Buying a laptop
Jan. 14th, 2006 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciphergoth
A few months ago I poured coffee into my beloved Thinkpad, and the screen died. It turns out that no-one can get hold of replacement screens for a ThinkPad X30, which is a bit sad. I've been using Jess's laptop in the meantime, but she's getting a bit sick of it, and anyway I need one to take to Belgium. I don't like to buy big expensive things without gathering the wisdom of the lazyweb!
I have only one really strong requirement: it has to be light. Around 1.5kg is good, lighter is better, anything above 2kg is right out. In particular, please don't advocate any Apple laptop that weighs above 2kg, which I think is all of them.
The next most important thing is battery life. Everything else is just the usual tradeoff of features and suchlike. All light laptops have 1024x768 screens, except the Dell/Samsung WXGA ones that have 1280x768. All laptops you can buy new come with Bluetooth, WiFi, built-in Ethernet, and so on. 512Mb RAM will be plenty for most of the things I want to do. It doesn't seem to be possible to determine for sure which ones support WPA2, sadly; I'm just hoping that means they all do. Similarly, it seems to be very hard to find out how good they will be with Linux, but they're all usually OK. I'm assuming the warnings against Vaios from a couple of years ago stand (I've done this before).Any recommendations? A whole bunch of options are listed here. So far these seem to be the main contenders:
| Model | Price | Mass | Battery life | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Latitude X1 | £1042 | 1.15kg | 3h06 | 1280x768 screen. I am typing at one right now! |
| Toshiba Portege M300 | £1012 | 1.6kg | 6h10 | |
| Toshiba Portege R200 | £1262 | 1.3kg | 4h40 | updated to add this one - seriously seductive shiny and current favourite |
I welcome your thoughts! But please let me re-iterate: DON'T TELL ME TO BUY A MAC!. I know it's an inevitable consequence of pretty much any computer-related question, but I did specifically ask for a reason.
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Date: 2006-01-14 10:36 am (UTC)Can't speak for the Portege M300, but the older P2000 I've got cluttering up my flat is a tiny wee thing (barely a centimetre thick), definitely fits your weight range, and the battery life is indeed up there around 5-6 hours in real use (with WiFi). I believe it's a predecessor to the M300 -- a little bit slower (P3-750 -- it's a couple of years old) but even thinner. You might want to keep an eye open for a second-hand one? (Ran Linux when I could be bothered.)
If a dell takes your fancy
Date: 2006-01-14 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 10:58 am (UTC)Don't pay £1012 for one, you can get one from Misco with 768MB memory for £770 including VAT and delivery! Despite being supposedly 3-day delivery at that price, they caught me out by attempting to deliver it the next day.
The best thing about the Porteges, IMO, is that they have excellent keyboards for the size. The M300 keyboard isn't quite as good as my previous (Portege 2010) but is still better than most laptops I've used. Also, my SO has a Dell laptop (not Latitude series) and the fan is horribly noisy, whereas my M300 is totally silent, virtually all the time. I think I did hear the fan once when I was compiling something, but it's normally silent.
Misco link
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Date: 2006-01-14 11:19 am (UTC)To add another to Toshiba
Date: 2006-01-14 11:28 am (UTC)We use a large range of them, one to note (although 200g's heavier than your spec) is the Tecra A5... And also depends whether you like or dislike widescreen.
I'd say you can't go wrong with either Toshiba or Dell, I just prefer Toshiba as they have a better keyboard for me.
Vaio's are nice to look at and play with, but I haven't had any long term exposure enough to properly rate them.
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Date: 2006-01-14 11:32 am (UTC)We had a period at work of buying Sony Vaios as the standard laptop for everybody. We bought about 6 or 7 them in the space of a couple of months.
All but 2 of them died soon after their warranty expired with a fault on one of their SODIMM sockets. The other two died with screen backlight faults. Our research on the net showed that this was the way most other owner's Vaios died in similar ways too.
Sony wasn't interested, despite this obviously being a design defect. There was talk of class action suit in the US, but I'm not sure what happened to it.
As a result, we don't buy Sony anymore - ever.
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Date: 2006-01-14 11:37 am (UTC)http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lc2100.html
Unfortunately it's 1.9kg, which is at the upper end of your range. A 512MB, 40GB, 1.6 Pentium M looks like it'll cost about US$1248 (while there is a Centrino driver on SourceForge, they only preconfigure and support the prism mini-PCI card, which is US$99 extra). Plus shipping, of course. May be worth an e-mail to find out what they can do for you.
My LC2210D seems to get 4-5 hours of battery life, but I don't know if the 2100 uses the same battery. Other than that, most things have "just worked" with Fedora Core 3, which was their "recommended" distribution. I'm now happily latexing and coding away in cafes all over town. This is so much better than Slackware on a 1997 Fujitsu. :)
The only thing that is really disappointing is the support for 802.11 networking -- KWiFiManager is missing a shared library and won't run; the LinuxCertified people suggest using waproamd, but they don't preinstall it. Also, as far as I can tell, only support for WEP, not even WPA1. Still, you can associate with open 802.11 networks fine using iwconfig or the GUI configurator, and the hardware (prism54) appears to support WPA2 if I upgrade the driver. I haven't gotten around to either yet; I only use a few wireless networks and haven't needed it. I don't know if this problem happens with their other supported distributions. The software suspend is also clunky, but this appears to be a problem with all Linux laptops and so is more forgiveable.
Other things - usually quiet except when compiling (it has a daemon
running that understands speedstep), keyboard is OK but not the best I've ever had, trackpad instead of trackpoint (big adjustment for me after a ThinkPad!).
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 11:48 am (UTC)It's been a number of years since I've seen one, but they have always been well built. The tosh we have at work is still running Linux fine and must be 6 to 7 years old now (the battery is dead tho).
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Date: 2006-01-14 12:39 pm (UTC)My thinkpad was a lemon from the beginning, and my other Windows laptop was little better. When it too broke last September, friends who know much about computers recommended an ibook. It's cheaper, faster, lighter, and far more powerful. I am very happy that I made the change.
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Date: 2006-01-14 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 03:15 pm (UTC)- Dell battery life is shite. Uniformly shite. Expect 2-3 hours max.
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Let us know how your choice goes - I too am strongly considering buying an ultraportable for work, as the Dell's just too damn heavy.
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Date: 2006-01-14 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 04:13 pm (UTC)I know this isn't what you want, but if I were buying portable computing and didn't want to 'work' on the plane / train or otherwise away from a power socket, I'd get a Mac Mini and borrow a screen at the destination.
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Date: 2006-01-14 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 04:51 pm (UTC)Thing is, many of my friends have macs and do the most amazing things with them, as so much seems to be seamless on those things (dealing with pictures, movies, etc.)
I've /been/ using a Dell Latitude and an ancient IBM, but the Dell's battery power is less than appealing and it won't listen when I tell it not to disable the network card while not on wall power.
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Date: 2006-01-14 07:42 pm (UTC)If it makes you feel better, s/Mac Mini/mini-ITX box/ - same advantages for me - but either way I acknowledge again that it's not what you're after.
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Date: 2006-01-14 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 09:45 pm (UTC)Problems: as far as I can remember, only major problem he had in Linux (I don't think he had any in Windows) was with the LAN and, subconsequently, WLAN. Which is quite a nuisance nowadays. The problem is its 1GB thingie. I think it actually requires compiling the kernel but the drivers are relatively easy to find. Check out, they might already be there in the latest kernel releases. Sound and microphone work almost out of the box, by the way (yeah! skype!).
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 10:05 pm (UTC)I was quite sad when I poured water (not coffee) over my M1's keyboard...
(I now have a Vaio... please, enough with the scaring...)
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Date: 2006-01-15 12:06 am (UTC)I think you need to calculate the number of helium balloons you would need to tie to the lightest Mac to make it 2kg before you can say that for sure ;-)
Add my vote to the past reliability of Toshiba's, but not the batteries they run on.
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Date: 2006-01-15 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 02:25 am (UTC)You know it makes sense.
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Date: 2006-01-15 04:41 am (UTC)1.24kg.
12.1" screen.
1.5GHz Pentium M.
512MB RAM.
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.
60GB disk.
$1365.
Apparently works fine with Debian (http://www.net-track.ch/opensource/articles/x41.php).
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Date: 2006-01-15 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 09:23 am (UTC)(Got dimensions wrong in earlier comment - sorry!
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Date: 2006-01-15 12:06 pm (UTC)You should buy a Mac because...
Date: 2006-01-15 10:28 pm (UTC)Here are some additional considerations you might want to apply:
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Date: 2006-01-16 06:10 am (UTC)Incidentally, if you do purchase the Latitude, I'm quite likely to be able to get you free and/or massively discounted extras and parts if anything ever breaks.
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Date: 2006-01-16 09:55 am (UTC)I also thought I could head off the inevitable advocacy by checking it out myself and explaining why it didn't meet my needs in advance, but I should have known better...
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Date: 2006-01-16 10:44 pm (UTC)Urgh. It's hard for me to make any decisions of late. If my job ends without a new one lined up Britain is a tempting next stop after Guatemala. But I need to renew the passport.
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Date: 2006-01-17 02:22 am (UTC)You could move up to a 1.45kg X41, and get 7-12 hour battery life.
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Date: 2006-01-17 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 08:24 am (UTC)As it happens the bit where I say battery life is the next most important thing, and the column in the comparative table for battery life, has been there since the first revision of this post, but don't worry about it because I'm always grateful for suggestions.
Buying from a non-UK supplier will result in a big cost saving no matter what I buy (the exchange rate on technical goods is something like £1:$1 or worse) but they make it such a PITA with warranties and import that it's still not worth it. Otherwise everyone would do it...
By the way, who are you and what brings you to my journal? Thanks!
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Date: 2006-01-17 04:22 pm (UTC)ThinkPad warranty is worldwide. You have to pay the VAT on the import, but you still save a bundle. I bought a ThinkPad for a friend and shipped it over.
I'm mathew, as you'd find out if you followed the link back to the journal page for this ID. :-) Also, I cheated on the prices somewhat, because I get a hefty employee discount on ThinkPads.
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Date: 2006-01-17 04:37 pm (UTC)Initially the bit about Apples was mentioned only once, without emphasis. I brought that bit forward after the second or third person recommended one despite my giving clear reasons why they weren't suitable. I guess no matter what you do, you can only get people to take in one or two of your criteria at most, and you just have to choose which two matter most. Another time I'll list three criteria in bullet points.
I liked my old ThinkPad a lot, so this is tempting.
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Date: 2006-01-17 04:39 pm (UTC)