I'm also looking for a non-Apple laptop, to run Linux mainly but probably also Windows. I find the whole process of choosing a laptop to be some kind of voodoo

I'm also looking for a non-Apple laptop, to run Linux mainly but probably also Windows. I find the whole process of choosing a laptop to be some kind of voodoo science. Everyone seems to have loyalty to some brand X based mostly on personal anecdotes. For example, a lot of people diss Dell. But I've used a Dell inspiron 9400 for many years now and it's been really good. Will I buy Dell again? I don't see why not. I think they sell good cheap computers. In terms of spec, I find that all new computers are good enough now that I can't be bothered to drop more than £500 on one. If I need crazy processing power, it's probably going to be for some web data processing and will just use one of the many cloud services. But currently, my personall challenge is to build a laptop for myself. I posted the other day asking for help on how to go about it - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599389 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599389. I'm really surprised by the lack of know-how about it. So I'm even more motivated to do it. I hope to have something to show for my experiments in the coming weeks.