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?

[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.