Less of a resource hog - on a 2 gig lappy it will run better than vista on a 4 gig. Dell sells only their cheap machines with Ubuntu pre- installed, but Ubuntu is Linux and can be installed on almost anything if you are willing to download and install drivers and edit config files.

I’m no Apple fanboy, only made the switch a year ago and my previous laptop, a Dell, was fine once I got some parts replaced under warranty. I was pretty handy with XP too, pretty comfortable with it. Honestly, though, the switch to Apple was great for me, it did a lot for my productivity, hard to explain exactly why but it seems to give me clearer platform to work from, the slight spur my creativity needed. I don’t procrastinate as much now.

But each to their own, I guess. Whatever you do, make sure you buy in the next couple of months because Microsoft are discontinuing XP in June and, after that, new machines will only come with Vista. Vista is not as bad as some make it out to be but, on balance, judging from my clients’ experiences, I would definitely recommend giving it a couple of years to settle down before making the jump.

I’m a new subscriber to your blog, but I would DEFINITELY suggest the Asus EEE as a blogging platform, but it won’t suit every single need you have. Here’s what I’d say it excels at:

* Light weight - under 5-6 pounds (2 kilos). It’s also teeny-tiny and easy to carry.
* Cold temperatures - not heat generation.
* A secondary hard drive (this is pretty much a must, as the built-in memory is only 2-4gb of solid state memory).
* Bluetooth, WIFI, and all wireless capabilities with a huge range, with the ability to turn them off with a button (bluetooth and gps both require a ‘hack’ so they don’t come with it out of the box, and you probably won’t want to mess with them anyway).
* Not Vista or Apple. You can get it with XP, but I’d suggest either keeping their custom Xandros (linux) or installing Ubuntu (despite David’s valid arguments against it, I’d say Ubuntu is the best do-everything operating system if you don’t mind the initial learning curve associated with … well, anything new).
* Touchpad with sensitivity, scrolling and hot spots. You’re missing hot spots, but Linux has built-in functionality for it (you can also use mouse gestures and set your own keyboard shortcuts).
* Durable keyboard. Mine is holding up as well as my t22, t41, and t60 are holding up (all Thinkpads… every other laptop I’ve used had a terrible keyboard).
* Ability to run without the battery on.
* Ability to run without the battery present.
* Ability to turn off the battery without removing it from the laptop (save battery life when hooked to AC.)
* Lots of USB connections at top speeds.

And here’s what it doesn’t do so well with:
* High speed action for games and running multiple RAM sucking programs at once.
* High speed and RAM for graphics.
* The largest hard drive capacity possible (isn’t that what USB hard drives are for?)
* You completely miss out on Firewire.
* S-video and other digital media inputs and outputs.

I’m not trying to give you an end-all argument, but for the hardcore bloggers among us who want something mobile, I’d definitely suggest carrying an EEE with you wherever you go. It’s what I author and edit my posts on the bus ride to/from work every day. Oh, and it’s only $400 for the highest trim level. That puts it in the ‘disposable electronics’ category, for me.

Also, for the Mac Fanboys out there, I’ve found that as Apple has gotten more popular, there has been increasing attention paid to the decrease in the build quality of their systems. My MacBookPro is less than a year old, and while I didn’t put extra covers on it or anything, it is showing far more wear than my two year old ThinkPad.

It also crashes just as much, so don’t give me that “It Just Works” line.

Is Ubuntu hardware specific?