[ale] [Slightly OT] Laptop Recommendations/Warnings

[Ron Frazier]

David,

I've owned 3 laptops which might be considered modern.  I'll share my 
thoughts on each.

IBM Thinkpad (not Lenovo), 1998 vintage, 160 MB ram max, Pentium 1, 300 MHz
    This is now too old and slow to be useful, although it will run 
Lubuntu very sluggishly.  At the time, though, I really liked it.  
Construction seemed really solid.  It had a nice keyboard and decent 
sounding speakers.  (Almost no laptop has exceptional sounding or loud 
speakers.)  I have no experience with Lenovo.  I did have to take the 
system apart once and resolder the power connector.  I got it back 
together, but it was not a fun experience.  The hinges on this laptop 
never broke.

Toshiba Satellite, 2002 vintage, 512 MB ram upgraded to 1 GB, Pentium 4, 
2.4 GHz
    I really liked this machine for along time.  Laptop lid hinges seem 
to be a weak point in all of them, and they broke on this unit years ago 
and disabled the display.  I have been using it up until last month with 
an externally attached monitor.  It's been running Windows XP with all 
the latest patches and dual booting Ubuntu 10.04 with no problem at 
all.  They keyboard was good but not as good as the old IBM.  This unit 
also had pretty decent sounding speakers.

Dell Inspiron 1525, 2009 vintage, 2 GB ram upgraded to 4 GB, Pentium 
Dual CPU, 1.7 GHz, 64 bit
    This has been my favorite computer for some time and my "go to" 
machine for anything I had to do which was mobile.  It has a pretty good 
keyboard, similar to the Toshiba, but still not as good as the old IBM.  
It has OK sounding speakers, but not as good as the IBM or Toshiba.  A 
few months ago, one of the laptop lid hinges broke.  Sound familiar.  I 
tried to keep using it by taping the lid with gorilla tape.  Then, a 
couple of weeks ago, the 2nd hinge broke.  At the moment, the display 
still works, but I've relegated the system to desktop duty only where 
it's never moved lest I break that display too.  This is EXTREMELY 
annoying, as the machine was working fine in all other respects.  It's 
been happily dual booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu 10.04.  It has a 64 
bit CPU, so I think I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu.  Sometimes, it's hard to 
keep track.

Asus K52F, 3 GB ram, Pentium Dual CPU, 2.13 GHz, 64 bit
    This is the one I got to replace the Dell, since I do need mobile 
operation.  I was definitely on a budget, and didn't want to get another 
machine at all.  I got this demo unit from Best Buy, unused and unsold 
to a customer, for only $ 300.  The sale price that weekend was $ 380 if 
it had been in the box.  I've only had it for two weeks, so I cannot 
speak to longevity.  I REALLY hope the display hinges don' break, but 
only time will tell.  So far, I'm impressed.  I took the extra $ 80 I 
saved and bought the 2 year in store replacement warranty.  The machine 
has a 15" screen, HDMI and VGA out, 3 USB connectors, memory card slot, 
LAN port, 500 GB HDD (hybrid SSD I think), a DVD RW drive, wifi, and 
comes with Windows 7.  Windows 7 runs more snappily in 3 GB than Windows 
Vista did in 4 GB.  I've repartitioned the HDD and am now dual booting 
with Ubuntu 10.04 and that runs fine too.

They do cut a few corners.  They keyboard is not as good as any of the 
other machines I've had, but I think I can deal with it.  The spacing is 
fine.  But the keys don't travel as far down and make slightly more 
noise.  The sound system is Altec Lansing, a well respected name.  If 
you're right in front of the machine, and the lid is open, and the room 
is quiet, it sounds pretty good.  If you're running with the lid closed 
and an external monitor, or if you're not very close, it's not loud 
enough to be usable.  There are no firewire, esata, svideo, parallel, 
serial ports, or modem ports, and no PCMCIA or CardBus card slots.  BIOS 
options are somewhat limited, but you can put a password on the HDD, 
boot up, and setup.  Overall, it seems like a pretty good machine for 
the money.

I would say look for big beefy hinges where arms go from the lid to the 
base.  However, the Best Buy guy said only the Sony's over $1000 don't 
have much hinge problems.  I have no experience with Sony laptops.  To 
me, it totally stinks for a $ 1 piece of garbage hinge mounting plate, 
made of plastic, to disable a multi hundred dollar machine.

If it's important to you, test the keyboard and sound system first.

Almost all the laptops in retail stores have shiny / glossy screens.  I, 
for one, am not a fan of these, but I didn't have the budget to custom 
order a machine from Dell, etc. with a matte screen.

One other weak point many laptops have is the cooling system.  Many 
times, the fan intake is right on the bottom.  If you set it on your 
lap, or on a bed, it will be blocked.  I've really had to watch this on 
my Toshiba and my Dell.  These intakes can easily get clogged with very 
fine dust and lint.  See my other response to a "laptop overheating" 
thread for more details on a bad experience I had.  You have to check 
these intakes periodically and not set them on a soft surface.  I put 
wedding ribbon over mine to stop the dust.  It's a good idea to run 
SpeedFan in Windows or LM Sensors or something similar in Linux to 
monitor your CPU temperatures.  As I mentioned in the other thread, you 
cannot assume every CPU can take the same maximum temperature.  They're 
all different.  The air intakes on the ASUS are partly on the bottom, 
but also appear to be at other points on the case, so maybe the problem 
won't be as bad.

Hope this info helps.

Sincerely,

Ron


On 5/12/2011 7:27 PM, David Tomaschik wrote:
> All,
>
> I'm beginning to think about my next laptop -- my 2007-era System76 is
> down to under 1 hour battery life, and the screen occasionally
> flickers.  Ideally, I'm hoping to get away at the ~$700 price point,
> but it's looking like that's impossible for what I'm looking for.  My
> desires are:
>
> - Battery life for conferences (6+ hours would be ideal, 4+ is a must)
> - 4GB+ RAM
> - Full size keyboard
> - 13-15" screen
> - HDMI/VGA out
> - Core i3/i5
> - eSATA would be nice, but not a must
>
> Recommendations or models/brands to avoid are appreciated.
>
>    

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

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linuxdude AT c3energy.com