For the past few years, I've been using a Sony Z590. My major concerns with a laptop are battery life, portability, and screen real estate. For the Z590, I get 8-10 hours of battery life (8 with wifi on, 10 on a plane). The machine is a 13.3" laptop, and it's light, so portability is there. Those two features can be found in other laptops, but the screen is a 13.3" 1600x900 display; I haven't found any laptops from any other manufacturers that do that on such a small laptop. The new Sony Z-series have full 1080p displays, so they're a bit higher res at the same size.
The machine runs Linux well enough; suspend works, all the hardware works except for the fingerprint reader and the built-in camera. The video is a hybrid graphics with nVidia and Intel; IME nVidia sucks under linux, so I've just had it disabled and use only the GM45 card. I've heard that the latest Z series users are sometimes having trouble with their video, but I think the latest rc kernel has the support required (always the case with linux and latest hardware...).
As far as using Linux on a Macbook, how do you get around the lack of a middle and right click? Is the multi-touch/gesture stuff actually in the touchpad hardware so Linux sees a proper three button scroll mouse, or what? I think I'd go mad trying to use Linux on a single-button touchpad.
The machine runs Linux well enough; suspend works, all the hardware works except for the fingerprint reader and the built-in camera. The video is a hybrid graphics with nVidia and Intel; IME nVidia sucks under linux, so I've just had it disabled and use only the GM45 card. I've heard that the latest Z series users are sometimes having trouble with their video, but I think the latest rc kernel has the support required (always the case with linux and latest hardware...).
As far as using Linux on a Macbook, how do you get around the lack of a middle and right click? Is the multi-touch/gesture stuff actually in the touchpad hardware so Linux sees a proper three button scroll mouse, or what? I think I'd go mad trying to use Linux on a single-button touchpad.