@Dave 126

Secure boot is not "a Windows 8 thing" - My Lenovo W530 has secure boot, it's turned off in order that I can boot Windows 7. Where you get a difference with Windows 8 is that it has a signed bootloader, so you can switch secure boot on. Windows 8 is by no means the only OS with a signed bootloader.

Secure boot is uEFI, I don't know about this particular laptop, but it's highly unlikely that new hardware will be being released without uEFI.

@AC 14:10GMT - Re: @Dave 126

Windows 8 is by no means the only OS with a signed boot loader but UEFI secure boot checks the boot loader signature with Microsoft public key only. So it's only Microsoft secure boot or no secure boot at all for you.

Re: @AC 14:10GMT - @Dave 126

Your supplied PC may only have an MS key on it upon delivery, but you can load other keys onto it. In any case, even if you couldn't, MS are supplying keys to any (legitimate) company that wants them, specifically because they don't want to be seen as the bogeyman and probably because they want to make it perfectly clear that they're not killing competition. It remains to be seen what Apple will do with their hardware when they move to uEFI from EFI, but no-one has mentioned this yet.

uEFI is an industry initiative to move away from legacy BIOS, which is out of date and doesn't support the needs of a modern PC, it's not just a Microsoft thing.

@AC 17:55GMT - Re: @AC 14:10GMT - @Dave 126

Exactly, Microsoft does not want to be seen period. Microsoft is not supplying any keys to anyone, they just sign with their key whatever you want to boot, if they can be bothered to. You may supply as many keys as you want, UEFI firmware will use just one (bet you can't tell which!) to validate the boot environment. Apart from Microsoft, who else was invited to that industry initiative, any other OS or software vendor ? And I will not ask you who has all the PC manufacturers grabbed tightly by their balls. Industry initiative, pfft!

Re: @AC 17:55GMT - @AC 14:10GMT - @Dave 126

Thanks for the clarification guys... I didn't phrase things well. The point I was grasping at was that Win 7 machines will happily run Linux, since Win 7 doesn't have signed boot loader as Win 8 does, so a Win 7 machine will surely have a UEFI that allows the SecureBoot to be turned off. As I understood it, the concern about other OSs was that it wasn't guaranteed that all future machines would allow this, or, if one wished to keep the SecureBoot enabled, if one would be able to get a signed bootloader for the desired OS.

Re: I have been

Update

I found this laptop cheaper here with a FREE 7" Galaxy Tab thrown in:

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Samsung_900X4C_1192065.html

Only one caveat, one has to claim the Tab from Samsung, it doesn't come with the laptop.

Hopefully this sub £900 example will undergo a sales price drop in a few weeks.

Re: I have been

Might check out the Toshiba z830. Similar spec, lighter weight and seems to be on sale everywhere. It's a late 2011 model, so it's much cheaper (e.g. 1/2 the price). I just got one for cheap, seems pretty good so far. Battery life is supposedly upwards of 7+ hours.

Re: I have been

The problem is, it's a Tosh. $orkplace has had a number of issues with Toshiba not honouring warranties.

Re: Toshiba z830

isn't that a 1366 x 768 screen ? (i.e substantially smaller than the res here)

Re: I have been

Thanks, It certainly gets good reviews. I do need 8Gb RAM though and the extra screen area helps.

Full HD would be nice but 1600x900 is fair enough.

I will wait till the sales season starts me thinks, I already have a Tab 2, so selling the freebie Tab gets me the Series 9 even cheaper.

Re: I have been

Another vote for the Toshiba Satellite R830-1GZ. Bought mine in late June and it's just been fantastic. I've enthused about it here before, in a way that I seldom bother to do. Yeah, the resolution's not brilliant but I run it through an HD monitor when it's on my desk. Very penguin-friendly too (Mint 13 Cinnamon works pretty much perfectly out of the box, including webcam, sound, external monitor switching and so on). In Mint I typically get seven hours out of the battery in use with wi-fi.

Yes...

Nothing to do with the tiny Sony Vaio laptops form the late 90s/early 2000s.

Re: Yes...

More Apple revisionism

Even Dell has had super slim laptops for quite some time - Latitude X300 for example.

Back then, they were called 'ultraportables'

I had a 2 lb laptop in 1995

It was a Fujitsu, don't remember the model. Minimal set of ports, 1/2 in thick. Came with a very cool docking station that had a full set of ports & a CD-ROM drive. It was actually lighter than the 1st gen Air (had one of those as well....), with roughly similar battery life (2hrs if you were lucky). Not as thin and all plastic, 'tho.

Apple is not the first one to build a minimalist light laptop, although I had a PowerBook Duo back in the day that came pretty close - it was replaced by the Fujitsu, then by an Acer of similar spec, but with a 14" screen...

Re: I had a 2 lb laptop in 1995

The Fujitsu LifeBook series - they were great. Still got a B142 kicking around somewhere, pretty RAM limited these days.

Got an Air in 2007, and that was a bucketload better...

Re: I got myself the 13" version a couple of weeks back

Might be worth you having a double check of the T&C's on the Samsung page. You too may be eligible for a free Galaxy Tab.. Got to be worth a couple of clicks and a ransack, for the hell of it. Surely? 15-60 days after purchase and god knows what else "not if you.........." etc but who knows...

http://www.samsung-promotions.co.uk/series9/

http://www.samsung.com/uk/series9offer/?pid=uk_promotion_home_banner2_series9offer_20121102