[wplug] Seeking advice (possibly OT)

[Vanco, Don]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org 
>[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On 
>Behalf Of Karlos Abel
>Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 9:43 PM
>To: General user list
>Subject: [wplug] Seeking advice (possibly OT)
>
>
>As my venerable Toshiba laptop is starting to lose pixels left and
>right, I'm looking to purchase a new laptop.  I was wondering if anyone
>out there has any recommendations.  I'll list a few criteria below.  If
>this is OT/not in the scope of the list, I apologize, but will not turn
>down any off-list replies.
>
>Here's my wish list.
>
>Moderately light. (<7 lbs)
>P4 or decent Athlon/Athlon 64
>Does not require hours of tweaking to have Linux play nicely.
>
>My price range is $1,300 or less, but I can go higher if the laptop in
>question is particularly sexy.

IMO: you will be hard pressed to find #1 combined with #4

I have really love my Dell - but in talking to many I am apparently an
anomaly as many seem to have issues within a year.  I was lucky enough
to score one of the entry level laptops that had real P4s with
Hyperthreading (a 1550) before Dell realized they could @$$-rape
customers by relegating these good CPUs to the higher-end models.  The
tradeoff is it weighs a ton. I did not think this would be a big deal as
I am a big guy, but after schlepping it through a few airports and one
vacation I can tell you that it weighs a ton.  I got the upgraded
monitor (superdooperWXYZVGA or whatever it is) and it's literally one of
the 2 best monitors in my house!

I currently have a Centrino system - IMO: this thing blows.  I do a lot
of video compiling and its about as fast as a P-III-800.  If you need
max battery life to play MP3z I suppose it's the bizom, but if you're
doing things that need a real CPU avoid Centrino at all costs.  Its so
bad I may ask to go back to a desktop at work and use my Dell at home.

I have seen some amazingly well equipped laptops on eBay (based on
reference designs, as they all are save those from IBM) - they are
something of a WinPuter (chipsets, mostly modem and video) so running
Linux may be a crapshoot - but they're in your desired price range and
are loaded with features - a bit of research there may be of value
(along with the various Linux laptop sites).

Good luck -
Don