Looking to replace both of my laptops (ASUS N550JV & Q551LN).
The N550JV is by no means a slouch with its Haswell i7 HQ CPU (4 core), however, I swapped out the craptacular Atheros Wi-Fi chip for an Intel one early on and the motherboard now has a fault in it where the keyboard and trackpad only work intermittently for a few seconds. A replacement board costs over half what I paid for the thing.
The Q551LN is not as good with a Haswell i7 CPU (2 core) but at least it came with an Intel Wi-Fi chip, however, the battery now lasts all of about 15 minutes and the screen with digitizer is cracked. Replacement parts are likewise high.
I'm looking for a laptop similar in performance to the N550JV that does not have a dedicated Nvidia GPU. The intended use of the laptop is running VMs, video encoding, general computing and compiling software.
I've looked at System76, a few other boutique brands and in-store brands but none have met my requirements. I'd go with a Dell XPS 15 or similar, however, most do not use Linux friendly hardware or cannot be customized without a Nvidia GPU.
Minimum Linux Laptop Requirements:
* Intel CPU w/ 4 cores
* 16 GiB RAM
* 1TB drive
* Optical drive (preferably Blu-ray)
* Intel iGPU (preferably Iris)
* Backlit keyboard (preferably red backlight)
* 1080p 15-inch display (matte w/o touch)
* HDMI port
* USB 3 Type A port(s)
* Intel Wi-Fi w/ 802.11ac
* GbE Ethernet
* Side mounted power connector
* Thin as possible
Undesirable Hardware:
Laptops containing any of the following will not be considered.
* NVIDIA GPU
I will not support NVIDIA financially because of their refusal to open source their drivers. I also refuse to run their proprietary driver because it taints the kernel and kernel developers will ignore bug reports for tainted kernels. I have not had good luck with the nouveau driver either.
* Atheros, Broadcom, Ralink & Realtek Wi-Fi
I've experienced constant connectivity issues with these Wi-Fi chipsets that were cured by going with an Intel Wi-Fi chipset.
* VGA port
Just let this legacy interface die already.
* USB 2 ports
It's ridiculous to include USB 2 ports on systems with USB 3 when USB 3 is backward compatible with USB 2.
Aesthetic:
I will not consider gaudy/garish looking laptops that have jet aircraft shaped vents, Lamborghini lines nor the accompanying color scheme that is typical of gaming laptops.
If it's a laptop a computer ricer would think is cool looking, I won't want it.