Almost all (including HP, DELL, IBM and Sony) laptops are made by
assembling parts into what is often the only thing unique to the vendor,
the plastic/metal box. That is they do not make the major components
(motherboard, etc.) but buy from the very few world wide manufacturers of
these parts. A hitachi 7200 rpm 60G hard drive will significantly spice up
a typical (Sony, et.al.) 4200 rpm installation. Fast memory access? Get an
Athlon 64 laptop. Hyperthreading? Avoid it if you can. Frankly, I list
what I want in a laptop and then search for that bag of goodies, regardless
of what the brand is. Right now the list is: 17" 1920x1200 screen, 2 gig
pc2700 memory, Hitachi 7200rpm 60G hard drive, ATI 9700 video, USB 2.0,
ieee 1394, 802.11 b/g, bluetooth, Athlon 64 3400+, 10-100-1000 ethernet,
winmodem (most seem to work OK now), Multi-cardreader (CF, memory stick,
etc.). Sony's A series comes close (but with a slower drive). I am
awating Clevo's offering (current 17" screen is 1680x1050) with 1920x1200.
This will be sold by a number of major (maybe DELL?) and non-major vendors.
Maura Edeweiss
Monville
suse-linux-e@suse.com,
suse-programming-e@suse.com,
07/08/04 04:26 PM suse-laptop@suse.com
cc
Subject
[SLE] looking for advice about
laptops
I've ben thinking for a long time of buying a laptop for working on my
projectduring trips and overseas stays ... rather than renting desktops.
Needless to say I wish to rn SuSE. Up to last year most laptops were
shipped with Windows installed and vendors/makers denied any
responsibility about replacing Windows with SuSE satisfactorily.
Another drawback is the particular configuration I need. Basically I'm
looking for at least 1GB RAM, Pentiun IV or equivalent processor at least
3.06 GHz or faster. I aslso need the wireless network and a true model for
occasional dial-up connections. Last year i thought I had found a laptop
with the above characteristics but a better look at its components
revealed an extrmely slow access to the data bus which would result in
many CPU idle cycles.
During the last year laptops have evolved and maybe the current market
offers even more than I need ... I havent' found any time to follow up
unluckily ... recently I've been offered a laptop ECS which is to me a
totally unknown brand name. My understanding is that some third parties
buy the main components and then they assembly them together according to
the customer's requests .. which sounds pretty convenient.. But there may
be a
pitfall I cannot see out of ignorance in this field.
Honestly I do not know whether it's better to buy a known brand like Dell,
HP, IMB, etc ... or save some money and still have a reliable laptop
specially made for me by these third parties ...
I'd greatly appreciate some advice
Maura EM
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