OT: notebook shopping

[Matt Graham]

After a long battle with technology, Vaughn Treude wrote:
> The goal: As high-performance as possible for $2000 or less. In particular,
> I want to be able to boot as fast as possible.

"Boot"?  Ever since I got a laptop that could suspend-to-RAM reliably, 
rebooting was a pretty rare event.  Resuming from S2RAM is tons faster than 
the fastest boot.

> 15" wide screen WXGA+

What's that in pixels?

> 2.4 GHz CPU, 2 G, 100 G drive at 7200 RPM, DVD+-R, 802.11n, Bluetooth support,
> 2 USB ports, preferably 3. 
>
> Dell Inspiron 1520, Toshiba Tecra A9, Lenovo ThinkPad R61, Mac Book Pro.
> At the moment I'm leaning toward the Lenovo. As far as I can tell, its
> primary drawbacks are relatively short battery life,

FWIW, I've owned 4 Thinkpads, mostly because I like TrackPoints and no other 
make offers them with any degree of consistency.  My Thinkpads were all built 
like tanks, had field circus manuals easily downloadable in PDF form from 
somewhere on IBM's site, and they all had excellent Linux-combatability in 
terms of hardware.  But all of mine were IBM, not Lenovo.  I don't know 
whether the new ones are cheap crap or not, and won't know until I can scrape 
together enough cash to run a new machine in under my still-usable T42p.

> and the fact that it is (IMHO) one butt-ugly machine.

It looks very similar to how Thinkpads have looked since they started making 
them (classic, like a Model T.)

The Mac is not worth the price premium unless you are going to be editing 
video all the time.  If you have *ANY* way of doing so, buy a factory 
refurbished laptop.  You'll save hundreds of dollars.  All of my laptops were 
refurbished, and I have had exactly 2 hardware problems with them in 8 years 
(one was fixable with the field circus manual and a $50 spare part.)  HTH,

-- 
   If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection.
  My blog and resume: http://crow202.dyndns.org:8080/wordpress/
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see