[ILUG] Laptop Recommendation?

[Paolo Marchiori]

Timothy Murphy, Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 07:57:33PM +0100:
> Surely no-one ever said, "Would you like to see my Dell laptop"?

My notebooks, apart from the 1992 386-rugged with SCSI iface:
1) a Kapok socket7 430tx with K6-2 at 400, virge mx+, 1024x768. Still own it,
   no battery, solid, heavy, reliable, slow :)
2) Dell Latitude D505 1.60MHz Centrino, employer bought it new for me
   and 4 other new employees (I recently switched job). Crappy.
   Keyboard a nightmare, machine very basic. Battery life is good, oc,
   but power supply has a "central pin" data channel whose wire tends to
   break especially if you roll it round the supply as you're supposed to do.
   No PS/2 connector, so no way to attach external iron-solid old 1992
   IBM RS/6000 clickity-clickity-click keyboard - a must for BOFHs.
   ("What was your username again?")
3) IBM Thinkpad A30p. Used to be assigned to the person I substituted. A
   monster. Big, heavy. PIIIM at 1.2GHz, 15.5" 1600x1200, double slot for
   I/O units or second battery, Ultracam, s-video IN, 1394, port replicator.
   Weights a bit, but it's worth it.

In the end: if you're the kind who can afford to change laptop every
year, go for Dell. It won't last more, and you pay a bit less for
bleeding-edge. If you intend to buy something that lasts for a decade or
so, go for IBM. "Costa un po' di più, ma..." - it's worth every cent of
the lot of extra money.

p.
-- 
pbm - "and a messy desk drawer full of broken strings
    -  you know those kids, and you know these things"