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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?"
IBM laptops win my vote for having the best ballance of quality, features, performance, portability, sturdiness, and design. Yes, this all comes at a higher price but if you look, it's about the same or less than the equivalent Apple gear. Moreover, amazingly the prices did go down compared to say 2 years ago. I remember there was no way to get a T-series Thinkpad for under $2000 and it still would be stripped down unless you get a $3000. These days you can buy a well configured T-series Thinkpad for under $2000 or you could opt for an cheaper R-series and pay the prices pretty much in Apple's 12inch iBook range for it (excapt that you'd get a better screen and much faster CPU)
Another vote for IBM. I'm currently on a T30 and had a T23 before this. I use my TP 24/7 and it never gets turned off. It gets a ton of use, not just sitting idle. It never crashes or dies. Should you have a hardware issue you'll have it back to you in 48 hours. They aren't the cheapest, but you get what you pay for.
:)
I couldn't work without my notebook...and I'm not giving up this T30 for anything...but maybe a T40.
They have some nice-looking laptops - especially their new Centrino-based model.
I think you can even make binaries for windows with a mingw crosscompiler... Thank god for GCC!
if it really has to be solid gear there is no substitute for the real deal. /. like in this article a while back
(rugged laptops have been mentioned a lot here on
Now apple does make some very nice sturdy ibooks and some very nice looking titaniums.
And that it can withstand all the chaos and abuse those weird apple-addicts throw at it deserves some respect,
But these babies,... these babies are _made_ for rock and roll!
Let's be serious here, Apple laptops aren't all that durable. Two of my friends have had the screens break, one in a bookbag and one in a laptop bag. With a few exceptions, I'd say the average laptop now is a lot less durable than 10 years ago.
I've picked up two used Panasonic Toughbooks on eBay and they've been attention-getters ever since. How many laptops can you stand on, throw across the room, use as hammers, and use in the rain, all while your favorite mp3s are playing?
I'm a big form-follows-function guy. The Toughbooks are all black, magnesium alloy with rubber covers over the ports. They're elegant in the same way a Beretta pistol is a work of art.
I've taken to keeping my Tougbook in a bag lately, not to protect it from the outside world, but to protect the outside world from it. The rubber feet came off the bottom some time ago, and the metal case has a tendency to mar floors if I drop it. I do that sometimes just for effect.
I presently own two Toughbooks: a CF-25, which is a full-size machine (comparable to any other laptop). It's a Pentium 150 with a nice comfy keyboard, 1024x768 screen behind a polycarbonate sheet, three(!) PCMCIA slots, and a gel pad surrounding the hard drive, which I upgraded from 4 gig to 10. The lack of CardBus and USB finally forced me to upgrade to my present machine, which is a...
CF-17, a Celeron 300 subnotebook. It's petite, the (touch)screen is only 800x600, and the keyboard takes some getting used to. With 128 meg and the 20 gig drive I dropped in it, it's more power than I need. (My desktop is only a 300MHz machine, for comparison.) It's got a single USB1.1 port, and I occasionally stick a 480Mb/s "hi speed" USB card in the slot when I need to use an external burner.
There are of course more recent Toughbook models, up to Pentium III and probably faster, but my budget and needs are more modest. Lately Panasonic's come out with a few "semi"-rugged models, which translates to "beats the crap out of your Dell, but won't survive a 10' drop onto concrete like the others". They're worth looking into if you're not the type to occasionally toss a load of 2x4's into your truck without noticing the laptop sitting there.
P.S. I'm not affiliated with Panasonic in any way, just a loyal customer. I could've probably sold a dozen of these machines to people who've been impressed by mine, I should see about becoming a dealer.
... was in the same situation. On pricewatch, he found a notebook from MicroPro, with a 2500+ (socketed no less), a 333Mhz fsb, Mobile Radeon 9000 64DDR, 60gig HD, and a really nice 15 inch screen. And if you go to pricewatch, and search for "MicroNote Professional 530", you can get it for under $1,200 dollars. It doesn't get the best battery life (around 2 hours and 10 minutes under normal use), and it's feels almost twice as heavy as my ibook, but it's a very cool machine.
There are some things I don't like about it though. Of course this machine has some very hot components. At the bottom, there is a large intake just under the CPU, with a solid copper heat sink and heat pipes that bring it to the left side of the notebook, with a turbine to help it along. For this reason, you can't keep it on your lap (both legs) without blocking the airflow. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but if you put your hand next to the vent on the left, you can feel that the air is really hot.
I wouldn't recommend it if you are looking for an extremely mobile notebook, but if you want one of the most powerful notebooks in production for under $1,200, click here for details. Remember, you get a special deal if you buy it through pricewatch (about $222 I think). If you want any more details, ask me, or him.
I bought a P2110 a year or so ago, and it was the best laptop I have ever owned (albeit a little slow.) Their laptops tend to use magnesium over cheap, flimsy plastic (dell, the 8100 -- piece of junk) and are well put together, all at a reasonable price. I recently purchased a P5010D, which is almost as good quality as the P2110.
If you want to spend money, and not on two fujitsu laptops, go with IBM. They use decent plastic and good designs. They are some of the more intelligently designed laptops out there, and have been hardy tools for me in the past.
However, you should be able to find a comparable and cheaper machine in its lower-end brother, the D500.
I am also a professional programmer, so I can relate to your worries about development restrictions on a non-PC platform. I've been running VirtualPC on my second-hand TiBook for awhile now, and I can testify that it works quite well for PC development purposes.
...I find I write better code on trailing-edge hardware, because any speed issues become extremely obvious where the same code would SEEM fine on my Athlon box.
;-)
:-). Check out the Connectix web site if you're interested in more info.
On a 667 Mhz laptop, i can use visual studio without complaints. Yes, it's slower than it would be on a P4 notebook. Let me tell you why I don't care: optimization!
But then again, maybe I'm a maniac.
Anyway, based on my experience, I'd suggest that you not rule Apple out yet... Unless you're doing hardware drivers or video games, the emulation won't be a huge issue... And the reliability and design on these laptops are almost everything the zealots say they are
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
amen to this. sager makes some excellent laptops. i see all these "get a thinkpad" posts. sure they are fantastic but....
sager makes the best laptop for what you're lookign for. a friend of mine has one and that thing is nice to use.
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
Yes, it's big and heavy.
But it's got EVERYTHING internal (no need for external bays) and a beautiful 15" screen with resolution that is far higher than Apple's 15" laptop LCDs. Runs every game I have quite well.
It's an Inspiron 8200. Yes, it's not the most portable, but Dell's primary market is businesses. It doesn't matter if the unit is a little heavy if a bulk of your "traveling" is from your cube to the conference room. (Or in the case of where I work, half of the engineers have Dells that move between the docking station on their desk and the benchtop in the lab multiple times per day.)
That said - If you have the money, Thinkpads are the way to go. They are the most durable laptops on the market by far. (Unless you go into the "ruggedized" market, where units like the Panasonic Toughbook reign supreme.) If cost is an issue, Dell makes excellent laptops, especially the Inspiron 8000 series.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
http://www.eurocom.ca
..
'Nuf said
How do you emulate the price of an Intel notebook on a Mac?
... I get little pamphlets in the mail from IBM every quarter or so, with deals and a URL.
Maybe thats just me though.