Any recommendation for dual boot ultra portable laptop

Hi,
I’m looking to replace my ageing Toshiba NB100 mini laptop with something a bit more powerful. I have done quite a bit of googling and it appears there are more and more compatibility issues with newer laptops so I don’t want to waste my money by buying something incompatible. Looks like I might be best to buy something a couple of years old so the bugs have already been fixed.
It needs to be 10"-13" screen (regular laptop or transformer type),
good battery life,
faster than my NB100 (2gb 2x 1.6ghz),
not too expensive
be able to dual boot Ubuntu-Mate & Windows 10
If anybody can recommend a mini laptop which will reliably be able to run ubuntu-mate and windows 10 that would be great, especially if there is tutorial available to install / bug fix. Similarly, if there are any I should be avoiding (as there are still unfixed bugs etc) that information would also be appreciated (I don’t want to buy one and find the wifi doesn’t work properly).
I realise this question is a bit vague but it is more important to me to get a small & light laptop which works reliably rather than any exact specification.

Any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What is not too expensive to you? :wink:

The Dell XPS 13 meets your requirements but I’m not sure on your price requirements. Look for the cheaper configurations: FHD (1080p) not touchscreen, i3 or i5. Also, the previous model is very similar to the current one — basically just the CPU generation was updated, which on Linux might actually lead to lower performance or less battery life before the kernel catches up — so look for deals on the previous generation. The current model is 9360, the previous is 9350.

Hi elcste,
Thanks for your reply. The XPS 13 9350 certainly would be a good choice but they are still a bit expensive. It is nice and light and just about small enough. I need this as a travel laptop so I don’t want anything that would too desirable to thieves so I was hoping to spend less then $250/£200 so that it would not be a big deal if it gets stolen or broken. If I have to spend over £500 (current ebay price) then so be it, but I would prefer to spend less.
Thanks again.

Well, what can I say. Generally I highly recommend staying away from all laptops using Nvidia Optimus, because there is massive screen tearing for that. Other than that, I’ve not seen any laptops that have major compatibility issues or anything.

i really like lenovo thinkpads

there are many many models of various vintages, and they are generally very well built, and can survive the occasional drop or bash. more importantly they are very linux compatible.

i’ve got a newish thinkpad x240 that i bought from ebay for £250 - absolute bargain - 8gig RAM, i5 CPU, 256 gig SSD, 12" screen and oodles of battery life.

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Also have a look here.

Hi ciba43,
Okay, I’ll keep away from Nvidia Optimus.
Thanks for the advise.

Hi mickey_megabyte,
The thinkpad x240 looks like it would do what I need at a reasonable price.
Thanks for the recommendation.

Hi v3xx,
Thank you for the link. The Dell Inspiron 11 3162 is a nice sized laptop but the specs are a little week, I think I would struggle to dual boot a 32gb machine and I don’t think the flash hard drive is easy to upgrade. This got me looking at the other Dell Inspiron 11 range, for example “Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series Convertible Laptop - Intel N2830 4GB 500GB” currently £250 on ebay, but there does seem to be a few (relatively minor) issues still according to https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2244361 although the last post is over a year ago.

Thanks again for the responses

+1 For Lenovo ThinkPad,
I ve got a ThinkPad Edge 330 for some years now, all Intel and I’ve been running many distro without big trouble, mostly just work !
Upgraded RAM and SSD and go !
To me Lenovo or Dell if i had to go.
Or maybe system 76 - They make computers for Ubuntu :slight_smile: