Re: Henning needs a new laptop.

[Steve Shockley <steve_(_dot_)_shockley_(_at_)_shockley_(_dot_)_net>]

Greg wrote:
> I will soon be in the market for a laptop (still saving money) and was
> wondering why the IBM X40 ?  I have polled several of my IT friends that
> have been responsible for large inventories of laptops and the common
> consensus that the best ones were IBM, Toshiba (generally the older ones),
> Dell, and then the rest of them.  My personal experience with laptops has
> been minimal and I would appreciate anyone's advice/experience/tips.

Everyone who has used an IBM laptop for a while loves it.  Almost nobody 
loves laptops from other brands.  (Well, maybe except Mac.)  I've got an 
old Thinkpad 600, it's one of the best laptops I've used.

I currently use a work-owned Compaq Evo N800c.  I love this screen, once 
you get used to 1400x1050 it's hard to use 1024x768 again.  I might 
think differently if I had to carry it often.  On the downside, the 
connector for the dock is touchy, and I'm already on my second keyboard 
and touchpad because I literally wore them down.  (If you touch-type, 
you'll go nuts when the nubs on the F and J keys wear off.)  I guess 
I've typed too many abrasive comments.  Under OpenBSD, everything but 
the winmodem works, and very well.  I've seen these machines get VERY 
heavily abused (physically) and still work well.

My wife uses a work-owned Dell Latitude C610.  I think it runs too hot, 
but at least there are third-party utilities to control the fan speed, 
so you can choose between too hot or too noisy.  I haven't tried OpenBSD 
on the machine.  Dell's plastics are their weak spot.

I also own a Dell Latitude CP.  Again, a good machine, but the plastics 
are weak.

If you really want old-school, I also have a Compaq LTE 5280. 
Well-built, but it boggles the mind that it used to be a $5000 laptop.

I haven't used one recently, but I hate Toshibas.  They always seemed to 
do strange stuff in hardware just because they could.  For example, the 
screws that hold Toshibas together aren't standard Philips screws, 
they're JIS screws, and using a Philips screwdriver to remove them will 
cam out and strip the head.  (Because Philips, Pozidrive and Reed&Prince 
weren't enough standards for a + screw head.)