On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0400, John M Flinchbaugh wrote: > thinkpads are attractive, but a 1.5GHz machine costs more than a > 2.8GHz dell. that's hard to justify on a budget.
In June I got a hankering for a new laptop, but my 500mhz P3 12" 4lb 30GB built-in ethernet/firewire Sony Vaio laptop from 1999 still works just fine for the majority of things a laptop is well-suited for. A 12" screen is a must for using on an airplane when the guy in front of you leans his seat back; lighter is *always* better. These values trump CPU power: because no matter how much CPU power you have in a laptop you are held back by relatively slow hard drives. Since money was a factor for me too, the only laptop I could possibly justify was just a $700 7lb 2.4 Celeron, a giant brick to just use as a thin client / office / web client. If not that, then just get one of the 7lb $1500 no-battery-getting desktop P4 models. There is *no* tasty thin-and-light laptop on the market ATM, no sweet spot for price/performance. The only laptops worth buying these days all way 6-7 pounds. So I decided to get *no* laptop and just keep my old 4 pounder. Instead I spent $500 on a top of the line HP ipaq w/ 400 mhz processor, bluetooth, wireless ethernet, built-in-keyboard; $300 on a bluetooth gps; $200 on 2 512mb SD memory cards; and $30 on a nice leather case. Much more bang for the buck. I can still use my old 500mhz PC as a thin client. There isn't a thin-and-light laptop on the market today that I would buy.
