New laptop recommendations?

So with the loss of my laptop I’d like to get a handle on the current state of affairs for laptops. Since ‘jboat‘ was my primary work platform I’d need to replace it with something that could cut the mustard.
Read on for specs. I’d love to hear recommendations, what do you think would fit the bill? Otherbloggers, feel free to trackback to this, I’d like to hear from other folks as well.


My ideal laptop would really need to have…
The really important stuff:

  • At least 512meg of RAM, upgradeable to 1024meg
  • At least a 1.2gig CPU.
  • 30gig of HD space
  • DECENT battery life (4+ hours)
  • GREATER than 1024×768 onscreen resolution.
  • A touchpad mouse
  • A good docking station
  • Cost less than $1000 (dreaming, I know, but I have to start somewhere
  • Be able to run Linux without really having to fight with it, ala, a supported platform.

Stuff I’d -like- to have, but isn’t critical:

  • An internal wireless (802.11g) card
  • CDRW drive
  • DVD drive

I’ve looked at some of the Dell machines, but I worry that they seem sort of flimsy. I could just be used to the rock-solidness of the Thinkpad, or just be an old fuddyduddy.
So whatdya think?

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A wandering geek. Toys, shiny things, pursuits and distractions.

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5 thoughts on “New laptop recommendations?”

  1. 1 vote for old fuddyduddy. I haven’t been around in Thinkpad in forever, so I can’t comment on the sturdy factor, but I love my Dell. adi could probably speak more to the battery life and docking station (I have the same laptop as he has).

  2. 30 gig HD? Good luck finding one; the standard size went up to 120 gigs when you weren’t looking. 🙂

  3. Poke around http://www.emperorlinux.com
    Note that they buy off-the-shelf systems and repackage them as linux systems. I have one. To save some money, you could look at their configs and buy elsewhere — knowing that their configs are decent for linux.
    As far as I can tell it’s a one-man show, but it seems like a good one.

  4. I’ll let you know how my Inspiron 5150 holds up as a FreeBSD or Linux platform when it arrives. 🙂

  5. Actually, it looks like I’ve found the machine I really want. It’s another IBM Thinkpad, PIII-850, up to 512meg RAM, (the ones I’m seeing on ebay are coming with 128meg, but I scored some SODIMMS for it already), and has, get this, 1400×1050 resolution on a 14″ monitor. Beyoootiful.
    These are IBM Thinkpad T21’s, model 2647-5AU. Externally, it’ll look just like my old T20, but be faster with higher resolution. Excellent.

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