RE: Laptop for graphics, writing and fun

["Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>]

Actually, despite yesterday's rather blanket dismissal of four
generations and seemingly implicitly all models of HP laptops for the
past year by another poster, HP is going to offer some very credible
options that adddress some of the things you and Kevin have mentioned,
Ed. 

* There are HP notebooks with 8-cell batteries standard and several with
12-cell optional.
* HP, I believe, though I haven't verified in awhile, continues to offer
configure-to-order options.
* HP will stack up very competitively against Dell at most price points,
and, though certain sales can skew things week to week, will be right
there with bang for your buck, too.
* Interesting on the ThinkPads -- do they have the 3D accelerometers or
just the 2D?
* Some of the store-specific exclusives (e.g., Best Buy-only/Circuit
City-only) have a 2-year manufacturer warranty and one year of antivirus
included, responding to customer demand. The major retailers have
in-home/in-store and accidental/non-accidental and 2-year/3-year
warranty flavors. HP is one of the manufacturers with an express
exchange program that will overnight a replacement if you go that route.

Sounds like if you do your homework and know what you're after HP, Sony,
Toshiba, Lenovo, and Dell might each offer credible solutions.
Personally, I'd go with one of the first three, in that order. YMMV.

But that's my two cents -- and the last I'll invest in the subject for
today.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Edgar D' Souza [mailto:edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 8:02 PM
To: Pinkham, Jim
Cc: Sean Brierley; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Laptop for graphics, writing and fun

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:02 PM, Pinkham, Jim <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>
wrote:
> Good points, all, Ed.

Thanks, Jim... I've been backing and filling on this issue for quite
some time and so have mentally amassed a minimum set of specs for my
laptop. Now I just have to get the go-ahead from my checkbook ;-)

> Re: battery -- some notebooks do come with 8-cell standard; several 
> come with 12-cell optional.

Haven't seen any of those in Dell ranges - I think they are in Lenovo
ThinkPad series, and perhaps some other manufacturers.
I more or less discarded everyone but Dell early on in my thinking, for
two major reasons:

- Dell offers more configurability on the laptop specs as well as
warranty; other manufacturers by and large seem to have a "this is what
we have; take it... or not" kind of attitude. The models that interested
me had only a 1-year warranty, and the ones with 3-year warranties
didn't interest me, spec-wise.

- I pulled down some of the canned configs of other laptop vendors and
put them in a spreadsheet, and configured equivalent Dell models. Dell
won on the "bang for your buck" front every time. The ThinkPad series
was renowned for ruggedness, reliability and excellent build quality
when it was IBM doing the manufacturing; that still tends to be the
case, with a very few exceptions, with Lenovo - but they are, I feel,
still charging way too much for their laptops. Still, for someone that
needs a rock-solid reliable laptop, the ThinkPad series is always good
to consider!

> Re: hard drive protection -- some notebooks include an accelerometer 
> that locks the hard drive if motion is detected that indicates the 
> unit is starting to fall. I've heard, but cannot verify, that some 
> Toshiba units have an accelerometer that detects in two dimensions; I 
> know there are HP notebooks that have what they call "ProtectSmart
Hard Drive Protection,"
> where the motion detection is even more sophisticated. The point, of 
> course, is protecting the user against data loss if the notebook falls

> off the table or slips on the ice. The extended warranty may 
> complement this: Just because your data is protected does not mean 
> your computer is undamaged and ready to roll.

Oh, yes - ThinkPads have had those for so long that there are
open-source apps out there to enable use of the ThinkPad accelerometers
for human interface purposes... like mentioned at
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-thinkpad/index.html
Regards,
Ed.

--
Edgar D'Souza
Technical Editor/Writer, Programmer, Sysadmin (looking for part-time
work) Check out my GIMP-Python "Tear-off" plugin, useful for tech
writers,
at: http://registry.gimp.org/node/10977
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