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What Do You Think of ASUS Laptops?
Dan Guisinger asks: "I'm looking at replacing a laptop that was recently stolen and came across ASUS's new B1000 series laptop. It seams to have everything one could want, dual FireWire ports, DVD, CDRW, 15" screen, upgradable Pentium III cpu using mPGA2 sockets...it even has finger print security. My only problem while looking at the specs is the measly 1024x768 XGA resolution it supports. I am unable to find reviews on this laptop, nor most other ASUS laptops. Can anyone speak of the quality of their laptops overall? How about this particular model, has anyone seen or used the B1000?"
the Asus is a quality product, I can say that much. But the fingerprint security system you speak of just provides a false sense of security, anyone can just take your HD outta the box and plug it in elsewhere.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
At last, an article suffers the slashdot effect from the start. Could this mean that people are actually *gasp* reading the article first before offering their opinions? Of course, it is basically a tech schematic, but still, it proves we can be taught.
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most
But, I'm gonna do it anyways. It's wrong; you really want to go to http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Notebook/B1000/ind ex.html
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
Darned /. effect anyway
ASUS B1000
Try http://www.asus.com/Products/Notebook/B1000/index. html
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
It seems like it would be all but useless to have much more than 1024x768 on a laptop screen (well, maybe a little larger would be nice). 1600x1200 would be too small to be useful for me I would think. If you want a higher resolution you should probably just hook it up to an external CRT.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
Wide screen, DVD, CDRW (external firewire), 30G drive, Radeon Mobile gfx, 512M, 1000/100/10bT ethernet, and an internal 802.11b card. Mac OS X is really sweet. I can run CorelDraw and IE5 right next to a bash prompt and GAIM.
Granted, the damned thing cost me almost $3200 but I love it still.
Chris
From what I can tell, they're overly generic.
And usability-wise, they're a touchpad based system. I perfer trackpoints myself, so it'd have to be *very* convincing for me to like 'em.
I'd rather get an IBM Thinkpad R serise or the S30 offa Dynamism, anyhow.
the URL is slightly wrong... pull out the params at the end "target=_Blank" and it'll work fine.
I used to have an ASUS L-7200 , I've never had any problem with it, everything was working perfectly, except I had to use the X Frame Buffered server under linux because the graphic card wasn't supported at all.
The only problem was that I made the mistake to buy it with a 12"1 screen (800*600), which was too small for the use I had to make with it later.
Now I have a Compaq Presario 1801-EA, that I bought because of its screen 15", 1400*1050. Everything's working perfectly either under under Linux and Windows.
Anyway, all that depends of what you have to do with it.
I can also tell you that if I've a compaq now, it's mainly due to the fact ASUS doesn't sell any screen bigger than 14", as far as I know.
I looked on pricewatch and many other sites. Where can you purchase this awsome laptop?
Support Texas Troops use TXGoogle
Just make sure you get a Lo Jack on the laptop this time.
------------- I didn't know she was your sister I swear!
How many links are we gonna post on this one... Will the REAL Link please stand up! Newt-dog
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
The only thing that I would worry about personally is the savage video card, I would *personally* be looking for a Geforce 2go based laptop or wait until the new NVidia mobile chipset has found its way in to a notebook. This could take a while and also depends on your needs, I fly model helicopters and like to use a PC based sim while on the road to practice so the more polygon pushing power a laptop has the better.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
and use it to gain access!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Forgot to mention that laptop of mine has a built in 10/100 NIC and modem along with a monitor-out (for dual montiors)
The specs looked great, except for the 1024x768 resolution and this little gem "Weight ~3.3kg (w/ 15" LCD, 9.5mm HDD, 24X CD-ROM and 9 cells Li-Ion battery pack)". At 7.3 LBS, it's just a brick with nice colours...
Jean-Sebastien Morisset, Sr. UNIX Administrator
3.7 lbs, yes, and probably not :P
If good things come to those who wait...why work now? Procrastinate!
Is there a good site where various products are ranked by people who actually own them? Specifically electronics, computer components, etc. Is there such a thing? Thanks
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Please tell me you're kidding. The largest consumer LCD panel in mass production is 1600x1200, and THAT itself would cost you over a thousand dollars, alone. The best you could hope for is SXGA -- 1280x1024, and even that will cost you big. You can't want everything, you know.
i think the poster works for ASUS... im suprised no one else has commented on this possibility :)
The specs looked great, except for the 1024x768 resolution and this little gem: "Weight ~3.3kg (w/ 15" LCD, 9.5mm HDD, 24X CD-ROM and 9 cells Li-Ion battery pack)".
At 7.3 LBS, it's just short of a desktop.
Jean-Sebastien Morisset, Sr. UNIX Administrator
I've had 2 L7000 (one 7200 and one 7300 I seem to remember) for something less than a couple of years, and they have benn very good machine. They were relatively cheap, and Linux installed with no problems. Support was good too (in Italy), replacing an lcd cover at no cost, though in no great hurry. Their only problem was the audio chip set, which sometimes failed both in windows and in linux, but I guess they've improved it by now.
Am I the only one who wants a laptop with fewer features, not more?
How about no dvd, no floppy, no firewire, no parallel port, no pcmcia, NO M$ WINDOWS!, no external svga socket, no built in modem, no built in ethernet, no sound, no irda, no 1e+34 key keyboard, no ps/2 mouse port, no ps/2 keyboard port, no kitchen sink.
All I want is
1) Reasonable CPU and memory
2) Decent size HDD
3) 1024x768 screen
4) USB port (thats all the expandability i need (except maybe extra memory))
All the extra features I don't need probably cost very little each to add, but they do add up and mean more cost and more weight and in some cases more power consumption, and If i find I do need ethernet, or cdrw, or sound, or an external mouse or keyboard then these can all be added later via USB.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
I have a pretty old model (450 Mhz). They might have improved. But I've had battery problems, sound-card driver problems, touchpad problems, monitor problems... Stick with Dell or something. Steer clear of ASUS.
I worked for a place who sold and fixed these things in 1997-1999. Overall, they were as good as TI, Dell, NEC. Better than Apple but worse than Compaq / Toshiba. This is purely from a sturdiness standpoint.
Parts were pretty easy to get too.
I'd stick with a Toshiba, IBM, or Compaq though.. They usually don't cost much more, and are just built better and are easier to get parts.
I agree that 1024X768 is really good for a 15" screen but chances are he might also want to plug it into a docking station with his 19" or 21" CRT.
--Michael Luton
If you take that laptop, you are just as bad as the guy who took yours!!
there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
IBM or Sony would be my first choices in the Intel Arena. The titanium powerbook gives me a woody though. If I win the lotto, I'd buy one of those, fully loaded.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Look dude, it was funny when you suggested this two days ago, but the jokes getting old, alright?... ;)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
The September 2001 issue of Mobile Computing and Communications had this article, that included a review of a different ASUS laptop.
In August, I bought my wife an HP Pavillion N7540 (I think that's the right model #), with 15 inch screen, 1 GHz Athlon, and combo DVD/CDRW drive. Under $1800 total. She loves it, and I'm envious....
Q: What do you think of ASUS' servers?
A: Not much, they slow down to a crawl when slashdotted.
And I built my own 802.11 wireless network using parts from old crystal radios! They were so efficient I was able to convert excessive radio waves into usable electric power which I sell back to the Electrical Co-op!
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
Of course, they're not cheap at ~$2400 maxed out, but so worth it if you're looking for top o' the line.
Though, (and this holds for any laptop manufacturer) you should really shop around for laptop memory instead of having the manufacturer install it. To have Dell max out my laptop (at 512mb PC133 SoDIMM's) would be over $600, but when I ordered the memory myself, I only paid $120. Sure, I had to take a screwdriver to it, but I figure that it was more than worth the $500 I saved by doing it myself.
That green slime had it coming.
From the spec page:
Hard Disk Drive
2.5" 9.5mm IDE HDD with Ultra DMA66/100 supported
Supported capacities up to 30 GB
Bumping mechanic's design
Fixed type, easy for BTO
Some dancin' auto repair technicain desgined it! Also, the hard drive isn't broken because Bachman-Turner Overdrive would find that difficult to use.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I know that on some older models ( the L7200 and the M1000 to be precise ) the speakers were making strange noises, for nothing ( when the user moves a scrollbar, or that kind of thing ). I never managed to know why, but there was some internal interferences.
Actually, most laptops will output a much higher resolution than the native LCD resolution using a docking station or the VGA port. That being said, if I were to get a new laptop now, I would probably look for at least SXGA (1280x1024), as the units I have used with that resolution are really nice. The laptop I currently use has 1024x768, which is still fine for what I do.
What, and let the rest of the computer go to waste? Much better to tear your thumb outta the socket and carry it along with the laptop.
Dan Guisinger asked "I'm looking at replacing a laptop" Would that be Dan Guisinger from ATACOM.com "Your one stop Computing Super Store" Enough of this shopping channel how about some Stuff that matters
Geez, the things that I've had rejected that were pertinent pieces of information and somehow this makes it?!
Who cares, should I start submitting stories: "What is the best brand and version of the GeForce to buy?", "Does linux have Intel Pro 1000 adapter support?"
"Who is your daddy?"
Which brings up the question of what is the highest resolution available out there? And how practical is it?
I've gotten upset at the number of promising links that take me right to eBay, as far as looking for a laptop comparison site.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I just bought one as well (and the Airport hub - right before they updated! Doh!).
I don't think there's a better laptop to have at the moment, and probably not even for the forseeable future - until Apple releases the next update.
OSX is also great, and it even has a nice GUI panel to run many common network utilities (like netstat, ping, traceroute, etc.).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dell Inspirons go up to 1500x1400 or something like that. A 1024x768 resulotion is the minimum I'd look for in a laptop.
The highest resolution I've ever seen on an Asus is 1024*768. I was looking for a new one approximatively one month ago, it seems they still haven't any better ones.
The iBook really is all you would need in a laptop, except for heavy-duty gaming as mentioned above, and it also may not be every thing you need if you are into heavy-duty video production, or audio (there is no audio in port, although that can be handled by third party firewire and USB devices these days).
I have yet to own a laptop, but when I do get one, it will DEFINITELY be an iBook. I was considering getting a PC laptop, but now that OS X is a viable development environment, I am a dedicated Apple customer.
Powerbook G4/1.5GHz 12", Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1554
We've a seen few laptop-related postings lately, and I think they're interesting since I'd like to buy one. But I assume that the problem most of us have here is the MS tax. I've seen quite a few of the upper-end Dell and Gateway machines, and they look really nice. My guess is that the only reason people are looking at these off brands (not that ASUS is an off brand, I know their mobos are good, but don't you want Dell/Gateway grade tech support for a device with proprietary parts?) is because they'd rather not pay for the MS license that they'll never use. Let me get back to the point...
Oh yeah. We know that Dell and Gateway (and others, of course) aren't offering Linux laptops right now, but does anyone know if they'll sell one without an installed OS? Also, has anyone here had success with getting a refund on the Windows license (i.e. http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/)?
1024x768 doesn't seem measly to me. This is a 15" LCD we're talking about, not a 21" desktop CRT. Unless you intend to do graphics design on this laptop (which is kinda mindless considering the comparatively poor chroma quality of LCD vs CRT).
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Unfortunately, you can want everything, it's just that very few us of can have it. I'm hoping I can help my teenaged children learn the difference before they go off to college and the campus credit card reps try to convince them that they can have everything they want... at 21% annual interest.
Also some manufacturers which otherwise make nice products have keyboards of a horrible quality (I have had a very bad experience with a Dell something).
JMD
What would people consider a good, cheap laptop, and where would you get it?
My guess for minimal requirements would be:
I could imagine using this machine to write code, but probably generally not to build major projects. The speed of the CPU wouldn't be a major issue, and as long as there was a decent amount of memory, (say 128 MB) that would be ok.
Would an Apple iBook be an option? I like the concept of OSX, and I hear X.1 is reasonably fast, but would it be on an iBook? Are they really durable or do they just look like it because of the titanium shell? Do PPC linux distros run on that hardware? Is it any less open than a typical PC-type laptop?
As for where to get it, I wouldn't mind getting a used laptop, I'm not looking for cutting-edge, state of the art. Is there anything to look out for in buying a used laptop? Is it reasonably easy to find good used laptops? How about good used Apple laptops?
It's a thin laptop, probably the thinnest one out there (sony included), but the quality however, leaves much for desire. Fans for the system stops working for BOTH of the laptop so now it's running hot as hell. The Screen is not as good as the Inspiron 8000 not in terms of resolution (which i8000 just murdered that little beast), the brghtness is nowhere as good. But it's sure cheap though, I say go for the Dell (feel kidda cheap, I don't care what you say) or Toshiba.
kawai
I don't know anything this laptop, but in general:
- Asus products are well designed, well built, and well priced. Oh yes, and well documented!
- Asus tech supports SUCKS! Their website is often down, they don't answer service calls, and they don't necessarily have consistent specs on their parts between different divisions.
I love Asus products, but until they reform they're NOT getting any more of my money!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Isn't this a tad specific? Wouldn't a more suitable question be "What laptop should I go for?".
Whatever happened to working out what you were after and then seeing who provided it best (price, support, quality)?
Ooooh, look at that, it's got bells & whistles. I was thinking of getting one of them. Okay I don't really need the bells, and the whistles will only come in useful once in a blue moon, but man, it's groovy!
Sigh.
What's worse, ignorance or apathy? Who knows, and who cares.
Can you say "Slow News Day?"
xga is measly?
sxga is the max on a laptop - what do you plan on doing with this?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
... to replace a laptop I recently sold and found this one. 1 Ghz, 512 Mb, 30 Gb, 15"@1400x1050, DVD, on-board 10/100 and modem, etc for less that $1600. Except for the modem, which I can't tell, all the hardware is supported in Linux and you can order it with NO OS.
Saving my pennies now to pick one up.
Top items of what I care most about in a laptop:
1. very low weight (because I travel with a backpack)(3-4lbs, ideally w/cd & power supply)
2. low power usage (so I can use portable solar panels)
3. long battery life
4. low price (less than $1500, without ludicriously priced batteries like the Sony Vaio series has)
5. durable
-I don't need resolution above 1024x768 or a large screen -- I'd rather the screen was smaller so it uses less power.
- I don't need speed above 500 mhz (it's nice but I don't need it)
-I do need a cd-rw --for backup and reading cds.
- I like the IBM thinkpad x20, but it consumes peaks around 57 watts! -- it may as well be a desktop. -- so I can't use solar panels.
I wish they made more with these specs...
yes, it may be great bang for the buck, but my sony VAIO PCG-N505VE is a Celeron 333MHz, 128MB RAM, 6GB HD and the LCD is about 10.1 Inches, and it can do 1024x768. this is an old laptop, works great but these newer notebooks should at the _LEAST_ be able to do 1280x1024, look at the IBM X20, or X21, they both have killer resolution(x20 will do 1280x1024 I believe and the x21 will do 1400x1050)!!
Privacy? Not in this lifetime.
what the fort are you talking about?
Am I the only one who wants a laptop with fewer features, not more?
Hear hear. I have a desktop for gaming and such. I want a laptop with good battery life, a greyscale dual scan screen, and wireless connectivity. The heavy lifting is better done by machines suited to it, in my opinion. All I want is something cheap that I can check email and such from the living room with.
(And no, I don't want an Audrey. Yes, I know about Tiger direct. No, I still don't want one.)
--saint
After using a Dell Inspiron 8000 with the 15" Ultra XGA screen, I will never ever use any other laptop. Dell is the only company I've found that sells laptops with Ultra XGA, and the screen quality is absolutely stunning. After using that laptop, I couldn't stand looking at even the sharpest CRT monitors. The difference was incredible.
Since KDE's icon sizes are adjustable up to 64x64, yeah, 1600x1200 can be quite useable on a 15" screen.
With windows, yeah it is pointless.
At our company we've used ASUS laptops for nearly three years now, and I've been through two of the flagships (L8400 and the older F8400 (i think)) and they've been top notch quality, especially considering we've taken them along for demos, used them on long flights. Even now, we have one at Comdex. A guy at work uses it for linux work and he's very happy. The most severe problem we ever had with one was the spring to the powerbutton giving out, but thats it. Compared to the Compaq's I used at my old work (which had a tendency to lack good drivers and also had serious problems with the screen going berzerk/garbled), these rock.
;)
If I had to say something bad about them, its that they lack GeForce2Go, so my "leet skillz" in Unreal Tournament really suffers from playing on them
KDE on a 1600x1200 latop screen is lovely, especially if you turn on anti-aliasing in the latest builds
Knowing the processor socket is a good thing
(unless intel deprecates it too early).
Another good thing is the MAP, Mobile AGP Package, which can make it possible for some upgradability of the graphics too (like some people succeded in upgrading their Dell PC's to Geforce2Go).
Read about Nvidias cool 64 Mb MAP package.
Maybe someone knows when you can expect mobiles with this option on the market so you can buy one without having to wait for the good graphics chips to be available.
Also, there's talk about intel working for more standards in modular mobiles, any examples? I'd love a MiniPCI with both Firewire and 100 MBps networking, that socket is just to good for a measly modem.
This is a laptop man...if you find a laptop that has more than that, I want to see it! cause a) that has got to be small fonts or b) that's gotta be one big screen.
Remember, with LCDs, the resolution is proportionate to the screen size. On most in fact, the viewable screen area shrinks with the resolution...
1024x768 is standard if not really good!
Derek Greene
I have been looking for a laptop with SVID, Serial, DVD/CD/RW, USB, Mic/Line/Spk, 10/100, and 56K. I don't care which brand. This is the first one I've found that actually has that combination, as it seems that everybody else seems to delete at least one of those. I wouldn't think that my requirements should be all that unusual. Unfortunately, the Asus web site neglects to mention either the price or a place that you can buy one. Just as well, as I'm not sure that I'd want to buy from a company whose web site is as screwed up as theirs. I haven't bought a new laptop before, so I guess I'm not used to this. I'm used to just building what I want. It's so much easier! BTW, what is it about computer manufacturers that prevents them from just telling you what the machine is? They start by asking you if you are a person or a business (none of your f*ing business!), then want to know what applications I'm going to run (if it can't run every windows program out there, it's junk), then they want to know what processor I want (like I give 2 shits, they all work), then they want to know what screen I want (I can see them all), then they point me at one model that doesn't have the jacks I require and I have to start all over! How can I find out which machines have the options I need?!!
You probably DON'T want to put us2000$+ on a laptop if it's stuck at 1024x768. Now 1280x1024 is standard on midrange laptops, don't look at resolution on LCD like you see CRT, like, getting 1280x1024 sucks (blurs, etc) on most 17" monitors, but it's really crisp and nice on a 15" laptop screen. The Dell 8000 I use has 1600x1200, when I saw that on dell's site I was "ok I'll probably run it at 1280x1024 because it's gonna suck" but to my surprise, it's readable crisp and usable (I Never ran 1600x1200 before, not even on a 21" hehe), and beleive me, you can put a quadro8-2go in the laptop, if it's 1024x768, you'll feel screwed when you'll see better resolution, unless you don't pay much for it.
Of course most people manage with 800x600/1024x768, and I guess for running linux it's not a big issue, but since you mentionned it, I guess it's because it matters to you, unless it's dirt cheap, if you have doubts about the resolution size, don't go for it because chances are you'll regret it, it's not like buying a 200$ CRT monitor, you'll be stucked with it afterwards.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
www.emperorlinux.com laptops with linux
"Weasling out of work is important to learn; it is what separates humans from animals. Except for weasels."
"It seams to have everything one could want"...
but does it have everything you need?
Gotta make sure it comes with that spell checker.
Right now it seEms you could use it.
I like the ASUS overall...you get a lot of features for a relatively low price, it still runs well, overall a pretty stable machine (after about a year and a half now). I did, however find customer support to be not at all helpful, which I consider a huge drawback, even though I tend to be a do-it-yourself type. Another huge drawback I found was that when I upgraded to Windows 2000, several drivers did not work correctly (even after re-installing from the driver upgrade CD ASUS provides with the computer). I have yet to get my DVD player working...grrrr...ended up buying a card modem after the internal modem did not work after the upgrade. Customer support, again, not very helpful in this arena. I imagine, though, if you stick with the OS you are provided with the computer, you'll be fine. From what I hear, though, the machine is more stable than many other laptops on the market..the only problem is if you do have a problem, you're kinda out of luck. Not even sure how able your local computer repair store would be in servicing any repairs. Hmmm...I think it's a gamble. Personally, if I were to buy another laptop, I would go with one that I know has good customer support and that can be serviced easily at just about any repair store, but maybe that's just me....
I had a nice Asus, can't remember the exact model number, but it was cool-looking (all white), very light, very upgradeable, ran Linux via the framebuffer driver, no problems. (Actually I didn't own it, it belonged to the firm I worked for, and I had to leave it behind when I left, but I would have bought it if I needed one).
Enough said. I'll stick to my T20.
I'm a linux user from Portugal,Western Europe,
and i'm confused because in the italian Asus
site it announced that the B1 could do 1400x1050
http://www.asus.it/nb/b1/b1_specifiche.htmas anyone have aa ideia what information is correct
I will consider any notebook only if it is based on the Palomino (i.e., Athlon 4) PowerNOW architecture.
I have been using an L8400 since a few month now, and I am very happy with it. After a few twirks with Debian, I got everything working in Linux (except the Winmodem), and it runs like a charm.
:)
Possibly if I was to name the weakest point of the notebook I would say its battery life, which is some 2.5 hours. This is for the L8400 series though.
ASUS is has a very good price, too. All in all: I would buy it a second time
What most people don't realize is that there are only a few manufacturers of laptops. Taiwan has four. Japan has a few (e.g. Toshiba) and in the U.S. there's just IBM. When you buy a brand-name laptop (Compaq, Dell, what have you), it's manufactured by one of those, generally one in Taiwan. You probably would not recognize the manufactuers' names, other than ASUS.
Dell ships laptops from at least two of them, and the quality varies accordingly. Also, Dell specifies some of their own, cheaper, parts (e.g. keyboards) which is why they fail so often.
What makes the difference between a well-made laptop and a lemon is partly the design standards, and partly the QA attitude of the buyer (not you, the importer). If they don't like having to handle returns, they will insist on getting quality merchandise from the manufacturer.
There's nothing that can't be made less well for less money, and laptops offer a zillion shortcuts. Taiwanese companies are nothing if not accommodating to their large customers *ahem* Dell *ahem* who want lower quality for lower cost.
My ASUS 7400s were imported by Chembook. ChemUSA did a pretty good job, and would deliver without an O/S (no MS tax).
Some laptop makers (e.g. Mitac) are really in some other business (e.g. military contracting), and make laptops just to have something for a favored nephew to do, or in order to get volume discounts on the parts they also use for other stuff.
. .
btw this one has a smart card reader to boot ;) ..
Okay, gotta add this, because this beast, the Fujitsu Siemens Celsuis Mobile H apparently has encypted disks as standard.
You can't see it from the spec sheet from this linked pdf spec sheet sorry no Google text cache :(
But if you go to their rather elegant, but annoyingly Flash only presentation and click on "product" at the right and then "security" at the middle, up pops the words "Encrypted Hard Disk : The information stored on the hard disks cannot be read elsewhere even when connected to another computer"
This is one mean machine : 1.13GHz Mobile PIII - M, 5 Channel Dolby Digital out, Quadro 2 Go w/ 64MB vram and TwinView, 15.1" 1600*1200 display, firewire (but annoyingly as an either / or option for ethernet and modem), Detachable wireless keyboard which uses Bluetooth (but annoyingly it seems a proprietary conection), Smartcard reader, and so on.
Do check it out, however I've not even been able to get their UK branch to tell me how the encryption works, if hardware or software - whether EFS under Win00 add to this or make things worse e.g. and what to do if you absolutely *must* do a data recovery job, let alone for someone to quote me. Nor is there any info about the crypto disks in the manual [pdf] or the bios setup guide [pdf]
I've heard estimates this thing is $5K, and not likely to be sold direct in the US. Which is sad and silly of them. I figure more than a few people would get these, despite the tag and the relative bulk and weight.It looks darn good for its size . .
Even allowing for disk i/o being waay down on my UltraSCSI 160 desktop (but 1GB RAM might compensate a little :), in other aspects this is the first time I've though of a laptop as an *upgrade* (and I have a Quadro based Elsa card to boot, and _need_ that card to be there).
So someone get one to review or something. Laptop security is on of the most important issues out there for businesses. It's why Win 2000 Pro get's some respect in this field (EFS as standard), but laptop security in general is rarely well thought out or just plain hard to do.
This an option / aspect / feature I bet plenty other prople than just me want to know more about. It gets me wondering if this encrypted drive and access features (card and fingerprint) are bios level (there seem to be some bios only related aspects to protect bootup) and whether we migh see some *nix running happily on hardware like this, or whether there some annoying custom driver set involved. And no I've not found any drivers on the support site which look like they're suspects as of yet . . Man, would I like to talk to someone who actually has one of these blah blah rant etc.
== Idle Random Thoughts. Usual Disclaimer Apply ==
. .
sincerest apologies for this, I got so carried away with the post above I somehow posted links for a different product's manuals :(.
by way of excuses, if you go here http://manuals.fujitsu-siemens.com/workstation.htm l to find the right bits and pieces they make you use some annoying java applet (where i clicked on the wrong fiddly bit), then (i double checked now, okay? :-) only offer the "Easy Guide" and "Getting Started" manuals in the end. Dang, I found the proper manual the other day, no idea how to find the link again. Didn't mean to get your hopes up there'd be some juicy info in the intended link, but I read the manual anyway and no mention of encrypting disks. sorry again if you looked in vain
Would anyone be able to recommend a good AMD laptop? I don't want anything big, maybe like a 600-700Mhz. I want a good screen, tho. A S3 chipset would work fine, I just wanna run X on it. Also, battery life is very important. Anyone have any good recommendations?
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
My new T22 has a 1400x1050 display. There are apparently laptops that go up to 1600x1200 as well.
Why do the fonts have to be small? You do know you can adjust what font size everything is rendered in?
Be careful when shopping for ASUS notebooks. The model numbers (B1000, A1000, etc.) only describes the outer appearance of the notebooks. They append letters to the model numbers to denote the chipset and other features.
The B1000 is new so there's probably only one model at this point though.
The company I work for purchased two ASUS M8000s about a year and a half ago; Pentium III 500MHz, 128MB RAM, XGA TFT LCD. As a piece of hardware, they've performed really well, running Win98, Win2k and Linux with no issues at all. However we've had a lot of problems with the manufacturing of the device.
Both laptops have had problems with the screen flickering about a year after we bought them. Seems like the connection between the laptop base and the LCD screen is not all that great. Moving the laptop lid up and down changes the brightness, so you have to now fiddle with them until they show up at their full brightness. One of the laptops had the entire screen portion replaced, however six months after it's started to flicker again: sounds like a design fault to me.
The plastic that encases the screen on one of the laptops has split at the bottom right-hand corner where the screen meets the base. When you open and close the laptop lid, a lot of strain gets put on this area and after one and a half years, it wasn't up to it. The left-hand side is showing signs of wear as well.
Finally, on both laptops, we've had problems with the computer freezing for no apparent reason. Seems like the chips on board the motherboard come loose very easily, and all that is required is for someone to open it up and wriggle them back into their sockets, because the freezing stops after that's done.
So all in all, they're a great laptop for the first year of operation, then Bad Stuff starts happening, at least in the M8000s. Be sure to get an extended warranty if you're going to go for an ASUS.
These may help you;
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,65
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV
My company recently purchased a Dell Insperion 8100 at my request. I like it. It is a large laptop, designed for power, and it does that well. It is pretty much a desktop replacement.
eMail for details.
A friend of mine and I each bought different models at different times, and we've had lots of problems with them:
His hard drive kept failing, and the drive he bought to replace it failed as well. That makes it sound like a bad controller, not a bad drive.
On my model (F590), at least one of the keys on the keyboard has failed (the left shift key). Sounds like a simple failure until I tell you that my parents got the identical model, too, and they are also having key problems... I think the keyboards must be very poorly designed. They're much more difficult than regular laptop keyboards to lift the keycaps off to clean, too (which I did when trying to fix the dead shift key). My LCD is nice and big, but if you leave the computer on for very long, little stripes and pixel snow start appearing in the top part of the display. Interestingly, the only way to wipe the snow off is to play a movie (DVD) full screen. This indicates some bad video BIOS, probably.
By the way, my laptop is just over a year old. Why didn't i turn it in for repair? Because the crappy registration program they make you use if you want mor ethan 90 days of warranty kept crashing and wouldn't send the info to them.
Sony's fine for audio stuff, and some video stuff too. I even think they're ok (though overpriced) for desktop computer hardware (my parents also bought a Sony desktop)... but never, NEVER buy a laptop.
My next laptop is going to be the bitchin' Toshiba coming out in February with NVidia's new chip. Unless someone here can tell me Toshibas suck, too =)
Get off my launchpad!
I bought an Asus laptop 2 years ago rebadged as a Chembook 7000C.
It has some reak drawbacks. The paint is wearing off in the wrist rest area, I can't get it to install Win 2000, and the BIOS has an extremely strange feature that requires a DOS partition to be present on the hard disk for it to boot, even if it's a Linux install.
Support for my Win2K issue has been zilch - all I got from Chembook is an audio driver and the statement 'it should work' in Win2K.
Never again.
Find a dealer and go muck with one, laptops are a personal thing, what I loathe u may like. Just check for a good warranty and whether u like it, what else is there??
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
I've been using IBM Thinkpads for the last few years and these have been the only ones I've been satisfied with.
:-)
What's so great about them one might ask?
Well for me, the display and keyboard are the most important factors.
If you want a replacement for your workstation I can recommend the T-series and if you want a lighter one, you can go for the X-series. I have both (one for traveling and one for heavier work such as coding and running servers).
Sure, IBM is not known for their cheap prices, but these notebooks really scream quality.
If you are unsure, visit your local computer retailer and try them out. Perhaps they might suit you as well.
(Oh, yes forgot to tell, you *can* get them with Linux installed
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
(this sounds like an ad, but it is not! :) )
;) ) and
Roland in NetExpress (they claim to be the first
company to sell Linux computers over the 'Net)
suggested me an ASUS laptop around 1996 and I have
and use it ever since. It is officially called
P6300, BTW. When I spilled beer on the keyboard
(sorry, Roland, I told you it was coffee
keys started to be stuck, ASUS have sent me a
replacement keyboard for free. The only other
thing that broke in those 5 years is the left
mouse button cover (still clicks though).
If you need a sturdy one, go ASUS. On the other
hand, I wish it would be a bit lighter, but you
can not have the best of both worlds.
Just my $0.02
Paul B.
Since we're on the subject of laptops, I just want to vent my frustration with all the laptop vendors who don't include 3 buttons for their mouse. Sure, it's fine for Windows, but in Linux it's -so- nice to have that real third button instead of having to chord.
Thank you IBM for providing three buttons in all of your laptops.
KDE? 8GB RAM? 1024x768 screen?
Bah! [waves dismissively]
I've got a Dell Latitude LM P-133 w/40MB RAM and a 2-gig disk. The screen resolution is 800x600x8bit which is great for a bunch of xterms in blackbox. The only reason I'd buy a new machine is for an ACPI power-off/on button.
I recieved the laptop free from a prior employer and I find it does everything I need. If you need KDE with all its overhead you aren't thinking small enough. I don't know about prices, buy you could probably pick up a similar model for a few hundred on ebay.
marotti.com
What would be really good is to use a fingerprint as the key to decrypting an encrypted file system.
Leaving a fingerprint is faster than typing in a long key string, too.
I'm not sure just how much data you can reliably pull out of a fingerprint though. It must be enough to tell everyone apart...
That laptop has the embedded VIA Savage 4 chipset (basically S3 Savage VGA integrated into the VIA northbridge)
It has the 2D core of the S3 Savage 2000 & the 3D core of the Savage Pro (to save on the transister count & power consumption)
The 2D core does does DVD 'hardware' decoding to.
So if you get a Software DVD player that is compatible with the hardware calls of the Savage DVD decoder you'll save on processor cycles & it will multitask better.
AFAIK the only other processor chipsets with integrated VGA that does 'hardware' DVD are SIS's multimedia chipsets.
An invitation to early blindness, like the solid white background which so many winders users use for their document windows.
I would sooner use a really nice display with an old junker, than the other way around. Most people don't need the speed they have (to wait for their DSL connection to load up /.), but even an Apple ][+ looks better on a 21" screen.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Whoops. you may be right on the 66->100. Other then that, my information is just outdated ;)