Weirdly, there's not an awful lot of information on what makes a light, fast and modern Linux laptop on the internet, even for a popular distribution like Ubuntu. I like to run Ubuntu as, for better or worse, it's what we use on our production systems.
Normally with linux laptops, you run the gauntlet of esoteric specialist hardware matched up with shaky drivers - a sure fire recipe for burning a weekend (or few weeks even). It's such drudgery to have to plod through all this stuff. I need a decent laptop that I can install Ubuntu on and for everything to just work.
By everything, I mean all of it - wireless (b/g/n), gigabit ethernet, battery indicator, cpu stepping, VGA port/dongle, bluetooth, HDMI port, sleep, SD card reader, camera, microphone, usb, multitouch (especially two-finger scroll) and special laptop keys like brightness and volume. I wanted as near to zero config as possible with good default choices.
I decided to take an educated guess on such a linux laptop recently: the Samsung 350U (specifically the i3 NP350U2B-A01UK model).
The 350U is a thin-ish (26mm), light(1.4kg, similar to Macbook Air) 12.5" LED backlit model backed by the Intel HD 3000 GPU (same GPU as MB Air, but with the resolution of the 11" model) with 4GB RAM, dual core i3 and 640GB HD costing around $600. It has pretty standard Intel parts inside, so there was a very good chance it would survive the trip to Ubuntu in one piece.
Happily I can report that this laptop totally delivers. The single tweak needed was to install the synaptic/elan touchpad drivers to enable multitouch - I had to do this in Win7 too. To say I am shocked would be an understatement. Even the keyboard is a good size, and similar to the Apple ones (floating island keys with a slightly softer feel). Also, although the case is plastic I've started to think that may be the more mature option considering how many of these I go through. Big hulking pieces of milled aluminium look nice, but take a lot of gas to produce.
I've found myself reaching for the little lappy over my hulking 15" MBP for lots of tasks, and with HDMI it works really well with TV/monitors. It also comes boxed with a VGA dongle in the box, so should you need to connect to a projector, this shouldn't be a problem.
As an aside, I feel like I should comment on the general usability of desktop Ubuntu. In the time since I last used a linux desktop/laptop in anger, it seems that the world of useful software has changed. Dropbox and Chrome both have Ubuntu installers, and you can easily install the Microsoft fonts like verdana and so on with a few clicks. All the rest of the geospatial and statistical stacks I use install simply on linux. The only things really missing are XCode and decent WebGL support. I imagine WebGL is on its way, but of course if you really want to use XCode you should be using a Mac.
Final verdict: Amazed.
Are you thinking of making the switch? Find this laptop on Amazon (affiliate coded)