Best Developer's Laptop?

s31523 writes "I love my current laptop, but unfortunately on my last trip the primary LCD went bonkers. It's an older Gateway (2 GB RAM Intel Pentium M 2.0 GHz, ATI M7). There are a handful of features I love about it: [1] Hot-swappable drive bay, with several components that can go in: CD/DVD R/W, extra battery, floppy drive, extra hard drive, memory card reader, etc. The extra battery option is especially appreciated — I can go 4-5 hours on battery power. [2] Docking station / port replicator: I like having my home setup with keyboard, network, and dual screens (a necessity). [3] It runs Linux. OK, I'm a wus, I actually have GRUB command three different OS's: Windows 98 (I have really old embedded software compilers that only run on 98, and yes I have tried every trick in the book to make them run on Linux), Windows XP Pro, and Ubuntu. I'm trying to find a replacement setup that offers the same flexibility and a little better performance. I am open to change as well. So, I ask Slashdot: What is your pick for best developer's laptop under $1,200, considering the features above?"

Comments

ehh

[Dyinobal]

I go for comfort and portability when grabbing a laptop.

Re:ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Build quality? Really?

My MBP's keyboard backlight was misbehaving within a couple of months of buying it. The machine regularly overheated playing games. The motherboard fried itself and needed replacement after a couple of years. The DVD drive is now extremely fussy about recognizing an inserted disc.

The last two Dell laptops I've owned each lasted well over 5 years with no problems.

Macs may have their advantages, but IMHO build quality is not one of them. You know, to be brutally honest.

So we are supposed to judge all Macs by your experience with one example? I went through the overheating problems. I had to get the mother board exchanged twice before the machine started stopped overheating and it had a bracket glued to the inside of the body in above the DVD drive that came loose once, fell down and scraped the reflective layer of the top of an (expensive) DVD software disc when I ejected it. But then again I had been dumb enough to buy from one of the first Intel MBP batches off the assembly line, whenever a new line of computers comes out you'd be well advised to wait a few months for the teething problems to be worked out and I don't care which brand you buy. All the other macs I have owned PPC or Intel have functioned properly apart from one that had to have the LCD replaced due to a manufacturing flaw but that problem affected any number of PC brands as well who sourced their LCDs from the same manufacturer (including Dell). You have a point with the keyboard backlighting which didn't work properly on any Mac I had until a couple of years ago but then that was noting that couldn't be solved with third party software utilities. As for Dell being the pinnacle of reliability I have worked for a number of companies that ran large fleets of Dells and let me assure you they break down every bit as often as any other computers do.