Choosing a new laptop

[Jon Disnard]

Get an I-book

Seems that a bunch of speakers at various talks I've participated have 
been using ibooks in an increasing frequency. Oh wait, was fbsd a 
requirment for the laptop? If so, then I would advise a Dell laptop. I 
would avoid Toshiba's, and Sony's. The reason is support, albeit a issue 
of personal taste more than anything. The dell website is now of major 
suck, where it used to be as simply as providing a service tag. The 
Toshibas actually have crappy construction, and are prone to simply yet 
anoying breakage. I've hear the sony stuff has weird hardware and 
doesn't always support the community with specs. I hope this at lease 
narrows your scope of possible candidates. =)

-Jon


Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> I've decided it's time for a new laptop.  In the past I've been
> relatively happy with Dell, but their web site is driving me to
> distraction (want info about Latitudes?  Tell them you have a home
> office and they'll give you Inspiron instead).  Questions to you:
> 
> 1.  Which brand?
> 2.  Which model?
> 
> I use laptops when travelling and for presentations.  For the former I
> want long battery life and high resolution (preferably 1600x1200).
> For the latter I need something that will feed run-of-the-mill data
> projectors at 1024x768 and with enough grunt to run an increasingly
> lethargic Acrobat Reader without noticeable delay.  I'm suspicious of
> the new wide screen versions because of potential problems with the
> data projectors; if people can allay these concerns, I'd be quite
> happy to have a wide-screen model.  I also want a keyboard which I can
> remap and a touchpad which works; a third mouse button would, of
> course, be a good idea.
> 
> Greg
> --
> Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
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