ideal laptop recommendation

[G.E. Rafe]

I've been following the current thread on laptop recommendations,
and thought to add my observations regarding the 4 Toshibas
we've owned since the fall of 1997, all of which have had some
version of FreeBSD-RELEASE running on them.

Only one of them (Satellite 4030CDT) required a trip back to
Toshiba for warranty service due to failing IBM disk drive
(well, actually, two trips, since they didn't replace the drive
the first time out).
The total turn-around time was within a few days in both cases.

I've since put more memory & a larger disk in that system
and my wife (a French medievalist) is quite happy with its
stability (up since December with daily APM suspend/resume cycles)
and functionality (Netscape 7, WordPerfect 8, & OpenOffice for Linux).
As a desktop replacement, I've been happy with the Satellite Pro 4600,
which has been very FreeBSD-friendly (except for the Winmodem).
My only "complaint" -- 1024x768 on the LCD is getting a little
too constraining.

I've been looking at the Satellite Pro 6100 as the next replacement,
but was curious as to whether the USB floppy can be used to boot
the system (since that spindle is missing from the system).
Any comments?

I'm also intrigued by IBM's newly announced Thinkpad G40 series,
which is being billed as a "desktop replacement".
I would be interested in reading from the -mobile communit of Thinkpad
users what they make of this series in terms of FreeBSD-friendliness,
based either on direct observation or interpretation of the published
specs.
--
Gary E. RAFE, Ph.D.
rafeg at mail.com