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Six Laptops That Don't Burn
digihome writes, "An exploding laptop can really ruin your weekend, so here's a review of six laptops that are unlikely to blow up." From the article: "We evaluated everything from battery and air vent temperatures, AC power draw and battery life to performance and price... What we found is that there's a real difference among those notebooks that know how to take the heat without sacrificing performance."
Why not just buy one of the OLPC machines? Price to performance and considering heat produced, nothing else can come close. I'm sure once Brazil and other countries start receiving theirs, we'll see them all over ebay for a bargain.
Seriously though, this is a great list, except for the fact that the machines are pretty expensive. If I was to blow that type of money on a laptop, I'd probably go for the Toshiba. But until then, I'll stick with my $500 Dell laptop. Sure it's a little bit slower (1.8Ghz I believe), but the battery is too small to catch anything on fire.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Sony's name isn't on the list.
Any article that actually considers a laptop from Twinhead as a viable option loses all credibility, even if it does come last. They're junk. My most recent experience with a single Twinhead laptop involved two new hard drives, new RAM, a flakey power socket, a hinge that barely works and a battery pack with a failed cell (it splutters if you have the battery connected.) Prior experience involves machines that didn't come with the right bits and didn't recognise their own floppy drives.
Am I the only one getting this article rendered as though the CSS was written by throwing the keyboard down the stairs? (Firefox 2 on Linux)
after intel core 2 duo
Lithium fires like those that occur when a laptop battery explodes are extremely dangerous. Just watch this video.
Smug are we? You didn't look into the battery recall then.
I remember the first Aluminium PowerBooks. They became so hot, that the bottoms expanded to a convex shape after an hour of running. They tottered, wobbled and turned about, like a Weeble. This was really noticeable on the 12" models - where the footprint was so small, the curvature was really pronounced!
Now have the Sony exploding, flammable battery problem that Dell and Lenovo suffer from.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm posting this from my sweet Sony Vaio notebook powered by the everlasting Sony battery and I%&#@+++ NO CARRIER
I don't get how having a cool notebook translates into a battery that doesn't blow up. As far as I remember, the whole battery recall was because of a slight possibility of an internal short in LiIon cells. This had everything to do with manufacturing process and perhaps gravity, and nothing at all to do with the rest of the notebook. To suggest that these products avoided the recall because of their design is ignorant. They avoided the recall because they sourced different batteries.
Granted, a cooler notebook will result in longer batteries, since heat will reduce the effective capacity over time. That is the only advantage, from a power standpoint.
I am already a big fan of Panasonic's Tough Book series. The fact that they earn high marks in yet another review, power consumption and heat dissipation, merely cements my opinion of them as a top choice notebook.
I would previously recommend ThinkPads, but even before moving to Levono the quality was waning. The only thing the ThinkPad has that is superior is a longer warranty. Always buy the longest extended warranty possible for a laptop if you actually take it back and forth to school or work. The failure rate is abysmal. I pretty much expect a laptop to last a year without repair which translates to expect having to buy a new laptop a year after the warranty runs out.
No joke. My IBM thinkpad has died from too much abuse. I'm either going to have it repaired, or get something new. So, how hard is a Linux install on a toughbook CF51?
Yeah, Dell has bad press lately. But that particular model uses a Samsung battery, not a Sony model. Very low draw, very good thermal characteristics. I've accidentally put it in my bag (which is a VERY snug fit) while running apps that kept it from entering standby several times - even after running in a sealed bag for a couple of hours, it's still running nice and solid. The bad and laptop were warm, but not at all hot. Having a Core Duo, 2 gigs of RAM, built-in mobile broadband, and still getting 5 hours of real-world runtime out of it are pretty nice, too.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
My most recent experience with a single Twinhead laptop involved two new hard drives, new RAM, a flakey power socket, a hinge that barely works and a battery pack with a failed cell (it splutters if you have the battery connected.
:)
But what about the heat output? The convenient volume control wheel on the front edge? The "magnesium screen lid and bottom case with an attractive finish that looks like carbon fiber"?!
You didn't address the important stuff!
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
All notebooks are safe just put 4-inch FANS around it for extra cooling.
Heat doesnt matter if the stupid thing has a crappy little 1280x800 screen... thats just sad... What is up with all the new laptops having that? My 4 year old $1000 laptop runs a 1400x1050 on a 15" screen but I can't find anything like that anymore that isn't over 2 grand.
Am I the only one who finds the mere topic of this review more than a little startling? Back when I used to read PC World as a kid and drool over the PII w/ MMC, I never would have dreamed of being worried about the pyrotechnic features (or lack there of) in a computer. Strange times.... I think I might still prefer a computer marketed "with math co-processor" to one that "won't blow up as much as the other guys'"
[/sarcasm]
A "wide screen" must be better than ANYTHING in a old fashioned 4:3 ratio, right? That's Sooo 1990's!
Yeah, I liked my 1400x1050 screen too, but true hi-rez takes a back-seat to watching the latest video in the correct format...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I gotta tell yah, I get pretty worried about my macbook pro. This sucker gets HOT. I worry about it burning though the desk.
.
-1 Juvenile.
I've asked the Apple 'Geniuses' about this on both a MacBook and MBP. While it wasn't *that* pronounced, both warped enough that they wouldn't sit flat on the table (notably worse on the MacBook). I don't know whether the MacBook was from heat or poor QC as it never got astonishingly hot during use, but I know it's heat related on my MBP, which I've seen report CPU temps upwards of 85c (where Applecare did absolutely nothing except replacing the main logic board with one that not only failed to fix the heat issue but started causing video corruption).
I'm not bashing Apple here - my old Gateway was almost as hot, and considerably louder (the fan was off-balance for most of its life; both very loud and almost always on since day one). As the MBP is often on a table it's not the end of the world, but Apple's engineers need to do some rethinking. I've also got a Thinkpad of nearly equal spec (almost identical to a MB except for the size, with over an hour more battery life) and it very rarely gets warm and the fan is never noticible. Apple genius's thoughts: "well, it's plastic, it won't heat up as much". Okay, well I guess IBM/Lenovo use a superplastic that dissipates heat better than aluminum... not even the copper heatsink section of the body gets warm, yet my MBP with plenty of metal surface area to dissipate that heat really roasts. Last I knew, added surface area for more heat dissipation meant a cooler system, but I guess IBM and Apple don't follow the laws of thermodynamics.
Translation: I still love my MBP (for the OS, not so much the hardware), but the Thinkpad (T60, if you care) runs very cool and has quite a bit of kick to it, with the main faults being a crappy display and Windows (unfortunately, OSx86 on it wasn't functional or reliable enough, or else it'd have been a best-of-both-worlds). For around $1100 I think (school paid for mine), it gives me a solid 5+ hours of battery life (it seems closer to 6 in Vista for some reason that escapes me) and no roasted legs. With a nicer, preferably widescreen, display, and OS X, I'd say it's pretty close to my ideal laptop. Except how the stupid black plastic gets laughably greasy if you ever handle the thing without wearing gloves. If Apple were to talk to the Thinkpad engineers to deal with their heat issues, they'd have a pretty nice system (as I doubt IBM/Lenovo talking to Apple about their choice of OS issue will get them anywhere). They certainly look pretty and OS X is the real reason to buy the thing, but Apple's portables really have a couple pretty inexcusable issues, most significantly heat (rounding the edges where your wrists tend to rest wouldn't get a "no" vote from me either).
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
"... only had a battery surface temperature of 76 degrees, slightly above room temperature."
My room temperature is 20 degrees thats 56 degrees diference...
I have owned four laptops (Li-ion) and none of them have had any problems with heat or burning batteries.
I am even using my sony laptop to post this to slashdot, it barely feels warm.
Actually I suppose it is a bit hot...
AHHHHHH MY HANDS. IT BURNS, I
I've got a Toughbook tablet PC at work and I've got to say, it's an incredible machine (build wise). I've dropped it at least two times from table height onto a hard floor with just a small scratch in the corner. It's really hard to justify the price though. The only reason I needed it at work is because I mostly do field support of industrial control systems, and the 500 nits screen is much easier to read than the crummy 180 nits you find on most laptops. Oh, and the battery lasts about 5 hours to boot!
How funny is it that in a discussion about burning laptops, your post got modded "Flamebait"?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Are you about to succumb to the elements, or do you live in France?
Is there a difference?
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Look into smcFanControl http://www.conscius.de/~eidac/software/page5/page5 .html
Set it to something like 3000 rpm, which you can barely notice, and bam, cooler lap. Of course, this shouldn't be required, but until they get the heat issues sorted out...
Just like when buying any other product these days, my number one concern when buying a computer is "It won't explode, right?". Now I can be sure to not get shafted by craft sales representatives trying to sell me explosive goods.
It was a 12.1" one, compare to the 15" CF-51... despite the hard-drive supposedly being surrounded by the shock-absorbing protective stuff, even its seeks would send out shrill rattles amplified by the magnesium case. I didn't expect the optical drive on such a tiny laptop to be quiet, but the sheer grinding racket it made was alarming, not to mention painful. Thankfully, I wasn't dumb enough to buy a $3000 laptop from a place without a decent return policy.
The bigger laptop mentioned in the article might be better (if heavier), but only comes with a 1.44" floppy drive and a DVD/CD-RW drive - from looking around, it appears that an optional DVD-Multi drive can be bought, but only as a separate item - not an upgrade. What year is this, again? The lack of a memory card reader is a bit annoying, too, though buying one for the expansion card slot wouldn't cost too much.
Those laptops might not blow up, but I'm pretty sure they'll burn a hole in your pocket. The high performance ones (core 2 duos, 2 gigs RAM, etc) range from $2,100 - $3,000. I can get a dell with similar specs for $1,600 and 2 years of free repairs. Sorry but I'm taking my chances with the C4 battery laptops.
Dude, you guys are getting rusty. I haven't seen a first post troll make it to first post in quite a long time. I think you should all give it up!
I read that the Panasonic's fan exhaust temperature was ONLY 97 degrees, and the surface of the battery measured ONLY 76. This confused me because they failed to mention that the temperature is in degrees Fahrenheit!
This P-P-P-Powerbook won't burn.
I've wondered if this was accurate. (Although I have to admit the heat on this thing backs that up; even at full load it just gets "a little warm"; a previous laptop reached "burns your lap" while idling.)
(For reference, this is a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 1.6GHz Pentium M on the Sonoma (IIRC) chipset.)
I've wondered how accurate that readout is. It offers four or five significant digits which I find hard to believe. If there are any power hackers out there who could tell me if this is reasonably accurate or full of shit, I'd be appreciative. (I've wondered if I'm seriously running what I find a rather nice computer setup overall on less power than a dim incandescent light bulb or our Christmas lights.)
I have to agree with parent post. Twinhead laptops are very disappointing. I own one and using it right now (model E14AL if you care) and only had problems with it. It killed two RAM in the first 3 months, then had to replace the motherboard, dvd drive died last month, plastic case is of very bad quality and get scratched very easily (can scratch it with your nails!), and now my the screen fixations are going away. After one year of use, I'm about to buy a new laptop, as I fear it's going to die soon and continually fixing it will prove to be more costly than buying a brand new one (hey, warranty has just expired!).
Ok, about heating problem, it's terrible. First, the fan and air intake are located on the bottom of the laptop, which means u need to use it on a perfectly flat desk and not on your lap or bed as it would obstruct all air flow. Second, the fan sometimes doesn't turn on at all and the laptop ends to power down after overheating too much.
That's my first Twinhead computer and my last one. I don't want to generalize to every single laptop built by Twinhead, but their Efio (EXXX) models are crap. Poor quality parts and bad quality standards. Better pay more and get a more robust computer.
Ced
Actualy, this is a very hot topic.
Already using it (and it seems to have burnt out the GPU fan...) and while it's notably cooler, it's still scorching hot. That's to say, knocking 10c off of 85c still isn't great on the legs. Or the desk, for that matter. Even cranked all the way up to 6000RPM, it still tends to be worryingly toasty.
Maybe I'll do a real egg-cooking video with the thing and see if it catches the eye of any support persons. 85c is enough to cook meat thoroughly (albeit very slowly), but it's just not the same effect. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in the warrantee that says I can't...
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I am looking for a really cheap laptop/notebook that basically just has a keyboard, screen, and wireless. I just want it to browse the internet or do some coding over the wireless. Is the only option to buy some old piece of junk on eBay or craigs? I can't seem to find a "one laptop per chair" kind of product, they are all like 1k+ with featuritis.
I'm not too sure about the new Twinheads but my 1998 Twinhead was a workhorse. It was a P266 with 32MB RAM and a 3.2GB Hard Drive. It had Win98 and dual-booted into Mandrake 7.0. I used it primarily for programming. The battery died in 2001 and the CD-ROM drive in 2003. Otherwise, it was still going strong. It has endured a lot of (minor) falls. It wasn't until late last year till we put it out to pasture. We only did this because the LCD's hinges were starting to break off.
It was pretty strong for me and served me well.
I quit reading the article when it said 76 and 97 degrees. The yankees are so hillbilly they did not learn to use SI units in over 200 years. Kelvin, Celsius anyone? When water freezes at zero and boils at 100deg, that makes sense. Fahrenheit and Remour does NOT make sense. If America wants to remain competitive against Asia, it must metricate. Don't be stupid to hold against the global tide just because the frenchies invented the metrics.
There have been a few questionable decisions on design vs. ergonomy by Apple / J. Ive (Puck-Mouse anyone?), but none that has left me so completely baffeled as the sharp edges on the new MacBooks. It's really, really annoying when your hands rest lower than the MacBook, for example if you're using your laptop on... your lap.
I've had my MacBook for 6 weeks now and I absolutely love it, but I'll really have to sandpaper the edges. If that doesn't work it's Duct Tape Time (well... not really. Though it could look kinda cool...
sig? Oh, that sig...
Six iPods that don't eat your face
Six engineers that aren't cannibals
Six lamps that don't blind you
Six Slashdot articles that aren't racist
Six pillows that don't give you cancer
since when is laptops that DON'T do something NEWS?
as if the NORM for laptops today are ones that BURN?
I had heat problems from my notebook. It's pretty small and I hold it in my hand when I'm travelling so heat was a big problem. (Palm size tablet PC).
http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm
If you run at a lower voltage heat buildup can cease to become an issue. My notebook runs cooler, crashes less (never now) and lasts longer on battery.
It can take a little experimentation to get the best settings, but my battery like increased about 50% and being able to force a drop in the clock speed when I travel makes it great to use outside.
I picked up the app from a forum of users of the same model notebook and it's become standard fare for most of the forum members... Damn impressive stuff since it's free.
Makes me wonder how the reviewer would have fared if they tried this on the models that just missed out.
GrpA.
My 5150 has a classic design - the main air intake is underneath. When you put it on your lap, your legs cover the intake, the fan goes nuts and after a while the CPU and/or mobo does a meltdown. I'm on my 3rd mobo/cpu. Whenever you call with a hardware issue their first question is 'are all the rubber feet on?' because if they're not, you can bet its overheated jus sitting on a desk.
For good measure it also sucks up all the crud and deposits on to the heatsink/fan reducing their effectiveness.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
You'd expect an article headed 6 laptops that do burn not 6 that don't - like it's news some aren't going to explode.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The new MBP's run much cooler because the Core Duo was common to get very hot
You can cut a lot of heat with just changing the processors
I was sure that would be at number one.
- Panasonic Toughbook CF-51
- Jetta Jetbook 9700P
- Velocity NoteMagix L80
- HP Compaq nw8440
- Asus F3Jv
- Twinhead Durabook D13RI
"Best" Choice: Panasonic's Toughbook CF-51I'm a 2000 man.
Science courses in the US use metric. We are just too lazy to change. Think about it, everyone has to completely change their thinking and relearn how to estimate size, temperature, etc. What if you had to change every unit you grew up with?
but I couldn't get past the first paragraph.
Terrible sentence structure, a lack of comparison specs, the summary is seriously lacking, and what is up with those right hand nav bars all over the place?
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
I can only speak of Dell laptops since that is what I am familiar with....
My 2.5 year old Latitude D600 would be so hot that if I didnt put a pillow barrier between it and my legs, it would feel like a very bad sunburn. But as I often forgot, the pillow would slide and cover the the ONE fan slot on the bottom. Keep in mind, this laptop only became this hot when playing games. The plastics under the video controller felt like they could melt.
Now that I have a new Inspiron 6400, its like going from hell to heaven. They obviously made improvements on cooling with the additional airflow slots on the top, back and many more (3 I think), on the bottom. I think the newer video card doesnt get as hot anyway. No need for that stupid pillow barrier...and just when I was about to break down and buy one of these: aluminum widescreen notebook cooler.
I just got a Sony this past week. It actually runs quite cool and has remarkable battery life. I'm not worried about it blo
since I don't even carry a battery in my laptop. After a couple of years I realized that I never use it when I'm not near an outlet anyway, so I just took it out and left it in the bag. I suppose it could burst into flames there...
Some day you're going to be able to actually be able to carry laptops around without their power cord...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
They're all high-end Intel Core CPU laptops. If they want to pick out some laptops that actually run cool, rather than merely having lots of fans and heat sinks, they should have included some based on VIA Antaur designs.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So is that going to be the new ad slogan for these laptops? "Buy laptop-X. It doesn't explode on your lap!" Almost as catchy as the Vista ad "Windows Vista - It doesn't suck. Really. No, c'mon ... really. Well, maybe a little."
A company called Altair is making a lithium battery which does not use graphite. The graphite component of Li-Ion batteries is the catalyst for thermal runaway, leading to fire and explosion of the battery.
Their energy density is currently equivalent to NiCd or NiMH, still a bit lower than standard lithium batteries. They are mostly targeted at the hybrid and electric vehicle industry. I think they could be interesting for laptops, too. These batteries can be safely charged or discharged at much higher rates. How would you like a laptop that can be fully charged in a couple of minutes?
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
It's great to have cooler laptops, but one must still watch out makers aren't stupid enough to put flammable stickers at the worst place possible, like Dell did with mine.
http://slimcode.com/cs/blogs/martin/archive/2006/1 0/29/Dell-laptops-catching-fire-_2D00_-Was-it-real ly-a-battery-problem_3F00_.aspx
Even though Dell support insisted this was a normal hole in the sticker, I can assure you it burnt! And it's getting worse.
When water freezes at zero and boils at 100deg, that makes sense.
While the metric system makes sense for the most part, I've never gotten Celcius. To a chemist, that line might make sense - but most people in the sciences seem to prefer a more useful scale where zero is the coldest temperature, instead of some arbitrary point. If you are going make a temperature scale for general use, you might as well set 0 and 100 degrees to some value that a common person might relate to, instead of the properties of pure water at a certain pressure. Like setting the coldest outdoor temperature that most people will ever experience at 0 degress, and the hottest outdoor temperature most people well ever experience at 100 degrees, which is pretty much the Fahrenhiet scale.
Having every unit relate to every other by a power of 10 .. THAT is what makes it better.
Truth - except keep your silly metric system out of my technology. For all those devices that innately use powers of two - think anything digital slash binary, computers especially - it makes a LOT more sense for a megabyte to equal 2^20 bytes instead of the silly SI 10^3 bytes.
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