The Best Laptop

[Dag-ErlingSmørgrav]

Bob Collins <bobc at anything-inc.com> writes:
> Wow, considering that, I had no issues other than having to use
> OLDKERNEL to get my pcm slots working, my TP600X runs 4.9 perfectly. So
> much for the above.

I've had three ThinkPads, including a 600E.  All of them had problems
running FreeBSD.  The 600E even had problems running Windows 2000 and
XP, even though it had a sticker on it that said "designed for
Microsoft Windows".  Problems I've experienced include:

 - original battery dies, brand new replacement battery also dies
   within months

 - increasingly severe trackpoint drift culminated in the trackpoint
   being completely unusable, keyboard / trackpoint unit was replaced,
   symptoms reappeared months later.

 - BIOS detects trackpoint malfunction during POST, and refuses to
   boot without first running complete systems diagnostic (which takes
   about half an hour and requires a working mouse because the BIOS
   setup / diagnostic utility is graphical rather than text-based)

 - laptop suddenly decides to suspend even though AC is plugged in;
   upon resume, runs for 30 seconds before suspending again, etc.
   Once this kicks in, laptop is unusable.  The only remedy I found
   was to clear NVRAM in BIOS setup.

 - DOS / Windows utility required to select RS232 instead of IrDA,
   because BIOS setup utility has practically no useful functionality
   besides "select boot device" and "set boot password".

> And considering the troubles I have had with office based Dell
> Brickbooks (at 9 pounds or so, they are not really portable) Inspirons
> and Latitudes, I would not use them if I could do otherwise.

That's disingenious.  Both IBM and Dell have a variety of models, some
designed for performance and others designed for low weight.  The
Latitude C and D series belong to the former category, as does the
ThinkPad 600 series.  My ThinkPad 600E and my Latitude D600 both weigh
slightly less than 6 lbs, while a Latitude X300 weighs less than 3 lbs
according to Dell's website.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no