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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?
Did I misunderstand? Would Apple have fixed things for free if that extended warranty thing hadn't been purchased?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
That goes for just about all of them (though IBM seemed to have lower prices for upgrades and even has a "free" extra 64 MB upgrade for systems purchased). I just bought a pair of 128 MB PC100 SODIMMS for my Armada for ~$80 at Crucial, and I hate to think that Compaq was charging for it. Just make sure to the the correct specs (the Armada 7400 familiy uses CAS Latency 2 memory instead of the more common CAS Latency 3).
Memory prices are ridiculously cheap right now.
I'm all for user preference and all that, but that 'swizzle stick' has a big advantage. Very fine control. When used properly, you can even edit pictures using the Gimp with ease. Yes, it takes some getting used to. But think about it this way: a touch pad tries to map the screen to a small surface (the pad), using a large pointer (your finger).
Don't want to start a flame war. I admit the things can take some getting used to, and touchpads are more intuitive. But once you've mastered the nipple, you'll never go back.
The pointer is important (to me), I like the 'eraser' type that IBM has, and some others, like Dell who have dual. I hate those touch pad things(personal preference).
Hell yeah. Down with the touchpad! Up with the Trackpoint! And I thought that I was the only one. Funny thing is, most laptop makers are slowly drifting towards the touchpad (at least in the consumer models). I'm sure IBM won't because it pioneered the Trackpoint, but it's irritating to see it going away everywhere else.
I run Debian Stable on a Toshiba Libretto 100CT. It's three years old, and I still use it because I don't think anyone's yet produced anything as good. It weight 2 pounds 4 ounces, is the size of a paperback book, and will happily run a full Oracle + Apache + Tomcat servlet setup. Downside is short battery life - about 90b minutes.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I have an Inspiron 8000 (900mhz, GeForce2Go, 256megs ram, etc). It fills my needs very well. What I _need_, or rather find a major time saver, is to have one computer that I can use at work, at home, at my beach house. True portability here takes a secondary role to functionality. I need a machine with enough power to get all my tasks done (including, preferrably, the occassional 3d shooter). Furthermore, when I cannot get to an honest to god keyboard, having a near-full size built in keyboard helps a lot. I can type with most of those ultra-lights, but not nearly as well or as comfortably. [Not to mention the fact that most of them can't support 1600x1200 (or near) resolution, that I work well in]
Although I would not want to lug around this if I were on the road as a salesperson, the weight difference is pretty irrelevant to me for the occassional trip. In short, neither a desktop system or an ultra-portable can do as good of a job as what I have now.
On the other hand, Toshiba is the only laptop vendor I know of that supports Unix and Linux friendly keyboard layouts: Every Toshiba I've ever had came with an extra set of molded keytops that allows you to swap the control and caps lock keys, so you can put the control key next to the "A" where it ought to be. Then just flip a BIOS parameter and you've got the only real Unix laptop keyboard out there...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
You don't have to be so defensive.
The combination of an attractive GUI and the ability to run mainstream software with the internals of Unix have me convinced that the Mac's the only way to go nowadays.
As others have said, it's really not at all expensive compared to other laptops. Although he doesn't address the Titanium PowerBook, which I'm about to buy, I thought this was pretty interesting as a comparison between the Apple iBook and its rivals.
D
When purchasing a laptop, you want the best features, but you want the best bargain in the process. I think the iBook meets this.
Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, 1024x1260, RGB, 20 Gig, 128MB RAM, OS X, 500MHz G3, wireless AirPort.
All these for a price I can't match in the PC world, that's why I'm happy with mine. Imagine yourself on a hammock in your backyard with a laptop and an internet connection, running *nix apps. Ahhhhhhhh.
If you need a PC card slot and a faster processor, and monitor spanning, get a TiBook.
I know it's hard to beat a Mac notebook, but our org. doesn't use Macs. Personally, if I had the bones and a need for a laptop (other than just geek-factor) I'd be all over one.
Mmmmm....titanium-cased G4.... /homer
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
I LOVE my Compaq1800T. It's great. Good integrated ethernet, BEAUTIFUL screen, strong speakers, etc.
The only problem is the windows side. (I know we're not supposed to care about this, but I still play games on the go.)
Compaq doesn't give you a Windows disc. They basically give you a CD with a Ghost image on it, so you can wipe your harddrive and make it factory-fresh if you need to re-install, but that's not exactly Linux-friendly.
Otherwise, I LOVE my laptop.
- 900 MHz
- 15 inch TFT
- Ethernet + Modem built-in
- nVIDIA GeForce2Go (16 MB
...so you can't have everything... yet)
- 20 gig HDD
- DVD
- 1394/i.Link/Firewire
- $1999, or $1899 after rebate.
If I could get this and an iBook/PBG4, I'd be set for life. Or the next 6 months, whichever comes first.rooooar
Why would you do this when you have OS X?
Speaking from experience as someone who's often left to pick up the pieces because a misguided friend purchased from a windows-only shop, I don't think it's bad advice at all. I think you'll find that the aslab link I point to is fairly competitive after adding in the cost for Windows.
If you want to save $2- and spend hours on end of extra time, then that's fine. If you're timer is worth anything, you don't want to do this.
you can get linux free or very checply on cd
Yes, but how long does it take to set up when you're not sure that your hardware is 100% ? Laptops have much more proprietary hardware than desktops. If you waste 8 hours or so of your time setting it up, how much is that worth to you ?
if you have to go and buy an MS OS you have just added up to $200.00 or more to your laptop
Windows 9x OEM is no more than $100-. NT 4.0 comes free with the $100- student edition visual C++ (if you're a student).
My Dell C600 runs linux and Win2k great. Infact RedHat 7.1 loves being docked, undocked and finds all my hardware including the MiniPCI modem, Ethernet, the Docked Ethernet and Docked SCSI adaptor as well as my different video modes for docked/undocked settings as well.
I got the C600 with 256 megs of ram, 20 gig drive, 1600x1400 lcd screen, 1ghz, ethernet (3com), modem (3com), 2nd battery, cdrom and all for ~2k.
This PC lets me play whatever game i want on the road, the Savage 128 bit video card runs great (does accelerated GL under NT, dunno about linux). Sound card is recognized from sndconf.. no "win" hardware on this machine.
Don't just buy a laptop because you think you need to write a document on the road, if anything you can be compiling code, playing a game, working on the same stuff you work on at your desk.
My laptop is great. It is what i use at work, what i use at home, and what i use on the road.
Most importantly. IT IS USEFULL!
A dead laptop is useless. If you travel further than your living room, pay special attention to battery life. Unfortunately, models change so quickly that magazine reviews can scarcely keep up, so you're at the mercy of the specs.
One thing that sold me on the VAIO F-series is that you can take out the floppy and put in a second battery. That's good for about five hours, total.
Yeah, they're not bad little machines. The company that I was working at was sold to a competitor and they're getting rid of hteir old equipment. I bought my Armada 7400 (PII 266 MHz) for $125 and got 256 MB of RAM for it from Micron/Crucial for ~$80. It's a handy little machine for spending $200, and I don't really have any complaints. And wouldn't you know that right after I bought it I just found a Dell Latitude CPx (PIII 600) in storage that they're selling for $600. I may just have to upgrade since I like the CPx much better than the 7400s (not to mention the speed increase). But if I were buying a laptop new I'd definitely go with an IBM Thinkpad. They're by far the highest quality laptops that I've ever used. Unfortunately they'll set you back $1500-$2000 for the low-end machines. I've seen Compaq Presario (I hear they're junk) and HP consumer-level laptops in stores for $1200-$1300 + a rebate, but I can't vouch for their quality. What I can say is definitely go for something with a nice long warranty. A faulty LCD panel for my Armada 7400 is almost $900 to replace (I had to replace a few at work) if it's not under warranty. And being portable you're much more likely to have something break on a laptop than your desktop machine.
Lucent wavelan bronze. An old card from someone else who gave up on it. Managers get the best around here, engineers get their cast offs. Other than the small screen and doze this laptop is nice.
I have replaced the floppy/cd drive with a second li ion battery, something I strongly recomend. On one battery I don't get much life.
I bought a sony vaio pcg-505f a couple of years ago for $1300 and it's worked wonderfully. It's really small and light. The power adapter is also small and light, which makes a big difference.
The only problem I've had is that the battery died. Not a big deal to me as I don't really use it on the plane while flying.
I run redhat and I actually use it mostly for storage. It's great to save and distribute my digital camera photos when travelling - or to load my rio 500 with audiobooks and tunes.
I would say less than the weight of a magazine if computer shopper was still in it's heyday, but nowadays it's about the size and weight of 2-3 magazines at the airport. It's always small enough to pack in my smallest bag.
I think the price of the vaio family has steadily climbed as sony adds features. It looks like the average price has climbed to $2500 or so...
Not so. 256 MB of RAM in a laptop is nothing. I've got that in my 2 year-old Armada.
Mobile Athlon 4 chips are widely available now. I was at Best Buy the other day and saw HP and Compaq laptops with mobile Athlon 4 chips in them.
I haven't been looking that closely at the video chips available, but a quick browse past Nvidia's site shows that only Dell and Toshiba are making systems using the GeForce2Go. Unfortunately, neither of them are using Athlon 4 processors in any of their systems. Though I have been hearing rumours lately that Dell may start shipping a couple models with an Athlon 4, I wouldn't put much stock in them. They seem to go around and around with AMD every year and then just before they cut a deal Intel gives them a better price to stay Intel-only.
At any rate, a system with his desired specs shouldn't be too far off in the future. The GeForce2Go and the Athlon 4 are both fairly new products, but I imagine that by the end of the year he'd be able to find a system equipped as described.
1600x1200 actual pixel screen (!), clean audio (kernel 2.4 native support), cdrw (ide-scsi works), pcmcia/cardbus (I'm using wireless ethernet right now as I type), suspend/resume, firewire and usb. ethernet 10/100 is eepro100 - one of the best.
yes, it has a winmodem, but its also a LINMODEM too (at ... OK).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
SuSE powerPC edition. You can run native mac apps on top of it like adobe photoshop and java compilers. In the x86 world we can not run most if any windows apps so linuxpowerpc is the better deal. If I could buy a new machine, I would buy a mac and do this. I would love to run photoshop and doom.
http://saveie6.com/
Batteries are a real rip-off item in the laptop industry. They don't cost the OEMs anywhere near what they an charge for them and they are extremely high-margin(profit) items, so they are responsible for several disturbing design trends in laptops:
1) All efforts to standardize on batteries have failed, despite several industry-wide attempts. The OEMS simply don't want you to have commodity batteries. Hardware lock-in lives on.
2) The OEMs *want* poor battery life, so that customers feel they have to buy at least one extra battery just to get by. The margin on an extra battery can be half as much as the margin on the whole laptop!
3) Have you noticed that you can't even buy replacement Li-Ion *cells* to fix old, tired battery packs? Granted, such repairs aren't for the faint-hearted, and you need to make sure charging circuitry, etc. is right to avoid fire hazard, but so far as I can tell from a search for single-A size cells to freshen a Toshiba Libretto battery pack a couple of weeks ago, these things might as well be unobtainium.
Laptop batteries are one of the great hardware scams of our time - right up there with computerized engine control units and CFC-free refrigeration and air conditioning.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Not that I am aware of, sorry.
. . .
Please don't flame me, as a helpful AC ( in this post ) has already mentioned this machine's existence.
But it too me searching through 700 posts to fnd a reference and I don't have any mod points . .I've been thinking hard about this one. Byte Reviewed the new Libretto L1 here and it sounds awesome. Not only Crusoe based, but has Bluetooth too. Which may not be to your liking, or cause grief on 2.4ghz, depending on your air interface preferences. But hey, I got a Bluetooth GPRS mobile and it's soooo tempting :)
The informed AC gave a very cool reference for Linux info : on Yahoo Groups to which I can only add this picture gallery froma company I found who sells the things properly localised, but, sadly, not with a distro.
Please forgive me if my post already redundant, but this little machine could rock.
If that ain't goodenough for you, tak a look at the reflective TFT models with NEC called Versa Daylight. I'm currently biased towards battery life, for reasons well posted in other arguments.Oooh - oo I just saw NEC have some MIPS based things that look like rebadged HP Jornada 720s, only nicer looking. Wonder if anyone can get Linux support on these???
What many people here forget to mention is linuxpowerpc can run native mac apps like MS-word, and photoshop. This is diffinetly a plus. Macosx comes wiht some but not nearly all the tools that I am used to with linux. SuSE has linux powerpc with close to 2,000 apps and I believe Debian might have a stable powerpc distro or is working on one( don't know the anwser).
Anyway if anyone who is reading this is thinking about buying an intel laptop, remember that you can't run windows apps wiht linuxX86. But with linuxpowerpc you can always stay in linux and still have all the apps like MS-word, IE, DOOM, photoshop, etc.
http://saveie6.com/
Just make sure you upgrade to the 2.4 kernel because the 2.2 kernel apparently doesn't support power management very well. --Bud
I've used everything from the Tecra 730, up to the Satellite Pro 8100. Beautiful machines, and they run linux flawlessly.
I have a dell inspiron 5000. It's very nice with a 15" 1400x1050 res screen. As far as the things that I want to get, it goes: Screen (res + size), Proc speed, ram, HD, vid card. Most people won't be using their laptop for games anyway, so a powerful video card wouldn't be very useful.
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
IBM laptops are great, they work wonderfully. I *have* the T20 that was mentioned in the writeup. Winmodem or no, every piece of hardware works in Linux. The winmodem is Lucent based, and has Linux support.
Best I've used is still a Dell Latitude CSx. Was metal cased, and very nice. Everything worked great and it was tiny.
http://www.compaq.com/support/techpubs/whitepapers /0206-0799-A.html
Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
I've been using a compaq 1800T with linux and windows for almost a year now, with very few problems. At the time I bought it, it was easily the most feature complete laptop I found for the money. And the 1400x1050 screen resolution (which works under linux) is pretty stunning...
One thing for potential compaq buyers: don't pay extra for memory upgrades from compaq. You can do far better at other places on the net (ebay included). I bought mine with 64M installed, and upgraded to 192M for *half* the price that compaq was charging...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
I was sold on this one after taking a friend's out on a test drive. One of the sleekest yet solidy built machines I've seen in a while. I'm planning to buy one within the next few months. It's not below $1000, though (I think it's more around $1500). I'm pretty optimistic they'll get the issues with OS X worked out so that more applications work properly. I haven't done too much research into loading Linux PPC onto the new iBooks, are there any hardware/driver conflicts out there to watch out for?
I do a lot of 3d game programming and development, so I've been holding off for a decent laptop that can match our development systems. Basically, I want to get an Athlon 4 based system, with a geforce 2 go, and 256 megs of ram. As soon as I can get something like that, there will be a point to buying a laptop. Until then, I guess I'm just chained to my home and work machines.
I just got a Sony Vaio XG-700K, and it's a pretty sweet package. It comes with seperate DVD and Cd-RW drives. The screen is 1024 x 768 XGA and pretty crisp and can be replaced with a privacy screen for cheap off eBay.
It's a 750 megahertz PIII, has built in modem but no ethernet. With two PCMCIA slots, though, you can jam an ethernet card and 802.11b card with no problems.
Downsides? Everything is expensive. Battery is $250 (200 on eBay), extra AC adapter is $100 or so, and so on.
It's a great laptop, and there are linux drivers for the custom stuff (like the Jogdial).
I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 - The one with a 32MB AGP card, 15" screen with 1600x1200 res. Now there is a niiice machine!
I had a hard time installing linux on it though - but since the 2.4 kernel came out I had no probs =)
Pity that they (supposedly) don't support linux any more.
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
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.
Are there people our there running Linux on laptops that are under 4 pounds ? What are your opinions on these ?
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.
Here's my shortlist of vendors who preload Linux on laptops:
I encourage other posters to add to the list.
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>
I Just purchased and recieved a Dell inspiron 8000. Very nice, 1Ghz, 256mb pc100, 32mb geforce2go 3d card, a 8x DVD and a 8x CD-RW, a 15" screen. This thing can fly, and play with the big boys. And it wasn't too bad at $2,400.
Captain Napalm, aka Sheridan Hurd Woohoo go dawgs!!! University of Washington rocks!!
Look no further. Expensive beast, but well worth it. This page has a comparison of all the Thinkpad T models (or is that Model Ts?). You can get the T22 pre-loaded w/ Linux, but it's Caldera...ick. Check out the keyboard light, that one feature is worth the price of admission.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Best freakin laptop I've ever used. Great keyboard. Great screen. Great size. Not too heavy. I love this thing and it runs Linux really well.
I don't use the winmodem, as I generally don't use a modem at all. If it came down to it though, I'd get a PCMCIA modem before I'd give up my T20.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Actually Asus has been making laptops for a while now. I used an old Asus P/233 laptop at my last job, and it was excellent machine, considering the hardware specs (P/233MMX, 48MB RAM, 2.1GB HDD). Excellent screen and keyboard too. Of course, YMMV.
I picked up this Toshiba about 2 1/2 months ago, and it has worked great with linux. Its a nice thin laptop too.
For $1200 (almost 3 months ago.. price has prolly dropped) I got a 700Mhz Celeron, 64M ram (I added another 128M for $50), 13.3 Active TFT 1024x768 (really crisp), DVD, built in modem (haven't tried it out in linux -- use my pcmcia ethernet).
The only problem I have had is with sound. I haven't found good support under linux for the cs4281. Upping my kernel to 2.4.3-12 helped.. but mp3s skip a lot. The OSS drivers work perfectly, but I refuse to drop them cash ($45!) because I'm too lazy to fix things myself. Anyone have this soundcard working well on a laptop?
Here is a unit that comes in at 4.3 LBS, and is Linux Compatible. Great Guys to deal with as well.
http://www.qlitech.net/products/laptops/king.html
"Fortune, Fame, Mirror Vain, Gone Insane..... But The Memory Remains...
...is the kind that costs $50 at Cheetah's Totally Nude.
I really like my i8k. It was only $2200 for 900MHz + dvd/cdrom + builting ethernet + modem + etra battery. And best of all, it has 1600x1200. The Equivelent IBM was almost $4k.
Of course, if you want to have a small, light machine, you are better off with one of the new Librettos...
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.
As rho mentioned in his excellent post, a lot depends on how you want to use your laptop. But there's even more to it than that.
For example, untll very recently, I've had a tough time finding a laptop with the right combination of a big keyboard, a useful pointing device, a crisp screen, and Firewire capability.
Those things happen to be important to me, but to someone else, the equasion might be: big-ass hard drive, super light weight, a blistering fast CPU, and dual PC card capability.
If you're really going to *use* your laptop, rather than just have it for bonus geek point value, figure out what the most important elements are for your particular needs, then research accordingly.
No matter what anyone says, there's still no flat-out world-dominating laptop out there, since all laptops have to compromise one factor or another. It's just a matter of which compromises you mind less than others.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The new apple iBooks are really, really nice pieces of hardware, particularly for the money, and they run Yellow Dog beautifully. See this slashdot article for more info.
I keep telling people about them and they say: "But this Toshiba goes to 11."
Yeah, and you can edit digital video on the road with this one, and it does everything that that Toshiba does.
"But this one goes to 11."
I administer a mixed office of macs, linux boxen and windows machines, and feel that all three machines have their place, it just seems sometimes that people don't give apple's hardware its due. Whatever else is wrong with them (and there's plenty, of which I'm sure I will be reminded in the posts that follow this one up) they do make really, really good hardware, and it's not as expensive as everybody thinks that it is. Go configure an iBook at the apple store, then configure a notebook from any other manufacturer to the same specs (if you can) and look at the price. I'd be surprised if there's $100 difference either way. And between OS X and Yellow Dog, there are plenty of configuration options.
Don't take me for a mac zealot, I just hate it when people either (a dismiss apple just 'cause their apple, or, (b make an uninformed or prejudicial decision for any reason. Apple certainly has their shortcomings, and I am not blind to them, they often seem to forget that good design is: "form plus function, followed by meaning." But don't let that discourage you from looking.
Watch out for the Apple service. they are the loosers in the industry. We fix apple's where I work, and they are the absolute worst. The best thing about them is that you can send them back to apple for little cost and get them fixed within a week if something goes wrong (if you call this a good thing). If you have an apple authorized service center near you, then it is a little easier.
The main thing to watch out for is the 1 year warranty. Out of everyone i have ever known to own the Black keyboard Powerbook G3 (aka wallstreet) they have all had major repairs done to them. The worse thing is that the inverter board goes bad, and you have to pay apple $328.00 flat fee for any repairs. apple doesn't allow ASP's to work on their laptops anymore, so any time it breaks, this ~$330 fee applies (if its not covered on warranty).
Trust me, get the 3 year plan. it will save your day when(not IF) your laptop goes bad. Remember, this is the first model that has come out of that new style, and every single laptop apple has ever made that is the first of anything ended up being a POS (even the origional iMac is a POS)
good luck, and get the warranty, itl make you glad in about a year or 2.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
Processors are fast enpough. My laptop (work's) is a PII, and is plenty fast. The battery will go 8.5 hours, which means I have to shut it down over lunch. Just a thinkpad 390.
The small screen is my biggest issue. 800x600 doesn't cut it. I run 1600x1200 whenever I can. this is made worse by some programs I run requiring a bigger screen.
wireless network is not an option. If you have a laptop and don't have wireless networking you are missing out. If you are a corporation you are penny wise and pund foolish. Wireless allows me to be productive nearly anywhere. I can attend class and fix bigs at the same time. (some classes anyway). I can attend a meeting and while someone else is giving status I can work. When I'm giving status and the boss has a detailed question I can look up the detailed answer. When my compiles fail I know now. There are security implications with wireless, but they should be overcome, not used as an excuse to not have it. Trust me, once you go wireless you won't touch a wire again.
Tough is important too. A laptop that is never droped belongs to someone who should just get a desktop since it isn't leaving his desk anyway. There is no way to use a laptop like they are ment to be used without dropping them by accident once in a while.
I've had a number of laptops, all of varying degrees of performance, depending on what my employer thought I needed (or had available).
;-) And something happened to the sound drivers when the SysOps upgraded it to Win2K SP2. (Don't flame me, it's company policy to use Win2K even though it makes an expensive X-Term.)
I started with a Toshiba model several years ago, which was decent at the time (when it was one of the few NT approved laptops), but quite heavy, and slow by modern comparison.
Last summer I moved into a HP Omnibook 9000, which was really pretty sweet, but it tended to run hot if I left dnetc running all the time. (Not a problem if you put it on a desk/table, but when you unhook it from you monitor, keyboard, etc, and plop it on your lap, it can be a bit uncomfortable.) My only complaint about this one was that the disk was a touch small, and the default partitioning was really poorly laid out.
Since then I've switched companies, and I'm living in a Gateway Solo Pro 9300. A decent machine, but I can max out the memory on it pretty easily. The DVD player is entertaining, but I haven't had any real "business" use for it yet.
I bought myself an Acer Travelmate 521TE for christmas last year (cost $2700 Cdn = $1800 USD back then), and I have absolutely no complaints so far. Builtin ethernet, 600MHz P3, 1024x768 display, 4 hour battery life, and it is quite light as well (4lbs I think?).
It doesn't have toys like DVD or CD-RW drives, but let's face it, how often do you watch DVDs on your laptop anyway?
PS almost forgot, the 64MB RAM it came with was a bit low, but with memory prices as they are now it is very easy to upgrade that.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I have a Thinkpad T22. RedHat-7.1 installed perfectly without a single hiccup. Everything worked, X, sound, pcmcia, suspend-to-disk, everything. Never had that experience before, always a couple things that need tweaking with laptops, sound usually doesn't work until newer kernels, sometimes X has to run in VESA frame buffer mode until a newer release of XFree86, etc.
I had to play with some settings to make it run flawlessly, but nothing too difficult.
Only problem is this: the 1400x1050 screen in just two months has developed several pixels (usually green ones) that are always on. I will have to send it back shortly to have the screen replaced. That sucks.
To all laptop purchasers, especially if you plan to use it 8 to 12 hours a day like I do, buy the extended warannty package, preferably with next day service or something. Its worth it. Laptops take much more of a beating than a desktop.
No matter how careful you are, inevitably they get smashed into doors, dropped on the floor, your friend comes by and picks it up (while hard disk is spining) to feel how heavy it is, you foolishly us it on a soft surface (like a carpet or bed) and it overheats because the vent is blocked, you get the picture -- get the full service warantty if you depend on your laptop.
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. --
My biggest suggestion to you would be not to underestimate the importance of size and weight. I'm on my second laptop now, and I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. My first laptop was your standard sized laptop, a Hitachi Visionbook Pro, which had good power-wise specs for the time, and was only of average size and weight, because I completely blew off the importance of these factors. I thought to myself, p-shaw all the laptop owners who complain about how heavy their computers are and don't actually carry them with them to places are trippin', it's only 5-7 pounds we're talking about here for heaven sakes. But 5-7 pounds gets surprisingly annoying when you have to carry it around with you whenever you go anywhere where you'll need it, especially with all the support equipment (power, carrying-case, batteries, etc.). That computer got stolen, and now after having owned a laptop, and wanting to buy a new one, I made a more informed choice and purchased a Sony Vaio super slim model, and I could not be happier with my choice.
I think you'll find there's an exponential return between the size of the computer you choose and how willing you are to take it with you to places where it'd help. With a PDA you'll probably be willing to carry it with you everywhere you go, just in case. With a superslim style computer, you'll probably be willing to carry it with you whenever you have good reason to believe that you'll need it. With some monster oversized 15" screen desktop replacement laptop, you'll probably find that that's exactly what you bought - a replacement for your desktop. And that's all well and good, but most people who are thinking about buying laptops do so with the expectation that they will be using the computer on the go, not just buying a small desktop with poor expansion options.
These days, every damn computer has so much power and video speed and such. I would suggest that these factors can be minimized unless you absolutely, positively need to play games or do something else very video/cpu intensive on your system. For what you need on the run (word processing, internet, mp3s maybe, etc.) it's important to keep in mind that you're not buying a desktop, and not to think like you are. So realize what you need and buy with those in mind. Every laptop will fulfill what you need from it application wise, so try and maximize the other laptop-specific attributes, such as battery life, size/weight, storage space and screen. I'd even go so far as to suggest that these days almost every laptop has a pretty decent screen, so you probably don't need to worry about that too much, but I haven't owned one of those laptops with a truly huge (14"+) screen yet, so this is just speculation.
As far as price is concerned, I would suggest that around ~1300-1500 is the sweet spot these days for slim computers. But if you absolutely, positively, need to have it be bargain basement priced, you might want to consider going used.
If it has to be new, I don't know about other manufacturers, but Sony has a pretty decent super tiny laptop for 999 here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/vaio/sr/index.html
I'm running a Dell inspiron 8000 myself... Great for Diablo 2 and such. *What a reason to buy a laptop*
:)
Anyhow I like it a lot. P3 700, 192 megs of mem, burner, 2 batteries, big screen, 20 gig drive, and a 32 meg ati graphics card.
I do have some problems though. The pointer stick in the middle has got to go. That thing is a total waste, especially after as it gets older and ya tilt the laptop and it grabs the pointer on the screen because it's not working right. Nasty problem, Dell's solution is not to have a bios switch to turn off the pointer stick, but Windows software to turn it off *Sucks big time.*
So if anyone knows of a Linux utility that can kill pointer sticks on laptops, especially ones like mine, let me know. I have a copy of Mandrake 8 that's itching to get on their.
*And keep a small windows partition for Diablo 2* *Waves cash at Loki to have a diablo 2 port to linux* God I'm a sad case.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
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.Not to be a "me too", but I totally agree. Actually, I look at it like this ...
When it comes to desktops, for price-performance, it's hard to beat PCs. After all, $1000 (US) can get you a hell of a machine, and as much as I love those G4 towers, they don't compete very well.
However, when it comes to laptops, where else can you get USB, Firewire, ethernet, modem, a 15" screen, a decent amount of memory, a DVD player and a fast little processor all for about $2500 (US)? Now, if you want an inexpensive (ca. $1000) or high end (more than $3500) model, then go with a PC, since there aren't many Apple offerings in those realms. Besides, the MacOS is cool in that hooking up an external monitor to your laptop gives you an extra screen/desktop (not just a mirror of your current desktop).
In any case, if one is a hard-core PC zealot, then feel free to disregard this post.
--SK
Regnant populi. (The people rule.) Pregnant ropuli. (The snake will soon lay eggs.)
(Other than a Mac iBook, which I realize is an option.)
My ideal laptop would be a cheap, lightweight x86 laptop, on which I would install Linux myself. Becuase I won't be running Windows on this machine, I really do *not* want Microsoft getting a kickback for my purchase of it.
I've figured out how to buy naked desktop machines, without a pre-installed Windows bought and paid for that I'm going to erase. That's quite easy. But what place will sell me a laptop without selling me Windows? I guess that Dell used to do this, but does anybody any more?
(And, I don't want them just to pre-erase Windows for me. I really want this not to count as a Windows sale and not feed back any $$$ to Microsoft. As an anecdote, some four years ago we were looking for quotes on systems from various different vendors. We were going to run Linux on these machines. We called a local CompUSA (I think it was), who at first told us that they couldn't sell us a machine without Windows on it. Later they called back to relent. But, the quote they then sent us was *identical* in price to the previous quote... it just didn't list an OS at all. I'm pretty sure what was happening there was that we were effectively paying for Windows, but they were going to do us the "service" of pre-deleting it, and they weren't telling us we were buying Windows.)
-Rob
First, as a Mac user, you can kiss the sub-1k$ range goodbye, unless you're willing to snag something older and a hell of a lot heavier.
:D )
I want the following features in a laptop- from most important to optional:
1. Weight. If it weighs as my Powerbook 180, forget it. Four, five pounds- tops.
2. Battery life. Lithium Ion batteries whup the llammas ass- four hours of "office" use, two hours of Quake III / Photoshop / Internet use, maybe an hour on the DVD player.
3. Modem AND Ethernet. All or nothing- I dump downloads onto a server on my home LAN and a crossover cable is far more useable than IRDA or lugging a zip drive.
4. Battery CAPACITY. My Pismo powerbook can ditch the DVD/CD drive module in favor of a second battery, if and when I need it. This has saved my ass many, many times! (forget the TiBook- and don't get me started on slot-loading drives in portables)
5. A responsive, reliable keyboard. Something that I can pick apart and clean if I need to. (the Pismo is a nightmare from this respect, but Apple seems to be sticking with the "wishbone suspension" on their portable keyboards....)
6. Any sort of Video Out. (fortunately, the pismo runs S-video and VGA out.
7. Audio out.
8. Millions of colors @ 1024x768. Bigger is better, but this usually means that the *case* gets bulkier, and who needs that?
9. Accessability. Upgrading laptops is a nightmare, and not recommended for amateurs.
Fortunately, one can run MacOS X or Classic MacOS on a Pismo, and I have a friend who's running DebianPPC on his Lombard (one model lower). Linux PPC installs, as does MKLinux.
My opinion? You want a Pismo or a Lombard powerbook. The only *real* differences between the two are that the Lombard has SCSI and the Pismo comes with Firewire and is slightly faster.
A quick features list:
14.5" LCD @ 1024x768, millions
VGA out, supports some wicked high resolutions as a second monitor
S-Video out, treated same as VGA.
2 USB ports
2 Firewire ports
Audio out
Audio in
Ethernet (10/100)
Modem (56k)
Expansion module comes with CD or CD/DVD drive, they make burner modules. And the expansion module can swallow a second battery.
I purchased one of these in May. PIII 900, 256MB RAM, 15" XGA, 32MB DDR GF2Go, 20GB HD. Built in Firewire, modem, ethernet, 2 Card slots, SVGA port. It weighed in at ~8lbs and just over US$2700. The only thing I wish the laptops were up to speed on is HD transfer rate. If you are used to ATA100, you can definately tell the difference when you have to drop to ATA33. Quake 3 runs great and looks just as good as my desktop even when I turn up the settings to 1024X768, 32bit color. Diablo II does chug a bit when the top of the Palace in Act II or multiple streams of water in Act III come on the screen.
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
I first used a Satellite system in Nicaragua a few years ago and we had Gateways, Dells, Sagers and Toshibas and the only ones we never had to send in were the Toshibas. All the other ones were real finicky about the abuse being dished upon them. We had lots of dust and humidity down there which was a real killer. The one I used had a crack down the backside of the monitor and still never gave me a problem. I am back in America now but still buy Satellite systems for their durability. I had a Vaio provided to me by work and proceeded to loose all my external port flaps and get a crack down front of the screen. Not to mention the fact that I never could get Win2k installed on it properly. The driver support was iffy. I am not nice to my laptop. It gets tossed in my bag which in turn gets slung, thrown, bounced and slid from here to kingdom come in my wanderings every day. The best part, as far as I am concerned, is the money aspect. I just bought a 700Mhz with 64MB Ram and a 8 GB HD from Circuit City about a month ago for $899. You can't beat it with a price like that. Also the pieces and parts are relatively inexpensive ($120 for a battery, $15 for another 64MB memory)
There are two caveats, however.
1. They aren't the lightest laptops I've ever seen (allthough way lighter than the gargantua Dells I saw last week)
2. They aren't the fastest laptops even accounting for it's clock speed. Laptops always seem slow to me and Toshibas just a hair slower.
I am definitly an evangelist but that doesn't blind me to the facts. For my money Toshiba wins, until they start to suck.
Jesus may love you, but I still think you're an asshole -BVB
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.
I have never had a Mac do anything but work great. My low-end 6100/60 first generation PowerPC Mac, purchased when they first became available and later upgraded with a 3rd party G3 processor, is still plugging along happily, albeit slowly in this day and age. Well, actually it stopped working once - wouldn't boot - but I found out on the web that this was due to a dead PRAM battery which I replaced myself easily enough. I have a 2000 model iBook purchased earlier this year. I will see how long it lasts, but it is built like a tank and plugs along happily with OS X (and lots of RAM, of course.) I just wish I had one of those new fangled ones.... Steve
--- What?
yeah, i bought a winbook x1 for my mum a while back and i was really impressed with it (and more than a little reluctant to give it up ;0 ) the screen was excellent (1024x768) and had much better clarity and viewing angle than the dell inspiron i'm using now. the keyboard was well layed out, the touchpad was responsive, with a nice 'toggle' button that emulates the mouse-wheel. plus it was really small and light. I think the comparable dells have come down in price quite a bit now so I'm not sure if it's still such a steal, but definitely worth looking into. i installed win2k on it for her, but i seem to remember it used a pretty standard chipset, so it should run oss stuff fine too.
The main thing about laptops are the screens. my 7500 bosts 15,5inch with 1600x1200, which make it very nice, not only to use on the road but also as a workstation at home or work. I couldnt bare to stand quinting at a 12inch screen, but this screen is just great, giving a 19inch a run for its money (who needs CRT, btw? ;)
Besides the screen, memory should be the second most important item on your list (leaving out keyboard and overall shineyness to impress your geeky pals). In my baby, i have 256 MB of thumping ram. If you have less, try to get more, but laptop RAM is hard to come by, so get as much as possible when you buy one.
3rd on the list? a good videocard. Most lt's have a crummy 4/8 meg card, enough for software, but we all know we want at least to be able to frag people at the local LAN party. 3D-support highly recommended, check out linux-support first.
DVD is last on my list. This just rocks with a beamer or widescreen tv (you do have svhs-out, do you?). I find myself not really using it much, but its a good show-off feature ;)
Last few ideas: :| ;)
builtin NIC. PCMCIA-cards are okay, but dont take one with a cablethingy. they break too soon (learned that from experience
HD? get one as big as possible. dont whine. my 20gigs are the limit. Think of a reason, and fast. You dont want a laptop as a wordprocessor, you want one to blow all those workstations away...
CPU? dunno. just dont get a Celeron. Those are for wuzzies
And dont buy a laptop for less than $1000. Get a good laptop or dont get one at all. A medicore laptop gets used every once in a while on the road, but a PDA serves this better. And dont get a 12inch screen. trust me...
This sig is intentionally left blank
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.
a d&id=6&list
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
AppleCare is extremely well worth it.
I have an iMac DV. its usb keyboard started doing weird things about four or five months after I got it. (IIRC every key but the space bar worked fine most of the time. the space bar failed to do anything, and sometimes garbage would spontaneously spew.) I took it to a local AASP. they plugged it in, said "Yeah it's broke" and gave me a new one in about 3 days. sure I could've done this without AppleCare, but my AppleCare # simplified things greatly (the guys I had bought it from were a few thousand miles away at the time :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
One vote here for NEC. Mine is a Japanese model (La Vie). It runs linux like a dream with very little tweaking.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
As a coder, I like to view as much code on my screen as possible, (so I have to hold less of it in my, um, imperfect memory). So I highly value 1600x1200 (UXGA) screen resolution, even if the fonts can be a bit small. Programmer productivity is often memory-constrained, if you know what I mean. I knew my next PC should be a notebook, yet I didn't want to "trade down" for a worse-resolution screen when buying it, so I ended up putting off buying a notebook for a couple years.
When I found out a few months ago that Dell and IBM had finally started offering notebooks with 1600x1200 (15 inch) screens, and both of them were also offering built-in CD-RW drives (my choice of successor for the floppy), I decided it was time to upgrade! That and the fact that I wanted my next home PC, which runs both Windows and Linux to be able to run the more-stable Windows 2000 rather than 95/98/ME. And I knew I couldn't procrastinate much longer or I'd end up forced to get Windows XP which i could see I wanted to avoid, due to spyware, bloat, stability-removing "features", etc.
There were just two notebooks that met this criteria: the Dell Inspiron 8000 and IBM's ThinkPad A Series A21/22p. Dell had configurations I wanted between $2000 and $2650, while IBM configs I wanted were $2700 and up, (pretty large price gap!) so I went with Dell. It's a sweet machine for a desktop replacement. NVidia GeForce2 graphics too, etc...
--LPI have three, and each fills a niche (I prefer using laptops to desktops).
First is my work machine. Its a Gateway Solo 9500, with a P3-850, 384MB of RAM, and a 20GB hard drive. The screen is a 1280x1024, 15.7" LCD that's huge and spectacular. it has a DVD player, and normally sits in a dock that gives it port replication plus an Ethernet card sitting in a PCI slot, plus two additional Cardbus slots. 56K modem and Firewire built-in, too. I run Windows 2000 Pro on it, and the combination of that hardware plus a version of Windows that doesn't completely suck is real sweet. My only complaint is that when I'm using the trackpad the buttons are a little two hard to click.
The Gateway is way too big to carry around all the time - it's more of a desktop computer that folds up for transportation than a laptop. But that's fine for me because I rarely travel with the system. It fits in a Kensington Saddlebag without any problems.
Next I have an old Dell Inspiron 3200 that I mostly keep at home, but it's handy sometimes. It's got 192MB of RAM, an 8GB drive, a 1024x768 13.3" screen, and a P2-266 processor. I run Slackware 8 on it and it makes a nice portable Unix machine (indispensable for diagnostics and the like). The battery's pretty much cycled down, so if I want to use it a lot I need A/C - it isn't worth it to get a replacement battery for it and I can still get about an hour running Slack (as opposed to about 40 minutes under Windows). It's a "hand-me-down" from work that we no longer use. I gave a couple of them to my employees, too.
Then there's what I use at home - an iBook. I just bought the newest one a couple of days ago (I had one of the original toilet seat-looking models before, and other PowerBooks before that), and I must say - Apple does laptops right. For all the crap their desktops get when it comes to price/performance ratios, their laptops are always competitively priced and are just Made The Right Way. Performance is pretty snappy running MacOS 9, a little poky running OS X (usable, but I'm really looking forward to OS X 10.1), and it's way smaller than any of the other ones with a gorgeous screen and the nicest-feeling keyboard of the lot. If only they had a second trackpad button it'd be damn near the perfect notebook.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Have you gotten your modem to work in Linux?
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
I've been running OS X on my new iBook/500/192MB RAM and found it to be quite satisfactory. Quite a bit faster feeling than my old machine, a G4/400/128 MB RAM. I blame the RAM. :)
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Don't buy it if you love Intel/Athlon processors. But this thing is fast, light, has a big beautiful screen, does everything I need a computer to do. X 10.0.4 feels fine on it - can't wait for 10.1. The case is incredibly sturdy - my boss dropped his and dented the corner and cracked the outer casing, but the innards (and the screen) came through unscathed. USB, FireWire, 10/100, VGA out (runs dual-monitor mode, allowing me to run a 1280x1024 2nd monitor at work). Looks nice, too (he he). Apple's desktop offerings leave something to be desired, but the laptops are really nice.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
$200-$300 is par for a laptop battery. Prices went up drastically when when everybody went to Li-Ion. Perhaps they cost more to manufacture. Perhaps they just expect us to pay for improved battery decay and charge time. In any case, it's something to remember before you buy a used Laptop on EBay -- odds are you'll have to replace the battery.
I run a low end Thinkpad (i1400) and love it, but the new iceBooks are the best I've seen so far. Under 5lbs (barely), 5 hour battery life, clean, crisp screen, gorgeous machine, and then add OS X. I would get one of those before a VAIO.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
The Twinhead that I got does have a fan in it. But the fan is thermostatically controlled. I had the computer for months before finding the right (wrong?) conditions to trigger fan operation. In practice, the Twinhead runs fanless.
Twinhead does not have the best prices. I found that Dell had clearly better price/performance. But Dell has a loud fan.
BOTTOM LINE: if you want quiet, the Twinhead is well worth it!
Question: does anyone know of other PC laptops that also have fanless operation? (I will be getting a new laptop in a few months; so I'd like to know about alternatives.)
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Which wireless card do you use, and does it have the same problems?
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
- I'm charging the battery, AND
- I'm running a CPU/disk intensive job like a compile, OR
- I'm using my 801.3b card for wireless networking (it sucks up the juice).
If I rely on the built-in Ethernet and am just editing text/browsing the internet/some other non-intensive task, the fan never comes on. Even if doing CPU-intensive tasks, the fan never comes on unless I'm charging the battery or have the wireless networking card plugged in. (The wireless card is, alas, a power hog, and generates a lot of heat, thus why it triggers the thermostatic control of the fan).My only complaint is that the 20gb laptop hard drives are *LOUD*. My Presario doesn't have a hard drive activity light but that does not matter -- you can hear the hard drive working :-}.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
My Latitude sucks. A coworker bought the another one and it sucks too. The fan and the hard drive are waaay too loud.
Some of you may remember Tuxtops, a linux laptop company. We stopped selling laptops at the beginning of the year, and I no longer work for them, but dealing with laptops and support issues on a larger scale has given me at least more data than most people have. Here's some observations:
* Our best model was the Obsidian (Premium) 30w. This is the same as the Dell Inpsiron 5000, made by a Taiwanese company called Compal (the biggest laptop manufacturer in the world.) I'm actually typing this on one right now. It has a nice-sized keyboard, big screen, powerful components. It isn't lightweight (as far as modern laptops go), but they were by far the most reliable model.
* The really cheap model we sold, made by ASUS, used mostly desktop parts to cut costs. It was inexpensive, but you paid the price. The units would easily overheat - when we started doing overnight cpu-heavy burn-in tests, it became apparant what the drawbacks of this approach were. For the sales-guy who does email and demos on the road, it'd be okay, but for anyone who knows what a makefile is, avoid these kinds of laptops. They're likely to go into Thermal Shutdown with virtually no notice.
* We had a really cool model show up last year that was ultralight, with a detachable bay where the CD-ROM and floppy sat. If you could leave that behind, it was a phenomenal design. However, in practice, we found that there were frequently problems with the docking, and many systems were very delicate. Getting it to dock properly could be difficult, moreso than it should be.
* We had one model that we sold for our first few months that had almost all the pressure from the lid on one hinge. Unsurprisingly, the case cracked easily through regular use - we lost money overall on this unit with all the replacements, and stopped selling it as soon as we saw the trend. This was just poor engineering.
* An early ultralight we sold had a really awful keyboard and was also prone to heat problems.
The morals? The quality of a piece of laptop hardware can vary greatly, much more so than in desktops. Our best experiences were with the more traditional designs (I know my current company is also going away from VAIOs and towards the Dell/Thinkpad designs, due to reliability problems in the field.) There are design tradeoffs to make things ultra-light and ultra-cheap, and in my experience, they weren't worth it.
Go for the big brick with the big screen. Buy from someone who has good tech support - you can't replace parts if they go bad yourself, like with a desktop. Pay attention to what people are saying in places like this thread - laptop models are definitely susceptible to design flaws. From my experience, physical flaws (ie, cracked cases) and overheating are issues to be very sensitive to. (Note: getting warm is different than overheating. Most laptops get warm. Most of them do not regularly go into Thermal Shutdown. That's what you want to avoid.)
Good luck!
-- Kate
Actually, I have a laptop as powerful as a desktop at twice the price, but it was important to me.
I wanted a powerful system I could put on my lap, since I hate desks, and try to avoid them whenever possible. That tends to make desktops problematic. Being able to work on the couch, in bed, in my ikea chair, on the balcony (all with wireless networking) was important to me.
So I got an IBM Thinkpad A20p
I got my iBook for list, but no sales tax, free shipping, free 128 MB RAM, and I got 5% back with my on-line VISA card.
There are loads of good Mac sites out there, you might want to start at MacSlash.com :)
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
The price is too high 1600 pounds 2000 dollars but the C1VFK sony vaio looks sweet, crusoe processor 15 gig hard disk, and weights 1kg and even have bluetooth, and a 3 button mouse... just asking for linux to be installed if you ask me.
James
upgrade to the latest bios
change your bios power saver settings to use power savings, especially 'turn off screen'
Dell's file and driver support is the best I've ever seen. They not only have the newest drivers, but the older versions as well. Pick whatever works best.
At the other end of the support spectrum is Sony. Ever tried to download a windows driver for a Vaio laptop? I don't think they'll even sell you a driver CD.
If you have more problems, e-mail me, and I'll try to help.
hanzie
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
These are the some of the coolest computers out there. You may have some hardware problems, but still, its worth it. Do you hate mice, trackballs, erasers, pads, etc.? How about a touchscreen? That's point and click. And I swore I'd never get a LCD until I could actually see the picture. These almost deliver. And the case is no-doubt styling from Milan to Tokyo. Most important of all, crumbs in the keyboard are a thing of the past. Oh, integrated wireless, too. CDPD :(
install ltmodem insmod "-f" "-k" "ltmodem"
I have to ask, are there "-u" and "-c" switches to put in there as well? It would seem so to the point.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I bought a IBM Z50 Windows CE 2.11 device off of ebay, for $195. It has 48mb of ram, no moving parts, a 640x480 color screen, a CF slot, a PCMCIA slot, builtin 56k modem, builtin audio-recorder, its instant on and off, and its about 1" thick.
It's not really too fast, but its great for what I use it for - it syncs with exchange out of the box, and moving word/excel documents back and forth is also very easy. It has a WTS client and of course you can get ssh and telnet clients for it. It will work with Aironet cards (mine are hopefully in the mail).
Best of all ?
10+ hours of battery life.
Who else has a 2 pound 10hr VGA wireless device ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
what if price is one of my variables?
what if "reasonably light" isn't good enough for me? Even this "worldbeating" design makes compromises.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Are you dual booting with Windows? I find I have to power down after running Win2K and before booting Linux or else the sound no workee. However if I do a cold start it works every time.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
We use the following where I work:
Panasonic CF-71 ToughBook - Heavy duty, impossible to break, believe me I know. My users made a weekly event of at least one person breaking their screen on their Toshiba Tecras. Since we started using the Toughbooks for the well-traveled user we haven't had a single break. Also, the tool-less hard drive swap-out is always nice for those remote users.
Dell Inspiron 8000 - True desktop replacement. DVD player and seperate CDRW, swappable hard drive, huge screen with 1280x1024 or even 1400x1280, very nice for the developers.
Apple G4 Titanium - What can I say? The coolest notebook this side of the planet. The screen is stupendous and I don't mean just for DVD's. The G4 make OSX useable (no flames please, it's a dog on the G3's). Our execs love them as well as our graphics people.
IBM ThinkPad T20 - If this thing had a touchpad instead of the freakin eraserhead it would be my favorite. The ThinkPad has always been the Cadillac of notebooks (Gateway being the Ford Fiesta). Tough and with a lot of lovely built-in accessories, it's always a great choice.
Some features that I like:
1) Built-in antenna for 802.11b like the G4.
2) Tool-less removable hard drive.
3) Built-in Ethernet, modem, USB, FireWire.
4) Big battery with real-world runtime expectations.
5) NO MORE AD/DC CONVERSION BRICKS! With some kind of universal power cord like desktops.
6) Combo DVD/CDRW drive, maybe even a combo with DVDR or DVDRW.
7) Multiple swap-out drive bays like the Inspiron.
8) More than 2 PCMCIA slots.
9) Linux, BSD and Solaris/Intel friendly.
They load Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4, of all things. Any other linux ought to work just fine, though. Red Hat has a Hardware Compatibility Page which lists other laptops known to work.
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
My boss has one of these, happily running Debian. Works like a charm (a little slow, but who really cares?), you can easily fit it in a standard backpack along with a pile of other junk, but it retains a keyboard that you can touch-type on.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Please reference http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Winch ester.html
"Winchester" refers to the entire class of drives that are today referred to as "hard drives", including MFM/RLL, IDE, or SCSI versions.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I have seen both a toshiba and a t20 fall from a desk onto a carpeted floor. Both laptop where closed at the time.
/shattered/! Have you ever seen those science expeirments where they drip a rose in NO (NOH??) and than tap it on the side of a table? Yea, the Toshiba looked like that! Keys, peices of the screen, sharpenl from the case, pc cards poping out, screws and buttons making a mess everywhere.
;)
The Thinkpad bounced then made a *thrud*. The Satellite
It was actucally pretty cool. I said "Whoa", then picked up my thinkpad and send an email to the user of the Toshiba laptop giving him the bad news
Both machines where running at the time, that was 6 months ago, the hard drive is still working in the thinkpad..
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Sure, it's binary only, but it works.
If you want the source to this modem driver, go to http://www.heby.de/ltmodem. On Debian, I simply modprobe ltserial and ltmodem, with no options on the IBM ThinkPad X21. SB the same on the T20.
BTW, it's been updated significantly since 5.68 (6.00 was just released). I'm currently using 5.99 without any significant issues, except sometimes long initial handshaking.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Right now I would not trade the PowerBook G3 for a G4 for three reasons:
- Proportions -- yes, the G4 is thiner and lighter but it is wider and doesn't fit well in most carry cases -- this is a nitpick
- AirPort reception -- I use my G3 on a wireless network 99% if the time and the reception is far superior because of the placement of the antenna and the plastic vs. Titanium case
- Batteries -- I trade weight for battery life and carry two batteries in the G3 for maximum battery life while roaming around the network at work
If I had to replace the G3 today it would be a tough choice. The iBook would be a drop in performance but lighter. The G4 would be a great performer but has some annoying flaws.The iBook also has a better 'touch' than the G4 I think... it fells better in your hands and the keyboard seems more natural to use... but that is based on brief periods of use.
-G
Praise "Bob"
The most important applications are web surfing, Word and the ability to play DVDs on the plane with Civilization II next in line. Unfortunately I can't get Tomb Raider to work on my Sony Vaio Z505
What I would really like to get hold of is one of those tablet PCs with pen input. I used to have a couple of CrossPads but the software sucketh somewhat and is is something of a kludge. It is not bad at handwriting recognition but it is tedious having to tell it each time you turn the page. I would be happy to pay $3K for a tablet PC with a decent spec, but getting hold of one in the US appears impossible. Anyone know if they work?
The Sony is pretty cute, the revamp looks slightly better, I have the plug in DVD which is a pain for plane flights.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That's one thing that they screwed up with on the PBG4 - firewire. Apparently the iBook is much better for firewire i/o than the tiBook, which used an early rev FW chipset or something...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Who makes the T22?
What sort of battery life do you get out of it?
I'm pretty happy with my tiBook, though I'm curious about the T22...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Ok, here is the list of reasons I don't think I'll be buying an iBook:
* No PCMCIA slot. Now, you're thinking "who cares, its got 10/100 ethernet, modem, wavelan, etc!". Well, that's great for now, but what about when new technologies come around. Say this was 2 years ago, I wouldn't be able to easily use wavelan (without getting some annoying dongle for USB or firewire).
* No serial ports. Yes, I know I can get a serial to USB converter, I don't want to have to carry around the stupid dongle.
* No parallel port. Yes, I also know that Mac's have never and will never come with parallel ports and that there are probably parallel to USB converters out there, just like serial. So now I have to carry around two dongles, serial and parallel.
* No floppy drive. Yes, I know I can get a USB floppy drive and yes, I know "they're useless, d00d!" but ocassionaly, I like to have floppy access.
Now, on the positive side, it runs OS X and OS X seems to be pretty damned cool. I compiled postgresql and apache on the iMac at work and it had very few problems! OS X.I should clear up the speed issues too. I think I'll wait and see how much X.I clears/speeds up the iMac before I decide on an iBook.
Just my two cents.
Geoffeg
No, not buying it for games, but I *am* buying it for X, and some X apps don't like smaller screens. 1024X768 seems to be the minimum that it's happy with.
Well, when you're watching a DVD, the hard drive should turn itself off, and the processor isn't really doing much since the video decoding happens in the graphics chip. So if you have "allow processor cycling" and "reduce processor speed" (which isn't a big penalty, it goes from 500 to 400 MHz) checked, you'll get another boost. I *did* get about 4 hours out of it under those conditions. I was in a dark room though, with the screen brightness set low (this screen is really bright, another thing I like) so that might account for something.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
I have been searching very seriously for the past few weeks for a good laptop. I have never owned or touched for that matter, a laptop. I have seen them but have never learned that much about them.
So I've been researching and finding out lots of different stuff. First is, Gateway is one place I am staying away from. I'll just say that I went to one of their "Gateway Country" stores and had a very very bad experience with their laptops.
Dell is looking very favoribility in my book. They seem to be good machines from what people say. The biggest issue for me is price. I am not looking to drop that much into a machine. Sure, I have read on here that you should spend the money and make sure you get a great machine, but I have been finding that you can find some bargains that don't seem too bad.
Dell has some lower-priced models that can compete with some of their higher-end models in terms of speed and the such. They also have been having some very attractive sales lately that I'm sorry I missed out on.
One thing that has REALLY caught my attention from reading this is about the Apple laptops. Are they really that good? I have read numerous people on this page rant and rave about them. I checked out Apple's site and they are expensive! I never thought they would be, but you can pick up a Dell that is 50% faster/bigger for less money!
So is Apple really worth the money? I have used Apple stuff for about a week total in my life, and while I didn't find them horrible, they seemed different. Isn't everyone here running Linux or Windows? I have seen Windows be the domiant operating system on Laptops, not just because Microsoft has a handle on the whole industry, but because it seems that Windows runs really good on laptops and there are less problems.
So I'll continue my search for good bargains on powerful machines and maybe get lucky one of these times. If anyone has any suggestions please email me. I'm interested in all the information I can get.
The one thing that keeps me away from the new iBook is the lack of a PCMCIA slot. Sure it has a built in modem, network, and 802.11b, but it dosen't have built in CDPD. Thats the main use of a PCMCIA slot for me. Plus it's nice to use CF adaptors, etc...
My current laptop is a Compaq Armada M700 that my work gave to me. It dosen't excel in any specific area, but is great all around. Compaq's professional line (Armada and Evo) might be worth a look. (And because of this one, I can't see myself easially going back to a plastic case)
Vaio's are great, and they run Linux great too. ;)
I've got a PCG-FX210, and though I needed to upgrade to kernel 2.4 for the latest drivers to get sound to work, it's been a wonderful system. My only complaint is that the ATI-RAGE3D graphics has only 8MB of memory, which isn't enough for the high-end games.
They also come pre-partitioned, so I simply reformatted the empty partition as a Linux partition, which left the windows side pretty tight on space, but I only use windows to play a couple video games and DVDs. (The linux side plays DVDs, but not in what I'd call an acceptable manner... getting there, though.)
Parity Odd
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.