New Tecra (Mercutio probably vomits)

[Tea]

Tannin just almost ordered me a new notebook. Current model is a Toshiba satellite A10. Celeron 2000, 512MB, 80GB (came with a 30 but he upgraded it 'cause 30 was nowhere near enough), 14 inch TFT, Intel all-in-one shared video chipset, CD/CDRW/DVD combo. It had a 2 hour battery life new, but gets a little less than one hour now. (I'm not objecting to that: it's about a year old but it's been used a lot and my battery really takes a hammering. We thought about just buying a new battery but decided to give the Satellite to Belinda and buy a new one instead.)

We only like quality brands that have (and honour!) a three year factory warranty option: i.e., NEC, Toshiba, IBM, Fujitsu. I won't touch Compcrap or Hewlett-Crapard (on not liking junk grounds), Dell (on not liking their distribution model grounds), Acer and BenQ (not convinced about their quality) , or no-names (for obvious reasons).

We don't have an NEC distributor at present, so that leaves IBM, Toshiba and Fujitsu.

Non-negotiable must-have features are:

* 15 inch screen (or bigger)
* DVDR (or might accept a DVD/CDR combo if pushed)
* Pentium M 1.5 or bigger
* speed is not especially important, but nice to have

Other priorities are (in order):

* Longest possible battery life
* biggest possible hard drive (but I can buy this seperately)
* more than 2 USB ports
* proper connectivity: i.e., parallel, serial and PS/2 ports are always nice to have. But if it has plenty of USB ports that wil be close enough.
* Screen res. 1024 x 768 is OK, 1400 x 1050 would be nice, don't think I'd like 1600x runny glass. On the other hand, with a 1400x I might be dissatisfied as Age of Empires 1 maxes out at 1024. (What an incredibly stupid reason! But it's true.) So maybe 1024 is best.

I don't care about:

* wireless network crap ... er .. I mean stuff
* Slots for crappy SD cards. (Real apes use Compact Flash).
* Second PCMCIA slot (must have one for the CF reader, others are useless)
* size and weight (if it fits in the car and you can carry it with one hand, it's OK)
* Graphics card (on-board is fine for still pictures)
* sound
* stupid gimicks

 

[Mercutio]

Tannin, will you do yourself a favor and at least LOOK at the IBM stuff?

And the clam chowder I had for dinner tonight didn't taste very good the second time.

 

[Tea]

Merc, we did look at the IBM options. We really like IBM notebooks. But at the moment they are just too damn dear. Way too dear.

I don't especially like the Toshibas., although I have to admit that they have worked beautifully for us. Of all the toshies we have sold over the last few years, we have had exactly three service issues:

* One that refused to boot half the time, right out of the box. I sent it off for RMA and they replaced it, no questions asked. Later on, I realised that the problem was more than likely an incompatibility with the 3rd party RAM upgrade I'd installed. Stupid ape! I'd clean forgotten the RAM, and only remembered it after I'd already shipped it to Sydney.
* One that had a CD reading problem. Or so the owner said. I'm quite certain that it was a user problem, as Kristi and I could not fault it in any way. In the end we sent that one off too and Toshibe replaced the (perfectly functional) CD drive, no questions asked.
* One (the same one in fact) that had a key fall off. I didn't bother to send it off, just put a drop of silastic on it instead.

Like them or not, that's a pretty good record. And I can't fault Toshiba's service department.

Back to the choices.

We looked at the options. Best of the lot seems to be the Fujitsu E8010. Pentium M 1.7, 80GB, DVD-R, 3-year warranty as standard, all the trimmings. 5.6 hour battery life! That's the one I want. But it's $3500 x-tax. Too much, even for Tannin.

The cheaper 8010 is a PM1.5 (which is enough) , comes with 256MB, 60GB and 12-month warranty. All those need to be upgraded - but you can't upgrade the combo drive to a DVDR (except if you buy a DVDR and they cost around $500 - not worth doing.) Cost is around $2500 x tax. Add $200 for an 80GB drive, $250 for a 3 year warranty, $100 for 256MB of RAM, and you might as well have the $3500 one and be done with it.

IBM. Hmmm .... A bewildering variety of models, but almost every one of them only comes with a CD-R or a combo drive. Very, very few of them offer DVDR, and nearly all of those that do are overpriced to buggery. The R51 seems attractive at around $2300 x with a PM 1.6, 512MB, 40GB, and an ATI 32MB graphics card. But you have to add $200 for an 80GB drive, about $350 or $400 for a warranty, and the battery life is only fair. That's a lot of money for a notebook without a DVDR.

On the other hand, I really really like the idea of the keyboasrd light. I use my notebooks outdoors a lot where there is no artificial light, unless I light a lantern. Good move, IBM.

Here is another R51. Same specs but 60GB and a DVD burner. Hey! This could be OK! About $2500 x. Add $350 or so for a warranty and $200 for 80GB and it totals $3050 or so (plus tax). Could be a good choice. I'd love that keyboard light. And it's Windows 2000 compatible too, which would be much nicer than running bloody XP on the thing. What do you think, Merc?

But the one I have my eye on is a Toshiba Tecra A2. PM 1.5, 512MB, DVDR, 40GB, slightly better battery life than thte IBM, not quite as good as the Fujitsu. Cost is a little under $2000 x tax. Add $450 for warranty and 80GB and the total cost is just over $2400. That's better than $600 less than the IBM, a full $1000 less than the Fujitsu. And I've sold three or four of this model: they are a nice, solid feeling little unit.

Oh, a PS. I don't ever get to look at the things I buy. I order one, I send them some money, it arrives, then I get to look at it.

 

[BooST]

Why the DVDR? Do you need to burn DVDs all the time with this notebook? I'd say just get somthing with a combo drive and use an external USB/Firewire DVD Burner... That will increase the battery life

 

[Tea]

DVDR for backup, Boost. I use the notebook almost exclusuively for wildlife photography. On a good day I take anyware between 400MB and over 1GB worth of photographs. These need to be backed up. I'm using CDR at the moment, but my piles of backup CDs are getting out of hand.

External DVDR? Hmmm ... that's a better idea than it seemed like at first. It's worth pomdering. I'd have to save .. oh ... about $250 ($A x tax) to break even, then another bit more to compensate for the (moderate) inconvenience.) I might look again at the IBM offeriings with that in mind.

 

[Tea]

Well, I hope I didn't just do something silly. I took your advice, Mercutio, and ordered an IBM.

Thinkpad R51 1830BLM. Pentium M 1.6, 256MB, 40GB, 15 inch, combo drive, three year warranty.

I've also ordered a bit of 512MB DDR (to make 768MB in total) and a 5400 RPM 8MB cache Samsung 2.5 inch hard drive. (I sure hope that it's possible to replace the drive without any IBM proprietary stupidity!)

Al up, it works out to be $150-200 less than the best-value Toshiba, a PM 1.6 with 512MB and 80GB standard , and also a DVDR. So I've lost the DVDR (I'll go with your suggestion, Boost) but gained a spare 40GB drive to rattle around in the parts bin. Take away the fact that I have to buy a $130 desktop DVDR and $80 external case for it and call the prices close enough to even.

Would you believe the trivialities that govern buying decisions? In the end, it came down to two things in favour of the IBM, one on favour of the Tecra.

* For the Tecra: DVDR
* For the Thinkpad: Mercutio likes them, and dat man ain't no fool.
* For the Thinkpad: a keyboard light!

I think it was the keyboard light that made the difference.

 

[BooST]

The DVDR and external case seem a bit pricey, let me know how you like it, I also just purchased a notebook and am anxiously awaiting it.

 

[Tea]

Those are Oz dollars, Boost, my buy before tax. Retail, expect to pay about $170 to $190 for a typical DVDR (e.g., a Lite-On 8x). For a dual layer 12 speed drive, maybe $20 more.

I will be sure to report my experiences with the Thinkpad. I am certainly looking forward to it!

Which one did you buy?

 

[mubs]

If you're buying a DVD burner, wouldn't it make sense to buy a 16x dual-layer so it's future proof for a while? Yesterday Newegg had the NEC for ~$85 US.

 

[Tannin]

If you're buying a DVD burner, wouldn't it make sense to buy a 16x dual-layer so it's future proof for a while? Yesterday Newegg had the NEC for ~$85 US.

No, it wouldn't make sense. Dual layer burners are in their infancy still. They are neither mature nor stable. In a few months time, the current crop of dual layer burners will have gone the way of SIPP RAM and the 8-track cartridge. Once the burner technology settles down, and once the media situation improves, then it will make sense to buy dual layer. At present, the best thing to buy in a burner is a low-cost item with a proper two-year warranty. Last time I checked, only two of the optical manufacturers had enough confidence in their tacked-together, half-tested DVD technology to ship it with an industry-standard two-year warranty: Lite-On and Gigabyte. (I imagine that a few of the other quality makers are startng to do this too now: it's wy past time. Panasonic would be one, Sony another — if you call Sony a quality manufacturer, that is, which I wouldn't; not when it comes to optical drives.)

 

[Tea]

(Settle down old boy.)

(Sorry. Got a bit carried away.)

(I could see that. What say I get you your milk and cookies and we go to bed?)

(Cookies! Cookies? How many times have I told you not to use American bloody so-called english around here, Tea?)

(Sorry Tannin. I'd never actually say "cookies" out loud, it's just that I don't know how to spell "biscuts".)

(That is the most stupid excuse I ever heard.)

(So how do you spell biscui .... biskets ... er ... the B thingies?)

(Find out for yourself, you lazy thing.)

(You mean you don't know either?)

(Of course I bloody know how to spell ... er .... well ... No, I don't.)

(Would you like me to get you some then?)

(Thankyou Tea. That would be nice.)

(And are you going to apologise to Mubs now?)

(Did I say anything I need to apologise for?)

(Well, probably not, but it never does any harm. Just in case.)

(OK.)

Sorry Mubs.

(See? Even you can be nice to people, at least some of the time. That didn't hurt at all, did it.)

(No Tea. You are quite right. Now can we go to bed?)

(OK. Say goodnight, Tannin.)

(Tannin?)

(Oh. Sorry. I must have dozed off.)

Bedtime for us, SF people. So it's goodnight from me ... and ... er ..... zzzzz

And it's goodnight from him.

 

[Mercutio]

By the time that happens, HDDVD will be available and...

BooST bought some kind of Falcon Northwest boutique fancypants laptop.

The hard disk, at least in the T-series notebook, is easily replaceable. Since the R is a hefty beast in comparison - more room to work, I'm sure you'll be OK.

The REALLY nice thing about those IBM notebooks is that they're very rugged. Much moreso than a Toshiba.

I think you'll find that you've made the right choice. Just remember that I'm not the only person here who likes IBMs, so don't go giving me all the credit.

 

[Fushigi]

Just remember that I'm not the only person here who likes IBMs, so don't go giving me all the credit.

I like IBMs as well. But mine aren't really portable and cost a couple of orders of magnitude more.

Laptop-wise, I really don't have any issues with the Dells we get through work. But we get the Latitudes and not the Inspirons and we have very good corporate service on them. (The Dell servers we buy .. that's another story)

I would still go for the dual-layer DVD burner. There's nothing that says you can't just burn single-layer disks in it and use DL once the media prices come down. That's what I'm doing.

 

[Fushigi]

Hitachi will have 100GB 5400RPM notebook hard drives later this year: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/09/15/HNhitachi100gb_1.html

 

[Buck]

Hitachi will have 100GB 5400RPM notebook hard drives later this year: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/09/15/HNhitachi100gb_1.html

What about 8-megabyte cache versions? Maybe we'll have to wait for WD to come out with that. :wink:

 

[BooST]

Which one did you buy?

I ended up purchasing a Falcon Northwest Fragbook TL. Specs:

Pentium M 755 (2.0ghz Dothan)
1G Corsair PC2700
ATI Mobility 9700
1400x1050 15" Display
Hitachi 60GB / 7200RPM Drive
Integrated Intel B/G Wireles

The whole 9 yards, I'll post some pics and more details when I get it (Approx a MONTH from now, they custom paint every machine.....)

 

[Pradeep]

Tony, I assume you'll be at a power point when burning discs on the external drive (at night?). An inverter in the car perhaps?

Boost, that sounds like a scorcher of a machine, watch the nads there.

 

[BooST]

Boost, that sounds like a scorcher of a machine, watch the nads there.

Aye... only 31w of heat, not too terribly bad, we'll see how it spews out fire... That Dothan is Centrino btw... Battery life should be ~4+ Hours.

 

[Howell]

Tony, What car did you end up buying?

 

[Tea]

Got a Subaru Forester, Clippy. Very impressive machine. Soaks up the highway miles in a fuss-free and civilised manner, then deals with the bad roads to the manner born. On the highway it's very nearly as smooth and comfortable as Belinda's Volvo. On the rougher stuff, it simply ignores corrugations, is contemptuous of potholes, and goes up amazingly slippery places without fuss. It sticks to the road (bitumen, gravel,. or rutted mud) like it's got rails. That full-time AWD just makes cornering so easy. Point it left, it goes left. Brilliant brakes too.

Uses a bit more fuel than I like, but you can't have everything.

Sorry. Back to the topic. Yes, Pradeep, I can organise myself to do most of my burning either with AC power or using the inverter in the car. I might have to bet a bigger inverter though: I keep buying more and more things that need it.

 

[Tea]

That is indeed a ripper machine, Boost. I'm looking forward to the pictures.

PS: All of a sudden I can't wait for mine to arrive. Alas, today I got the 80GB Samsung laptop drive for it, and the 512MB of Hyundai RAM .... but no laptop to plug them into yet.

sigh

 

[Fushigi]

I ended up purchasing a Falcon Northwest Fragbook TL. Specs:

Pentium M 755 (2.0ghz Dothan)
1G Corsair PC2700
ATI Mobility 9700
1400x1050 15" Display
Hitachi 60GB / 7200RPM Drive
Integrated Intel B/G Wireles

You'll definitely enjoy it. Your specs are very similar to my new Dell. I've got nVidia 5650 graphics & a 1920x1200 LCD and I've no idea who makes the GB of RAM, but the other specs you posted match my new toy, er, workstation replacement right on. I think you'll like it a lot. With XP SP2 and a few GB of stuff loaded, it is still quite responsive. I think the 2MB cache really helps it out.

BTW, the Folding 5.02 feature to suspend computations when it detects that it's running on batteries works just fine.

WRT power consumption, mine comes with a 90 watt AC adapter. I also got the travel adapter with car & normal AC connections. It's only 65 watts and the laptop tosses a warning that it won't run at peak efficiency while using it, but so far it still seems to be just fine. I imagine the Folding slows a bit but everything else is still fast enough I've not noticed the difference.

With Folding running, it still gets pretty warm, but since it'll pause when I cut to battery power I'm not concerned about scorching my legs (or other parts).

 

[Tea]

Still no delivery ....


zigh

 

[Howell]

WRT power consumption, mine comes with a 90 watt AC adapter.

How much amperage does the power brick put out? We've found that the newer IBMs are burning up the older power bricks. The new bricks can put out ~4.5A while the old ones can only put out ~3.5A.

 

[Fushigi]

How much amperage does the power brick put out? We've found that the newer IBMs are burning up the older power bricks. The new bricks can put out ~4.5A while the old ones can only put out ~3.5A.

Normal adapter: 19.5V, 4.62A, 90 watts
Travel adapter: 19.5V, 3.34A, 65 watts

My adapters stay pretty warm but I've never burned one up. Well, not so far anyway. And it's always running the Folding client. I do allow the LCD to shut off when not in use. Ditto the hard drive, but I suspect Folding wakes it up to write results so it probably never truly sleeps.

 

[Adcadet]

Got a Subaru Forester, Clippy. Very impressive machine. Soaks up the highway miles in a fuss-free and civilised manner, then deals with the bad roads to the manner born. On the highway it's very nearly as smooth and comfortable as Belinda's Volvo. On the rougher stuff, it simply ignores corrugations, is contemptuous of potholes, and goes up amazingly slippery places without fuss. It sticks to the road (bitumen, gravel,. or rutted mud) like it's got rails. That full-time AWD just makes cornering so easy. Point it left, it goes left. Brilliant brakes too.

And that's why my first car was a Subaru (Impreza), and why my wife's first car was one as well (also an Impreza). While we don't do off roading, we do get large piles of snow thrown on the highway with some regularity here in Minnesota, and when we're unlucky it melts and freezes. AWD is great.

 

[Tannin]

Well, I'm a bit sorry I let Tea talk me into this. The Thinkpad arrived today (not before time) and it's a weird-looking little thing, but that's OK. I don't care what it looks like. What concerns me is the stupid software setup.

Let me tell you about the dscs you get with the system.









Did you see that list? Yup. Not one single disc! That's crap. It does come with a recovery disc creation program (which I am trying out right now), but the documentation is bad.

It contradicts itself: at one point it says that the recovery CD will nuke absolutely everything on the machine, destroy all partitions, and recreate a single C: partition with the IBM default Windows XP Pro install on it. At another point, it says that it will do all of the above but only to drive C: — i.e., it wil leave your other partitions alone.

But in any case, if it is only a recovery CD, it's useless, as I'm not going to be running Windows XP anyway, but Windows 2000.

On a Toshiba, you don't get a Windows installation CD (as if I care) but you do get recovery CDs, and those CDs contain stand-alone installation files for the various bits of bundled software.

Now you might say "serves you right, Tannin, for not running Win XP". Crap. This ain't just about XP vs Win 2000, it's also about all the other crap you get with a full system recovery: in particular, I don't want Norton Antivirus anyware near my machine. Yes, it has an uninstall routine, and when I ran it just now it seemed to work, but I don't trust it. I hate having Norton crap on my machine.

I just want:

* the device drivers
* the fancy IBM power management stuff
* the CD burning and DVD playing software (which is an IBM-branded version of Sonic).

I've tried the IBM website for this stuff (I won't get the Sonic, but I should be able to get the other stuff) but it's incredibly slow today. I'm making the recovery CDs now, so I'll be able to have a look at them shortly and see if they look like they are capable of doing the job.

Fallback option is to just download the device drivers alone, and scoot over to Dran & Drop to buy a copy of their CD burning program instead. It is a superb little burning program which I much prefer to Nero & etc. (It comes as standard on some f the Toshibas.) Then I can throw hte ugly Sonic thing away.

I can live with standard Windows power management if I reallly, really have to.

And sooner or later the IBM site will be back up and running so that I can get the device drivers.

But seriousluy, this no-CD thing seriously sucks.

PS: looking at the first two of the multi-CD set I'm making, it seems lthat these are full-recovery-or-nothing CDs.

I suspect the notebook itself will be pretty nice, but the software provision sucks big time.

 

[Tannin]

Oh, for the love of Mike! It's now burning the seventh CD. This is ribloodydiculous. Especially when I strongly suspect that it's a complete waste of time. Looks like these things do a complete nuke everything recovery, so they are going to be unusable. The only point I can see to them is for when I buy a new notebook a year or two down the track and want to sell this one.

On the good side, IBM seem to have almost everything available on their web site, bar only the DVD watching and CD burning programs (for which there are only updates, not the real McCoy).

 

[Tannin]

Drag and Drop Works! Cool! It's a really neat, simple CD & bDVD burning app. For $19 US, it's a bargain. (I was a bit concerned that it would require that I already havd V3 installed, but it doesn't. It is, after all, billed as an "upgrade" price.)

Just the same, the fact that I have to do this (buy a new CD burning program) seriously sucks.

PS: very nice keyboard, except for one thing: the DEL key is in a stupid place - way up at the top right. How dumb is that? Still, it's a nice feel and (DEL key excepted) a sensible layout.


PPS: how the * do I switch on the keyboard light?

 

[Tannin]

Cancel the PPS. I found it

 

[Mercutio]

The first thing I did when I got mine was fdisk it. Mine didn't come with disks, either, but I don't give a damn. 2000 installs fine. 2000 works fine, and all those stupid discs would've just been the clutter of things I'd never use.

I can't even believe you're bothering.

 

[Tannin]

Oh, I'm not putting all the crap on, Merc, just the useful stuff. Got just about everything I need now, if you exclude the fac that I had to put my hand in my pocket to get ordinary CD-burning function. (That's not fair or reasonable: people houldn't have to run a nuke-everything recovery CD in order to get the functionality that they have already pair for.)

But the AU$30 aside, I'm not fussed: I'd have bought Drag & Drop CD anyway: I've become really used to that neat little program, and much prefer it to Sonic (big and ugly as a hat full of .. er bottoms), Easy CD Cremator (the less said the better) or Nero (vastly more complicated than it needs to be, even in the new "Express" versions).

Oh, and I don't have a DVD player either. Another bad point. But in my case, I must have 30 spare PowerDVD CDs lying around. I'll put one on tommorow. If I remember.

BTW, I didn't FDISK it: I unbolted the stock 40GB drive (a Fujutsu) and replaced it with a brand new 80GB Samsung. First Samsung 2.5 inch drive I've ever seen.

 

[iGary]

Tannin just almost ordered me a new notebook. Current model is a Toshiba satellite A10. Celeron 2000, 512MB, 80GB (came with a 30 but he upgraded it 'cause 30 was nowhere near enough)...

Non-negotiable must-have features are:

* DVDR (or might accept a DVD/CDR combo if pushed)

Other priorities are (in order):

* biggest possible hard drive (but I can buy this seperately)

I don't care about:

* Slots for crappy SD cards. (Real apes use Compact Flash).
* sound
* stupid gimicks

Tony, it's time to think outside the box... er... notebook!

You can have a relatively-measly notebook, or NO notebook at all, if you use what I use -- a Kanguru Media X-Change unit.

• 
  
  
  http://www.kanguru.com/mediaxchange.html#techspec

I have an 80 GB version (20 GB, 40 GB, and 60 GB also available) and it's simple to use.

You plug yer CF (or SmartMedia, Memory Stick, etc.) into the Media X-Change and hit the copy button to tell it to copy. When it's completed (it's pretty fast), you simply pull the CF out, turn the Media X-Change off, and stick the CF back into your camera and format it (or erase it). You are then ready to go for another photo session. The Media X-Change is very simple to use. At some point later on when you're near a computer, you connect it to a computer's USB 2.0 port and the Media X-Change's internal hard drive shows up as a normal hard drive and copy all your files and folders off the unit to your computer'z hard drive.

The Kanguru Media-Xchange has an internal 2.5-inch internal notebook hard drive and a lithium ion rechargeable battery. The Media X-Change is *much* smaller than a notebook computer. I put mine in my camera bag when I go out and shoot with my Nikon D100 and Oly CM-2500. I use both 1 GB and 2 GB Sandisk Ultra II CF with the Media X-Change.

 

[Buck]

Cool product iGary.