Patterico's Pontifications

Apple – IBook either 12″ ro 14″ screen unless you a If you really need the extra power then the Powerbook line.

Buy or sometimes added as package deal – MS Office (MAC) has Word,Excel, Access, and Powepoint. Same as Windows version but built from scratch on Unix platform. Very stable and unless you absolutely have a PC software program forget buying Virtual PC.

Can’t beat the Mac’s ability to connect hassle free to wireless networks. Further the OS system is immuned to catching bugs and crashing when not practicing “safe computing.”

Doesn’t have 3 1/2 drive – so carry a thumb drive in your pocket.

Since you are in gov’t go to online Mac store (www.mac.com) and log on as “government employee.” Sometimes can find deal vs buying is store. If buying from store do it from one of the Apppke factory stores.

Ron Wright (640c4c) — 2/8/2005 @ 3:00 am

Sorry words left out in first line. Meant to say unless you are an online gamer freek.

Ron Wright (640c4c) — 2/8/2005 @ 3:02 am

The Dell Latitude D410 is one of the best lightweights around. I use the predecessor, the D400. About 3.6 pounds, 12.1” screen, built-in 802.11 b/g, connectivity with the entire Latitude line of accessories, like the port replicator (including one with PCI slots!), and external portable drive bays, all of which can be found cheaply on eBay. The new D410 is even more rugged than the D400.

I take mine everywhere. Since its so light its easy to carry around all of the time in my briefcase. At the office I plug it into a port replicator with a large flat-screen running at hi-res.

I spent a great deal of time researching lightweight laptops and trying several out. The Latitude D400 series is the best, in my opinion, assuming you’re needing a Windows computer.

I think this link will take you there: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/latit_d410?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

Tom Buckley (f5747f) — 2/8/2005 @ 4:55 am

My three-year-old Toshiba Satellite has been lugged across the country 13,000 miles and hasn’t failed me yet.

CGHill (6bfc75) — 2/8/2005 @ 6:47 am

I think I’m technically not supposed to talk about this, but here goes anyway. My roommate bought her PowerBook under the Apple education program. (Students and teachers get Apple products at 10%-15% off retail, and doctors in residency are considered students.)

About 14 months later the hard drive started squeaking, so she took it back to the Apple store where she bought it. The guy at the desk told her that since the computer was out of warranty she’d have to pay for the repair … but then he saw from the serial number record in his computer that it was an education purchase and said “never mind.”

Apple’s education customers — according to this one guy at this one Apple store — get free service and support for life. He said it’s not something they advertise, but it’s official corporate policy.

Their iPod repair policy is pretty great, too. If you have an iPod that’s under warranty (either regular or extended) and you need to have it repaired for any reason that would ordinarily be covered by that warranty, Apple doesn’t make you wait. They just hand you a refurbished iPod that’s comparable to the one you bought. If they don’t have any refurbished ones in the store, they send you home with a brand new one.

I’m a big believer in overall customer satisfaction. Apple is a company that really goes out of its way to take care of their customers, and if it were me, I’d take that into consideration when I decide what to buy.

Jeff Harrell (937967) — 2/8/2005 @ 7:34 am

IMHO, IBM Thinkpad T40 is pretty good. It does exactly what I expected from it. The only flaw is its inability to acknowledge DVD+R or DVD-R. But that’s a case for the detachable DVD/CDRW.

BigFire (8e4fcc) — 2/8/2005 @ 7:51 am

I recommend the Apple Powerbook, which I own. I have also tried friends’ iBooks, but they’re much bulkier and they also feel very cheaply constructed. The keyboard in particularly is annoying flimsy and somewhat unresponsive, particularly if you have a high WPM.

Brendan Watson (504fc8) — 2/8/2005 @ 8:21 am

You really can’t go wrong with an Apple. Especially if you want to actually use your wireless features, rather than spend all your time trying to get thr drivers to configure properly.

sean bonner (c710b9) — 2/8/2005 @ 8:43 am

Laptops have three components:

Good price, good speed, and good weight.

You may pick any two of these three. (Or in the case, of Apple, you get “good weight” and that’s about it- they’re sloooow, even the G5 models. Before you Apple fanboys flame me, go look at benchmarks for the G5, and compare it to the latest offerings from AMD, which are almost a third the price. That said, OS X is very nice).

If you want the good speed/good weight combo, I’d suggest looking into IBM’s x series of Thinkpads (whichever model they’re on now). If you’re willing to sacrifice some power for a better price, check out Fujitsu’s notebook offerings- many of them are quite good.

Stay away from Sony Vaios- they’re very expensive for what they are, but they are very nice. That is, until they break, which they most certainly will. Sony’s computer QC has never been very good.

The Angry Clam (c96486) — 2/8/2005 @ 8:47 am

I have had 2 Fujitsu’s in a row and have been happy with their longevity. My latest was built for power, though, and not weight. It weighs a ton.

Ann (552671) — 2/8/2005 @ 9:21 am

There’s no single answer to your question. It depends very highly on what you plan on doing with your laptop. If you travel a lot, you may get a different answer than if you plan on using it as a desktop replacement.

I have an HP I’m very fond of. I selected it because I wanted an AMD processor and a machine that came standard with XP Pro and HP was the only major manufacturer that offered that and met my budget constraints. I don’t travel much and what I do is mostly local.

Dave Schuler (67d409) — 2/8/2005 @ 9:58 am

If you are truly looking for a notebook and not a desktop you carry with you, weight, battery life, and durability are the big issues. I went through this recently and ended up with an ultra-light weight (Fujitsu Lifebook P1110 – 2.2 lbs, alloy chassis, 6+ hours under reasonble circumstances on batteries). As a general rule the ultra-light weight machines are slow (ok, call it adequate), have inferior video chips and are cramped to use. But they are light enough that you actually have it with you to use.

Monty Walls (cde878) — 2/8/2005 @ 10:42 am

Pat, I’d recommend IBM Thinkpads. That is all we use in my company, and we’ve never had problems with them.

Which model would depend on your needs. I use a G-Series as my desktop replacement, and it has all the power I could want for my purposes, though battery life is lacking and it is heavy enough to anchor the QE II. I’m also getting a Thinkpad for home use, and will either go for a high end version of the R-series or the T-series.

If you don’t mind the cost, I also like the physical durability of a Panasonic Toughbook. I once worked for a power company subcontractor, and as part of my job we had to ride quads (ATVs) over exceedingly tough terrain that punished machine, rider, and equipment relentlessly, and it never did fail. I don’t know about the wireless, but it was tough, as advertised.

Confederate Yankee (77aa06) — 2/8/2005 @ 10:53 am

If you want a Mac get a Mac. If you want a PC, my wife has been very happy with each of her Dell’s. It’s best feature, believe it or not, is how it connects to the power cord, we can’t break it. I have serially broken the powercord connections on just about every machine I have had, but I am brutal (geology field trips with my students tends to be a real breaker).

David (ea6452) — 2/8/2005 @ 11:20 am

Two Christmases ago I bought a set of laptops for my wife and I. The main criteria was price, since I consider laptops borderline disposable due to the hard life they lead. We walked out of BestBuy with two Compaq Presario 2190s. $650 each after rebates. 2.4 GHz Celerons, 40 GB HD, and CD-RW/DVD players. Only thing I had to add was WiFi and an extra 256 MB of RAM. No problems at all with them.

Les Jones (514bb2) — 2/8/2005 @ 11:31 am

Consumer Reports (i know they are leftists), posts drop tests results of laptops.

Baklava (40e7ba) — 2/8/2005 @ 12:14 pm

I’ve been “the IT guy” for several startups over the last 8 or so years. I have evaluated nearly every make and most models of laptops out there. There are only two manufacturers that our company will purchase, IBM and Apple. Stick to the fairly high end Thinkpads (T40, T41, T42). Durability and reliability were the priority factor… but both companies have excellent features and mobility, etc.

Personally I have been using Thinkpads for the last 10 years and could not be happier. My sister has an Apple laptop (Education Program) and she loves it. You will pay a bit more for choosing IBM or Apple, but you will be very glad you did… I promise.

Kevin

Kevin (65d262) — 2/8/2005 @ 1:05 pm

I use a Mac PowerBook G4. It has never failed. Everything just works better on Macs. The wireless on the Mac blows the wireless speed/dependability of our PC out of the water. Fast and eeeasy.

That’s my 0.02….which is priced pretty fairly.

KelliPundit (fdd396) — 2/8/2005 @ 1:53 pm

It kind of depends on your budget. I mean, Panasonic Toughbooks are the most durable thing out there (we use them on our ambulances and they’ve proven to be firefighter-proof) but I kind of doubt you have that kind of money to shell out on one.

From what I’ve seen, Dell Latitudes are pretty good for lightweight durability. The company I work my day job at has them and they don’t seem to blow up terribly often.

Personally, I’ve had my Toshiba Satellite out and about a lot and it’s proven very nice. However, it’s not very light, considering I’ve got the 17″ widescreen. However, I have run into some overheating problems with it.

Katsu (e238da) — 2/8/2005 @ 3:44 pm

I’d recommend the 15″ PowerBook. The 17″, while tempting, is probably too big for most people’s daily laptop. (It’s great for video editing, which I do a lot of, but I still bought the 15″ and am happy I did. I would have needed a bigger briefcase just to fit the 17″!)

If you’re looking for ultra portability, the 12″ PowerBook is good, but you obviously sacrifice screen real estate.

I used to use Windows computers (I had a Sony Vaio and liked it), but it really is true what they say: once you go Mac, you never go back. Once you get used to it (which might take a week for someone never exposed to a Mac), the OS X operating system is elegant, aesthetically pleasing, easy to use–and, if you’re a UNIX geek like I am–affords you tremendous power and flexibility that you simply can’t get with Windows.

There’s a reason Apple users are so passionate about their computers. It isn’t a fluke. When was the last time you heard anyone gushing about their Windows laptop the way people do about the Mac?

Evan Coyne Maloney (4e5376) — 2/8/2005 @ 6:23 pm

I’m currently in the market for a new laptop, as my current one is near dead, and my blog is crippled without it. I am basically deciding between a Dell, an HP, and an IBM. The problem with the Dells is that’s what I have, and it’s let me down. On the other hand, the price/performance/features combination is tough to beat. HPs are nice, because you can get the most powerful video cards with them. IBMs have great reputations, but it looks to me like they all have integrated video, or crappy video cards with shared video Ram.

Spoons (04a1f0) — 2/8/2005 @ 8:17 pm

http://www.oqo.com

Hugo (aee51f) — 2/8/2005 @ 10:18 pm

I have a Sony S-150 and am loving it.

boifromtroy (c49536) — 2/10/2005 @ 9:58 am

any Apple laptop. pick the one that fits your budget. i was hooked the day my girlfriend took my digital camera plugged it into her ibook and downloaded my pictures. no software, no drivers, no hardware conflicts. nothing. plug and play. had a slide show with music in 3 minutes. took me 6 hours to get my pc to even recognize the camera. apples, they just work.

R2.5 Rider (4819eb) — 2/10/2005 @ 3:02 pm

I meant to leave this link for you the other day. It is a post by Jay Reding concerning Macs vs PCs. Hint: The title of the post is “The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations.” Enjoy.

KelliPundit (fdd396) — 2/10/2005 @ 3:09 pm

Except that the example in that link is many years old- Windows does in fact have a free DVD player that works with autoplay.

That’s the real problem of the Mac vs. PC debate: Mac users are convinced that PCs are still 1995 vintage- they carry on about how they crash all the time (they don’t), that nothing works properly on them (it does now), and that the Mac is a faster machine (it isn’t- even a top of the line dual G5 can barely hold its own against an inexpensive mid-range processor from AMD), and so forth.

The Angry Clam (c96486) — 2/10/2005 @ 3:12 pm

The real problem is that Windows users haven’t tried Apples. Most Apple users were once Windows users. Who really has the better basis for comparison? As for the notion that PC’s are vintage 1995? I switched last year in November. My PC? Vintage 2004.

R2.5 Rider (4819eb) — 2/10/2005 @ 3:40 pm

Neither has the better basis for comparison. You may have used XP/2000/NT, but most Apple users haven’t. The fact that many of them have once used something else that was also called “Windows” is immaterial.

Xrlq (816c74) — 2/10/2005 @ 4:07 pm

IBM X40, Strong, under 3 lbs., lasts 5+ hours on a charge. Con – no optical drive. I have an X23 and would never consider buying anyone else’s laptops (except maybe a Powerbook).

Matt

Matt Volk (c4059e) — 2/10/2005 @ 6:33 pm

Go with the IBM T-42P unless you are a gamer freak. you can’t beat the value or the reliability.

Zainuddin Banatwala (397aa4) — 2/10/2005 @ 7:10 pm

The Angry Clam referred to Apple G5 laptops. They don’t exist. G4 laptops however are excellent — I have the 1st gen. 12″ myself.

The new ones, in terms of durability, have a “auto-locking” feature that makes the hard drive far more resistant to failure if you drop it while it’s running. Very nice.

These really are excellent computers. Yes, I have used XP. No comparison. Besides the digital camera example above… Yesterday I plugged my thumb drive into an XP machine. Three different “new device” dialogs popped up, listing different devices. Ejecting the drive works differently that ejecting any other drive I’ve ever used on Windows.

Plug the same into the Mac. No fuss, no muss — it mounts (and ejects) exactly as any other drive would.

The difference between Mac and PC is a million little details like this. “God is in the details”, as they say.

If you do want Windows, I used to have good luck with Gateway, but I understand that they’ve gone downhill in the last few years.

Strider (95eb36) — 2/11/2005 @ 8:51 am

Oh yeah… regarding wireless… All Apple laptops are built for wifi — even the ones that don’t come standard with the Airport card (a.k.a. 802.11g) have an antenna built-in to the frame for when you do get one.

I believe (but double check) that all Apple laptops now come with Bluetooth and Airport standard.

Strider (95eb36) — 2/11/2005 @ 8:53 am

Xrlq, there are more Apple users who have experience with some version of Windows compared to Windows users who have used a Mac OS. When they used either system is not immaterial given that the conclusion is always the same: Mac OS has always been and is currently more reliable, easier to use and more stable than older and current versions of Windows.

I will also argue that current versions of Windows aren’t all that much better. Windows users now have enough experience to work around the inherent flaws in order to get their computers to work. I didn’t know what the registry was on my PC until I figured out that in order to completely remove Spyware and Adware from my system, I needed to delete those entries in the registry (or find some magical combination of software to do it for me).

From a consumer standpoint, Apples work as advertised. That’s really not too much to ask for, unless you have a PC.

R2.5 Rider (4819eb) — 2/11/2005 @ 10:39 am

I never referred to G5 laptops- I was simply noting that even the best hardware Apple can offer (the G5) is not nearly as fast as that available to PC users. The G4 gets smoked even by low-end PC processors these days.

And, R2.5 Rider, as of this posting, the uptime on my 24-7 XP box is sixteen weeks, three days, seven hours, thirty-two minutes and 23 seconds. I shut it down back in 2004 because I was replacing a DVD burner.

The greatest myth among Macintosh owners (apart from the superior speed and power of their hardware) is that modern Windows is as unstable as Windows 95 or 98.

The Angry Clam (c96486) — 2/11/2005 @ 11:27 am

Great job with your XP box. I credit you more then than XP. Keep in mind, Patterico is looking for a laptop, which, unlike a desktop, you will be sleeping and turning on and off (or hibernating, which is different than sleep why?). If I put my Windows based laptop to sleep with outlook connected to the network… forget it. Restarting was the only option.

My PowerBook? Absolutely no hang up’s. None. Shut lid, walk away. Come back, open the lid and away you go. Take it to a coffee shop, and I’m on the Internet the minute it wakes up. It’s all about seamless interaction between me and my computer and the Internet. No windows machine come close.

R2.5 Rider (4819eb) — 2/11/2005 @ 1:16 pm

That’s your fault then- I have zero problems with my XP notebook transitioning from my home (wireless) to school/work (ethernet) environment while in sleep mode.

Put it to sleep at home while connected, wake it up at school while connected to the LAN, no problems.

Sleep is the same as the function on the Mac. Hibernating saves a memory dump to the hard drive before turning the power completely off, so that when power is restored, the ordinary boot is bypassed, and rather the state of the computer when it was put into hibernation is restored.

The Angry Clam (c96486) — 2/11/2005 @ 1:54 pm

Check out the latest Fortune cover and related article on Apple. You just can’t beat the Apple experience, even if you are one of the few that has a Windows machine that works.

R2.5 rider (7e0062) — 2/11/2005 @ 8:22 pm

OS X is a good OS. The PPC architecture, however, is teh suck, and I can’t get over that fact.

The Angry Clam (c96486) — 2/11/2005 @ 9:43 pm

IBM, Sony and Apple. Try Top of the Range(TOP) and you wont really regret. I am a happy man.

Ano dollar Joka (904eb7) — 4/5/2005 @ 5:06 am

2/8/2005

Best Laptops?

39 Responses to “Best Laptops?”

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