If you were to buy a laptop: brand?

[Buck]

You're . . . . OT . . . in almost . . . every . . .

 

[Bartender]

What was that Buck? Scotch clouding your mind?

Anyway, good point mangyDOG. I've checked with Buck's distributor, and they have some nice Asus notebooks on hand. Although they seem to be a bit on the light side - CPU speed, battery life, and weight. I suppose that is the purpose of most notebooks anyway. It should be as portable as one can get, and still handle your workload.

 

[mangyDOG]

Just tried a new ASUS L3C (Pentium4-M 2.0GHz, 40Gb HDD, etc etc, 15" screen.)

Absolutely wicked! 8) the default resolution on the screen is 1400*1050 which is 16:9 layout. Fantastic clarity and brightness, way better than my poxy Dell 14" screen.

Unfortunantely it was only in the shop for half a day before my customer picked it up...damm damm damm, didn't get to play with it.

 

[Stereodude]

Absolutely wicked! 8) the default resolution on the screen is 1400*1050 which is 16:9 layout. Fantastic clarity and brightness, way better than my poxy Dell 14" screen.

Ummm 1400x1050 is a 4:3 resolution, not 16:9. My Dell has a 14.1" 1400x1050 screen.

Stereodude

 

[e_dawg]

Excuse me if 1400x1050 on a 14" screen sounds like a good way to go blind. I like screen real estate just as much as the next guy, but if I had to squint to see microscopic text, I would rather have 800x600 on a 12" screen (like my old ThinkPad).

 

[Mercutio]

"Large Fonts" are your friend in that case, and any windows app that can't do text scaling probably doesn't need to be on a laptop.

 

[time]

That would include MS Office 97 for starters ...

Not all apps supports font scaling or are successful in doing so. It's one of the reasons I agree with e_dawg about 1400x1050 in just 14".

 

[mubs]

We discussed this in an earlier thread where I complained that I'm half blind now from using a Stinkpad with a 14.1" LCD that runs at 1400x1050.

Large fonts look really crummy, Merc. It wasn't a viable option on my m/c anyway.

 

[timwhit]

We discussed this in an earlier thread where I complained that I'm half blind now from using a Stinkpad with a 14.1" LCD that runs at 1400x1050.

Large fonts look really crummy, Merc. It wasn't a viable option on my m/c anyway.

Do they still look crappy with clear type or whatever that is called which comes with XP?

 

[Mercutio]

Win2000 and XP can do "font scaling". It looks like cat puke and causes the occasional bit of graphics weirdness, but the letters are indeed arbitrarily larger!

 

[Cliptin]

http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm

Looks neat but I'd wanna see a review.

 

[timwhit]

Win2000 and XP can do "font scaling". It looks like cat puke and causes the occasional bit of graphics weirdness, but the letters are indeed arbitrarily larger!

This is what I am talking about. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/cleartypeactivate.htm

Not that I have Windows XP on any system so I can't try it out.

 

[timwhit]

http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm

Looks neat but I'd wanna see a review.

I wonder how slow that Via CPU is? My guess is not too quick. At least it's small, light, and cheap though. Those attributes are just as important as a fast CPU. And it's probably a better option than buying some 500Mhz IBM on eBay for the same amount of money.

 

[Mercutio]

This is what I am talking about. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/cleartypeactivate.htm

Not that I have Windows XP on any system so I can't try it out.

ClearType doesn't seem to help with scaling.

 

[Mercutio]

http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm

Looks neat but I'd wanna see a review.

I wonder how slow that Via CPU is? My guess is not too quick. At least it's small, light, and cheap though. Those attributes are just as important as a fast CPU. And it's probably a better option than buying some 500Mhz IBM on eBay for the same amount of money.

Damn. Missed that one while I was typing the other.

C3s are SLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW. That "933" may in point of fact be equivalent to a 500MHz Intel chip in many respects. From what I know about the build quality of 500MHz IBM notebooks (at least in the 600E and 540 series), I'd FAR rather have the IBM.

 

[mubs]

Tim,

The Stinkpad came with (and is still running) Win2k Pro, which does not support ClearType. Even if it did, Cleartype wouldn't have helped my situation because the problem was not clarity (which is mainly what ClearType is for); it was size. But the quality of the LCD itself is oustanding, very, very crisp and sharp. The crux of the problem is that the default res. of the LCD is too high for the given LCD size.

As always, YMMV, some people have no problem running 1400x1050 on a 14" LCD, and others like me go homicidal. And no matter what Merc says, larger fonts was not the solution in my case.

ClearType on WinXP is actually very good. I've tweaked it for some people that have notebooks and desktops with LCDs, and it's something I wish was available under W2k.

 

[Pradeep]

SXGA+ on a 14" would be like UXGA on a 15" I guess. Not too bad. Now there was an option to get UXGA on the 14" screen, that would be small. Apps just need to be written better, with the advent of higher resolution screens.

 

[e_dawg]

Even with text scaling, everything else will be small -- icons, buttons, toolbars, menus (wait, are the menus bigger with ClearType, or is it just the text?)

 

[mubs]

ClearType has nothing to do at all with size. It just improves clarity.

 

[Pradeep]

Even with text scaling, everything else will be small -- icons, buttons, toolbars, menus (wait, are the menus bigger with ClearType, or is it just the text?)

Apparently Windows Longhorn will be written to support scaling of everything.