John Dvorak, a fellow Cranky Geek, all around rabble-rouser and a veteran scribe is one of the original virtual workers, traveling around the country look for stories (or non stories.) Since he is good friend of ours (we have been invited to his web show often enough), we asked him what was his favorite laptop and why he used it? He dropped us an email, which goes something like this …..
Over the years I’ve always gravitated towards the most lightweight full function laptops available for personal use. Over the past five years or so I’ve gone from the Toshiba R-100 Protégé to the R-200 and that’s the machine I now use and recommend for people who want the most technologically advanced and lightest computer available. I like it because it looks hot and always gets compliments.
It’s fast. And it only weighs a little over 2 pounds. It’s also loaded with gigabit Ethernet, 1280×1024 display, 802.11g and everything else you need. And if you add a special lightweight add-on battery you get up to 7 hours of battery life.
The drawback to the machine is that all this engineering does come at a cost. The machine is not cheap. But nothing great is ever cheap. It rocks. If you do a lot of international travel you’ll know that weight restrictions and other issues complicate matters.
A lightweight notebook like this saves two or more pounds on your allowance and that can be a big deal. Until someone shows me a better product, this is the only laptop I recommend. And as a bonus it has an excellent built-in microphone and speaker setup making it a great tool as a Skype client when traveling.
Have you had a look at the Samsung Q30?
“The Worlds Thinnest & Lightest 12.1″ Widescreen at Just 1.09kg”
I’m a “switcher”. I ditched my Portege R100 (and 3490ct before that, and 7110 before that, and ct360 before that) for a Powerbook 12″, and on the whole I’m happy.
A couple of things I’m unhappy about, as compared to the R100
1) The 12″ Powerbook doesn’t have a PCMCIA slot… Didn’t think this would be a big deal, but it turned out to be for 3g data. My portege had one, and it didn’t even spoil the lines
2) The Wifi reception isn’t crash hot. The portege had a bettter Wifi antenna
3) The trackpad’s a little dull. My powerbook trackpad has always felt a bit of a battle, the Portege always felt zippy
4) The 12″ Powerbook is about an hour shorter on battery life.. And that hurts the most
Having said that, I really like Mac OS X, and I love the unified look, better interface, good collection of bundled Apps.
Which would I buy again? Hard to say, but since the lightest Mac is now 2.4kg, I’m leaning towards a Vaio or Portege for my next purchase. Maybe Steve will make all my dreams come true and release Mac OS X for any old Intel
I use the Dell X1 (Samsung Q30) and love it for travel, but it’s basically useless for anything else. Screen is too small for the resolution, too hot for your lap and palms (the hot palm complaint is my biggest) and way too short on your lap or desktop.
Everything that makes it great for travel really ruins it for long-term stationary use.
While I don’t travel much, I have used the ibm x thinkpads and they are light enough and powerful enough(most imp.) to be able to get useful work done rather than just mail or web.
For what I use a PC for, I have a Toshiba Tecra and a Acer Travelmate. They do the job well – I need a serial port and it’s hard to find one without buying a serial pcmcia card. The Tecra has one but by adding that they took away some USB ports (only has 2 USB ports 🙁 )
I just go from site to site and am at a desk so no sitting on laps etc. so weight isn’t a huge issue.
The notebooks are small enough but by the time I have cables locks power supplies…it all adds up.
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