System 76 have released a new touch screen laptop that runs the free Ubuntu Linux distribution. Base pricing begins at US$899.00 for the machine with an Intel Core i5 CPU clocked at 1.5 GHZ. There is 4 Gigabytes of DDR3 RAM installed and Intel HD 4400 Graphics along with a 500 Gigabyte 5400 RPM HDD. These specifications are quite reasonable for a 899 dollar laptop; with a free Linux distribution that provides a usable and fast desktop. Obviously there is integrated WIFI & Bluetooth networking and the usual 1 Megapixel webcam. This machine may be upgraded to an Intel Core i7 CPU and 16 Gigabytes of RAM. That would provide more power for more demanding desktop tasks. The machine will of course include a HDMI port; this is pretty useful when you want to output the graphics display of a laptop to a television. I tried a USB camera on my Debian laptop the other day and it worked instantly with VLC. That shows that Linux is a good contender against Windows 8 on a laptop with modern hardware. I am typing this on my Emachines E730 laptop running Debian 7.1 using Gnome Shell and Cairo Dock and everything works perfectly. Visit the System 76 website and have a look at the laptop for yourself. It is a good thing that Linux is making such inroads in the computing market. I use Windows 8.1 for playing games like UT 2004 & Far Cry 2 but for other tasks I prefer Linux.
See this machine here: https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/daru4.