Notebook Questions
I’m in the market for a new development laptop, and I figure I can get wider feedback here than spamming on IRC.
Requirements I have are fairly simple:
Integrated 802.11b/g
Widescreen display form factor with a quality display.
Reasonable weight/portability. (Full desktop replacement not needed. Same with ultraportables. (sorry Chase!))
Good support system. (Hardware is the only concern here.)
Pentium M-based.
I’m sort of torn because I really did learn to love IBM Trackpoints, but I want the widescreen form factor. The Dell Inspiron 6000 and the 700m both fit roughly what I’m looking at, but I’m interested to see what else is out there. Please remember I’m in Canada, so stuff that I can’t get and won’t be supported isn’t useful. Good deals are nice too, but I’ll spend what I have to in order to get what I need.
Before buying a Pentium(requirement) system, go check out an Apple iBook/PowerBook …
- iBook comes with 802.11g 12″ or 14″ light
- PBook comes with 802.11g+BT 12″/15″/17″ (light to reasonable wieght (17″), kbd is lighted on 15″/17″, FW 800 on 15″/17″
Have a look at the features here -> http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore/
And then go test it, you won’t regret it.
I’ve moved to an iMac 20″ in dec/2003, I have never regretted it and won’t move back to a PC system ever (which ever OS is on it !)
Take the time, trust me !
Don’t hesitate to ask me questions about software or whatever you want on Apple. You can also have a look here -> http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/ you’ll find all sorts of software (freeware/shareware/demo of paying softwares).
Cheers,
Richard
I’d suggest an Averatec. They’re an up-and-coming notebook company with a few good options. And from the Where to Buy page, I believe you’d be able to find one.
I’ve been pretty happy with my Compaq Presario x1000 series. 16:10 native widescreen (1280×800), built in wireless, etc. Unfortunately, I just checked the HP website, and I don’t see the x1000 series listed any more. The v4000 looks somewhat similar, but not quite. There are probably still x1000s available out there, though.
New Dell latitude D610 or D810
New Inspiron 6000D with graphic card
Alianware if you can get it.
I’ve been really pleased with my Insprion 700m. The battery life is definitely not insanely great with the standard battery, but for my purposes it’s fine. Note that my purposes are doing dev work on a variety of projects during classes, so I never go much over two hours of use without being near an outlet. It’s very fast, the screen is gorgeous, and the widescreen is really nice.
If you aren’t adaptable look out for the keyboard, comma and period keys are half-sized. It doesn’t bother me, but I have seen a lot of complaints. I’ve got gorilla hands as well, so it’s really not that bad.
I just went through the same thing, looking for a new laptop. There are so many to choose from.
Unfortunately, often, when getting widescreen and/or high-resolution the weight suffers.
I ended up sacrificing the screen, and getting a Fujits-Siemens S7010. It weighs around 1,8kg, and is very well performing. I especially like the secondary battery option, that gives me ~8 hours autonomy.
(Oh, and FreeBSD/Linux works like a charm on it)
Just my $0.02
Perhaps a regularly sized screen with a decent resolution? I recently acquired Thinkpad T42 has a 15″ screen with a 1400×1050 native res, which is plenty of room for me. Of course watching movies is nicer on my widescreen Powerbook, but you did say “development laptop”
I’m happy with my IBM Thinkpad T42p. It’s not widescreen, but it does have a 1600×1200 display, it’s very light, and it works great for development. Why do you specifically want widescreen? It seems like that’d be the limiting factor for what you’re looking for.
I’ve been pleased with my Dell 600m. It has a standard 4:3 14.1″ screen, but it’s high-res (1400×1050) and bright. I haven’t used the 700m, so I couldn’t tell you how it compares. I chose the 600m because I thought it had the right mix of portability (~6 pounds) and performance (Pentium M 1.6GHz, 1GB ram). Works just fine for building Firefox
. In my mind, portability and widescreen don’t go together very well.
I chose the Intel “B” wireless card, and it has worked great on campus and at home where I use it all the time. I don’t know how the Dell wireless cards compare.
The one thing I regret about buying this laptop though is not getting enough hard drive space. It came with 40GB and I quickly started bumping up against that limit. Third party drives are probably more affordable than the Dell upgrades but I haven’t had much time to look into those, and there is problem of what to do with my existing drive. I mitigated that issue with an external USB drive.
Dell’s support in Canada has been fine, although I haven’t really used it extensively. I had an issue with it not starting up properly at one point, and after some diagnostics over the phone they were ready to have it shipped back and given a new (refurbished) motherboard & CPU, but I ended up opening it and adjusting the CPU seating, and got it to work fine.
Check out discountlaptops.com
Read about their brands here.
http://discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=catagory&include_type=ourbrands
If you want widescreen you’ll want the Sager NP3790
i’m currently considering the 700m purchase, but i’m hestitant because i don’t how well i will like the 12.1″ screen.
i definately want something lightweight (the 600m is still a little to heavy for me), and the price point seems to be pretty good right now – 1.8GHz, 60 gig drive, extra batter, cdrw/dvd, 257 ram w/ the 35% off coupon is 991 (i’ll buy more ram elsewhere as those upgrade prices are insane).
i’ve looked at sony, ibm, etc. but they are a lot more expensive with similiar specs (some do have a larger screen but the price borders on 2k plus).
The Thinkpad pricing in Canada sucks. Its like the dollar is still 62 cents USD (its over 82 now)
I generally like widescreen, since I make better use of horizontal space than vertical. I’ll have to hit something like Best Buy and play with the different form factors. Right now, based solely on the price/features, the Inspiron 6000 seems to be the way to go.
For 3k Cdn:
Pentium M 1.6/2MB cache/533 FSB
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM
XP Pro
15.4″ 1680×1050 UltraSharp
128MB PCI-E Radeon x300
Intel PRO 802.11a/b/g
3 Year Onsite with CompleteCare (I have kids, CC is worth it!)
Leather Carrying Case
Auto/Air Adapter
I can knock probably $500 off the price if I want, just need to toss the fancy video card, XP Pro (without the video card, I’d run Linux), and the Auto adapter (I can always get that later).
Gavin, the 6000 is 2″ wider than the 600m. Not a big hit, and its an extra 300 pixels of screen real estate. Given that I’m not exactly a little guy, I’ll probably need the wider keyboard anyway.
If you like the trackpoints then AVOID DELL. The buttons that work with their pointing sticks are useless (very difficult to click and without any tactile feedback). The buttons for the touchpad work fine and they obviously feel that only these buttons are worth testing before releasing their laptops.
hp.ca lists the 7010 (which is the same machine as the x1000, just the business model). I like mine quite well. For me it was the keyboard more than anything. That and the trackpad has a (real) button to turn it off (lazy thumbs
Here’s the link: http://www.hp.ca/products/static/notebooks/nx7010/index.php
If you’re going to order direct from hp/compaq – I recommend calling instead of doing it over the web. It took me a long time (8-12 weeks) for my order to arrive (many small screwups).
A few co-workers have seen the x1000 showing up as suplus at a good price in a few places (no links, sorry). 1200-1500 CAD
I’d seriously consider an Apple.
But I do have a Thinkpad (A31)… it’s a solid system. It’s 2 years old, but it’s 1.8 GHz P4M chip isn’t bad. I added 1 GB RAM, and it’s pretty smooth.
Here’s a tip I found:
Get the Hitachi 7200 RPM 2.5 inch drive and upgrade from what you get (likely not 7200 RPM). The extra RPM will give a good speed increase. Especially useful if building or doing something that’s disk intensive.