Josh Saddler - Latest comments on Laptop Hunting

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Digi [Visitor] — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:08:42 +0000

I would never EVER recommend a crappy brand such as IBM. Stay away fom Compaq as well. I would recommend a HP ot a LG....they are the best ones yet unless you want to get a cheap used Ibook.

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Christopher Giroir [Visitor] — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:10:48 +0000

I would check out the barebone notebooks from Asus. I've had incredible luck running linux on ALL of the ones I've ever bought (including some of the non-barebones).

They make great machines, that follow standards and look great (imho).

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Jan Seeger [Visitor] — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:09:57 +0000

I use the Gigabyte W551N. Okay Battery life (around 3 hours), and works pretty well with linux: Suspend/Resume (Disk and Ram), sound, WLAN with WPA and bluetooth. 15,4" Display and 120 GB of disk space. Also an nvidia Go 7700 (or something) graphics adapter and 1024 MB Ram (I added another 1023 MB). Cost me 850 Euros without OS(^^)

In response to: Laptop Hunting

welp [Member] — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:59:05 +0000

Lenovo ThinkPad!

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Branko Badrljica [Visitor] — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:40:59 +0000

Well, you are going to need some serious horsepower for Gentoo and VIA C7 os similar unicore beast isn't going to cut it, especially with Gentoo.

Especially if you use cryptoprotection on your filesystem, which is for notebook VERY advisable.

Given the configuration, this MSI is very cheap.

I haven't bought it yet mainly because:

- my old Toshiba is still ( barely ) alive and I don't have immediate reason to throw it away and since those things do make progress, its's best to wait till the last moment.

-I want quadcore in my notebook and at the moment neither Intel nor AMD has an adequate offer. I seek something like Clevo 900C ( notebook with normal machine CPU), but with new generation AMD or Intel true QC chip, like PHenom or Nehalem.

Everyone has his own ideas about optimal notebook. For me, it has to approach capabilities of my stationary machine.

If I feel cramped, I can't work.
I have to have big screen with plenty of resolution, fast CPu with good GPU and _PLENTY_ of HDD space, so I can take many docs etc materials with me at all times.

With these specs it's obvious that I can't have long battery life, but since power oultlet is always available, batteries in my notebook play more of the role of UPS in case of power outage than a serious mobile energy source.

If you can work with 1280x800 graphics, more powah to you, but once I have tried really good 1600x1200 on 15 inch screen, I want nothing less.

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Josh Saddler [Member] — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:12:59 +0000

@Branko:
Way too expensive! And not enough battery life.

@Aniruddha:
The EeePC fails my requirements in that the screen is much too small. My eyes aren't that good. I know that historically Thinkpads are supposed to be great, but how great can they be if lm_sensors doesn't work? I want my hardware monitoring, dangit! :)

@Nelchael:
Thanks, I'm through with Toshiba. I don't think you could pay me to use one again. Just too broken; too many weird BIOS and ACPI issues. But thanks for the link. :)

@Mike:
Sonys are too big and heavy, and have no real battery life. Given that their purpose is serious media usage, that's probably fine for most people, but most other laptops get at least two hours of battery life. I don't want to estimate remaining time! Also, there are some laptops that get 3 hours or more, though those are mostly VIA C7-M based laptops, which aren't too common.

Not sure what your issue with the microphone is; my desktop has built-in Intel HDA, and the microphone ports work just fine, both in back and via the front ports.

@Andreas, @Kevin:
See my earlier comment regarding Thinkpads. :)

Actually, integrated Intel graphics sound just fine; I'm starting to become attracted to the idea of working open-source drivers. But the tradeoff is less graphical power. They aren't going to beat an nVidia chip. Then again, I've seen plenty of issues with the latest versions of nvidia-drivers on my laptop. The 96xx series hardlocks the screen on first boot, forcing a restart. And other issues too numerous to mention. The last truly working, pain-free nVidia drivers were the very early 1.0.7x series, and some of the even older ones.

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Kevin Bowling [Visitor] — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:07:47 +0000

IBM/Lenovo! Get an R or T series NOW before the intel CPU refresh. They are going cheap!

In response to: Laptop Hunting

Andreas Nilsson [Visitor] — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:32:57 +0000

Don't ever buy anything else than a IBM/Lenovo laptop. They break down, they more often have linux-difficult hardware etc.

Most recent Thinkpads have at least intel x3100 gpu, which handles dvd nicely, and can support ut2004. And if you really want there are models with gpus from nvidia ;)

Look at some Thinkpad t61 model, you cant go wrong there.