
Which Laptop To Buy? 732
Misha writes: "In this day and age, it seems that the advertisement offers for desktop systems have slowed down in term of features. Everyone has agreed that AGP, DVD, >1GHz, etc. is what everyone will want. This does not seem to be the case with laptops. Every year, they manage to cram a bigger resolution screen, more system and graphical memory, more battery life into a less-than-two-inch thick plactic box. So, what are everyone's preferences as far as laptops go? What kind of features are most important? How does price enter the equation? Which one is best for the money? And especially, can you get a decent machine for under $1000?" I've been using the IBM Thinkpad T20 for the last year or so, and love the machine -- with the exception of the WinModem *sigh*. What else is everyone using?
Deal (Score:2)
Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, 1024x1260, RGB, 20 Gig, 128MB RAM, OS X, 500MHz G3, wireless AirPort.
All these for a price I can't match in the PC world, that's why I'm happy with mine. Imagine yourself on a hammock in your backyard with a laptop and an internet connection, running *nix apps. Ahhhhhhhh.
If you need a PC card slot and a faster processor, and monitor spanning, get a TiBook.
Toshiba 2805 (Score:2)
Spend the extra cash! Dell C600 runs linux great! (Score:2)
My Dell C600 runs linux and Win2k great. Infact RedHat 7.1 loves being docked, undocked and finds all my hardware including the MiniPCI modem, Ethernet, the Docked Ethernet and Docked SCSI adaptor as well as my different video modes for docked/undocked settings as well.
I got the C600 with 256 megs of ram, 20 gig drive, 1600x1400 lcd screen, 1ghz, ethernet (3com), modem (3com), 2nd battery, cdrom and all for ~2k.
This PC lets me play whatever game i want on the road, the Savage 128 bit video card runs great (does accelerated GL under NT, dunno about linux). Sound card is recognized from sndconf.. no "win" hardware on this machine.
Don't just buy a laptop because you think you need to write a document on the road, if anything you can be compiling code, playing a game, working on the same stuff you work on at your desk.
My laptop is great. It is what i use at work, what i use at home, and what i use on the road.
Most importantly. IT IS USEFULL!
small, older vaio... (Score:2)
The only problem I've had is that the battery died. Not a big deal to me as I don't really use it on the plane while flying.
I run redhat and I actually use it mostly for storage. It's great to save and distribute my digital camera photos when travelling - or to load my rio 500 with audiobooks and tunes.
I would say less than the weight of a magazine if computer shopper was still in it's heyday, but nowadays it's about the size and weight of 2-3 magazines at the airport. It's always small enough to pack in my smallest bag.
I think the price of the vaio family has steadily climbed as sony adds features. It looks like the average price has climbed to $2500 or so...
dell inspiron 8000 (Score:2)
1600x1200 actual pixel screen (!), clean audio (kernel 2.4 native support), cdrw (ide-scsi works), pcmcia/cardbus (I'm using wireless ethernet right now as I type), suspend/resume, firewire and usb. ethernet 10/100 is eepro100 - one of the best.
yes, it has a winmodem, but its also a LINMODEM too (at ... OK).
Toshiba has a new Libretto (Score:2)
. . .
Please don't flame me, as a helpful AC ( in this post [slashdot.org] ) has already mentioned this machine's existence.
But it too me searching through 700 posts to fnd a reference and I don't have any mod points . .I've been thinking hard about this one. Byte Reviewed the new Libretto L1 here [byte.com] and it sounds awesome. Not only Crusoe based, but has Bluetooth too. Which may not be to your liking, or cause grief on 2.4ghz, depending on your air interface preferences. But hey, I got a Bluetooth GPRS mobile and it's soooo tempting :)
The informed AC gave a very cool reference for Linux info : on Yahoo Groups [yahoo.com] to which I can only add this picture gallery [dynamism.com] froma company I found who sells the things properly localised, but, sadly, not with a distro.
Please forgive me if my post already redundant, but this little machine could rock.
If that ain't goodenough for you, tak a look at the reflective TFT models with NEC called Versa Daylight [neccomp.com]. I'm currently biased towards battery life, for reasons well posted in other arguments.Oooh - oo I just saw NEC have some MIPS based things [neccomp.com] that look like rebadged HP Jornada 720s, only nicer looking. Wonder if anyone can get Linux support on these???
Toshiba (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Toshiba (Score:2)
I am soon going to install OpenBSD 2.9 on a Tecra8000 since BSD!=Linux. It should run sweet.
Re:Toshiba (Score:2)
Go Dell (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Go Dell (Score:5, Informative)
I'll be happier when the 10.1 update is released in September, but I love the small form factor, the light weight, and the AirPort wireless networking. The unfortunate thing about the Dell machines is that you can't have both an internal network card and an internal wi-fi card, at least not at this time.
The biggest drawback to my iBook is the cost of the 3 year AppleCare warranty. $237 is a major rip off to extend your warranty two more years. OS 9.1 sucks too, but I don't use it except to play DVDs and to configure AirPort base stations.
In short, don't sell Apple's iBook short, I'm pretty happy with mine, and I've been a Pee-Cee user since I got my XT in the 7th grade.
Re:Go Dell (Score:2)
Anyway if anyone who is reading this is thinking about buying an intel laptop, remember that you can't run windows apps wiht linuxX86. But with linuxpowerpc you can always stay in linux and still have all the apps like MS-word, IE, DOOM, photoshop, etc.
Apple Warranty [WAS:Go Dell] (Score:2, Informative)
The main thing to watch out for is the 1 year warranty. Out of everyone i have ever known to own the Black keyboard Powerbook G3 (aka wallstreet) they have all had major repairs done to them. The worse thing is that the inverter board goes bad, and you have to pay apple $328.00 flat fee for any repairs. apple doesn't allow ASP's to work on their laptops anymore, so any time it breaks, this ~$330 fee applies (if its not covered on warranty).
Trust me, get the 3 year plan. it will save your day when(not IF) your laptop goes bad. Remember, this is the first model that has come out of that new style, and every single laptop apple has ever made that is the first of anything ended up being a POS (even the origional iMac is a POS)
good luck, and get the warranty, itl make you glad in about a year or 2.
Warranty? (Was:Apple Warranty [WAS:Go Dell]) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Warranty? (Was:Apple Warranty [WAS:Go Dell]) (Score:3, Informative)
I've supported Macs in Education for six years. 1400 500-5000 series machines, 500-600 Power Mac G3s and iMacs. I can count the number of machines I've had to send to a Apple Service Center on my hands.
As for home, I did have an early iMac DV go south within a month of buying it. But I had a new one within an hour.
AppleCare (Score:2)
AppleCare is extremely well worth it.
I have an iMac DV. its usb keyboard started doing weird things about four or five months after I got it. (IIRC every key but the space bar worked fine most of the time. the space bar failed to do anything, and sometimes garbage would spontaneously spew.) I took it to a local AASP. they plugged it in, said "Yeah it's broke" and gave me a new one in about 3 days. sure I could've done this without AppleCare, but my AppleCare # simplified things greatly (the guys I had bought it from were a few thousand miles away at the time :)
Re:AppleCare (Score:2)
Re:Go Apple (Score:2)
Re:Go Dell (Score:2, Interesting)
See this page for more info on how to set up non-standard screen resolutions:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Tim
There's a web page somewhere that will calculate an appropriate mode line for X based on your monitor's capabilities, but I can't locate it right now.
-Mark
Used Laptops (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Used Laptops (Score:2, Insightful)
New cheap laptops break easier under heavy use, from the keyboard wearing out to the display hinge failing. Used "cheap" laptops are more likely the higher quality ones that someone has put aside because they wanted a whiz bang upgrade. If they fail, they were cheap and you can generally find a replacement or the parts you need to fix for a low price on ebay.
If you're buying a laptop new and plan on using it as your primary machine, the extended warranty is well be worth it so that repairs of such things are taken care of for at least three years.
feature to not bother with: dvd-rom drive. how often will you use it for the extra $200+ it ads to the price (to pay off the MPAA)? Just buy a PS2, they're more fun and useful and plenty portable.
more importantly (Score:5, Funny)
IBM (Score:2, Informative)
Best I've used is still a Dell Latitude CSx. Was metal cased, and very nice. Everything worked great and it was tiny.
Re:Swizzle sticks (Score:2)
Don't want to start a flame war. I admit the things can take some getting used to, and touchpads are more intuitive. But once you've mastered the nipple, you'll never go back.
Compaq 7800 (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.compaq.com/support/techpubs/whitepapers /0206-0799-A.html [compaq.com]
Re:Compaq 7800 (Score:2)
Compaq 1800T (Score:4, Informative)
One thing for potential compaq buyers: don't pay extra for memory upgrades from compaq. You can do far better at other places on the net (ebay included). I bought mine with 64M installed, and upgraded to 192M for *half* the price that compaq was charging...
Re:Compaq 1800T (Score:2)
Memory prices are ridiculously cheap right now.
Re:Compaq 1800T (Score:2)
The only problem is the windows side. (I know we're not supposed to care about this, but I still play games on the go.)
Compaq doesn't give you a Windows disc. They basically give you a CD with a Ghost image on it, so you can wipe your harddrive and make it factory-fresh if you need to re-install, but that's not exactly Linux-friendly.
Otherwise, I LOVE my laptop.
Apple iBook (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple iBook (Score:2, Informative)
YDL [yellowdoglinux.com]
Of course it may be a rotating graphic, so trust me that there was an iBook on the page.
YellowDog is my favorite and most up to date distro out there.
I will have mine as soon as my ship comes in this fall.
Re:Apple iBook (Score:2)
Just make sure you upgrade to the 2.4 kernel because the 2.2 kernel apparently doesn't support power management very well. --Bud
3d... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:3d... (Score:2)
Mobile Athlon 4 chips are widely available now. I was at Best Buy the other day and saw HP and Compaq laptops with mobile Athlon 4 chips in them.
I haven't been looking that closely at the video chips available, but a quick browse past Nvidia's site shows that only Dell and Toshiba are making systems using the GeForce2Go. Unfortunately, neither of them are using Athlon 4 processors in any of their systems. Though I have been hearing rumours lately that Dell may start shipping a couple models with an Athlon 4, I wouldn't put much stock in them. They seem to go around and around with AMD every year and then just before they cut a deal Intel gives them a better price to stay Intel-only.
At any rate, a system with his desired specs shouldn't be too far off in the future. The GeForce2Go and the Athlon 4 are both fairly new products, but I imagine that by the end of the year he'd be able to find a system equipped as described.
Vaio XG700k (Score:4, Informative)
It's a 750 megahertz PIII, has built in modem but no ethernet. With two PCMCIA slots, though, you can jam an ethernet card and 802.11b card with no problems.
Downsides? Everything is expensive. Battery is $250 (200 on eBay), extra AC adapter is $100 or so, and so on.
It's a great laptop, and there are linux drivers for the custom stuff (like the Jogdial).
Modem? (Score:3, Funny)
(High end) Vaios are NOISY! (Score:3, Informative)
I run a low end Thinkpad (i1400) and love it, but the new iceBooks are the best I've seen so far. Under 5lbs (barely), 5 hour battery life, clean, crisp screen, gorgeous machine, and then add OS X. I would get one of those before a VAIO.
Re:Battery Costs (Score:2)
1) All efforts to standardize on batteries have failed, despite several industry-wide attempts. The OEMS simply don't want you to have commodity batteries. Hardware lock-in lives on.
2) The OEMs *want* poor battery life, so that customers feel they have to buy at least one extra battery just to get by. The margin on an extra battery can be half as much as the margin on the whole laptop!
3) Have you noticed that you can't even buy replacement Li-Ion *cells* to fix old, tired battery packs? Granted, such repairs aren't for the faint-hearted, and you need to make sure charging circuitry, etc. is right to avoid fire hazard, but so far as I can tell from a search for single-A size cells to freshen a Toshiba Libretto battery pack a couple of weeks ago, these things might as well be unobtainium.
Laptop batteries are one of the great hardware scams of our time - right up there with computerized engine control units and CFC-free refrigeration and air conditioning.
Dell is good (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a hard time installing linux on it though - but since the 2.4 kernel came out I had no probs =)
Pity that they (supposedly) don't support linux any more.
The lightest one, of course. (Score:4, Insightful)
But not everyone wants a laptop for the road (Score:2)
Although I would not want to lug around this if I were on the road as a salesperson, the weight difference is pretty irrelevant to me for the occassional trip. In short, neither a desktop system or an ultra-portable can do as good of a job as what I have now.
the longest one, of course (Score:2)
A dead laptop is useless. If you travel further than your living room, pay special attention to battery life. Unfortunately, models change so quickly that magazine reviews can scarcely keep up, so you're at the mercy of the specs.
One thing that sold me on the VAIO F-series is that you can take out the floppy and put in a second battery. That's good for about five hours, total.
Ultralight Laptops (Score:2)
Re:Ultralight Laptops (Score:2)
I run Debian Stable on a Toshiba Libretto 100CT. It's three years old, and I still use it because I don't think anyone's yet produced anything as good. It weight 2 pounds 4 ounces, is the size of a paperback book, and will happily run a full Oracle + Apache + Tomcat servlet setup. Downside is short battery life - about 90b minutes.
4.3 LBS should be clsoe enough. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.qlitech.net/products/laptops/king.html
Ask Slashdot: Which Car to Buy? (Score:5, Informative)
I've heard that this driving thing is pretty cool, and everybody agrees that a car is neccessary. Which car should I buy?
Not to be persnickity, but what constitutes a good laptop under $1000? Well, it depends on what you do! Amazingly enough...
For example, my main axe is a ThinkPad 760ED. It's about 5-6 years old, a P-133 with 48MB RAM, 4xCD, 12" 1024x768 TFT. Is it a kick-butt machine? Well, no... It runs Windowmaker, Emacs and Netscape 4.74 on FreeBSD 4 pretty good, though, and that covers everything I need a laptop to do.
When it was new, it was a $6K machine, now it goes for $150 or so on Ebay. It makes it a pretty good laptop for throw-away purposes (for example, if you're particularly hard on your laptops).
For others, Firewire, USB, etc may be important. You may need massive speed -- I dunno. However, if you don't spend a lot of time on the road, or need to take your machine with you when you go home, your laptop should generally be a generation or two behind your desktop as a general rule. Computers depreciate quickly, and laptops are fragile. You don't want a $4000 toy that spews sparks 2 days out of warranty. (at least, I don't -- others are different)
the variables (Score:2)
As rho mentioned in his excellent post, a lot depends on how you want to use your laptop. But there's even more to it than that.
For example, untll very recently, I've had a tough time finding a laptop with the right combination of a big keyboard, a useful pointing device, a crisp screen, and Firewire capability.
Those things happen to be important to me, but to someone else, the equasion might be: big-ass hard drive, super light weight, a blistering fast CPU, and dual PC card capability.
If you're really going to *use* your laptop, rather than just have it for bonus geek point value, figure out what the most important elements are for your particular needs, then research accordingly.
No matter what anyone says, there's still no flat-out world-dominating laptop out there, since all laptops have to compromise one factor or another. It's just a matter of which compromises you mind less than others.
Macs (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey Hemos! (Score:5, Informative)
The IBM ThinkPad T20 has the very popular Lucent Winmodem in it. My Acer Extensa 501T has one as well.
Download This File [linmodems.org] from Linmodems.Org [linmodems.org]. Sure, it's binary only, but it works. Set up the modem with isapnp, unzip the file above, read the readme, and run the installer.
You can add this to conf.modules:
alias char-major-62 ltmodem
install ltmodem insmod "-f" "-k" "ltmodem"
I'm pretty sure this will work for you. Enjoy.
The laptop I have... (Score:3, Insightful)
Mine is a celeron 500MHz (this is good, as it is the 100MHz FSB version, not the 66MHz Crap they put in desktops).
I have installed linux on it, in fact, there are about 5 different websites out on the web that tell me how to install linux on this exact model. I couldn't get the modem working tho
If you want the best laptop for LINUX, then i would have to say IBM and Apple's iBook are your best bets. Sure, the iBook has a shitty CPU in it, but, it uses very little battery life (compared to a p3). And apple is all about not being compatible with the rest of the world. Well friends, when it comes to laptops, there are only a few things that matter. and CPU architecture isn't one of them. If you are running Linux on an x86 machine, or Linux on a PPC machine, its' all the same. I bet, if you are a linux guru that wants to run all the latest beta shitware on sourceforge, you wont want the iBook, because it will take some porting to get it to compile/running properly. but if you stick with software that comes with your distribution, then x86 and PPC are all the same.
For 1,300$ base end, and 1,900$ for high end iBook, i consider it a good buy for a linux laptop. (I paid $950 for my IBM 500MHz Celeron, 192MB ram, 800x600 active matrix TFT, NIC, winmodem, generic sound, i810 video (intel's), I think it was a steal about when i bought it 9 months ago)
If you were you, i would stay away from Dell laptops. For one, they are not like Dell desktops. They arent the "stable" machine on the block like the optiplex is. Not only that, but Dell is dropping Linux support on the desktop, so you can forget getting a Dell that is gonna run linux any better than IBM or apple. All in all, with my experience with dell laptops (i service them, gateway, and Apple's laptops under warranty where i work), I would have to say that Dells, and certain models of Apple's are the least reliable. (apple PB g3 Wallstreet comes to mind! Don't worry, bronze kb is a good one)
I hope you like my brief review, this is just my experience.
Re:The laptop I have... (Score:3, Informative)
No, the iBook's processor really isn't bad at all. Even with the high-end PowerBook eight months ago, for a grand less? Not bad. OS X runs beautifully on mine (typing this from my iBook in OS X right now), although it's not the best system for the pretty demos you give friends. It has the top bang/buck ratio around (my only problem with it is the 'pretty' touchpad, which my fingers frequently tap while I'm typing - I had to turn off clicking with the touchpad because all kinds of crazy things were happening). It also has, IMO, a better keyboard than the TiBook, which command line fans (and /. posters) should keep in mind.
On the other hand, there's hardly a bad word to be said for IBM laptops. I didn't buy one, but I didn't want to spend that much. The ThinkLight is very nice - I wish my iBook had one - and the hardware is top-notch, and widely supported (OS/2, Linux, any BSD, and BeOS is probably fine too). The T series is a phenomenal high-end laptop. And all of IBM's laptops have a fine keyboard.
The X series from IBM is, IMO, the top-of-the-line ultralight - it's as thin as the TiBook without the media slice (which is a reasonable comparison), but can include the media slice when you need it. It also weighs a couple of pounds less, which is what is really important in an ultra-light.
For cheap, get the iBook; for expensive, get the T22 (unless you wanna do a lot of Firewire, in which case a PCMCIA Firewire adapter might not cut it - get the TiBook); for ultralight, get the X21.
Insist on Linux Preload (Score:4, Informative)
Here's my shortlist of vendors who preload Linux on laptops:
I encourage other posters to add to the list.
Re:Insist on Linux Preload (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Insist on Linux Preload (Score:2)
Speaking from experience as someone who's often left to pick up the pieces because a misguided friend purchased from a windows-only shop, I don't think it's bad advice at all. I think you'll find that the aslab link I point to is fairly competitive after adding in the cost for Windows.
If you want to save $2- and spend hours on end of extra time, then that's fine. If you're timer is worth anything, you don't want to do this.
you can get linux free or very checply on cd
Yes, but how long does it take to set up when you're not sure that your hardware is 100% ? Laptops have much more proprietary hardware than desktops. If you waste 8 hours or so of your time setting it up, how much is that worth to you ?
if you have to go and buy an MS OS you have just added up to $200.00 or more to your laptop
Windows 9x OEM is no more than $100-. NT 4.0 comes free with the $100- student edition visual C++ (if you're a student).
It depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
It really depends on what you want. If power is what you want, you might sacrifice battery life and portability. If you want portability, you may have to sacrifice power, or might have to pay a premium. Cost also factors in. Who wants to buy a computer that has as much power as their desktop at double the price, even if it is portable?
There are plenty of special designs in the notebook world that are made only for one purpose. There was a guy showing one at work the other day...it was an unbreakable laptop. He hurled it against the marble floor in the hall to test it...it wouldn't break....it blew my mind. Some of the subminis (Vaios and the latest Librettos) have digital cameras built right in... that's always a plus.
I use a Toshiba Libretto [silverace.com] 70CT. It's possibly the smallest full-featured computer ever built; P120, 32Mb RAM, no 3D, no CDROM, no floppy, but dual-booting Linux and Windows on a 10GB HD. You can get one off eBay for about $300-$500 (of course, it's an older model; the new ones are far more powerful and cost $2500 last I checked). It's not powerful considering this day and age, but don't think of it as a small computer. Think of it as a big palmtop. ;)
As you can see, I favor portability. In addition, I am hooked for life on Toshiba because they use a standard laptop HD. You know, the kind that you can plug into an adapter to connect to your desktop's IDE cable if you so prefer. Other than that, the only computer-to-computer I/O is done through a cheap PCMCIA card.
Oh yeah, and all the chicks dig the Libretto because it's SOOOO CUTE! :)
Mac, No Seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
The PowerBook G4 [apple.com], and iBook [apple.com] are still impressive offerings.
Even if you don't accept a little Apple FUD [apple.com] there is still one thing that can't be beat: These things are amazingly light, fast, and have a great screen. Besides that, they run many Open Source OSes (Linux [linuxppc.org], Darwin [apple.com]).
Keep in mind, I am not posting this from a "Mac zealot" perspective. I am posting this as someone who admires the aesthetics of a computer, and who realizes that one of the powers of Open Source is that you can compile anything to your hardware. What ever it is.
All I ask, is that you don't mod me down simply because you dislike macs, just keep it as an option for some people to consider
Re:Mac, No Seriously (Score:2)
The combination of an attractive GUI and the ability to run mainstream software with the internals of Unix have me convinced that the Mac's the only way to go nowadays.
As others have said, it's really not at all expensive compared to other laptops. Although he doesn't address the Titanium PowerBook, which I'm about to buy, I thought this [aapltalk.com] was pretty interesting as a comparison between the Apple iBook and its rivals.
D
Re:Mac, No Seriously (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to be a "me too", but I totally agree. Actually, I look at it like this ...
When it comes to desktops, for price-performance, it's hard to beat PCs. After all, $1000 (US) can get you a hell of a machine, and as much as I love those G4 towers, they don't compete very well.
However, when it comes to laptops, where else can you get USB, Firewire, ethernet, modem, a 15" screen, a decent amount of memory, a DVD player and a fast little processor all for about $2500 (US)? Now, if you want an inexpensive (ca. $1000) or high end (more than $3500) model, then go with a PC, since there aren't many Apple offerings in those realms. Besides, the MacOS is cool in that hooking up an external monitor to your laptop gives you an extra screen/desktop (not just a mirror of your current desktop).
In any case, if one is a hard-core PC zealot, then feel free to disregard this post.
--SK
Re:Mac, No Seriously (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:very vague. (Score:2)
I know it's hard to beat a Mac notebook, but our org. doesn't use Macs. Personally, if I had the bones and a need for a laptop (other than just geek-factor) I'd be all over one.
Mmmmm....titanium-cased G4.... /homer
Re:Mac, No Seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
The first is that no one's going out and putting together their own laptop from individual parts. Desktop Macs actually compare very favorably to pre-made desktop systems from Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc. It's self-assembled machines that get to be a lot cheaper than any of these, but that's not relevant for laptops.
The other is that whole hardware/software harmony thing. Things like power management and docking behaviour are non-standardized enough that there are great benefits to having the same organization make the hardware and the software. Obviously this only applies if you're running Apple's software, rather than Linux, NetBSD, or OpenBSD.
Re:Mac, No Seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
I've dropped a Mac laptop (520) from a height of 7' to an asphalt parking lot, and all it did was wake from sleep. Minor cosmetic damage, but nothing that affected the use of the machine. Don't try this with the average laptop.
As far as "cheering for Steve" goes, every product launch for every company in the world is primarily a big cheerleading session. Nothing unusual at Apple's.
Not at all. I tend to think of Apple hardware as the Mitsubishi of computers, not the Zenith.ergonomics, then speed and toys. (Score:2, Insightful)
For me, ergonomics plays a bigger role than the processor speed and all those fixins, next to that I'd like a nice clear screen, doesn't have to be big.<p>
Re:ergonomics, then speed and toys. (Score:2)
Hell yeah. Down with the touchpad! Up with the Trackpoint! And I thought that I was the only one. Funny thing is, most laptop makers are slowly drifting towards the touchpad (at least in the consumer models). I'm sure IBM won't because it pioneered the Trackpoint, but it's irritating to see it going away everywhere else.
Dell Inspirons (Score:2, Informative)
IBM T22 (Score:2)
Re:IBM T22 (Score:2)
This is the same problem Dell had.
IBM T20 (Score:2)
I don't use the winmodem, as I generally don't use a modem at all. If it came down to it though, I'd get a PCMCIA modem before I'd give up my T20.
Toshiba Satellite 1755 (Score:2)
For $1200 (almost 3 months ago.. price has prolly dropped) I got a 700Mhz Celeron, 64M ram (I added another 128M for $50), 13.3 Active TFT 1024x768 (really crisp), DVD, built in modem (haven't tried it out in linux -- use my pcmcia ethernet).
The only problem I have had is with sound. I haven't found good support under linux for the cs4281. Upping my kernel to 2.4.3-12 helped.. but mp3s skip a lot. The OSS drivers work perfectly, but I refuse to drop them cash ($45!) because I'm too lazy to fix things myself. Anyone have this soundcard working well on a laptop?
The only laptop worth buying... (Score:4, Funny)
Dell inspiron 8000 (Score:2)
Of course, if you want to have a small, light machine, you are better off with one of the new Librettos...
Graphics, Modem, Wavelan... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. If you want to play (3D) games, make sure that you have a GeForce 2 Go chipset. It's the only one that allows you to play newer games at decent framerates
2. For Linux you should check whether your built-in modem is supported
3. Integrated WaveLan/WiFi is a cool feature if you know other people who have it, much better than an external PCMCIA card
4. If you want to use external drives (CD burner, faster harddisks (Laptops harddisks are slooow)), make sure you have a FireWire/iLink/ieee1394 port
5. built-in ethernet is always a useful feature
Dell Latitude (Score:2, Insightful)
You can do a fresh install of NT or 2K on a latitude, load up the correct drivers, and you're off and running - with Thinkpads you had to install the TP utility (it's bundled with Win2K but still barely works) and then spend FOREVER tweaking the resources to get everything to play happy.
However, if price is an issue, the Latitudes do come at a premium... they are geared for the corporate world, so they are on the pricey side. I had a Lat C600 with a PIII 750, 256MB, 10GB, and built in NIC/modem, and it cost roughly 3 grand when brand new (>6 months ago). However, Redhat 6.2 and 7.x ran flawlessly on the machine - once the 2.4 kernel came out, I didn't need to install drivers for anything on the box (unlike NT and 2K). Plus, the head of the Latitude design team previously worked on Apple's PowerBooks, so you know that they're gonna be more sexy than most other laptops, save the VAIO.
You could go with a Dell Inspiron instead, as they are cheaper, and generally have more bells and whistles than the Latitudes (I believe you can get them with Geforce video), but in my experience they just aren't as stable as the Latitude.
I know, I know... (Score:2, Interesting)
The new apple iBooks are really, really nice pieces of hardware, particularly for the money, and they run Yellow Dog beautifully. See this slashdot article [slashdot.org] for more info.
I keep telling people about them and they say: "But this Toshiba goes to 11."
Yeah, and you can edit digital video on the road with this one, and it does everything that that Toshiba does.
"But this one goes to 11."
I administer a mixed office of macs, linux boxen and windows machines, and feel that all three machines have their place, it just seems sometimes that people don't give apple's hardware its due. Whatever else is wrong with them (and there's plenty, of which I'm sure I will be reminded in the posts that follow this one up) they do make really, really good hardware, and it's not as expensive as everybody thinks that it is. Go configure an iBook at the apple store, then configure a notebook from any other manufacturer to the same specs (if you can) and look at the price. I'd be surprised if there's $100 difference either way. And between OS X and Yellow Dog, there are plenty of configuration options.
Don't take me for a mac zealot, I just hate it when people either (a dismiss apple just 'cause their apple, or, (b make an uninformed or prejudicial decision for any reason. Apple certainly has their shortcomings, and I am not blind to them, they often seem to forget that good design is: "form plus function, followed by meaning." But don't let that discourage you from looking.
big screen, big battery, wireless network, tough (Score:2)
Processors are fast enpough. My laptop (work's) is a PII, and is plenty fast. The battery will go 8.5 hours, which means I have to shut it down over lunch. Just a thinkpad 390.
The small screen is my biggest issue. 800x600 doesn't cut it. I run 1600x1200 whenever I can. this is made worse by some programs I run requiring a bigger screen.
wireless network is not an option. If you have a laptop and don't have wireless networking you are missing out. If you are a corporation you are penny wise and pund foolish. Wireless allows me to be productive nearly anywhere. I can attend class and fix bigs at the same time. (some classes anyway). I can attend a meeting and while someone else is giving status I can work. When I'm giving status and the boss has a detailed question I can look up the detailed answer. When my compiles fail I know now. There are security implications with wireless, but they should be overcome, not used as an excuse to not have it. Trust me, once you go wireless you won't touch a wire again.
Tough is important too. A laptop that is never droped belongs to someone who should just get a desktop since it isn't leaving his desk anyway. There is no way to use a laptop like they are ment to be used without dropping them by accident once in a while.
Re:Wireless power usage (Score:2)
Lucent wavelan bronze. An old card from someone else who gave up on it. Managers get the best around here, engineers get their cast offs. Other than the small screen and doze this laptop is nice.
I have replaced the floppy/cd drive with a second li ion battery, something I strongly recomend. On one battery I don't get much life.
I've had a variety (Score:2)
I started with a Toshiba model several years ago, which was decent at the time (when it was one of the few NT approved laptops), but quite heavy, and slow by modern comparison.
Last summer I moved into a HP Omnibook 9000, which was really pretty sweet, but it tended to run hot if I left dnetc running all the time. (Not a problem if you put it on a desk/table, but when you unhook it from you monitor, keyboard, etc, and plop it on your lap, it can be a bit uncomfortable.) My only complaint about this one was that the disk was a touch small, and the default partitioning was really poorly laid out.
Since then I've switched companies, and I'm living in a Gateway Solo Pro 9300. A decent machine, but I can max out the memory on it pretty easily. The DVD player is entertaining, but I haven't had any real "business" use for it yet.
Acer Travelmate 521TE (Score:2)
It doesn't have toys like DVD or CD-RW drives, but let's face it, how often do you watch DVDs on your laptop anyway?
PS almost forgot, the 64MB RAM it came with was a bit low, but with memory prices as they are now it is very easy to upgrade that.
iBook (Score:5, Informative)
Even though OSX is not by any means a mature OS, I see great things for it in the near future and I am kinda stoked given the fact that never before has one really had access to a UNIX laptop with all of the goodies one gets here.
The real world advantage that I have really seen with these things over the two weeks I've used it is that for the price, you get a laptop with a small form factor that you can actually use in coach class when flying without getting crammed. You can put these things almost anywhere and not worry about getting the thing tweaked, because its so rugged. And it is significantly lighter than the Dell or the Compaq systems that I have toted around before this. You really do get so many more features for the money than anyone else provides in a form factor that truly does exude good design. (compare this to the PIII Acer laptop I used that had the fsking fan on the bottom of the case exactly where your left thigh would be causing it to overheat if you used it on anything other than a perfectly flat table surface. Unbelievable.)
Hands down : Powerbook G4 (Titanium) (Score:3, Insightful)
I know, it's not Intel architecture - that's just fine. Cram it full of RAM (1Gig) and fire up a few Virtual PC windows.
It's extremely well made - except for the hinges, which flake paint after a while, but you can just brush that off and it looks fine.
Definitely a well-made piece of gear. Mac OS X runs great on it, too!
priorities (don't underestimate size) (Score:2, Informative)
I think you'll find there's an exponential return between the size of the computer you choose and how willing you are to take it with you to places where it'd help. With a PDA you'll probably be willing to carry it with you everywhere you go, just in case. With a superslim style computer, you'll probably be willing to carry it with you whenever you have good reason to believe that you'll need it. With some monster oversized 15" screen desktop replacement laptop, you'll probably find that that's exactly what you bought - a replacement for your desktop. And that's all well and good, but most people who are thinking about buying laptops do so with the expectation that they will be using the computer on the go, not just buying a small desktop with poor expansion options.
These days, every damn computer has so much power and video speed and such. I would suggest that these factors can be minimized unless you absolutely, positively need to play games or do something else very video/cpu intensive on your system. For what you need on the run (word processing, internet, mp3s maybe, etc.) it's important to keep in mind that you're not buying a desktop, and not to think like you are. So realize what you need and buy with those in mind. Every laptop will fulfill what you need from it application wise, so try and maximize the other laptop-specific attributes, such as battery life, size/weight, storage space and screen. I'd even go so far as to suggest that these days almost every laptop has a pretty decent screen, so you probably don't need to worry about that too much, but I haven't owned one of those laptops with a truly huge (14"+) screen yet, so this is just speculation.
As far as price is concerned, I would suggest that around ~1300-1500 is the sweet spot these days for slim computers. But if you absolutely, positively, need to have it be bargain basement priced, you might want to consider going used.
If it has to be new, I don't know about other manufacturers, but Sony has a pretty decent super tiny laptop for 999 here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/vaio/sr/index.html
Laptop (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyhow I like it a lot. P3 700, 192 megs of mem, burner, 2 batteries, big screen, 20 gig drive, and a 32 meg ati graphics card.
I do have some problems though. The pointer stick in the middle has got to go. That thing is a total waste, especially after as it gets older and ya tilt the laptop and it grabs the pointer on the screen because it's not working right. Nasty problem, Dell's solution is not to have a bios switch to turn off the pointer stick, but Windows software to turn it off *Sucks big time.*
So if anyone knows of a Linux utility that can kill pointer sticks on laptops, especially ones like mine, let me know. I have a copy of Mandrake 8 that's itching to get on their.
*And keep a small windows partition for Diablo 2* *Waves cash at Loki to have a diablo 2 port to linux* God I'm a sad case.
ASUS, KDS (Score:2, Insightful)
What this means to you:
Is it possible to buy a laptop without Windows? (Score:2)
(Other than a Mac iBook, which I realize is an option.)
My ideal laptop would be a cheap, lightweight x86 laptop, on which I would install Linux myself. Becuase I won't be running Windows on this machine, I really do *not* want Microsoft getting a kickback for my purchase of it.
I've figured out how to buy naked desktop machines, without a pre-installed Windows bought and paid for that I'm going to erase. That's quite easy. But what place will sell me a laptop without selling me Windows? I guess that Dell used to do this, but does anybody any more?
(And, I don't want them just to pre-erase Windows for me. I really want this not to count as a Windows sale and not feed back any $$$ to Microsoft. As an anecdote, some four years ago we were looking for quotes on systems from various different vendors. We were going to run Linux on these machines. We called a local CompUSA (I think it was), who at first told us that they couldn't sell us a machine without Windows on it. Later they called back to relent. But, the quote they then sent us was *identical* in price to the previous quote... it just didn't list an OS at all. I'm pretty sure what was happening there was that we were effectively paying for Windows, but they were going to do us the "service" of pre-deleting it, and they weren't telling us we were buying Windows.)
-Rob
What *I* look for: (Score:3, Informative)
I want the following features in a laptop- from most important to optional:
1. Weight. If it weighs as my Powerbook 180, forget it. Four, five pounds- tops.
2. Battery life. Lithium Ion batteries whup the llammas ass- four hours of "office" use, two hours of Quake III / Photoshop / Internet use, maybe an hour on the DVD player.
3. Modem AND Ethernet. All or nothing- I dump downloads onto a server on my home LAN and a crossover cable is far more useable than IRDA or lugging a zip drive.
4. Battery CAPACITY. My Pismo powerbook can ditch the DVD/CD drive module in favor of a second battery, if and when I need it. This has saved my ass many, many times! (forget the TiBook- and don't get me started on slot-loading drives in portables)
5. A responsive, reliable keyboard. Something that I can pick apart and clean if I need to. (the Pismo is a nightmare from this respect, but Apple seems to be sticking with the "wishbone suspension" on their portable keyboards....)
6. Any sort of Video Out. (fortunately, the pismo runs S-video and VGA out.
7. Audio out.
8. Millions of colors @ 1024x768. Bigger is better, but this usually means that the *case* gets bulkier, and who needs that?
9. Accessability. Upgrading laptops is a nightmare, and not recommended for amateurs.
Fortunately, one can run MacOS X or Classic MacOS on a Pismo, and I have a friend who's running DebianPPC on his Lombard (one model lower). Linux PPC installs, as does MKLinux.
My opinion? You want a Pismo or a Lombard powerbook. The only *real* differences between the two are that the Lombard has SCSI and the Pismo comes with Firewire and is slightly faster.
A quick features list:
14.5" LCD @ 1024x768, millions
VGA out, supports some wicked high resolutions as a second monitor
S-Video out, treated same as VGA.
2 USB ports
2 Firewire ports
Audio out
Audio in
Ethernet (10/100)
Modem (56k)
Expansion module comes with CD or CD/DVD drive, they make burner modules. And the expansion module can swallow a second battery.
Dell I8000 & GF2Go (Score:2, Interesting)
My money always goes to Toshiba (Score:2, Informative)
There are two caveats, however.
1. They aren't the lightest laptops I've ever seen (allthough way lighter than the gargantua Dells I saw last week)
2. They aren't the fastest laptops even accounting for it's clock speed. Laptops always seem slow to me and Toshibas just a hair slower.
I am definitly an evangelist but that doesn't blind me to the facts. For my money Toshiba wins, until they start to suck.
Titanium (Score:3, Insightful)
And I have an iBook (Tangerine 300) running just 9.1 and 96MB of RAM. Works well as a sit around and surf machine.
My work got some IBM A21s in, pretty nice for a Windows PC, not sure how well Linux or BSD works on it though.
Dell Inspiron 7/8k (Score:2, Informative)
The main thing about laptops are the screens. my 7500 bosts 15,5inch with 1600x1200, which make it very nice, not only to use on the road but also as a workstation at home or work. I couldnt bare to stand quinting at a 12inch screen, but this screen is just great, giving a 19inch a run for its money (who needs CRT, btw? ;)
Besides the screen, memory should be the second most important item on your list (leaving out keyboard and overall shineyness to impress your geeky pals). In my baby, i have 256 MB of thumping ram. If you have less, try to get more, but laptop RAM is hard to come by, so get as much as possible when you buy one.
3rd on the list? a good videocard. Most lt's have a crummy 4/8 meg card, enough for software, but we all know we want at least to be able to frag people at the local LAN party. 3D-support highly recommended, check out linux-support first.
DVD is last on my list. This just rocks with a beamer or widescreen tv (you do have svhs-out, do you?). I find myself not really using it much, but its a good show-off feature ;)
Last few ideas: :| ;)
builtin NIC. PCMCIA-cards are okay, but dont take one with a cablethingy. they break too soon (learned that from experience
HD? get one as big as possible. dont whine. my 20gigs are the limit. Think of a reason, and fast. You dont want a laptop as a wordprocessor, you want one to blow all those workstations away...
CPU? dunno. just dont get a Celeron. Those are for wuzzies
And dont buy a laptop for less than $1000. Get a good laptop or dont get one at all. A medicore laptop gets used every once in a while on the road, but a PDA serves this better. And dont get a 12inch screen. trust me...
ThinkPads, Inspirons and Vaios All Work Quite Well (Score:5, Informative)
Kernel: linux-2.4.7 + 2.4.8-pre-3 + kerneli patch (kernel.org [kernel.org])
Sound: alsa-0.9.0beta5 (www.alsa-project.org [alsa-project.org])
PCMCIA: pcmcia-cs-3.1.27 (www.pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.org [sourceforge.org])
My personal machine upon which I have done all of my development work for the past year is the IBM T21. The person who does all of our web and Perl development uses the small C1VN. My wife, who has to carry her computer in a backpack all over downtown Atlanta, uses the Z505.
Re:ThinkPads, Inspirons and Vaios All Work Quite W (Score:5, Insightful)
The IBM's are weird but work well - I especially like the old 550, 560, and 570, which are truly portable and can be had used at pretty decent prices. Many of the laptops of a couple of years ago have the longest battery life readily available - the reason is that there were already low-power CPUs then, but the clock rates had't gotten so insane as to more than use up the savings as is the case in current laptops, some of which have pitiful battery life. (Realistically, is there anything you'll be doing on a laptop that requires more than say, 233 MHz? I doubt it.)
The larger Sonys are pretty good, but have the usual frustrating proprietariness of all Sony gear, and often Linux drivers only "sorta work" on Sonys in my experience. Like Compaq, Sony insists on "adding prporietary value" in ways that actually decrease the value of the hardware for those of us clever enough to try to use it in new ways. (FWIW, I think Compaq laptops aren't worth the trouble or the money for this very reason.)
Toshiba has been making good strides back after slipping for a few years. The new ones seem about as tough as the old ones that built their reputation, and they have some pretty good deals now. Avoid HP like the plague. Fujitsus are surprisingly good, but harder to find good deals on.
Sadly, no laptop vendor seems to be interested in building what I think most laptop users want: A true thin and light notebook with a good screen and a *slower* processor that would allow battery life of 8 hours or more. This is now easliy do-able, and would sell, as I think most people are wondering what they need gigahertz CPUs in their laptop for, since they can't use even a quarter of that power in their desktop machines. That and built-in 10/100 Ethernet, which still seems maddeningly rare in today's world.
IBook (Score:5, Interesting)
I got mine with a DYD-ROM and 256MB of memory for $1500 -- I looked at what Sony and Compaq etc. had to offer, and the nearest offerings wre usually lacking something big (like, say, the CDROM) or had about 50% of the battery life (or, even worse, didn't mention the battery life at all.) I can watch two DVD movies on this, back to back, before the battery runs out.
It works well with Linux too. The hardware is almost entirely supported now. There's a preliminary sound driver, and a daemon for answering requests from the volume/screen brightness/eject CD buttons on the keyboard. Wireless networking is fully supported, and since the iBook has an antenna built in to the case, you'll get much more range than with a run-of-the-mill 802.11 card. Power management on Apple laptops under Linux is actually better supported with pmud than with the APM support on most other laptops. Hmm, what else... the latest XFree86 supports the ATI chip with DRI support, so the video is fast. Since it's a new machine, a lot of the drivers are floating around as kernel patches on linuxppc-dev, but I fully expect them to be rolled into benh's kernel tree in the next couple weeks.
Good laptop on the cheap (Score:2, Insightful)
For example: if you want a good machine on the cheap, I recommend getting a refurbished IBM thinkpad 600x via ebay for about $900. Only 500mhz, but it can handle 576 MB or RAM. Still under warranty. Lots of folks using these for Linux. http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=linuxthinkp
Add a DVD for $150, zip for $50, mondo hd for $150 and push the ram up, you have a nice cheap box.
=brian
Secret of the trade (Score:5, Informative)
for example, check out this link [powernotebooks.com]
"For example an ODM named Compal makes the Dell Inspiron 5000e, the ChemBOOK 3015, the PowerNotebooks.com PowerPro III:16, the Sceptre SoundX S6600 (14.1") and S6900 and 6902 (15")...and they are all the same laptop, just with different names on them!"
Buying from lesser known companies could potentially net you the same laptop for less. I bought a Umax T333, and I thought it sucked. Umax support was crap, and replacement parts impossible to find. Then, I found out that it is the same model as the Kapok 1100 and the ProStar 1200, then finding BIOSes, drivers, and batteries was simple.
If you are looking for an older laptop, consider one with a cpu that has multiplier controls. Mine is a K6-2 333, so everything is configured via dip switches. I can run the 333@166 and lower all the voltage settings for a cool running laptop that still runs Linux and E with ease. I've gotten my battery time from 2.5 hours up to 3.5-4.0 hours. I'm glad I ordered the cheapest laptop that money could buy two years ago. I now have no regrets.
iBook (Score:5, Insightful)
Get an iBook, you won't be sorry. (Now if only the 3 year extended warranty was cheaper...)
Re:One Word... (Score:2)
Re:One Word... (Score:2)
Re:Asus? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:second that (Score:2, Interesting)
I had to play with some settings to make it run flawlessly, but nothing too difficult.
Only problem is this: the 1400x1050 screen in just two months has developed several pixels (usually green ones) that are always on. I will have to send it back shortly to have the screen replaced. That sucks.
To all laptop purchasers, especially if you plan to use it 8 to 12 hours a day like I do, buy the extended warannty package, preferably with next day service or something. Its worth it. Laptops take much more of a beating than a desktop.
No matter how careful you are, inevitably they get smashed into doors, dropped on the floor, your friend comes by and picks it up (while hard disk is spining) to feel how heavy it is, you foolishly us it on a soft surface (like a carpet or bed) and it overheats because the vent is blocked, you get the picture -- get the full service warantty if you depend on your laptop.
Re:if looking for lowest price for features... (Score:2)