FreeBSD on subnotebooks

[Markus Hoenicka]

Hi all,

along the lines of a query about FreeBSD on netbooks which appeared on
this list lately, I'd like to ask for some advice on current
subnotebooks. I've been running FreeBSD versions 6.2 through 8.0 on a
MSI S260 subnotebook. This used to be a real nice companion. However,
after roughly five years the internal speakers are dead, the battery
jack is unreliable and requires endless juggling to get the battery
charged (not to mention that the battery lasts only 30-odd minutes
these days), and the screen backlight works at the lowest setting
only, making the machine usable only at night :-(

I'd like to purchase a replacement which is equally capable of running
FreeBSD. My preferences are as follows:

- dual core if at all possible

- screen resolution something like 1280x800 or 1366x768

- screen size roughly 12' or 13', no more, no less

- graphics should allow hassle-free watching of DVDs and Flash movies,
  but I don't have any interest in gaming. Also, I'll have to run
  OpenOffice presentations quite often, which are painfully slow on my
  current box as soon as animations are involved

- FreeBSD will be the sole OS on this box

- VGA jack is a must (I frequenly need a data projector)

- WLAN must be supported

- CD/DVD reader/burner may be built-in, but an external USB device
  would be ok too (I assume FreeBSD can handle this)

- price should not exceed 700 EUR/$ (yes, the exchange rate for EUR
  and $ seems to be close to 1.0 in terms of computer prices)

I'm aware of the FreeBSD Laptop compatibility list at
http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/index.html, but I couldn't find two
models which look quite interesting to me. These are:

HP Pavillion DM3/1120eg Stylebook
Lenovo Z360 Core i5

I'd be glad if anyone could confirm or deny that FreeBSD works
properly on these boxes, or post any experiences on these boxes
regarding my computing requirements. I'd also be glad if you could
point me to comparable boxes that positively do run FreeBSD.

One more question: I've noticed that most subnotebooks ship with 4GB
of memory these days. If I understand correctly, I can use that much
memory only when using the amd64 branch of FreeBSD. Will that affect
hardware compatibility in any way?

thanks in advance
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
http://www.mhoenicka.de
AQ score 38