OT: notebook shopping

[Vaughn Treude]

Jason Spatafore wrote:
> While the Lenovo is cheaper, I would advise against any IBM style laptop
> based on the x6x model. We have had several issues with these at work
> with failing hard drives and wireless connections just dropping out.
> (Lenovo took over the IBM desktop and laptop lines a couple years ago). 
> 

Last Tuesday I talked to a guy whose company bought him a Lenovo, but 
insisted that he hated them. Didn't think of asking him why, because at 
the time I had Mac on the brain. He seemed like a pretty smart guy, 
which gave me pause despite the great deal - though one of the online 
reviews insisted they were sturdy. BTW, I came to the same conclusion 
about those cheap Acer notebooks; we have several at work and I've 
encountered mysterious power problems with them, so I didn't even 
consider an Acer.

> As for the MAC...same hardware for 2x the money? Not worth it unless you
> think pretty is the most important aspect. 
> 

Yeah, I don't know either. If not for these fire sales a lot of the PC 
companies are having, there'd be about a $500-600 premium on the Mac, 
more like 30-40% more. Still, it's a lot of money.

> With all that said, I would go with the Dell myself. You should also
> look into HP and Toshiba though just to be sure. My Daughter's HP is
> still running after 3 years...and she used it so much that the letters
> on the keyboard have disappeared on some keys. But the keyboard still
> works. Weird eh? 
> 

Most of the Dells we have at work seem to be pretty good. The Toshiba 
looks a little better to me, spec-wise, but haven't used a Toshiba 
notebook in ages.

> 
> On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 13:05 -0700, Vaughn Treude wrote:
>> Hello everybody!
>>
>> I'm planning to buy a new notebook, as my Vaio is now 8 years old, and 
>> shows signs of getting ready to give up the ghost. (Specifically, the 
>> LCD backlight occasionally doesn't come on.) So I've been doing some 
>> serious online shopping and I'm trying to make a final decision. This 
>> being a computer-savvy group, I thought I'd ask for some feedback.
>>
>> The goal:
>> As high-performance as possible for $2000 or less. In particular, I want 
>> to be able to boot as fast as possible. (I will of course install Linux 
>> and tweak it to start only the most essential services.)
>> I plan to make it dual-boot, because it would be useful to have Windoze 
>> available so I can run Visual Studio. I detest Vista, so this means the 
>> notebook should have XP as an available option. (If it's super-cheap, it 
>> _might_ be worth buying an XP CD and blasting away Vista, but I'd like 
>> to avoid this if possible.)
>>
>> The minimum parameters:
>> 15" wide screen WXGA+
>> 2.4 GHz CPU
>> 2 GB RAM
>> 100 GB drive @ 7200 RPM
>> Read/write DVD.
>> Wireless "n" version support
>> Bluetooth support
>> 2 USB ports, preferably 3.
>>
>> The finalists:
>> Dell Inspiron 1520 - with all the options I want it's around $1500. (But 
>> one of the reviewers claimed its physical construction was flimsy.)
>> Toshiba Tecra A9 - also around $1500 with options.
>> Lenovo ThinkPad R61 - the fully-loaded version is on sale for around $1200.
>> Mac Book Pro - the 2.4GHz 15" version, with the high-speed drive option, 
>> is $2100, a bit out of my range. I _could_ set it up triple-boot with XP 
>> (and Linux, of course) which would bring it up to $2200. But I've always 
>> admired the Mac's design, the fact that OS X is based on Unix, and the 
>> Mac's excellent video-editing software. (I've been unhappy with the 
>> hassle of setting up this kind of stuff on Linux.) So I'm still 
>> considering it, but don't know if it would be worthwhile.
>>
>> At the moment I'm leaning toward the Lenovo. As far as I can tell, its 
>> primary drawbacks are relatively short battery life, and the fact that 
>> it is (IMHO) one butt-ugly machine. The battery isn't that big of a 
>> problem, as I have two externals I bought for my ailing Sony, and I can 
>> live with ugly.
>>
>> Any comments or relevant experiences any of you could share?
>> Thanks,
>> Vaughn
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