Laptop/Netbook Shopping
Sun Dec 5 20:57:00 EST 2010
anniemal and I went out to Microcenter this afternoon to look at laptops and netbooks - not expecting to buy anything, but just to get some general impressions. My web searching has shown there are small portables that can handle HD-video playback. They're falling between the netbook and laptop categories, so it's not clear what to call them. (Subnotebook?) But I'm now favoring some 1366x768 11.6" Acer models. Annie was able to look and confirm that she won't be comfortable with a screen that small. She'd like 14"-16", her bounds for viewability and portability. And a matte screen, not glossy. And she wants a built-in DVD drive, which again rules out anything small. We own only 2 DVDs, and her music is mostly cassettes rather than CDs, but she doesn't buy the suggestion of using an external DVD drive for the limited time she'd actually use it. I'll focus on finding her something with a 15" matte screen, able to use at least 4GB RAM, and minimal problems installing Ubuntu.
Since I didn't find any near-netbooks from the preinstalled-Linux vendors for myself, I've resigned myself to the idea of doing Ubuntu installs, and possibly even keeping a dual-boot with Windows. (The Acer will probably require Windows to install a BIOS update that's required fix a Linux functionality problem.) The System76 Lemur I was considering looks like more power than the (same-price) ZaReason Hoverboard X30, but user comments comparing it to (expensive) ThinkPad hardware leave it sounding flimsy, and reviewers report only about 2 hours battery life - not enough for Andrea, and possibly not rugged enough either for her, and physically larger than what I'd really like, and not so cheap.
There's some model-number confusion with the Acers I'm researching. They sometimes use different numbers for the same item in different markets (e.g. US/Europe), and they've managed to use the same (or too-similar) numbers for different things in different places, so it's not clear what a 1410 is.
Sony had a lot of counter space at Microcenter. They make some nice-looking laptops, but they're still on my no-buy list from their root-kit crap. (Yes, it was years ago, but it was egregious, and I don't think they've ever really admitted what they did was wrong and showed blatant disregard of their customers interests and legal rights.)
Aspire¨ 1830 TimelineX [moot? remember that one, folks....]
AS1830T-3505 Intel® Core™ i3-330UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 3GB (2+1) DDR3 SDRAM; 250GB HD $476-600
AS1830T-3927 Intel® Core™ i3-330UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 3GB (2+1) DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB HD from $558.00
AS1830T-3721 Intel® Core™ i5-430UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD from $689.97
AS1830T-6651 Intel® Core™ i5-470UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.33GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD
AS1830T-68U118 Intel® Core™ i7-680UM (4MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.46GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD $850-915
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/369475.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
anniemal and I went out to Microcenter this afternoon to look at laptops and netbooks - not expecting to buy anything, but just to get some general impressions. My web searching has shown there are small portables that can handle HD-video playback. They're falling between the netbook and laptop categories, so it's not clear what to call them. (Subnotebook?) But I'm now favoring some 1366x768 11.6" Acer models. Annie was able to look and confirm that she won't be comfortable with a screen that small. She'd like 14"-16", her bounds for viewability and portability. And a matte screen, not glossy. And she wants a built-in DVD drive, which again rules out anything small. We own only 2 DVDs, and her music is mostly cassettes rather than CDs, but she doesn't buy the suggestion of using an external DVD drive for the limited time she'd actually use it. I'll focus on finding her something with a 15" matte screen, able to use at least 4GB RAM, and minimal problems installing Ubuntu.
Since I didn't find any near-netbooks from the preinstalled-Linux vendors for myself, I've resigned myself to the idea of doing Ubuntu installs, and possibly even keeping a dual-boot with Windows. (The Acer will probably require Windows to install a BIOS update that's required fix a Linux functionality problem.) The System76 Lemur I was considering looks like more power than the (same-price) ZaReason Hoverboard X30, but user comments comparing it to (expensive) ThinkPad hardware leave it sounding flimsy, and reviewers report only about 2 hours battery life - not enough for Andrea, and possibly not rugged enough either for her, and physically larger than what I'd really like, and not so cheap.
There's some model-number confusion with the Acers I'm researching. They sometimes use different numbers for the same item in different markets (e.g. US/Europe), and they've managed to use the same (or too-similar) numbers for different things in different places, so it's not clear what a 1410 is.
Sony had a lot of counter space at Microcenter. They make some nice-looking laptops, but they're still on my no-buy list from their root-kit crap. (Yes, it was years ago, but it was egregious, and I don't think they've ever really admitted what they did was wrong and showed blatant disregard of their customers interests and legal rights.)
Aspire¨ 1830 TimelineX [moot? remember that one, folks....]
AS1830T-3505 Intel® Core™ i3-330UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 3GB (2+1) DDR3 SDRAM; 250GB HD $476-600
AS1830T-3927 Intel® Core™ i3-330UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 3GB (2+1) DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB HD from $558.00
AS1830T-3721 Intel® Core™ i5-430UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.2GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD from $689.97
AS1830T-6651 Intel® Core™ i5-470UM (3MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.33GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD
AS1830T-68U118 Intel® Core™ i7-680UM (4MB Intel® Smart Cache, 1.46GHz); 4GB (2+2) DDR3 SDRAM; 500GB HD $850-915
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/369475.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]