OT: notebook shopping

[Jason Hayes]

On Sunday 20 April 2008 1:05:57 pm Vaughn Treude wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> I'm planning to buy a new notebook,  
<<snipped>> 
> Any comments or relevant experiences any of you could share?
> Thanks,
> Vaughn


Vaughn:

I picked up a Lenovo T61p (Intel 2.2 GHz dual core, Nvidia Quadro FX 570M 256 
MB, 2 Gig Ram, 100 Gig SATA 7200 rpm, DVD burner, 3 USB ports, 15.4", card 
reader)  just before Christmas and have enjoyed it from the word go.

I had some initial issues with wireless on my Mandriva 2008.0 system, but just 
upgraded to 2008.1 spring and the issue disappeared (driver-related).

No problems with any of the other hardware. I also purchased the ThinkVision 
L194 widescreen LCD monitor and the docking station (plus a few other 
accessories keyboard, mouse, SATA drive bay adapter) at the same time.

I picked all of that up for about $2200.

Side note, I was foolish enough to get the Vista version, instead of XP (they 
wouldn't sell it without Windows but they did offer XP). I set it up for dual 
boot and also run VirtualBox with an XP virtual machine. The Vista system 
won't run updates, it just starts downloading and hangs at 0%. I use it so 
infrequently that I haven't bothered to spend the time figuring out why.

This machine is a good deal smaller than my previous Acer 1804, so carrying it 
for business is a LOT easier. Battery life is around 2 to 2.5 hours which is 
about double the life of either of my previous Acers.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the Lenovo.

HTH
Jason Hayes