I'm looking into getting a new laptop to use for security research. It will most likely be running Ubuntu or Ubuntu / BT4, and will be hosting multiple virtual machines for testing. Due to the VMs I need a pretty hefty CPU and Memory capacity, hopefully without sacrificing mobility & battery life.
I want to get something that has a really well supported wireless chipset able to scan, go promiscuous, act as an access point etc.
Acer Aspire 3810 Timeline looks ok, unsure about the wi-fi chipset though.
There's also the HP Envy 15 (Intel i7 w/ 16GB Ram) but it may as well be a desktop with the heat and > 2 hr battery life.
In a different direction I do have access to a network of XenServer Host machines at my work, so it would be possible to setup my testing VMs there as long as I had a decent connection to access them, however to access the network I'd have to connect over VPN, which could get back to wireless support I suppose.
What suggestions do other people have?
