The Best Traveling Laptop?

Subaiku asks: "Next semester my girlfriend will be traveling to Japan to continue with her studies. As a going away gift I plan on buying her a laptop of some sort. I've been thinking about going with a PowerBook, or maybe a Dell, but I really need advice as to which brand/configuration/platform would be best in terms of ease of use/connectivity in foreign places (namely Japan). Any suggestions?"

Comments

Id go with a ibook 14"

[EvanTaylor]

or powerbook, but youll want a good quality screen so stay away from the 12"ers. Battery life is awesome on the g3 ibooks, so it is great for travel. Pretty good shock resistence, resilient case, etc. If your going the pc route, ibm thinkpads beat the hell out of dell imo. There are new centrino based thinkpads with great battery life too, so mac is not the only lower power platform. Only problems Ive found with owning a mac are the little apps all cost 10 bucks or so, and you really need em.

Broad question....

[este]

It depends on what she'll use it for.

AS a deskop replacement, portable workstation, or just another mobile email station :-)?

I love the Powerbook (and I'm not huge into macs, tho OS X is nice). I personally have an IBM T20 that's slim, light, and rugged. I love it, and I've taken it all over the world, including Japan.

Mostly, it'll depend on her expertise (if she has to do on-the-fly configuration), and just personal preferences. I dunno. Ask her. :-)

Apple is right.

[E1ven]

Your first thought was a good one.
Get her the 15 inch Powerbook G4.
While certain features of OSX (such as the movie listings) don't work properly in .jp, Apple has done a GREAT job in preparing the system.
The Japanese support in OSX is top-knotch, and there is a lot of BSD support for Japanese.

The machine is strong, and gets great battery life. And, I must admit, Apple's Technical Support and customer care is Top of the line.
I had had a number of problems with my laptop due to physical manafacturing, and after working with Apple, and describing the problem, they not only replaced it, but gave me a faster model as an apology.

I cannot recomend Apple laptops enough.

Now that's a tough one...

[noeffred]

1. ease of use.
   I can't really say if either an Apple or a x86 based laptop will be better in therms of ease of use. Many people swear by Apple, on the other hand, you might get a better bang for the buck when buying an x86. I'd say it's probably just being used to something. I've been working for years with Windows, now i'm hooked on Linux and Gnome. I've never had my hands on an Apple PC so can't say.
2. connectivity
   I'd say the only thing you need is to find some sort of either an travel adapter or some replacement power brick for Japan, which shoulnd't be that hard to get. Ethernet and stuff is the same all over the globe, so connectivity is nothing I'd be worried about. Problems could arise when using an analog modem, since these can be quite a pain in the butt sometimes. But you can get some adaptors for the differnet plugs, so again, no problem.
3. 
   So as you can see, it's just a matter of getting the best bang for the buck, everything else is pretty much a no-brainer, just a matter of getting some adapters and/or power brick. Just ask your hardware dealer to help you out.

Re:Now that's a tough one...

[BJH]

You won't need a new power brick - 99% of laptops these days have universal power supplies. In any case, Japan is 100 volts, so most US gear works OK here anyway (although there are exceptions - I have a US-made external modem that refuses to connect without a 100V to 110V transformer attached).

Japanese power points are two vertical bars - IIRC, this matches the US standard, right?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Don't.

[Peter Clary]

She will probably be able to buy something better at the same price, or roughly equivalent at a cheaper price, once she is there.

Re:Don't.

[Nutrimentia]

Wrong. Japan is the place for cutting edge consumer electronics, but computers don't fall into that category. Japanese computers and components are always more expensive for what you get than what is available in the US. I've lived here for almost 4 years now and have seen the prices come way down, but its still expensive.

Plus she'll be stuck with a Japanese layout keyboard. letters are standard QWERTY, but useful punctuation is all funky, like Shift+2 for quotes " and shift+7 for apostrophes '. The @ is to the right of the P key and doesn't require a modifier-key to use though :-) I ordered my laptop from the states and made a trip home to get it so I wouldn't be stuck with that stuff.

Apple's computers are almost exactly the same price as they are in the US. The slight elevated expense offsets shipping and pads daily currency fluctuations, so if she did buy over here, Apple would be a good deal. If she buys at the apple.co.jp Apple Store, she can order an American keyboard layout too.

I'd recommend an iBook and maybe wait a little bit. Word on the street is that a speed bump is coming across the line. But the OS is excellent and the Japanese support is great. Be sure to have her check out the Character Palette.

Also, check out the JEDict application. Its an incredible Japn/Engl dictionary that also has contextual menu (ctrl+click!) translation support that is indispensable! The Omnigroup applications OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner are important too.

I hope she enjoys the computer and the time over here. I love it,

Jealous

[jsse]

Next semester my girlfriend will

Sorry, I stop reading from there. I'm afraid majority of /. need more help than you.

Horror!!

[droyad]

Don't buy dell. Everyone knows Dell's are crap.. everyone. You get what you pay for (esp with laptops). You don't want that Dell crapping out while you are overseas.

Invest in a good quality laptop (Toshi, Apple, Acer or IBM). All three companies support international travelers and Acer has a 2 _hour_ turnaround on their repairs.

And for godsake buy the extended warrenty, worth it's weight in gold (literally unfortunatly)

I was at a trade show yesterday and was looking at the IBM laptops. I notice that the sales guy was throwing them around quite abit and I questioned him on it. Well he closed it and _stood_ on it for a while, then he opened it up and passed it to me by the _monitor_ and lo and behold still worked fine. I was impressed.

As for battery life, those new Centrino systems are sweet, as are the Transmeta ones. Up to 8 hours battery life on a standard battery.

One last one was the new laptop from Toshiba it was about as thick as a finger and wieghed 1.2kg. PIII, 30GB HDD, 512 ram, wow. Expensive though.

Just a thought, try buying the laptop on the way if possible, they are often cheaper (and higher speced) in Asia.

Robert

wait

[corian]

This isn't really the answer you're asking for, but she's going to find much more advanced laptops for sale in Japan than you have a home. You're better off just giving her a raincheck, or the cash in advance. Seriously.

2 things to consider

[ObviousGuy]

The first has already been brought up. Basically, whatever crappy laptop you buy her in the U.S. is going to be completely too large and too heavy compared to the laptops she can find in Japan. Take the Panasonic Let's Note Light or the Sharp Mebius Muramasa as examples of laptops that are at the pinnacle of portable, not to mention that they already support Japanese out of the box.

The second thing to consider is that this is *your girlfriend*. It's not your wife, it's not your sister or your mom. It's someone with whom you do not have a determined future with. Are you prepared to give away $1,500 bucks and have it disappear forever if she decides that she likes Fuji Nakamichi more than you? Some advice (that's why you're posting here, right?) - give her a big kiss and some flowers.

Re:2 things to consider

[malice95]

The second thing to consider is that this is *your girlfriend*. It's not your wife, it's not your sister or your mom. It's someone with whom you do not have a determined future with. Are you prepared to give away $1,500 bucks and have it disappear forever if she decides that she likes Fuji Nakamichi more than you? Some advice (that's why you're posting here, right?) - give her a big kiss and some flowers.

Amen brother.. Girlfriends come and go.. and long distance ones genrally dont last. Spend the money on a new notebook for yourself and buy her some flowers like the orig poster said.

Re:2 things to consider

[c0wh]

Don't you know anything?

The only way a woman will love you is if you spend all of your money on her, and bow to her every whim!

Sheesh!

pBook or ThinkPad

[GreenKiwi]

I'd get either the 15" pBook from Apple or an IBM T30 (particularly with the 1400x1050 display) from IBM. You might even be able to get it cheap from ThinkPad Depot. They frequently have good deals.

The one piece of advice that I would have for anyone getting a laptop is to MAKE SURE YOU GET 3 YEARS OF COVERAGE!!!

Laptops take a beating, and parts go bad. You can't easily (and cheaply) pop old parts out and new parts in, so get the extra warranty!

Don't

[Alomex]

Sonny, listen to me. We geeks have a tendency to either be incredibly cheap or get so overly excited about finally having a girlfriend that we go overboard on gifts.

Giving her an expensive gift will not improve your image in her eyes. To the contrary, it will send the message "I'm so desperate I'm willing to shell $3K to impresss you". Knowing she has you wrapped around her finger will encourage her to search for another potential boyfriend, as she knows there is a fail-safe option at home.

Don't get me wrong. Be nice to your GF but don't over do it, and occasionally you might want to hold back a little on purpose so she yearns for you.

Save the $3k and promise to visit her in a few months. If she really loves you, the thought of having you in Japan (for a _visit_, you dirty minded folks) would be gift enough for her.

Smaller is not always better.

[Andy Dodd]

A lot of the smaller laptops aren't as small and portable as they seem. Most of them achieve small size by making their peripherals external. If you want those peripherals when you travel, if anything they're worse than a larger integrated all-in-one unit. (Size of original peripherals plus external enclosure plus cables.)

Whether you get her a Dell or an Apple depends on what she's used to. If she's a PC person, get her a Dell. I have an Inspiron 8200 and love it. It's big and a bit heavy, but it has EVERYTHING, including a screen that blows away all of the Apple screens except maybe the 17" one. (Bad screens are one of the biggest problems the Apples have... The 17 inch PB only has a resolution of 1440x900, the Dell 8x00 series has *two* different 15" 1600x1200 screens - If you go with Dell, *get the UltraSharp version of the UXGA screen* - The difference between the USharp screens and the original one in contrast and viewing angle is like night and day. (My dad has the original one on his 8000, although he prefers the lowered viewing angle for business confidentiality reasons, less chance of someone seeing his work on an airplane.)

I love my 8200. A number of friends had 8000s in college and loved them, my dad likes his 8000, and my research lab in school had an 8000 that all of the researchers coveted.