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Reasons not to put DVDs on ultra-portables:

1. It's the most fragile and mechanical part of the whole thing
2. It takes up space that I would rather devote to a thicker case or more battery
3. It's useless. I can always plug in a USB DVD drive and copy twenty movies over to the HD before my flight, or I can access my PC's DVD over the net
4. Gee, isn't it lovely to have a built-in (non-replaceable) DVD player now that BluRay has just won the format war and I won't be buying any more DVD movies?

It's time for optical drives on ultra-portables to go the way of the floppy disk or the parallel port.

So for me, "doesn't have a DVD" is an advantage of the Air. Vs these two options, I would take the Panasonic Toughbook T7 over either of these machines. It has real USB and Ether ports (unlike the Air), it has a two-button mouse (unlike the Air), and it is not encumbered with a DVD (unlike the X300), and it doesn't have a keyboard "clit" (I real real clits, not keyboard clits).

The business models, as the grand-parent suggest, are not heavy at all. Kinda expensive, yes, but tougher than most and freakishly light.

The CF-T series has a 12" screen, core 2 duo processor, no optical drive, and clocks in around 1.2kg. The W series is very similar but adds an optical drive, at less than 1.5kg. (that's about 3 lbs).

All of those laptops have water proof keyboards, should be able to survive a drop from 1 meter and take 100kg of pressure. There are videos on Youtube of people testing these claims (seems to be true).

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/products.asp

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/laptop-computers.asp

If you can afford one. The military uses these quite a bit. I had no problem with them in Iraq.

The people who REALLY MUST have their laptop work, like the US Special Forces, use these.

You'll also want a travel charger/solar backpack like this.

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/laptop-computers.asp used in EMS and Military.

Hard Drive DVD ROM Case

Other software:

0. Install DSL to hard disk, reboot, and configure

1. Upgrade (Apps->Tools) to gnu utils

2. Install gcc

3. Install zile (MyDSL) for editing convenience

4. Other software (for building natively and installation):

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.7/linux-2.6.23.tar.bz2

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-1.95.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-2.4.tar.bz2

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.tar.bz2

http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/download/lzo-2.02.tar.gz

http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz

http://www/perl.com/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.8.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.61.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/libtool-1.5.24.tar.gz

http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R3/src/everything/index.html

`grep bz2 index.html | sed s/^.*\.bz2\"\>// | sed s/\<.*// | sed s,^,http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R7.3/src/everything/,`

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org?p=xorg/util/modular.git;a=blob_plain;f=build-from-tarballs.sh

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.0.1.tar.gz

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/libpng/libpng-1.2.24.tar.gz

http://www.fontconfig.org/release/fontconfig-2.5.0.tar.gz

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.3.5.tar.bz2

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/libxcb-1.1.tar.bz2

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxslt-1.1.22.tar.gz

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxml2-2.6.30.tar.gz

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/xcb-proto-1.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/pthread-stubs/libpthread-stubs-0.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xau/libXau-1.0.3.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xproto/xproto-7.0.11.tar.bz2

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/battery/oem/chem/lithion/ Panasonic makes them, but they are not available to consumers due to safety issues.

If I had to pick one for this list, I'd go with the Panasonic Toughbook 30. That thing is not easy to touch type on. You really have to deliberately press each individual key firmly.

Amen. Personally I have never owned such a useful microwave as this one Turn knob to select time, hit start. A few extra buttons that I use often such as 'add 10 seconds' and everything else is out of the way. Then I look at my stove and cry, it has at least 30 buttons.

I said relay + other components.

Miliamps * Voltage = Power. Many of the relatively small (120V/4A) 24V relays I have used require 10-20mA for reliable activation... that's already between a quarter and half a watt for the coil alone.

http://pewa.panasonic.com/pcsd/product/pwr/pdf_cat/jq.pdf

There you go, miniature relays (less than 1/4 cubic inch) that operate in the 200-400mW area and this is data straight from a manufacturer.

Macfags always resort to this argument. If we pc users really want top of the top, first class quality hardware, we can buy the Panasonic Toughbook, and kill you by crushing your head with this laptop, and the laptop will continue working. There is nothing like that available for the macfags.
http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/products.asp

You could try buying a Panasonic Toughbook. Not really cheap but as far as I know, they're made in Japan. AND they're quality stuff.

It would be more interesting to find out what would happen if the key to the Sony standalone BluRay players was discovered.

They'd probably do what standalone DVD player vendors do - release a firmware update as a disc image that customers could download, burn, and insert into their standalone player. From there, it works much the same way as flashing a desktop computer's BIOS - the DVD player starts to load the disc, recognizes it as an update, and flashes its firmware. (For example, Pansonic has nearly two dozen updates like this available in the DVD Firmware section of their support site.)

From a quick check on the Sony support site, they've already released a disc-based firmware upgrade for their BDP-S1 BluRay Player, so this seems like the route Sony would use if they ever had to push out new keys.

There are plenty of lenses that are image-stabilized with gyros and moving lens elements. Look up the Panasonic Lumix series

the toughbook-30 looks fantastic in bright direct sunlight as it has a correct reflective LCD instead of a standard Laptop screen, IF ordered correctly.

Can you order it without the correct screen? The Panasonic site makes it seem like it's standard.

Most places do not buy the right gear when it comes to toughbooks because their accounting department craps their pants when they see the price.

If so, Amazon has it listed for $4,169.95 which doesn't seem unreasonable, considering it's not hard to order a Lenovo ThinkPad for that much. I'm sure the specs aren't as good (fast/big/bells/whistles) but they're both 'high-end' notebooks, just with different requirements docs.

Now, how are the Linux drivers? I understand the DoD uses them in this fashion, so I'm guessing 'good enough'.

Getting on an airplane with one of These
can panic the TSA morons quite fast.

The thing looks like a bomb from the TV show 24.

At minimum you look like a spy or someone who is not doing good things.

.... (after all it is 11 pages) Try surfing here for some quick hits on how their notebooks are tested and what standards they meet.

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/df_tes t.asp

If they weren't so bloody expensive, I'd get one. It looks like it would survive the real world quite nicely. If only all notebooks were built to HALF of what these are built to survive.

Tapes aren't going away yet, there are several HD formats in the pro video world that are tape-based, although they aren't mini-enough for consumer user. That's ok because HDV is pretty good for consumer video. Right now the only removable memory system in pro video uses solid state cards http://panasonic.com/business/provideo/p2/index.as p and they are kinda 'spensive for the size. Panny doesn't have a tape format that can take DVCPRO HD, just these P2 cards.

On topic, forget these no name laptops that give away samples to shady review sites, Panasonic Toughbook is the real deal.

When the article contains remarks like this:

Most digicams are plastic, plastic, and more plastic. They feel flimsy and they're not all that hard to break. DSLRs are built to much higher standards

then you can tell that it is not particularly helpful at all. A great many 'digicams' are very nicely constructed. For example, the rather lovely Lumix range from Panasonic/Leica, one of which I am lucky enough to own, are extremely well constructed and are largely made from metals and special composites which do not feel 'plastic' in the least. They also have excellent ergonomics and performance. Many smaller cameras are also very nicely constructed, often from metal - the Canon Ixus range comes to mind.

I agree that DSLRs are nice, and I plan to acquire one myself. But it is not helpful to publish a list of 'reasons' which are little more than vague assertions that A is better than B, without taking into account either reality, or the very valid reasons why B might be preferable for many people.

I can't tell exactly how you treat your notebooks just from your words, but it seems to me that you're asking too much for a traditional design, even that of a ThinkPad, which is renowned for its quality, durability, and occasionally fly-ability (like being thrown from the 2nd floor of an apartment but still survived...)

Maybe a Toughbook or something like that will suite you more...? http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/home.a sp

Cheap not so much but Panasonic Toughbooks http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/home.a sp and, well, the Getac M220 http://www.getac.com/m220.htm look like they'd survive a warzone.

Unfortunatly if I'm not mistaken they are like 4grand...

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd be more then willing to sacrifice performance for durability. Am I the only one who thinks this way? Or are there laptop manufacturers out there who make decent, cheap machines that are built like tanks, but don't necessarily have a higher end hardware inside?

    Cheap, not. But you can try Panasonic Toughbook or even beyond, check out Itronix.

Panasonic says their displays will go to half-brightness in 60,000 hours. I had to turn the brightness WAY down as part of calibrating it (it was too bright). So if I'm still using this thing in 27.4 years (6 hours a day, every day), I guess I'll have to bump up the brightness a bit.

http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servle t/PlasmaFAQ?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&langId=- 1&catGroupId=24973#tv6

At least Panasonic Toughbook-29 seems to meet your temperature (and humidity) specifications:
http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/df_tes t.asp#12

Though that is only part of the solution...

Lithium-ion batteries won't tolerate high heat. Leaving them in a parked vehicle on a summer day in the Nevada desert can expose them to temperatures much over the 60C (140F) specified maximum during dischage. Those warnings are printed on the case for good reason!

Dont forget about the panasonics http://www.panasonic.com/catcomputer/.
Some of the most reliable laptops i've had, and they are considered the most durable and light. But a bit pricey though.

It's a battery, not capacitor. Citizen claims an expected battery life of between 15 to 30 years. I have an Ecodrive watch that is now 9 years old.

Actually, boycotting Sony and BMG is hard, very hard.

With Sony - there are DVDs, and Music CDs, complete works of one artist or band, that must be boycotted.

But now when renting DVDs or buying CDs, or even downloading iTunes, I have to take that second look to make sure it isn't Sony or BMG. And yes, even if I wanted it, I'll put it back on the shelf. There are other suppliers of media that don't root kit infect your computer just to play some songs.

Boycotting the Electronics is easy, because lets face it, Samsung and Panasonic have taken the lead with TVs, Canon and Nikon have the lead in cameras, and if you like squandering your life, XBOX 360 will turn hours of productive time in to soul emptying wastefulness (as well as take away your extra spending cash.)

Skipping buying any VAIO computers is easy - HP Media Center PCs and Apple Macs are just fine for most tasks. Laptops, well pick your flavor - what ever you like.

MP3 Players - for the cheap ones, Creative is good, for all the extras, the iPod does a great job. And for the portable CD players - you can get good no-name players for like, $9 bucks on sale. If you drop it and break it, you wont be crying over the lost $70 for overly fancy CD-players.

Checking your components, Sony CD players, DVD players, and Sony media - as long as you double check before you buy, you should be able to live quite well, if not better, in a Sony / BMG free world. In fact, you might just save some money, since you're not paying for the 'Sony' name...

Panasonic already has one, but the P2 cards are over priced IMO:

http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/hvx200/ index.asp

Panaosnic makes some real top-end camera/DVR solutions. The DVR unit itself (WJ-HD300A DVR Series) has a built-in 250GB hard drive but is expandable to 7.5TB externally. Each unit can handle 16 cameras. It will work with any camera capable of sending out a composite signal (through a BNC connector) but if you use the Panasonic cameras (WV-CS954) you get the added capability of being able to remotely pan, zoom and tilt through the web interface. They are pretty slick with great resolution. I set some up for a construction site so that the remote company managing the construction could monitor progress. They don't run Windows but rather a proprietary OS. Also, the only port you need open for viewing is port 80 as it all runs over a web interface.

Panaosnic makes some real top-end camera/DVR solutions. The DVR unit itself (WJ-HD300A DVR Series) has a built-in 250GB hard drive but is expandable to 7.5TB externally. Each unit can handle 16 cameras. It will work with any camera capable of sending out a composite signal (through a BNC connector) but if you use the Panasonic cameras (WV-CS954) you get the added capability of being able to remotely pan, zoom and tilt through the web interface. They are pretty slick with great resolution. I set some up for a construction site so that the remote company managing the construction could monitor progress. They don't run Windows but rather a proprietary OS. Also, the only port you need open for viewing is port 80 as it all runs over a web interface.

Here is where my concern for the fate of the thinkpad comes. They are expensive, not using state of the art tech (for a reason, though), no flashy design, but build like a rock. Lenovo already started making metallic covers and using newest technology (instead of testing for durability first), now they're going budget and even dumping the trackpoint. Seems like they are moving away from the thinkpad philosophy, and moving towards the usual fancy-looking crap notebooks you can buy anywhere already. The new ones here aren't called thinkpad, that leaves a bit of hope that they may do a 2-way scheme, budget lenovo and high-quality thinkpad lenovo. I really hope that when the 5-year transition period from IBM to lenovo has ended there are still trustworthy thinkpads built, so I can buy one by then.

I'll have an alternative, though, the panasonic toughbook. http://www.panasonic.com/toughbook The hits I find at google for those things show that you can get one for a reasonable price. Not black and no trackpoint, though ;)

While your point about older laptops is well made..you REALLY cannot compare a toughbook to the other two you mentioned, certainly not to a dell..not as far as physical toughness goes.

Toughbook: http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/im ages/models/cf-29ctkgzzm.jpg

Thinkpad: http://www.ibm.com/pc/us/thinkpad/images/hero_x.jp g

Which one of them would you guess can be run over, dropped, put in very humid environements, and still keep working fine? I take my old CF-27 everywhere. From work to dirtbiking (used for mapping etc)..

Panasonic is selling a new DVCPRO HD camcorder, starting at about $5500 USD

AG-HVX200

You can record DVCPRO HD to a Direct To Edit (DTE) hard disk.

Cineporter CP-2

Rebates are used, Baker says, because unlike regular sales, people perceive them as a one-time opportunity to get a product at a lower price than it would normally be sold at. "You want to make believe that there is a special opportunity here and rebates are the best mechanism for that," he says. They are especially valuable to electronics retailers because they don't scale pricing up and down the way some other retailers do.

Flywheels? The simplest way to store power would be an electric double layer capacitor. No moving parts. They can come in up to 70F at 2.1V - that's 140 C of charge. At 10 mW of power, 2.1V is 5mA of current; that means that it can stay above 1.5V for 2 hours. If a higher voltage is needed, put the capacitors in series. And these are not huge devices. Here's a datasheet for one

Not at all. The current generation of hybrids are all running Nickel Metal Hydride "D" batteries, which are pretty safe overall. See Panasonic's disclosure. The worst chemical in them is the Potassium Hydroxide... which you should avoid contact with but which is not generally considered toxic. (Like the lead used in convential starter batteries)

You can simple toss NiMH batteries in the standard municipal waste stream, although recycling them is always a good idea.

The batteries carry an extended warrenty, 7-8 years IIRC. Accelerated testing has shown that they will probably last considerably longer and the price for replacements has already fallen to about $1500.

Buying a hybrid might be hard to justify financially (since the gas savings are unlikely to offset the price premium for a long while) but its still a good thing environmentally.

Funny, my Panasonic PV-GS35 has a USB-2 port which I used recently to rip a perfectly sync'd video to disk. The sales-guy told me I'd want the optional firewire cable, but I just laughed at him.

Granted, if you plug it into a USB-1 port, it'll refuse to send anything but audio, but I can vouch for fireware not being a must for video editing. Firewire is great and all, but USB2 really narrowed the gap quite a bit.

I've see hundreds of various laptop models. I've seen some pretty durable laptop-like varients as well (Military systems).

I'd have to say one of my favorites has been the Panasonic Toughbook http://www.panasonic.com/computer/toughbook/design _features.asp

The harddrive is enclosed in a sealed and HEAVILY padded chamber. The keyboard is fully sealed. The case is tough as shit... I bet you could drive a decent size truck over it and it won't break.

Definately expensive tho....

I recommend against anything from Fijitsu (they're stingy bastards that go with cheap low quality parts). Although IBM (Now "Lenovo" even though its the same amazing engineers) Thinkpads are built pretty solid... I can't recommend them for hash environment use.

I believe you're looking for a Panasonic Toughbook. These are standard issue in the Air Force for any portable computer not confined to an office setting. They even make one that's designed to military specifications. They are a bit expensive, but I've even seem some with armoured keyboards. They should be able to handle desert abuse with little problem.

And I'll say it too. Panasonic ToughBooks are the way to go. Used to service these things for the US Army back at Fort Campbell and the top end units you could have a HMMWV run over it and it would survive: LCD OK, powered on OK and booted straight into the OS. Got a couple back from NTC at Fort Irwin (tank training, in the middle of the desert) and all but one came back unscathed. The one failure was due to a crappy LS-120 drive.

Panasonic(R) Toughbook(R) 29 Wins Laptop Magazine Torture Test,
Panasonic's own case studies.

I can't seem to find any links Re: military/sand, but again I seem to remember something about the Toughbooks being used in Iraq (#1, #1.5 or #2, I'm not sure). I've never used one myself, but it may be a place to start!

These ones will take a lot of abuse. I use them in the California and Arizona deserts every so often without too much trouble.

Itronix GoBook
Panasonic Toughbook

They are more expensive than your average notebooks but the extra costs means they take a beating from a baseball bat and still be fully functional. Also unlike some of the other types of MIL SPEC notebooks these actually look and function similar to a regular notebook.

the ToughBook from panasonic looks like it would do the trick, though it's rather slow and expensive.

IMHO, my HD plasma looks incredible. What does look good to you?

What's the durability concern? Panasonic states that a current display will reach half brightness in 60,000 hours. That's 20+ years if you watch 7 hours a day, every day and it's *half* brightness.

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/plas ma_microsite_05/flash.asp

This was the exact thinking i was going to suggest. Your best option is to get the specs from the exec in charge of the contract. Your best resource for confirming requirements is going to be your own leadership.

Panasonic Toughbooks are probably the most used laptops for such purposes. Their laptops are designed for military and police use. Your best bet is to always secure your laptop, use something like PGP to keep your drives encrypted, never connect to any network, modem, usb, or floppy. It should be as simple as disabling those devices in the bios and useing a nice long alpha numberic bios password.

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/soluti on_home.asp

I've had a wireless phone for years, never a single problem during a blackout, it works fine.

By wireless, do you mean cell phones or cordless phones?

Cordless phones definitely "die" during a blackout.

I have a 72 (replaced by the 73 in recent years) and it's been everywhere with me. They're a little heavy, but you can drop them from a meter onto concrete surfaces and have them work so that's worth the extra weight. There are some solar chargers available too, for times when you're far away from the grid.

If you're strapped for cash and don't mind a slightly slower machine you can usually find good deals on ebay. The P3-800 range - my machine - can be had for about $500, and the lower end PS-300's come as cheap as $200.