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Apple-Quality Intel Laptops?
arashiakari asks: "I have to buy a new laptop soon and I am having trouble settling on a brand or model except one that I cannot use. Apple's iBook laptop is beautiful, functional, lightweight, and made of high quality materials. I would buy one today except that I am a professional programmer and MUST use the same platform my compiler targets: Intel. So far each Intel-based laptop I have looked at is both grossly over-decorated (Compaq, Toshiba) and made of cheap flimsy materials (Dell), or has the combined problem of being overpriced and under-powered - with external bays for everything (Sony). IBM is expensive, but they are as close as I've found to "right" ... with Toshiba in second place. It seems like Intel-based laptops are either hot ugly tanks or oversized PDAs, there seems to be a scarcity of balanced well-thought-out and produced machines. Does the Slashdot have any suggestions?"
I do all of my development on my IBM Thinkpad T23, with built-in wireless and Ethernet. It is a workhorse and has not let me down. IBM is a great company with excellent support for their products.
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Which Compaqs have you looked at? I agree that their consumer/home versions are pretty cheesy looking.
We use the Evo N800c model at work. They look professional, are very reliable, and work with everything we've tried. We've been all Compaq except laptops up until the past year (IBM Thinkpads). Once I saw the newer Evo notebooks, we switched over to the Compaq laptops as well. The IBM's were great too, just pricey as you said. I don't even normally put my Compaq in a case unless I need extra peripherals or are traveling very far with it. It's pretty sturdy.
Before Thinkpads, we used all Toshibas. They were great a few years ago. I think their build-quality and reliability has gone down though, at least based on the ones we've bought.
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
What I've always liked about Apple's notebooks is their ability to make the right compromises between size, weight, cost, speed, expandability, etc. I'm not saying they're perfect, but I agree with you that they're usually a lot better thought out than most of the wintel notebooks out there. You're better off asking yourself what your priorities are in a portable machine, and then picking a box that was built with the same priorities as you. As you said, the VAIO line is well designed, but often lacks features and speed. Do you need that extra speed? If you're looking for a devel machine then maybe you should just bite the bullet and buy a chunkier box.
Another poster suggested testing your apps in VPC on the Mac, but I think a virtual machine is the last place you want to be debugging test code. Any chance you could move to high level development? That way the test platform wouldn't really matter, just use your OO language of choice.
Don't knock HTML email. It makes my life easier, since I
I was roughly on the same quest as you a year ago. I spent too much time searching for online product reviews that it eventually crush my head. I decided to go to a local computer mall, and browse around the products that I've reviewed online. The product that I actually picked was none of that I thought was good (based on the reviews), it was a Fujitsu Lifebook S Series (6010); as I expected it's the closest thing that can come to iBook's quality, screen is definetly the best of all other notebooks I've used (Dell, Compaq, Toshiba, Vaio, Acer, Gateway, etc), the magnesium alloy screen cover is very solid. And oh, it has a superdrive--the same one used in ibooks!
All in all, it's the tiny bits of design detail that catch my attention on this well built pc, fujitsu actually manufacture it themselve in Japan, unlike others that usually outsource their production line to taiwan.
I would suggest you to go and check out the physical product yourself, ask for a live demo, try launching programs, use the disk, connect to an external mouse just like how you'd use the computer; a 20 minute of physical test is much better then a 2 weeks of reading online reviews.
Toshiba used to make really good laptops, but their newer ones you'll hear aren't meeting the same standards. Dell makes truly awful laptops (they seem to miss the point of portable completely)... :)
Thinkpads are really truly the only non-Apple laptop I've used that really did the job right. They're small, sturdy, and they do what they need to do. If you need something powerful, you'll need a desktop too, but really the resolution, speed and energy efficiency of the Thinkpads are really quite good.
Though of course, I still prefer my iBook
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Sharp Mebius Muramasa It is smaller and lighter than Apple's brick. It runs on Transmeta so you can get geek points too.
Panasonic Let's Note Again, smaller and lighter than Apple's iBrick.
It continues to amaze me that people look at the iBook as some kind of zenith of hardware design when it is bigger, heavier, and has only one mouse button compared to the Windows-based alternatives. I guess if you are comparing the Apple to an IBM or Dell laptop you'd have a point but with all sorts of more stylishly designed laptops than those available you'd be hard pressed to claim that Apple is leading in the field.
I have been pwned because my
I've had on the whole positive experiences with both Fujitsu and Sharp. (I've linked to the latest models, not the ones I've used.) They may not be titanium, but they're solid and not overly bloated.
With all the big names flying around, have you considered an Alienware machine? They're not the lightest in the world but they look to be fairly high quality.
They bill for games, but performance is performance.
I researched what was available pretty extensively, and chose an IBM Thinkpad G40.
I wanted something powerful, but this was for home, so price was very much a consideration. I looked hard at a couple of Toshiba's, and at the Dell range, but the IBM came in at a slightly lower price for the features I wanted, and I know from experience that Thinkpads are high quality. I did also look at the iBooks, but the prices were way too high for the feature set.
For what it's worth, I wanted 40 Gb / 512 Mb/ DVD/CR-RW combo / 15" screen / XP Pro / 2 GHz or better processor. Size / Weight / battery life weren't an issue. The G40 I bought has a 2.4 GHz processor. Unlike most Thinkpads, it doesn't have removable drives. I was willing to cut the iBook some slack on processor speed (although the ones I tried in store were very slow; they were short on RAM as displayed).
Relative price probably varies from country to country, and month to month, so if you live in a different country from me (probable), and since my purchase was a month ago, you might find something else works better for you.
Sager laptop owner forums
Sager reseller
It may be a somewhat unknown brand, but I have been totally blown away with it. Check out the specs and the forums.
http://www.vprmatrix.com/products_notebook_200A5.a sp
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
The thing you have to do is understand why IBM and Apple are at the top of their markets.
One reason...they build their own Notebooks...take a look at this page and then you'll understand why...
The short answer is Alienware, Toshiba, Dell, Compaq, etc are all made by the same companies...chances are they are all the same laptop.
Sony, IBM, and Apple all used to design their own notebooks...Apple kind of has to (yet they still use ODMs to assemble their boxen), and Sony and IBM have started to slip recently (using some of Quanta's ODM systems).
But if you want to find out how good the notebook is, find out who really made it.
Of course, you can always buy from the site that I linked to. They will sell notebooks without an OS and even have a Linux Forum. Not to mention they have unmatched customer service.
I work in a shop that sees a ton of desktop's and laptops alike, and the only ones I never see for hardware problems are the Thinkpads. I personally use a beefed up T20 w/a 900MHz PIII and a DVD/CDRW drive, and I couldn't imagine using another laptop (besides the 15" TiBook I lust over). They're built like tanks. I dropped my TP 600 prior to this one about 5 times from 4 feet up before I gave it to my mom. She still uses it for school. Just avoid the i series. They're built like compaqs.
If you are just targetting Intel processors with open source tools, you shouldn't have any problems. If you need to target a non-gnu platform, however, well then you need a really good laptop to compensate for the hassles.
I was fairly satisfied with a Sony VAIO that a previous employer insisted on paying too much for. (I submitted the specs for an iBook, but they insisted on spending more money) Of course it not only cost more, but ended up needing repairs more often.
I bought an iBook on my own, but really haven't seen a PC laptop that I would buy on my own yet.
My advise is to concentrate on the features you most like in a PowerBook/iBook. Is it the display? The ports? General durability? Running a GUI desktop and a Unix shell at the same time?
If the latter is a factor, as in you might want to do some network analysis in the field, then you want to pre-validate that the laptop you're looking at can be partitioned and dual-booted with either Linux or BSD.
The man said he was going to develop on Intel, he didn't say windows.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
I recommend the IBM Thinkpad as well. I hated laptops but I have just spent two years using a 600X and it has made a convert out of me. I just bought a certified pre-owned T30 of my own from the IBM web site.
My only real complaint is that I didn't get the !@#$% CDROMs for the Windows XP that is installed on it. You are supposed to be satisfied with the recovery partition. The story is if you have a problem with the recovery partition, and the system is under warranty, IBM will fix it ASAP. What I want to know is what am I supposed to do if it's 2:00 in the morning or if the unit is no longer under warranty?
Also, it is possible for the system to get to the point where you can't boot to access the recovery partition. In that case you are supposed to use a recovery floppy - except there is no floppy drive on the system and there's no documentation on what to put on a bootable CDROM (the floppy is built by some utility)!
Even if I wanted to pay for it twice and I bought a retail copy of XP I still lose because now I don't have the IBM-specific drivers and utilities.
Of course, IBM is not the company sticking it to people here, that "honor" belongs to Microsoft and their utterly delusional paranoia that someone might steal a copy of Windows. You can hardly get a PC that doesn't come with Windows and by the time a new version of Windows comes out your hardware that is running the previous version is obsolete so there is very little reason to actually steal Windows.
Virtual PC emulates an Intel based PC. Unless you actually install Windows, it has nothing to do with it, and you can install almost any other OS instead.
There are exceptions, but that simply has to do with the OS not having drivers for the specific "hardware" Virtual PC emulates.
You said you like their laptops, but they are expensive, so you might want to check it out. They sell both new and factory refurbished stuff there.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
I just bought an IBM Thinkpad R40 a couple months ago, and all I can say is it's great. Works wonderfully out of the box with Linux and FreeBSD, is very fast (Pentium M), great battery life (around 4-5 hours), very nice screen, and great construction. I've been impressed. It's a big step up from my previous Compaq Presario, and not significantly more expensive.
-- "Big Brother is Watching..."
Well, Virtual PC is still incapable of splitting its PC tasks and using a Mac's second processor for anything more trivial than drawing the window border. It's still slower than it should be, but not as slow as you imply. A $1000 Mac can generally run programs well enough to check them.
Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
I'd say the same (I've been using a Thinkpad as my main laptop for just over two years now, and like you, everything in it works with Linux), except that IBM now have some models that will only take particular types of wireless adapters - apparently the current T40 is one of these.
Before you put your cash down, do your homework with Google to make sure that it will do what you want.
I have a friend with a titanium...the case surrounding the LCD is flimsy and isn't stiff enough to support the screen. It's fairly easy to break the screen (which is quite expensive to replace).
May we never see th
Well.. I use IBM ThinkPad R32.
The size of it is just right. The performance, 1.7Ghz Mobile Pentium 4, is just good.
Among american products, except for the Apple's, IBM seems to be the best. Dell can be good. But if you have an eye for products, it doesn't seem to be so good one. However AS of Dell is good. Gateway's is too heavy usually.
However, there is some problem with IBM's ThinkPad.
1. User support doesn't seem to be as good as that of Apple.
2. ThinkPad seems to be weak to overheating. (I didn't compare it with other x86 notebooks, though. )
When Windows crashes while it's being hibernated or shutdown, which happens often, it can be overheated in a crarrying case. Actually if you don't put it nto a carrying case then it's ok. But I think it would be better that IBM engineers provide solution to this problem. Some kind of independecy on MS Windows problem.
Anyway, once overheating happens, sometimes response of Windows can be very very slow. (of course, the temperature is normal now. ), crashes more often.
3. Strangely the video component malfunctions sometimes when WMP plays some video files.
etc, etc.
However, if you should develop programs for Windows platform, I will recommend the ThinkPad.
Sony's notebook is not so good as it looks.
The network component usually has problems, etc.
2. Become a stockholder. Stockholders also get access to discounts.
3. eBay. The IBM store on eBay has some sweet deals.
If you save enough money you can go out and buy a cheap iBook as well. Have the best of both worlds.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Well, speaking as a dealer who carries Panasonic Toughbooks, I must concur that they're excellent, high-quality laptops but you pay for the quality. A Toughbook 28 with a p3-800, 256MB, 30GB HD and 12.1" screen will run you somewhere between $4500 and $5000.
Disclaimer - I am an IBM employee.
That being said, I got my wife an A21 for her use (graduate student / teaching), and we've certainly been very happy with that (the employee discount was very nice, too). My current primary x86 workstation at work is a T30, which plays nicely at home with the integrated wireless card (Cisco Airport 340/350).
Compared to other laptos I've used in the past, the Thinkpads do seem to be a little more forgiving of a little abuse, and from a hardware standpoint are quite a bit more stable for constant use. They are a little more expensive than some other brands for the same drive space/pro speed, but the rest of the build quality is well worth it, IMNSHO.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Much different product, and not just MHO.
Virtual PC emulates an x86 processor. VMware, as the name implies, creates a virtual machine. Two completely different tasks. Emulating, as you would imagine, has much greater overhead, so VPC is going to be much slower.
This might be what you are looking for. Its a low power C3, perfect for mobile computers. The thing has no drives except for a compact flash reader and laptop hard drive. This thing is on my wish list.
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)