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From: Bernard Peek on 29 Apr 2010 10:46 On 29/04/10 11:15, Paul Kinsler wrote: > For the past five years I've been using a lightweight Fujitsu-Siemens > P7010 laptop -- important stats (for me) are 10.6in display @ 1280x768 > and weight ~ 1.3kg, processor at 1.1GHz or so. Mostly what I do is > text/latex editing and web stuff, although sometimes a bit of number > crunching. I need a VGA-style output to drive video projectors. That machine is probably about equivalent to today's 1.6GHz Atom netbooks. Where you go from here depends on what your priorities are. If you want battery life then consider an Atom based netbook. If you want more horsepower then consider a dual-processor notebook. If you need both battery life and horsepower you probably need to resign yourself to carrying something heavier than 1.3Kg even if it only has a small screen. -- Bernard Peek bap(a)shrdlu.com
From: Daniel James on 1 May 2010 10:36 In article <qq2oa7-4o9.ln1(a)ph-kinsle.qols.ph.ic.ac.uk>, Paul Kinsler wrote: > ... the hinge for the screen/lid is getting increasingly nearer > to failure, and it need to be replaced. Glue it! Save yourself the trouble of setting up a new box from scratch. > I need something that will also run linux Most things run linux, but it's annoyingly hard to find things that actually come with linux (which, quite apart from avoiding the Microsoft tax, is nice because it means the OS you're using is actually supported). However, what you have is probably less powerful than many of today's netbooks, and netbooks tend to be much cheaper than your current machine will have been. The downside with netbooks is that they are designed to be inexpensive and so lack something in solidity. I've recently acquired an Acer Aspire One 751h (was until recently on offer at Maplin, of all places, for �269 in the upmarket configuration with built -in 3g modem). It weighs about the same as your P7010 at 1.35kg, has a bigger screen (11.6" 1366x768), has surprisingly good battery life at about 5.5 hours (7 hours claimed), and runs a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 CPU. The downside is that it's a bit light and plasticky and the keyboard is no better than usable. It also has the GMA500 chipset which is sold by Intel but was not actually designed in-house, and which has uncharacteristically poor driver support for an Intel device. It comes with XP home, but runs Ubuntu nicely, thank you, especially after upgrading the chipset drivers to ones that just -about work with the native screen resolution. No optical drive, though. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find anything with an internal DVD in the same weight as your P7010 today. > I'm not that worried about cost -- it'll be a work computer and buying the > right machine is well worth the expense ... Oh, well, then. If money is NO obstacle you can do a bit better. You won't get a much better spec, but you can get machines that have a better "feel" and a better life expectancy. Lenovo has been mentioned, and they do have some good machines but I haven't looked at their range recently. The Dell Latitude 13 is about 1.5kg and has a 1366x768 screen (and NOT the GMA500 chipset) and is available with Ubuntu (currently 9.10 "Karmic Koala") in a range of configurations -- including one with a 64GB SSD for not-too-silly money. Again, no internal DVD. Then again, there's always the MacBook air. OTOH the Acer is cheap enough to be disposable -- if you break it you can always buy another. Cheers, Daniel.
From: Jim A on 1 May 2010 11:01
On 05/01/2010 03:36 PM, Daniel James wrote: > OTOH the Acer is cheap enough to be disposable -- if you break it you can > always buy another. That's what I thought when I bought my Eee a while ago. The trackpad button is broken (so I use an external mouse) but I still can't persuade myself to fork out on a new netbook while this one is useable. :-( -- www.slowbicyclemovement.org - enjoy the ride |