Which laptop should I get

So I am in the market for a new laptop. I am currently using a Dell Inspiron 700M which I purchased a couple summers ago when I was doing freelance work. It has been a really good laptop and has gotten a lot of stuff done. So now that the customary 2 years has past, I am feeling the itch to upgrade to faster, cooler and much better machine.

My laptop is my primary computer. I used to use a desktop as my primary computer - but those days have past. Anymore, I can’t deal with having one location for my computing. I need to be able do work anywhere. I really have no idea what the future brings. I am always suddenly traveling. From going to random places for skinnyCorp to visiting new relatives in japan. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in 2 months! I may go to Guam to meet with a guamish collocation facility to host our new guamish extratasty site.

In regards to my laptop use, I primarily use windows apps that connect me to Linux boxes where I do all my work. My desktop IDE is Eclipse and my default text editor is VIM. I spend most of my computing time in firefox and in putty. I rarely use photoshop. So for the most part, I am OS agnostic. I think I could get away with a Linux desktop, or a OSX desktop. I would like the ability to boot windows occasionally, but I have no need for it to be my primary OS. In fact, regardless of what I choose - I am going to be attempting to use ubuntu as the default OS (at least for a minute).

So here is my quandary. Do I get a Lenovo/IBM T60 or a black macbook?

I have been in LOVE with the IBM laptops since I used one back at CK. They are obviously the best workstation laptops. I am a bit scared since Lenovo took over the manufacturing of them, but what I have seen and heard from my friends tells me I shouldn’t be worried. I like how they look, I like the features they support and I like how easy they are for hardware compatibility. I don’t really like the price - but what can you do.

however…

I also LOVE the black macbook. I currently have a pre-intel macmini and I really enjoy it. I love that it has native Unix capabilities and I really love the productivity options that are in OSX. I constantly sync my phone with iSync. In fact that is the only reason I have a macmini now. I think that OSX is a very good development environment and I think I am ready for a change such as that. I am really scared about not having two mouse buttons.

So it seems that with either laptop, I am going to be able to support 90% if not 99% of the software I use on a regular basis. So software support isn’t that big of an issue. I guess what is an issue is which will be the better laptop. Which will be the longer lasting and which is ultimately more powerful.

Both laptops are about the same price as I would configure them.

While I was at the mysql conf, I started looking around at various laptops that people used. It seemed that everyone used either an IBM or a Apple, with a few Dells and randoms sprinkled in for good measure. So it seems that both are popular among opensource and engineers.

Let me know your thoughts.. I am open to anything - even (maybe) going with another brand.

[tags]laptops, linux, ubuntu, osx, mac, desktop development, development, purchase, lenovo, apple, t60, macbook[/tags]