line of laptops, by adding cool logos and color schemes. If you
don't care for these extras, the same notebooks can be had for much cheaper.

Wow... Check the prices out at Powernotebooks.com

Check out the Sager 8890 Specs and then rethink alienware and dell.

I have the Sager NP5680 P4 2.8GHz with the ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR... and it cost around $1800.. (thanks to work for picking up the check)

Check out the 17" laptops for around $1500. Nice!

Check out this laptop for your needs.

Also check out www.resellerratings.com for background on the vendor.

Notebook info to save you money

Check out this laptop for your needs.

Also check out www.resellerratings.com for background on the vendor.

Notebook info to save you money

did you consider these guys power notebooks?

they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux, and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.

since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings.

i guess i should mention that i'm in no way affiliated with this company. i stumbled across them when a friend asked me where he should buy a laptop without windows.

did you consider these guys power notebooks?

they claim to sell alot of the same laptops as the major vendors less the ms tax. i read somewhere on their site that they buy the laptops from the same place as dell or gateway. the major vendors basically stick their logo on them and sell the laptops as their own. they will even preinstall linux, and they have a bulletin board where they answer linux related questions.

since it's not a name brand company, you can check out the reviews at reseller ratings.

i guess i should mention that i'm in no way affiliated with this company. i stumbled across them when a friend asked me where he should buy a laptop without windows.

This is not one of the first Athlon64 laptops. I have had an Athlon64 laptop for almost two months, and they have been available since late October/early November 2003.

If the market doesn't catch fire, your desk or legs will...

This is not true at all. The laptop runs at 800MHz 95% of the time (whenever the full 2GHz is not needed). At that speed, the CPU has a peak heat dissipation of 35W, and a typical output of 28W. This is well below Pentium IV laptops, and is below the peak output of most Pentium-M chips at their full speed.
Even at 2GHz, it outputs at most around 85W (max theoretical heat output). Compare this to laptops with the Pentium IV Extreme Edition (available from many vendors), which has a typical heat output of over 100W--and that is at idle! Don't even ask about power usage when actually doing something.

I get a good 3 1/2 hours of battery life on a single charge. That is pretty damn good for a laptop which is more powerful than 95% of the full desktop processors out there, including my own. When it runs at full speed all night, the mouse pad and right side of the keyboard get fairly warm, but not to a point that it makes the machine uncomfortable to use. Warmth is comparable to the Dell Latitude D800, which uses a Pentium-M.

Unfortunately, it does not support dual batteries, and has no modular optical drive bay (the DVD drive is set when the machine is assembled), but these aren't major issues for most people. It also has a rather bulky power supply for the use of A/C power, complete with its own tiny cooling fan. This does not help the weight, which is already nearly 8lbs with battery. Ah well--it's more powerful than my desktop, reasonably light, and is MUCH smaller than certain 12-lb Pentium IV laptops. One often wonders if manufacturers have a different definition of "lap" than the rest of us.

If you look at this picture: Element Helium then at this one: powernotebooks Sager NP2880 they're a good match. Look at the three buttons across the front on both, along with other little things like the sliver that sticks up to latch the screen corners that is visible when it swivels.

Anyway, they look the same to me, and if it is true, then here are the specs from powernotebooks.com

VIA(TM) Antaur 1GHz Processor
Windows XP Home or Professional w/ ritePen and riteMail
1.25" thick
5.5 lb.
14.1" XGA (1024 x 768) Active Matrix TFT "Touch Panel" LCD Display - VIA CLE266 8X AGP 3D Video Card w/32MB max. user definable (Share Memory Architecture) Video Memory
Data entry by "Touch Panel" Display or Keyboard

256MB PC2100 DDR Memory built-in
(Expandable to 1024 MB)
20GB - 80GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
Integrated Web Cam
4-in-1 Memory Card Reader Supports SD/MMC/SmartMedia/Sony MemoryStick
Built-in 56k V.90 Modem (RJ-11)
Built-in 802.11b Wireless Networking (Optional)
Built-in 10/100BaseT Ethernet (RJ-45)
No floppy or CD/DVD optical drive built-in
External USB 2.0 24X CD, 8X DVD, Combo 8X DVD/24x10x24 CD-RW, or 2X DVD-R/RW-16x10x24 CD-RW (Optional)
Two USB 2.0 ports

It says 2 hours of battery time. Ick.

This just is another step in Intel's ploy to rule the wireless market through cheap and underhanded business practices. Not many people know this, or at least I didn't till I started shopping for a laptop 2 days ago, but all new laptops carrying the Centrino designation have to come with an Intel miniPCI WLAN card preinstalled or they cannot be called Centrino. Which is great except that Intel refuses to support Linux on their stinkin' card. (Yes I could go elsewhere, but for the price, speed, and power consumption, Centrino is far and away the best on the market right now.) If you want to monopolize an entire hardware sector, fine--good luck trying. But don't chain me to a stupid Wintel platform because of it. If Intel had their way they'd be the only supplier of WiFi cards within a few short years--then WTF do we do if we're not on Windows?

alienware laptop $3100

powernotebook laptop $1800
And the powernotebook laptop has a 17" wide screen formated LCD !!!
Hell, with some of the awesome case-mod painting tutorials, i'll be able to do the alienware pretty paint job myself!

alienware sales sager notebooks at a 90% markup. A lot of other peolpe sell them. powernotebooks for example . Just google them.

Um, shut up. You can easily buy laptops without having to pay the "Microsoft Tax" as it were. Power Notebooks is one such example of a company that will sell you bare hardware laptops. They'll even work with you to give you chipset models on each laptop to help you evaluate it objectively. I'll buy another Mac when they put two buttons and a _working_ scroll wheel on their mice/trackpads.

However they will be shortly. Until I can run to the local (dallas, tx) Apple store and pick up a G5 running Panther, it is a future offering.

Just come out with the new powerbooks already. I'm probably just going to buy a notebook from PowerNotebooks instead since I've already got a 900MHz iBook and a G4 Tower. I was looking forward to a new powerbook. Oh well...

Toshiba may have branded the laptop, but who actually made it? I haven't looked up the specifics for that brand, but it appears that many of them are made by the same few companies. So, perhaps one of the online vendors really does have what you're looking for... just under a different brand name.

At any rate, I hate the way the site licensing and pre-installed licensing arrangements work. Every vendor should allow you to purchase a computer without a pre-licensed OS already installed on it. Also, if you DO purchase the OS, it should come with original install disks, not those hobbled brand-only restore disks. I think those stupid disks may be due to license agreements that require that a particular installation of the OS can only be installed on a particular machine, and if you get rid of the machine, the OS license has to accompany it. What a crock.

here

• Discount Laptops Note the "Optional Operating System" bit...
• PowerNotebooks.com even has pre-installed linux on selected models, if you want. Build your own system and you don't have to have an OS installed at all.

I'm sure there are more out there... Just pop over to ResellerRatings.com and search for notebook or laptop.

Go for a 3'rd party laptop. They're often made in the same originating factories, are quite a bit less expensive, and have some cutting-edge features. I've had great dealings with PowerNotebooks -- take a look at their 17" widescreen TiBook clone. -moof

Go for a 3'rd party laptop. They're often made in the same originating factories, are quite a bit less expensive, and have some cutting-edge features. I've had great dealings with PowerNotebooks -- take a look at their 17" widescreen TiBook clone. -moof

Very sweet stuff at cheap prices.

Power Notebooks

Someone else linked to them the other day on slashdot and I was very impressed. Especially the 17" one for $1700 !!! That's only $300 more than I paid for my 900MHz iBook 12.1"!!!!

The thing you have to do is understand why IBM and Apple are at the top of their markets.

One reason...they build their own Notebooks...take a look at this page and then you'll understand why...

The short answer is Alienware, Toshiba, Dell, Compaq, etc are all made by the same companies...chances are they are all the same laptop.

Sony, IBM, and Apple all used to design their own notebooks...Apple kind of has to (yet they still use ODMs to assemble their boxen), and Sony and IBM have started to slip recently (using some of Quanta's ODM systems).

But if you want to find out how good the notebook is, find out who really made it.

Of course, you can always buy from the site that I linked to. They will sell notebooks without an OS and even have a Linux Forum. Not to mention they have unmatched customer service.

Gotta love the marketing differences between Apples and PCs:

The 17" Apple has a softly-glowing apple logo

The 17" PC laptop has a chrome badge labeled "Notebook":

http://www.powernotebooks.com/images/4760/front-cl osed.jpg

Wrong link, your right. However it still isn't a 7 pound difference it's 3.1 pounds and I'd much rather save $1000 get a better graphics card, be able to play games, have a numberpad built in (if you get this one and it's only 9.5 lbs for a 2.7 pound difference) and have both UNIX (via linux) and Windows (if you so desire). OS X isn't worth $1000 and the aluminum transfers heat better and there are no fans to cool it so it gets hotter than hell (nothing compared to the 12" AlBook though). My iBook is cool and smooth.

If you don't need a DVD burner, it might be better to get this one for $1555:

powernotebooks

(I don't work for them, and I would never buy one. I'm just suggesting an alternative).

Sager has a 17" notebook that has been on powernotebooks.com for a little while now:

http://www.powernotebooks.com/products.php3?displa y_size=17

PowerNotebooks sells rather nice laptops sans operating system. You can choose to have Win2k or WinXP installed for extra if you'd like, but they come standard without anything pre-installed. Reasonable prices, too. Not only that, but they are also ranked rather high at ResellerRatings.com. (Not trying to plug them, just pointing out there are non-mainstream alternatives to get Windows free equipment.)

If you like those, but not the price, you should check out the Sager's. Look familiar? ;-) Some vendors will even sell them in the "pretty colors". Looks like one of the vendors has started a forum for discussions about the platform.

Someone had a pretty detailed review of his purchase of his Sager from one of the vendors, but that page seems to be unavailable at the moment. Here's the Google cache of it, tho.

Anyway, I don't have the dosh to be a customer, happy or otherwise, so consider this more of an FYI than a recommendation... ;-)

According to this page, IBM is one of the few "Name" Brand companies that produce their own laptops.

Now, Toshiba, Sony, Apple, and IBM do manufacture many of their own laptops, but not all. So in principle you could go to them and ask for 2k laptops... (I think only IBM and Apple manufacture all their own...)

We need to increase the number of Linux vendors though. No-OS laptop vendors have a hell of a time identifying and diagnosing hardware problems (since the software that gets installed varies wildly). If you ordered a batch of 2k, a percent or two would have some hardware problem that you'd have to deal with...

-- Bob

I was dubious of generic laptops, and thus when I saw this on the Power Notebooks site, I was intrigued:

http://www.powernotebooks.com/Name_Brand.php3

You should realize though that most of these companies purchase the hardware from companies like Sager (Linux forum) and Compal, and those companies also supply the big-name guys like Compaq, HP, Dell, and Toshiba. So when you find some no-name laptop, it is usually equivalent to some branded laptop that never touched the hands of HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell. (And figuring out exactly *which* brand-name laptop it is equivalent to can be extremely difficult) Some of the below claim to manufacture their own notebooks, but what this means is that they buy them from Saeger/Compal or someone else, and put in a hard drive/CPU/RAM, which is why you will find identical looking cases at several of these vendors.

If you find a HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell/IBM/Sony branded laptop that has linux preinstalled, it means that the vendor paid for windows and removed it. I do not list them below because I think this is a despicable and deceptive practice. These manufacturers do not (yet) sell no-os or linux laptops. (But please, call them and ask!! The squeaky wheel gets the grease!) Also if you order a no-OS laptop, please request linux to be installed anyway, and tell them you'll pay for it! Let them know there is demand!

1. Linux-preinstalled laptops
2. ASA Computers
3. ASLab (Linux Forum)
4. American Computer
5. Cyclox
6. Kachina Tech (positively ancient laptops -- K6 and PII)
7. QLI Tech
8. Workstation 2000

1. No-os laptops
2. ARM Computer
3. Chem USA
4. Mtech Laptops (these guys outright lied to me about what they could deliver, in order to get my order, were not able to deliver the laptop, and I had to cancel my order -- which took 3 months to process and they kept $5 for the priviledge -- do not do business with them)
5. PC Torque
6. Power Notebooks (very good customer service according to Reseller Ratings) (Linux forum)
7. Xtreme Notebooks

-- Bob

You should realize though that most of these companies purchase the hardware from companies like Sager (Linux forum) and Compal, and those companies also supply the big-name guys like Compaq, HP, Dell, and Toshiba. So when you find some no-name laptop, it is usually equivalent to some branded laptop that never touched the hands of HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell. (And figuring out exactly *which* brand-name laptop it is equivalent to can be extremely difficult) Some of the below claim to manufacture their own notebooks, but what this means is that they buy them from Saeger/Compal or someone else, and put in a hard drive/CPU/RAM, which is why you will find identical looking cases at several of these vendors.

If you find a HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell/IBM/Sony branded laptop that has linux preinstalled, it means that the vendor paid for windows and removed it. I do not list them below because I think this is a despicable and deceptive practice. These manufacturers do not (yet) sell no-os or linux laptops. (But please, call them and ask!! The squeaky wheel gets the grease!) Also if you order a no-OS laptop, please request linux to be installed anyway, and tell them you'll pay for it! Let them know there is demand!

1. Linux-preinstalled laptops
2. ASA Computers
3. ASLab (Linux Forum)
4. American Computer
5. Cyclox
6. Kachina Tech (positively ancient laptops -- K6 and PII)
7. QLI Tech
8. Workstation 2000

1. No-os laptops
2. ARM Computer
3. Chem USA
4. Mtech Laptops (these guys outright lied to me about what they could deliver, in order to get my order, were not able to deliver the laptop, and I had to cancel my order -- which took 3 months to process and they kept $5 for the priviledge -- do not do business with them)
5. PC Torque
6. Power Notebooks (very good customer service according to Reseller Ratings) (Linux forum)
7. Xtreme Notebooks

-- Bob

Check out these guys. They have a pretty good variety of notebooks, the OS is optional, they are VERY highly rated in www.resellerratings.com and even host a linux forum for folks using something else.

Try this link for some nice laptops that you can buy without an OS. They even has a Linux forum. Nice people, nice laptops!

• Alienware: Nice rig, about $2853.00
• Power Notebooks: Same damn thing, $2110.00. You can double the RAM to 1GB, add another 20GB to the HD, and it is still 300 less than the alienware jive.

Why buy the AlienWare laptop when you can have the exactly same laptop for much much lower price??
It's even assembled at the same factory!

Thank you Ino. You truly just made my day.

Oh, and you can still buy a laptop without Windows here. That experiment sure was fun.

Cheers.

Check out this site for an "unbundled" laptop option.

Oh, and the machines these guys sell are the same as some Dell and Toshiba models too, so don't come back arguing for an "acceptable" option or any bullshit like that.

You can still go to Powernotebooks.

Why yes I do, http://www.powernotebooks.com/ and now I just look forward to having cash to actualy buy one...

This looks kewl and all, but why are ppl trying to get PC functionality from a Handheld device...Handhelds are good at things like keeping appointments, names, reading short E-Mails, Reading E-Books, Math, and generally doing simple tasks...

And why XP? There are no real handheld apps built for it.

Some ppl in the handheld industry are trying too much...

Granted, Bluetooth will be a nice feature once it becomes standard...but that's not what they've done here...

Lets see...I can buy a decent Palm for Real Notebook for less than $1000 total. Now, you might argue that the notebook is cumbersome...this might be so, but then you get a 13 inch screen as opposed to a 4 inch screen...

Handhelds are a tool, they are not a replacement for a Notebook/Desktop...those solutions work very nicely for their intended purpose.

One of the other big names is Compal.

Read this for more information and specific model numbers.

I just bought a "Toshiba 3005" from them, and since they don't come default operating systems I didn't have to may the M$ tax and get an extra battery instead.

One of the other big names is Compal.

Read this for more information and specific model numbers.

I just bought a "Toshiba 3005" from them, and since they don't come default operating systems I didn't have to may the M$ tax and get an extra battery instead.

For more info, check out DiscountLaptops and PowerNotebooks. It's a shame that laptops are much more expensive in the UK and that our Tier 3 vendors only seem to sell ASUS (in the case of Hi-Grade) and Clevo. Both of which are OK, but it'd be nice to have a few alternatives.

--

Note that some of Dell's laptops aren't worth it. Read this:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/Name_Brand.php3

Virtually none of the "Name" brands manufacture their own laptops... For example an ODM named Compal makes the Dell Inspiron 5000e, the ChemBOOK 3015,
the PowerNotebooks.com PowerPro III:16

Therefore it would probably be better getting the powernotebooks model for a lot cheaper.

One important thing is to do research! Many "OEMs" actually buy their laptops from other OEMs.

for example, check out this link

"For example an ODM named Compal makes the Dell Inspiron 5000e, the ChemBOOK 3015, the PowerNotebooks.com PowerPro III:16, the Sceptre SoundX S6600 (14.1") and S6900 and 6902 (15")...and they are all the same laptop, just with different names on them!"

Buying from lesser known companies could potentially net you the same laptop for less. I bought a Umax T333, and I thought it sucked. Umax support was crap, and replacement parts impossible to find. Then, I found out that it is the same model as the Kapok 1100 and the ProStar 1200, then finding BIOSes, drivers, and batteries was simple.

If you are looking for an older laptop, consider one with a cpu that has multiplier controls. Mine is a K6-2 333, so everything is configured via dip switches. I can run the 333@166 and lower all the voltage settings for a cool running laptop that still runs Linux and E with ease. I've gotten my battery time from 2.5 hours up to 3.5-4.0 hours. I'm glad I ordered the cheapest laptop that money could buy two years ago. I now have no regrets.