What Laptop Do You Use, And Why? Options

[ToneBlind]

I assume the vast majority of everyone here uses or has used laptops in addition to their Zaurii. What do you use and why?

My first laptop was a Toshiba Tecra with a P-III 650 Mhz. Very nice machine at the time (almost 8 years ago.) It performed reasonably well, and was mostly problem free. It had a tendency to overheat, specially after a couple of years. I wasn't crazy about the construction of the machine (a few creaks, soft screen hinges, etc.) I didn't like the design either (2 tone plastic in the LCD cover, for example.)

After that I got an IBM Thinkpad T23 (refurbished), and I was extremely impressed by it. Much more solid, better looking, overall a more professional laptop (comparing it to the Toshiba was like comparing a Mercedes to a Toyota.) Whenever I had any problems it was very easy to service using the hardware manuals from IBM. A very modular system. Changing RAM, hard drive, even major components like the keyboard or the LCD panel was doable and somewhat of a pleasure.

Due to my experience with the T23 all the rest of my laptops have been Thinkpads. I have an X21 that I picked up in mint condition in ebay a couple of years back for little over $200. I have a dual boot of Ubuntu and Windows XP on it. It is beautiful, solid, and performs well, and now can be picked on eBay for about $100. Granted it is not as portable as the Zaurus, but it is still a very small system and with vastly superior possibilities.

So, what laptop brand are you guys partial off? Are you a Dell Devil, an Apple Advocate, or a Panasonic Person?

[ntw1103]

I am current using an HP tc4200 tablet. I also have an IBM r60(provided by the school I attend.)

The Thinkpad is a very nice computer. it seems to be very well built and sturdy.

But the HP tablet is another story. I am completely amazed by what this computer has survived. It is a long story that I won't get into, but it got left on the roof of a car, and it flew off at 50mph. (I think that was the highest my blood pressure has ever been.)
it survived with a tiny crack on the edge of the screen. Everything worked except for the Pen it flew out of the computer and got crushed by a car. I got a new pen and it worked great. about two months later I got into a car accident on my way to school. the table was in my bag on the seat next to me. It flew forward when I t-boned the other car and slammed into the dashboard.
The ram was unseated, and a small part of the case broke off, but that was it. (I was able to glue it.)
I am using the computer right now. it is simply amazing how tough it is. Both times the computer was in standby.
So at the moment I am partial to HP, but I have been happy with IBM also.

I just hope my Zaurus doesn't through anything like that. I am not sure how well it would fair.

[jocasmi]

I've got an Acer Travelmate 212T, a very simple machine, without infrared, wifi and bluetooth. However it is working well since eigth years ago. Its only problem was the battery life, that dead in its very early times, and when it was working it had a poor working time, just two or three hours.
Despite of that, it is still working with debian, OpenBSD and winXP. It never had a hardware problem.
Nowadays, in my country, Acer has decreased its fame, mainly because of its repair service.

Greets

[Capn_Fish]

I'm currently using a Dell Inspiron 700m with Debian Testing. I mostly got it because it was small, light, had/has good battery life (~5 hours), and excruciatingly cheap at the Dell Outlet (only $700 with extended battery, when it would cost about $950 new).

If I were to get a new notebook, I'd have to think hard. Thinkpads are really nice, but the Fujitsu subnotebook is awfully tempting, as are a few others.

[snk4ever]

For almost 2.5 years: IBM x31. I love it.
Small, robust, quite light, yet fully usable.

[Hrw]

Dell D400 - 12" screen, no CDROM/DVD drive at all, Pentium Mobile cpu

I use it as 32bit build machine for Poky/Ångström and sometimes when I travel.

[ToneBlind]

The Thinkpad is a very nice computer. it seems to be very well built and sturdy.

But the HP tablet is another story. I am completely amazed by what this computer has survived. It is a long story that I won't get into, but it got left on the roof of a car, and it flew off at 50mph. (I think that was the highest my blood pressure has ever been.)
it survived with a tiny crack on the edge of the screen. Everything worked except for the Pen it flew out of the computer and got crushed by a car. I got a new pen and it worked great. about two months later I got into a car accident on my way to school. the table was in my bag on the seat next to me. It flew forward when I t-boned the other car and slammed into the dashboard.
The ram was unseated, and a small part of the case broke off, but that was it. (I was able to glue it.)
I am using the computer right now. it is simply amazing how tough it is. Both times the computer was in standby.
So at the moment I am partial to HP, but I have been happy with IBM also.

I just hope my Zaurus doesn't through anything like that. I am not sure how well it would fair.

That's just amazing. I have heard before that the HP laptop business line is very well built, similarly to Thinkpad machines.

There are a few videos around (you should be able to find them in YouTube probably) with real stories with Thinkpads surviving different accidents. Some guy ran with his pickup truck over his Thinkpad and it survived. Some other guy's home caught fire, and the firefighters after the fact threw the burnt and wet Thinkpad to the ground. The guy figured he would try to turn it on just for kicks once it dried, and it booted up.

[ToneBlind]

I've got an Acer Travelmate 212T, a very simple machine, without infrared, wifi and bluetooth. However it is working well since eigth years ago. Its only problem was the battery life, that dead in its very early times, and when it was working it had a poor working time, just two or three hours.
Despite of that, it is still working with debian, OpenBSD and winXP. It never had a hardware problem.
Nowadays, in my country, Acer has decreased its fame, mainly because of its repair service.

Greets

You've been using it for 8 years? That's awesome! By the way, I'm from Spain also (but I live and work in the U.S.)

I wasn't into laptops when I was in Spain. Can you find Thinkpads usually over there? If so, try to grab a hold of a 2nd hand T23, or an X21-X24. You won't be sorry you did!

Buenos dias!

[ToneBlind]

I'm currently using a Dell Inspiron 700m with Debian Testing. I mostly got it because it was small, light, had/has good battery life (~5 hours), and excruciatingly cheap at the Dell Outlet (only $700 with extended battery, when it would cost about $950 new).

If I were to get a new notebook, I'd have to think hard. Thinkpads are really nice, but the Fujitsu subnotebook is awfully tempting, as are a few others.

Dude, you got a good deal!

You can always get very cheap Thinkpads (in eBay, almost new X21 can be had for less than $150.00.) I have an X21 that dual boots between Ubuntu and XP. It is incredibly fast in XP, especially for only having 256Mb. I run photoshop and stuff on it. In Ubuntu (using fluxbox) it flies. Just for fun, I have a video looping as my desktop background. I run it at only 500 Mhz by choice (less heat), and with the video running full screen in the background it only takes a 35% hit on the CPU. No issues whatsoever watching DVDs (for that you need to get the X2 media slice, in which you can install any of the Ultrabay 2000 devices (DVD-RW, 2nd Hard Drive, etc), and it also has a built-in floppy disk.)

Can you tell I like Thinkpads?

[ToneBlind]

For almost 2.5 years: IBM x31. I love it.
Small, robust, quite light, yet fully usable.

Excellent! Thinkpads rock!

[ToneBlind]

Dell D400 - 12" screen, no CDROM/DVD drive at all, Pentium Mobile cpu

I use it as 32bit build machine for Poky/Ångström and sometimes when I travel.

I hope it works OK for you! How is the battery life? And the heat?

[adf]

Acer 5520 - lot o power for little $$. Currently running stock 32 bit vista (I have no idea why) looking into a 64 bit ubuntu, though currently there seem to be issues with gutsy on it.

[dlj0]

I assume the vast majority of everyone here uses or has used laptops in addition to their Zaurii. What do you use and why?

I don't need no stinkin' laptop. I haven't used one since I got my first Z. Before that I had had a string of them, mostly bad. I had a Compaq aero, probably the forerunner of the eee, which had all of 8meg of ram and maybe 40 meg of hard drive. 486sx-25 processor (no FPU). Worked; in fact I even ran X on it, though that did run better with and extra 4 meg of ram. That was the only laptop I thought was reasonable. It was well under 1 kg.

But in recent years I have only had my desktop (ok, -s, one at the office and one at home) and the Z. I am headed to Spain for a semester with only the Z -- we'll see how that goes.

Basically, laptops are always compromises. Proprietary hardware, unreplaceable once the model disappears. Usually not upgradeable. But now, with all machines being so powerful, that doesn't matter as much -- anything will run linux, even a lot of laptops that are cheap because they won't run vista. But also, most laptops do not really offer the portability the design suggests. An hour or so on battery is just not enough. 2+ kilos is too much.

The joke here is about all the laptops executives insist upon, only to have security devices that bolt them to their desks.

For a portable machine, I need portable. The Z gives that. I only wish it also came with lots more ram.

[xjqian]

Toshiba Satellite 3005 since 2001. PIII 1GHz + 512M RAM + 16M NvidiaGO2 (at that time as the gaming laptop on the road). No wifi, BT or even USB2.0, but has IEEE1394. Battery dead, screen fainted, docked at home with a 22" monitor @ native 1680x1050 (thanks to the then forward thinking GPU choice). Occasionally brought to work (under 4 lb with battery out) for presentations and software testing (under XP). Dual boot Debian (lenny) and XP. Liked the DVD/CD+RW-ROM most, been abused with thousands of bad disks, yet still kicking strong, reads anything without a hitch. Expecting it to serve me for 10+ years.

[njefferies]

Fujistu Lifebook B-2154 circa 2001

1.4kg, Celeron 450, 192MB and touchscreen configured as follows

1. Ripped the HDD out and replaced with 4GB CF card (Transcend 266x which gives 40MB/s)

2. Had the batteries refilled with newer LiIon cells from batteryrefill.com - takes the life up to 5 hours from 3

3. Installed Windows 98SE (yes!) with IEradicator to remove IE and unofficial SP2.01.
This is remarkably secure and fast, no services running in background, most malware won't run.
Linux does run but not quite as resource efficiently and the touchscreen and BIOS suspend/resume are not quite 100%

4. Install CPUIdle

5. Install OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and the whole PIM/PI suite

Also have a set of HP Omnibook 800CT's which I use as wireless X-terminals running cut down Slackware off CF cards
The older ones have not quite enough video RAM to do 800x600 16-bit colour (who designed that?) but a bit of X tweaking will get you 800x572

...and an Omnibook 600 for the old DOS/Win 3.1 nostalgia games

...and an Omnibook 300 (spot the theme!) with DOS/Win3.1 in ROM, 9 hours of battery (AA's), Flash drives and 1.3kg - from 1993 and still going strong