I just bought a refurbished Samsung series 7 (NP700Z5C). I got a great deal on it from Best Buy so that's why I went with it. My intention all along has been to remove windows 8 completely and install Ubuntu, but now that my laptop has arrived and I've started to look in to the process more deeply I see that there are a lot of problems with this range of laptops firmware, particularly with respect to Linux (Is it safe to install Ubuntu 64 Bit 12.10 in EFI mode on Samsung series 7 WIndows 8 laptop?).
So my thought is that I'll install as a dual boot, reserving a small region of hard drive space for windows 8. I assume that once Samsung update the firmware the fix will be made available via an update through windows. If the laptop 'bricks' anytime in the next 90 days then I can return the laptop under it's warranty, and hopefully the fix will come before then. (an aside: I spoke to customer services at Best Buy, they said that they were unsure if installing Ubuntu would violate the warranty, and that I should call Samsung to check. Samsung told me that it would not, so long as I return the laptop to its original conditions before returning it. If the computer bricks then I wouldn't be able to do that, but then there's no way they could tell what I'd done with it anyway.)
So I wanted to ask advice from the larger community, because I'm new to Ubuntu and know very little about the internal workings of computers; firmware, bios, etc. Does my plan seem sensible, or have I missed something that's going to screw me over? Even though I got a good deal the money was a huge investment for me.
My second option is to return the laptop and get a System76 machine, but a similar spec machine will set me back half as much again as I paid for this Samsung. Perhaps people could suggest whether they think that would be worth it. I'd really like my new laptop to last the 6 years my last one did.