Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
(My thanks to Tea for her help preparing this post.)
Here is the notebook I'd rush out and buy tommorow. It won't suit everyone, of course, but it would be perfect for my needs.
Screen: At least 17 inch, standard shape - i.e., same proportions as a 17 inch desktop LCD. None of this wide, shallow so-called "widescreen" crap that is only good for watching DVDs on, less useful than a standard 15 inch screen for actual work. They should call them "shallowscreen". They are crap. Actually, I'd be happy to go up to 19 inch, but the power consumption might get a bit much. Probably 1400x resolution, but I'd consider 1600. Certainly at least 1280.
Ports: At least 4 USB ports, plus Firewire. And all the normal things, naturallly, such as docking station connector, VGA out, ethernet & etc.
Storage: room for at least two standard notebook drives, plus DVDR. Actually, in a 17 inch or 19 inch form, it shouldn't be difficult to leave room for more than two 2.5 inch drives, but I guess LM and I would be the only ones who would use that many, and LM wouldn't because he wouldn't want a notebook this big. Storage is the big problem I have with my current notebook. Why not room for 4 drives?
CPU: Who cares, as long as it's decent. Fastest available Pentium-M would do, or a low-power Athlon 64 if they have the power consumption down far enough yet. Absolutely not a Pentium 4, they are too slow, don't multi-task, and suck too much juice.
Power: Really generous battery space. (Again, you can do this with a 17 to 19 inch fom factor - you have plenty of space. It might be sensible to have it ship with a 4 hour battery, but have room for an optional second battery to double the life, and also allow hot swaps.
Charger: 12-volt native. No need for an inverter if you are running it of a 12v car system, just plug it into the lighter socket.
Pointing device: Not sure. IBM give you both a pad and a joy nipple, but in the end there is no substitute for an external pointer, usually a trackball because mice are suspect in out-of-the-office locations.
Keyboard: No stupid "windows" keys! Arrow keys and insert-home-page up etc in the standard positions. Don''t care about the numpad (but others will). No putting important keys (like DEL) in stupid places where you can't find them! (Are you listening, Toshiba?)
Badge: No putting the maker's name on the lid upside-down just so that posers on the train seat opposite you can read what brand it is. It's my notebook that I bought with my money, and if they are going to put the maker's name on it, then I want it the right way up!
Light: Keyboard light just like the one that all IBM Thinkpads already have. Why don't all notebook makers do this?
Build quality: Goes without saying. At least as robust as curent model IBM units. (Are you listening, Lenovo? Don't screw up!)
Switches: Think outside the square! Current model notebook switches suck. My IBM is less sucky than most, but let's look at how bad it is. It has 5 buttons, two large, three small. Power (useful but wrong - see below), "access IBM" (totally and utterly useless) and three small ones for speaker volume up, down, and mute (these are handy). Let's do it right: keep the speaker buttons, steal Fujitsu's excellent idea of having a hardware switch to disable wireless networking (why doesn't everyone do this?) and get the power on/power off/standby on/hibernate on/ standby off/hibernate off switch working sensibly. I've lost count of the number of times I've switched my (IBM and Toshiba) notebooks off when I was actually trying to get them to wake up from standby/hibernate. The ergonomics of having one switch to do six different things, at least one of them totally destructive of any work you have in progress doesn't bear thinking about. Easy method: have two switches: one never switches things off, it's the power-on or wake-up button. The other switches things off, not on. Better yet, we place the power switches somewhere on the outside of the notebook, so that you can switch it on and have it already starting up by the time you plug stuff in and open the lid. It bugs me that you have to open everything up before you can start most notebooks.
Weight: Don't care.
Cost: Don't care. At least not within reason.
Add-on shell: for power users, you have a clip-on shell, like an extra layer that attaches to the base of the unit (think conformal fuel tanks for aircraft) and contains useful extras for people who need desktop-like power: extra batteries, more storage, better speakers, an imaginative manufacturer could think of a million different things to clip in there, and make a fortune selling them. Or throw the standard open to get 3rd-party makers offering stuff.
Catch: put the lid-open catch in the centre where 9 people out of ten look for it. Notice that by doing this you cut warranty claims, as you are encouraging people to open the thing from the centre as it should be opened, not from one side - that puts a massive asymetric strain on the hinges.
RAM: Whatever. Start with 1GB, go up from there.
Video: I'd prefer that it wasn't a bug-ridden lump of pox ATI thing, but I'll take what I can get. Don't really care as long as it works. The Intel on-board video on my Toshiba was fine. Better, in fact, than the 64MB ATI card in my Thinkpad, insofar as the drivers actually worked reliably straight out of the box, not only on the 17th update. DVI out would be nice.
Docking station: of course.
What have I forgotten?
Here is the notebook I'd rush out and buy tommorow. It won't suit everyone, of course, but it would be perfect for my needs.
Screen: At least 17 inch, standard shape - i.e., same proportions as a 17 inch desktop LCD. None of this wide, shallow so-called "widescreen" crap that is only good for watching DVDs on, less useful than a standard 15 inch screen for actual work. They should call them "shallowscreen". They are crap. Actually, I'd be happy to go up to 19 inch, but the power consumption might get a bit much. Probably 1400x resolution, but I'd consider 1600. Certainly at least 1280.
Ports: At least 4 USB ports, plus Firewire. And all the normal things, naturallly, such as docking station connector, VGA out, ethernet & etc.
Storage: room for at least two standard notebook drives, plus DVDR. Actually, in a 17 inch or 19 inch form, it shouldn't be difficult to leave room for more than two 2.5 inch drives, but I guess LM and I would be the only ones who would use that many, and LM wouldn't because he wouldn't want a notebook this big. Storage is the big problem I have with my current notebook. Why not room for 4 drives?
CPU: Who cares, as long as it's decent. Fastest available Pentium-M would do, or a low-power Athlon 64 if they have the power consumption down far enough yet. Absolutely not a Pentium 4, they are too slow, don't multi-task, and suck too much juice.
Power: Really generous battery space. (Again, you can do this with a 17 to 19 inch fom factor - you have plenty of space. It might be sensible to have it ship with a 4 hour battery, but have room for an optional second battery to double the life, and also allow hot swaps.
Charger: 12-volt native. No need for an inverter if you are running it of a 12v car system, just plug it into the lighter socket.
Pointing device: Not sure. IBM give you both a pad and a joy nipple, but in the end there is no substitute for an external pointer, usually a trackball because mice are suspect in out-of-the-office locations.
Keyboard: No stupid "windows" keys! Arrow keys and insert-home-page up etc in the standard positions. Don''t care about the numpad (but others will). No putting important keys (like DEL) in stupid places where you can't find them! (Are you listening, Toshiba?)
Badge: No putting the maker's name on the lid upside-down just so that posers on the train seat opposite you can read what brand it is. It's my notebook that I bought with my money, and if they are going to put the maker's name on it, then I want it the right way up!
Light: Keyboard light just like the one that all IBM Thinkpads already have. Why don't all notebook makers do this?
Build quality: Goes without saying. At least as robust as curent model IBM units. (Are you listening, Lenovo? Don't screw up!)
Switches: Think outside the square! Current model notebook switches suck. My IBM is less sucky than most, but let's look at how bad it is. It has 5 buttons, two large, three small. Power (useful but wrong - see below), "access IBM" (totally and utterly useless) and three small ones for speaker volume up, down, and mute (these are handy). Let's do it right: keep the speaker buttons, steal Fujitsu's excellent idea of having a hardware switch to disable wireless networking (why doesn't everyone do this?) and get the power on/power off/standby on/hibernate on/ standby off/hibernate off switch working sensibly. I've lost count of the number of times I've switched my (IBM and Toshiba) notebooks off when I was actually trying to get them to wake up from standby/hibernate. The ergonomics of having one switch to do six different things, at least one of them totally destructive of any work you have in progress doesn't bear thinking about. Easy method: have two switches: one never switches things off, it's the power-on or wake-up button. The other switches things off, not on. Better yet, we place the power switches somewhere on the outside of the notebook, so that you can switch it on and have it already starting up by the time you plug stuff in and open the lid. It bugs me that you have to open everything up before you can start most notebooks.
Weight: Don't care.
Cost: Don't care. At least not within reason.
Add-on shell: for power users, you have a clip-on shell, like an extra layer that attaches to the base of the unit (think conformal fuel tanks for aircraft) and contains useful extras for people who need desktop-like power: extra batteries, more storage, better speakers, an imaginative manufacturer could think of a million different things to clip in there, and make a fortune selling them. Or throw the standard open to get 3rd-party makers offering stuff.
Catch: put the lid-open catch in the centre where 9 people out of ten look for it. Notice that by doing this you cut warranty claims, as you are encouraging people to open the thing from the centre as it should be opened, not from one side - that puts a massive asymetric strain on the hinges.
RAM: Whatever. Start with 1GB, go up from there.
Video: I'd prefer that it wasn't a bug-ridden lump of pox ATI thing, but I'll take what I can get. Don't really care as long as it works. The Intel on-board video on my Toshiba was fine. Better, in fact, than the 64MB ATI card in my Thinkpad, insofar as the drivers actually worked reliably straight out of the box, not only on the 17th update. DVI out would be nice.
Docking station: of course.
What have I forgotten?
