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Comparative Laptop Reviews?
clambert asks: "A few co-workers and I are in the market for a new laptop, but it's been incredibly difficult to try and explore what's out there. How do Sony's warranties rank up against Dell's? Can I get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the new Toshibas? What model IBMs feature DDR memory? There doesn't seem to be an AnandTech/Ars/Toms for the notebook market, and short of filtering through all the marketing hype on every {brand}.com, its tough to find out what systems offer what specs. Are there any comprehensive resources out there for those of us in the market for a new laptop?"
From my experience (2+ years in retail computer sales) the best laptops you can buy are ones that you cannot see, like a Dell or a Toshiba Tecra. (This is changing, however, their Satellite's have gotten very good recently, check out the 5005-s507, s504, or, if you want to go all out, s607) I would try cNet, they usually have some ok reviews on notebooks, or browse the opinion sites, keeping a air of cynicism since some of these people will bitch up a storm because they didn't know how to turn on the computer.
Personally speaking, if it were my money, I would go Toshiba. Great unit, low price, warranty extensions available through them for 3 years full accidental damage, the whole bit.
Yes, I know - only one mouse button.
;) ). There's a Firewire port in the back so you can plug in your DV cameras and the like - again, sat there in the living room with my wife and tweaked my daughter's birthday party video.
But otherwise, my Powerbook is a great machine. I can put Yellow Dog Linux on it if I want just Linux. Or if I want a good BSD system, like the song says, "Boom...there it is." Runs the major apps I care about (MS Office (yes, I know...but it's a business thing), Adobe Acrobat), runs the apps I make (Perl), has a great display, DVD playback, and if you plug in a monitor in the back, you can make it work as a secondary monitor (instead of just a mirror, which is kind of cool). Instant sleep-off, sleep-on just by closing the lid. (Most Windows based laptops I've seen get *very* pissed off when you put them in sleep mode, what with the PCMCIA slots getting redected and all.)
Modem, 1 G/100/10 Ethernet built in, Airport built in (you can turn it off if you're worried, or get an Airport and bridge it to your local network at 128 bits encryption - sitting in the living room surfing the net was never so much fun
Other than the mouse thing - and you either get used to doing Control-Click for secondary mouse stuff, or when you have it at a desk you plug in a little USB mouse - it's been a rock solid machine.
Oh, and it plays Icewind Dale great too. (Baldur's Gate runs all right, as long as you boot into OS 9, because the bastards haven't Carbonized BG I yet.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
From what I understand, there are only three or so
notebook MANUFACTURERS. Dell, Sony etc. take these notebooks, slap their trademarks all over
kick up the price by 50%-150% and force you to pay the M$ tax.
Scan http://powernotebooks.com to build your own.The above link has a perfect score in http://www.resellerratings.com (makes me a _little_ nervous) but they have a nice range of books from minimal SIS chipset based to the lateses P-4 DDR units with 64Mb DDR radeon video. All in the $800-$1700 (US dollar) range.
For a narrower range of notebooks but with better prices, pop over to http://www.mwave.com and poke on notebooks in their catalog. mwave has very good ratings in http://www.resellerratings.com (more realistic IMHO) and will let you configure your notebook without the M$ tax.
Well, I have to disagree. I am a tech support person at a resonably large educational facility, and I would Never get a Dell. They are reasonably priced, but we have had more serious hardware problems with Dells than any other laptop. For instance, One 3 month old Dell's display just died. Many of the 2-3 year old laptops have had their motherboards replaced. I am sure there are some good Dell laptops out there, but out of the 5 new Dell laptops we have bought since January, 3 have gone in for service.
As my boss says : "Dude you got a dell...Dude you're going to Hell"
Nitpicky, I know, but....
The new TiBooks come with AirPort. And they have a nifty $100 rebate on an AirPort BaseStation.
Lovin mine. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I betcha it's the only laptop you can buy with Unix not only factory-installed, but as the primary OS. Ya just drop a little icon onto your taskbar for Terminal, and it's just like home.
If you want to work WITH your computer instead of ON your computer, it's a great choice.
If you are interested in GNU/Linux laptops, you can narrow the search quickly via
Linuxcare Lab's certification reports. As usual, GNU/Linux-related docs are useful descriptive than the manufacturers'. =-)
-Paul Komarek
Let me translate:
"I want a new laptop and going to 5 or 6 websites to look up information is a lot of work. Will you please do it for me?"
Bull, Dell places fall limiters on your parts selection to increase their profit margins.
:(
:(
Example, Pentium 4 Laptops are only available with Geforce4 video cards unless you get the one (/. is SOOO going to mess up that link, it is a link to the Inspirion 8200) model that they have that comes with a video card that is NOT insanly powerful AND has a Pentium 4 chip on it.
This model also happens to need a lot of 'other' upgrades to bring it up to the range of the next cheapest laptop and then you end up paying the same price (or greater) then the bottom most default configuration of the next laptop one level up but without a good video card.
it is insane.
Their Pentium 3 based laptops are decent enough, but for anybody who wants to do a lot of CPU intensive work and NO gaming AT ALL, well hell, heh.
That and they only sell Intel kit, Dell has a significant dedication towards caring more about what Intel says then what AMD says.
Getting a well built laptop is NOT easy, and often times to get a REALLY well built one you have to deal with yee as old technology.
See Here for an example of this tendency. Yeesh. Who knew that waterproofing could cost so much? ^_^
Here is another example
Yeesh. That much money and it can just stand a water STREAM. Ugh. Nothing about full immersion.
Anybody know of an x86 laptop that has a 15" screen, 1ghz+ chip, assloads of ram, and is fully submersible? No? Until they make one I am not buying a laptop.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I have to agree with the positive reviews of Toshiba laptops. I use my Satellite 1800 (PS181C) exclusively at home, work, school, and on job sites everywhere. Whenever it's powered by AC, dnetc is crunching away eating 100% of the CPU. Heat is barely a factor, nor is noise from the constantly running fan.
When I was preparing to purchase a laptop, I found that Toshiba's were the best bang for the buck. This machine is a fantastic balance of performance and economy. So it doesn't have a 15" display or a DVDROM - it stays powered longer than any others i work with.
My only real issue is the fact that the battery will not charge, or if it does, it does so at a rate of 1% every 48 hours when the CPU is pegged. However, with my power saving options I wind up with anywhere from 4-6 hours of run-time on battery, so I guess Toshiba's power handling is just fine with me. {smile}
As for Dells; I wouldn't give you a thank-you for one. I'd never reccomend one to a friend, family member, colleague, or client.
They run loud and hot, their display hinges are far too loose, they continue to have battery issues, the screens wind up with a keyboard imprint stamped on them (lid closes too tightly, perhaps), the power saving functionality is awful (far too simplistic for one thing), and they're overall quite tempermental.
Their phone techs, I might add, can be quite... shall we say demeaning and most un-helpful. A colleague of mine has an Inspiron (top of the line book as of about six months ago) whose battery has gone south. Battery thinks it's at 100% charge, but run-time is approx. 30 minutes. He phoned Dell, who told him to enable his power saving features which, of course, had been active the whole time. The battery continued to deteriorate to the point where it would only maintain a 74% charge, then a 67%, etc..
All this, mind you, with the extended on-site warranty package!
If ever I have a problem with my Satellite, I'll follow-up with an indication of Toshiba's technical support.
Oh, and for the record, I much prefer Toshiba's keyboard layout (ref: Home/End/PgUp/PgDown) to the style used by Dell and IBM books. I can use them without having to lift my hands from their position, whereas on a Dell/IBM machine I have to pick up my right hand and look at the keyboard to hit the derned things, way in tarnation up in front of the hinge. Most inconvenient, IMHO, and my productivity always suffers when I have to use one of those machines.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
As someone who used to be a program manager in Dell's portables group, I can tell you that Dell has a number of product marketing people that ensure that a special competition lab prepares machines for tests (they get tweaks the rest of us may never see, both hardware and software, mostly drivers), then carefully follow-up on the testing and results reporting/weighting to ensure that Dell is always at or near the top. (You'll notice that weight itself is seldom given much weight in notebook tests that include Dells, primarily because they have historically tended to be on the pudgy side - the Latitude CP family contains a half-pound of *screws* for cryin' out loud...)
This isn't meant as a slam at Dell - I suspect nearly all other OEMs do this as well, but this is an area in which Dell makes it a point to execute even better than usual. It's simply not possible to be important enough to get a "test machine" from Dell and not have some PM continually looking over your shoulder throughout the testing. Is that undue influence on the results? I guess that depends on your perspective...
As for the advertising stick, I've never seen it used, but then, it doesn't really have to be, now does it? When everyone *knows* you're carrying a big stick, you have the luxury of being able to speak softly. (TR was right about so many things...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last