8/27 I'm a pc person and I need a laptop. From what I've seen I really
like the apple laptops: nice wide screen, slim form and they don't
weigh a ton. What's the closest I can get to that with a pc laptop?
\_ I _highly_ recommend the IBM X series. The lack of floppy/
CD doesn't bother me (easy to PXEboot/install any OS) and they
are tremendously robust. Battery lasts an age, and the built-
in bluetooth/wifi/IR is pretty well supported under non-Windows
OS. I would not buy another Vaio, as the ones I've had fell apart
very soon due to piss-poor quality. Likewise with my Toshiba
ultralights (although the regular laptops were good quality.)
I currently have a Thinkpad X31, dual-booting XP and Debian, but
I've had FreeBSD running very well on it as well. Oh and the
keyboard is superb to use, if you don't mind the nipple (I like
it.) Mail me for more info. -John
\_ Sony Viao? Fujitsu? I'd go to frys first to browse their
display, and then buy on-line.
\_ My older brother bought a Fujitsu S7010D from http://newegg.com for
$1,430. He likes it a lot.
$1,430. 14" screen, 4.2 lbs. He likes it a lot.
\_ Do you want an optical drive? If not, Sharp has a super-light
(1 lbs) super-thin (~ 1/2 ") Transmeta powered laptop w/
built-in 802.11b. It costs btw $1200-$1400.
Sony has some thin and light laptops but everyone I know who
has one has experienced problems with them b/c of qa issues.
IBM has some light ThinkPads and most people seem to like them
but I don't know where you can check one out though.
BTW, why don't you want an Apple laptop? The 12" iBook is
a great deal (esp. if you buy a refurb) compared to most PC
laptops with similar specs. -iBook owner
\_ He said he uses PC. It probably doesn't make much sense to
have your laptop be a different OS from your main system.
Although that could be interesting for impractical geekitude.
\_ Using PC could mean anything these days. I primarily
use PCs running FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris x86 at
work, but my laptop is an iBook.
I'm not sure why having a laptop with a different
OS than your main system is a problem. My brother
primarily works with Windows and Solaris systems
but he uses a Powerbook. I know many people who
chose Powerbooks/iBooks over PC laptops even though
they are primarily in a Windows environment.
\_ Well it's a new software set to deal with. It may not
matter to some people depending what you use it for.
I think it would matter to me. And besides software there
is a need for learning how to do stuff with a new OS.
Just all the details you know from using an OS for a long
time. So a Mac would have to really kick butt to consider
switching.
\_ The software is sort of different, but things
like Photoshop, Acrobat, Word, Windows Remote
Desktop, FireFox, iTunes are identical to the
Windows versions.
Some of the software included with OS X is
better (X11, emacs, perl, XCode, terminal, ssh,
java, &c.) than what is bundled with Windows
and are on par with what is bundled with SuSE
or RH. Also most *nix programs now build with
no difficulty on OS X.
Arguably some stuff is worse (RealPlayer and
WMP come to mind), but I don't use these so
its not a big deal for me.
I'm not telling you to switch. I'm just saying
its not as bad as you might think, so it could
worth your while to consider the option as it
will probably work out cheaper for you overall.
\_ Well you can't buy one copy of office to use
on both. And Pentium-M is better than G4.
\_ Certainly this is the case if you
have to buy two copies of everything,
but most students (and employees) get
site licenses to software such as word
that allows them to use it on their
home systems, so you might have to buy
the Mac copy yourself.
In what way is the P-M better than the
G4? The battery life on my iBook G4/800
is about 5 hrs. Most people I know who
have a P-M get less than 3 hrs. Perhaps
the P-M is faster, but what do you do
on your laptop that really needs that
extra cpu speed?
\_ I get close to 5 hrs on my Dell, and
Thinkpads can get 8 hrs with 2 batteries.
\_ I agree with the iBook owner. The fact that you're even
looking for something comparable to iBook says a lot
about iBooks. I have 5 PCs at home and one iBook. All
my required X11 programs run on them, so I'm happy with
all of them. iBook is just so... practical.
\_ I think the closest is the IBM T41; similar in weight, can get
15" screen size, and quality construction (unlike most PC laptops).
-tom
\_ how is HP?
\_ For quality LIGHT notebooks, I'd only buy IBM or Toshiba.
Sony "look" nice at first, but if they break down (and they do
esp. those with 90 day or 1 year warranties) it is a big pain
to get fixed. Make sure you try out the keyboards first or
at least look at hi-res online pix to see the keyboard layout
if you buy online.
\_ Second on the ixnay on Sony.
\_ IBM Thinkpad.
\_ How about waiting a little bit for a handtop PC? That'll be
even smaller. Though I decided to go with an iBook and am
quite pleased. http://www.flipstart.com |
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