Mon, 22 Dec 2008
Shopping for a new laptop
So my current Apple PowerBook is now 4 years old, and starting to show its age. Some parts of it have been replaced (keyboard, hard disk, bottom cover, and battery), and now it's starting to have issues again. It's not breaking down completely just yet, but seen its age, I might as well start looking for something new rather than having it fixed.
I bought this PowerBook because I wanted a laptop that did not have an Intel or AMD processor at its core, which at the time meant either apple or tadpole; since, however, tadpole is only for the rich and famous (seriously—well, perhaps being famous is not a requirement), and apple now also only has intel-based laptops, I guess I'm stuck with intel stuff. Besides, a 1.2Ghz SPARC is slower than my current 1.3Ghz PowerPC.
So, dear lazyweb, I'd appreciate any suggestions about good laptops. What 'good' means, in my eyes, is the following:
- Long battery life. And I mean long. My current laptop has 4 hours on a new battery, which is not really short, but I find that to be somewhat unsatisfactory.
- Good Linux support. The days when I used to enjoy fiddling with software configuration for three months until everything works just about right are over. I'd prefer to buy, install Debian, and be there 99% of the way.
- A wireless chipset that does not require ndiswrapper, binary kernel blobs, or similar kludges. This is really part of the previous item, but important enough that I thought I'd mention it.
- Bluetooth. I guess this is somewhat standard these days, but one can't be too careful.
- No nvidia. I don't want to have to deal with their braindamage again.
- A full-sized keyboard. That is, it doesn't have to be a 17" laptop with numeric keypad and everything, but I do not want smaller keys than normal. I'll be using this laptop as my main workstation for several years to come and I do not like the prospect of developing RSI, so it had better have a good keyboard.
- Durable. As my business partner likes to say: "wouter is an expert in breaking laptops". Obviously I don't do that on purpose, but a laptop that is to be my laptop ought to be able to survive a few bumps here and there.
I guess the above list is quite long, and realize that my ideal laptop might just not exist; but hey, it never hurts to try, right?
If it does not come preloaded with Windows, that's a plus; but OTOH, wiping a hard disk is not hard.
I should also note that I'm not really interested in the low-price laptops that are available everywhere these days. Those usually have much lower performance, too small a screen, and other cutbacks that make the laptop be less than interesting for me. This is for work, not play.
Some mail is welcome in /dev/null. Real mail, however, is welcome at my email address
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