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Which Laptop To Buy?
Misha writes: "In this day and age, it seems that the advertisement offers for desktop systems have slowed down in term of features. Everyone has agreed that AGP, DVD, >1GHz, etc. is what everyone will want. This does not seem to be the case with laptops. Every year, they manage to cram a bigger resolution screen, more system and graphical memory, more battery life into a less-than-two-inch thick plactic box. So, what are everyone's preferences as far as laptops go? What kind of features are most important? How does price enter the equation? Which one is best for the money? And especially, can you get a decent machine for under $1000?" I've been using the IBM Thinkpad T20 for the last year or so, and love the machine -- with the exception of the WinModem *sigh*. What else is everyone using?
If you want something decent for under $1000, you've pretty much gotta go used. I got a PII 400, 256mb, 14.1", 12GB for $400 off of eBay. ~Will
This might not be a popular response for /., but I have a bunch of laptops and notice that I always carry the lightest one if in any way possible. For most of the things you do on the road, anything you can buy nowadays is plenty powerful enough. Another rather important consideration if battery life. I have pretty good luck borrowing power in airports and hotels, but a laptop that shuts down after less than 3 hours is annoying.
As far as quality goes, I had pretty good luck with Dell, some with Sony and none with Toshiba and IBM. But YMMVW. If your company is buying, get the replace-and-send-back warranty.
if you dont have the $ for a Tibook, the g3 laptops are getting cheaper. especially the first generation ones. most of the problems with the first gen g3s are gone these days. not to mention, who wouldnt want a cheap laptop that can run osx?
"Alot of people don't know what they are doing...and most are pretty good at it." -George Carlin
Is an IBM Thinkpad i1400. It's a decent thinkpad, winmodem, but intel NIC (integrated). the screen is only 800x600 (blah!) but the newer low end (read: ~1,000-1,500$) all come with 1024x768 Active Matrix TFT.
:(
Mine is a celeron 500MHz (this is good, as it is the 100MHz FSB version, not the 66MHz Crap they put in desktops).
I have installed linux on it, in fact, there are about 5 different websites out on the web that tell me how to install linux on this exact model. I couldn't get the modem working tho
If you want the best laptop for LINUX, then i would have to say IBM and Apple's iBook are your best bets. Sure, the iBook has a shitty CPU in it, but, it uses very little battery life (compared to a p3). And apple is all about not being compatible with the rest of the world. Well friends, when it comes to laptops, there are only a few things that matter. and CPU architecture isn't one of them. If you are running Linux on an x86 machine, or Linux on a PPC machine, its' all the same. I bet, if you are a linux guru that wants to run all the latest beta shitware on sourceforge, you wont want the iBook, because it will take some porting to get it to compile/running properly. but if you stick with software that comes with your distribution, then x86 and PPC are all the same.
For 1,300$ base end, and 1,900$ for high end iBook, i consider it a good buy for a linux laptop. (I paid $950 for my IBM 500MHz Celeron, 192MB ram, 800x600 active matrix TFT, NIC, winmodem, generic sound, i810 video (intel's), I think it was a steal about when i bought it 9 months ago)
If you were you, i would stay away from Dell laptops. For one, they are not like Dell desktops. They arent the "stable" machine on the block like the optiplex is. Not only that, but Dell is dropping Linux support on the desktop, so you can forget getting a Dell that is gonna run linux any better than IBM or apple. All in all, with my experience with dell laptops (i service them, gateway, and Apple's laptops under warranty where i work), I would have to say that Dells, and certain models of Apple's are the least reliable. (apple PB g3 Wallstreet comes to mind! Don't worry, bronze kb is a good one)
I hope you like my brief review, this is just my experience.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
For me, ergonomics plays a bigger role than the processor speed and all those fixins, next to that I'd like a nice clear screen, doesn't have to be big.<p>
Things to consider when buying a laptop:
1. If you want to play (3D) games, make sure that you have a GeForce 2 Go chipset. It's the only one that allows you to play newer games at decent framerates
2. For Linux you should check whether your built-in modem is supported
3. Integrated WaveLan/WiFi is a cool feature if you know other people who have it, much better than an external PCMCIA card
4. If you want to use external drives (CD burner, faster harddisks (Laptops harddisks are slooow)), make sure you have a FireWire/iLink/ieee1394 port
5. built-in ethernet is always a useful feature
I say go with the Dell Latitude. My last two employers both made the switch to Dell Latitudes, and they are by far the best, IMHO. My last employer was previously an IBM Thinkpad shop, and we had nothing but problems - ever try to get serial, parallel, and infrared all working on a TP600 under NT? DON'T. Just burn the damn thing. The machines are a little better with Win2K, but they are still far from perfect (install Win2K on a TP 390. I dare you...).
You can do a fresh install of NT or 2K on a latitude, load up the correct drivers, and you're off and running - with Thinkpads you had to install the TP utility (it's bundled with Win2K but still barely works) and then spend FOREVER tweaking the resources to get everything to play happy.
However, if price is an issue, the Latitudes do come at a premium... they are geared for the corporate world, so they are on the pricey side. I had a Lat C600 with a PIII 750, 256MB, 10GB, and built in NIC/modem, and it cost roughly 3 grand when brand new (>6 months ago). However, Redhat 6.2 and 7.x ran flawlessly on the machine - once the 2.4 kernel came out, I didn't need to install drivers for anything on the box (unlike NT and 2K). Plus, the head of the Latitude design team previously worked on Apple's PowerBooks, so you know that they're gonna be more sexy than most other laptops, save the VAIO.
You could go with a Dell Inspiron instead, as they are cheaper, and generally have more bells and whistles than the Latitudes (I believe you can get them with Geforce video), but in my experience they just aren't as stable as the Latitude.
Simply the best you can get, right now.
I know, it's not Intel architecture - that's just fine. Cram it full of RAM (1Gig) and fire up a few Virtual PC windows.
It's extremely well made - except for the hinges, which flake paint after a while, but you can just brush that off and it looks fine.
Definitely a well-made piece of gear. Mac OS X runs great on it, too!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
What this means to you:
- Cheaper Laptops
- Local Computer Dealers Selling Their Own Line of Laptops (based on the ASUS,KDS base models)
- Laptops WILL bump out desktops for the mid-low, mid markets
- Desktops WILL be around for a while yet, as the ultra-cheapies (family room PCs *for the Youngins*) and high-end (power hungry video cards, huge fast hard drives that are needed for video editing, CAD design, game playing, music archiving, etc.)
Check the notebook listing on pricewatch for ASUS and KDS models. Should see a lot more activity (maybe new suppliers) in the not to distant future.FYI, I just setup a new Gateway laptop for the Veep of my division, and discovered (and showed to the boss) that you can set the laptop up to use Just VGA, Just CRT, Both VGA and CRT with the same desktop, or VGA and CRT in a dual-head setup. He still prefers the single screen, of course, but for the power-user at home, that could be a decent productivity boost.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
I've dropped a Mac laptop (520) from a height of 7' to an asphalt parking lot, and all it did was wake from sleep. Minor cosmetic damage, but nothing that affected the use of the machine. Don't try this with the average laptop.
As far as "cheering for Steve" goes, every product launch for every company in the world is primarily a big cheerleading session. Nothing unusual at Apple's.
Not at all. I tend to think of Apple hardware as the Mitsubishi of computers, not the Zenith.NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
G4 Titanium 400 with 384 MB of RAM and a dual-boot OS 9.1/10.0.4. Airport, DVD, Firewire, 15.2 inch screen - everything I need in a laptop.
And I have an iBook (Tangerine 300) running just 9.1 and 96MB of RAM. Works well as a sit around and surf machine.
My work got some IBM A21s in, pretty nice for a Windows PC, not sure how well Linux or BSD works on it though.
There are two main reasons that Mac portables fare better against Intel systems than Mac desktops.
The first is that no one's going out and putting together their own laptop from individual parts. Desktop Macs actually compare very favorably to pre-made desktop systems from Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc. It's self-assembled machines that get to be a lot cheaper than any of these, but that's not relevant for laptops.
The other is that whole hardware/software harmony thing. Things like power management and docking behaviour are non-standardized enough that there are great benefits to having the same organization make the hardware and the software. Obviously this only applies if you're running Apple's software, rather than Linux, NetBSD, or OpenBSD.
Todays kicking, expensive laptop will be junk in 2 years, and depreciate the moment you open the box. For half it's price, you can get a great 6 month old laptop every year.
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For example: if you want a good machine on the cheap, I recommend getting a refurbished IBM thinkpad 600x via ebay for about $900. Only 500mhz, but it can handle 576 MB or RAM. Still under warranty. Lots of folks using these for Linux. http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=linuxthinkp
Add a DVD for $150, zip for $50, mondo hd for $150 and push the ram up, you have a nice cheap box.
=brian
Basically, you can't get a cheaper laptop that will ship with a top notch UNIX system pre-installed. Sure you could get a PC laptop and dual boot windows and whatever, but why bother?
The iBook is very durable. I threw mine in a pillow case, then put that in my backpack so I could skateboard to school every day and it has withstood all the abuse I have given it.
It's great on the network. If the built in modem, 10/100 ethernet isn't good enough for you, you can have wireless for another 100 bucks. It's industry standard, too so you can fit in just fine on a PC network (did I mention that OS 10.1 will ship with SAMBA?) The networking code is all BSD goodness. It can't get any better than that.
Aqua is also the best GUI I have ever used. I grew up on windows, and used WindowMaker, blackbox, and enlightnement for X. Aqua blows them all away.
The only reason not to buy one is if you can't stand Apple computers or Steve Jobs for some reason. For me, I purchase computers based on technical merit, not based on petty biases, so the iBook was a great choice for me.
I like everything about my Tecra 8100... except the dreadful keyboard: the navigation keys are down the right hand side. The number of times I've hit "Home" instead of "BkSp", or "PgDn" instead of "Enter"... aarrrggghhh!
Of course, we make sure they understand that we'll let 'em do it, even help them if we can, but that we are NOT gonna go out of our way to fix shit when it breaks.
Honestly, that's what Firewalls are for. If you are really worried about managing them, simply don't support it. But to ban it is short-sighted. Think about it. How do you explain that you are not going to let people use the tools they feel the most comfortable using?
Of course, our CIO is an old Unix Admin, so we have enlightened management :)
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia