[PLUG] Re: New Laptop

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Fri Jun 11 07:48:02 UTC 2004


Marv wrote:
> I need a med priced laptop  $2500 range.
> Need to dual boot  deb/xp

1) Laptops are borrowed from factory service, not owned.  The laptop
may need service once a year.  Look for a company that does very rapid
repair, with no backtalk.  Good (formerly great):  IBM .  Very bad:
Dell.  HP/Compaq might be OK, very Linux conscious, no direct
experience.  No opinions beyond that.  Get the three year service
contract, subract that ($400?) from your starting price.

2) Internal/External Wifi:  built-in is supposedly convenient, but
it is very hard to specify chipset that way.  Atheros, Prism-2 good,
Cisco OK.  Everything else is poorly supported.  You get a lot more
options with a PCMCIA card - which can be moved around, sold, etc.

3) Dual boot:  Note recent issues with 2.6 Kernel and XP, described in
http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2.html and elsewhere. 

4) If you travel a lot, or are otherwise more than a couple of hours
away from a charger, get a Valence N-Charge external battery for about
$300.

5) Extra chargers, or at least extra charger power cords, are a good
idea unless you like crawling around plugging and unplugging things.

You will find that, starting with a budget of $2500, you will be down
to $1500 by the time you pay for all the goodies that make laptop life
worth living.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs




More information about the PLUG mailing list