Buying a laptop

[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.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

My experience is that Toshiba build quality and design is right up there with Apple and IBM. Dell's design values usually resemble those of a brick.

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

[oilrig.livejournal.com]

Give me a shout, my brother works for them and can get a discount.

[mistdog.livejournal.com]

I bought the Portege M300 a few weeks ago and I'm very happy with it. Battery life is as good as advertised! Ubuntu linux installed without a hitch - the only hardware it can't drive is the bluetooth which is apparently a kernel, not Ubuntu, issue.

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

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

If apple isn't an option because of weight (I personally don't notice the weight and the 12" powerbook is my special friend who goes everywhere with me) then i'd throw in a vote for toshiba. They're pretty damn robust. I also admin a couple of new vaios at work (oldest being about a year old) and we've had zero problems with them.

To add another to Toshiba

[kingginger.livejournal.com]

I would very highly recommend their laptops - I use them myself (and administer the better part of 60 of them at least!)

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.

[cybermuppet.livejournal.com]

I am quite prejudiced against Sony Vaios.

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.

[ephermata.livejournal.com]

LinuxCertified now manufactures laptops, preloads them with Linux (your choice of several distributions), and tests that things actually work. I recently bought their LC2210D (5lb 14' screen model) and am pleased overall. They have a lighter model, the LC2100, which may be worth a look.

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!).

[karen2205]

I'd never buy a Toshiba laptop again, having had very bad experiences with the one I bought. So I'd go for the Dell, unless you want to spend a bit more and go for a Thinkpad (eg. http://uk.shopping.com/xPC-IBM_ThinkPad_X41_2525_US2FAUK) again.

[mr-purpleduck.livejournal.com]

As the apple are too heavy (you've right the lighest is 2.1kg), I would suggest going with the Toshiba.

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).

[glowingwhispers.livejournal.com]

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.

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

There's also the Toshiba Libretto, but that may actually be too small a form factor - tiny screen.

[obra.livejournal.com]

My last laptop was a Portege R100, which is almost identical to the R200. If you get it, be SURE to buy the next-day on-site service. It's been very, very worth it. (No, that's not a good sign.) I'm exceedingly happy with my new Panasonic toughbook Y2.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I love my Dell dearly, although it's more of a luggable than a portable. However:

- Dell battery life is shite. Uniformly shite. Expect 2-3 hours max.
- autopope's Toshiba is indeed very shiny.

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.

[zz]

i've only heard bad things about dell, in terms of defect support and proprietary hardwareness and whatnot, but i've not actually owned one. 3kg+ hpcompaq crew represent.

[lovingboth]

Of those, I'd say 'Toshiba', and decide between the better battery life and cost of the first vs the weight of the second.

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.

[phantas.livejournal.com]

My father has the Toshiba R200. It's sleek, ridiculously light, looks robust and it's preeety! I used to be a bit suspicious on Toshiba's due to their history with laptops and compatibility but things seem to have improved in these last 10 years. So it seems like a good buy. Tell me and I can interrogate my father and provide a more consistent, albeit biased report. Did I mention it is preeety and shiny?

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!).

[conflux.livejournal.com]

DON'T TELL ME TO BUY A MAC!

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.

[cryx]

I have an old ibm thinkpad around here somewhere for spares.. i wonder if it has a compatible screen. will have to hunt it out

[phantas.livejournal.com]

(psiu... I have a feeling he poured the coffee on purpose so he could have the excuse to get a new toy... at a subconscious level, of course)

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

Don't buy a Mac, buy a Linux box!

You know it makes sense.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

ThinkPad X41.
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).

You should buy a Mac because...

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

No, just joking. They don't seem to make ultralight Linux machines. Shame because their other proucts are... No, joking again.

Here are some additional considerations you might want to apply:

• Which ones are physically pleasant to hold, look at, etc. without annoying design features, flashing lights etc?


• Which ones have a very highly usable keyboard and pointing device?


• Which ones are the most portable including the power supply and any bits needed to connect peripherals.


• Which ones are pleasant to use on your lap or in bed, in terms of balance, heat dissipation, shape, etc?


• Which ones feel like they'd break only after you dropped them on the floor five times?


• Does your OS use mm coordinates? If so get the highest resolution screen, else get the one whose native resolution suits your eyes.


• Do you use external drives? If so get one with a full-size FireWire socket so you can attach drives up to about 200GB without additional power.


• Do you make presentations? If so get one with a real (not proprietary) VGA or DVI socket.


• Can you afford UMTS (3G)? If so get one with a PC-card or with high-speed bluetooth (128kbps or better).


• Can you be bothered travelling with spare batteries? If so get one where you can replace the battery without plugging in or rebooting.


• Do you use Skype or something similar? If so get one with tolerable built-in speakers and (more important) microphone, and make sure it runs quiet to avoid picking up fan noise.

[narnee.livejournal.com]

I can't give you any specific advice as I'm still in the last century in terms of computing but if you want advice from a field tech who fixes Dell laptops for a living (my boy in Tennessee), I'd be happy to ask him about that model.

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.