[luau] If you could have your wish

[Nicholas E. Walker]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 10:56:13PM -1000, Jeff Zidek wrote:
> Hi All,  I have been off the list for quite some time but I really need your
> help.  My boss has asked me to buy one laptop wants it to be top of the line
> and said I can spend up to $6000 dollars to buy it.  He also gave me $2000
> dollars to buy two flat screen monitors.  Any suggestions.  Vendor is no
> problem.  We do want to get the most for our money and he would like to get
> a dvd burner even if it has to be external.  Any suggestions would be
> greatly appreciated.  Thanks Jeff Zidek

If you are looking for the top of the line ultra-portable laptop, I
would recommend the Toshiba Portege R100 series.  It is the lightest,
smallest, and thinnest overall laptop with a full-size keyboard.  I use
a slightly older model of this laptop (same case) and prefer it to my
much faster 'desktop replacement' laptop.  A DVD burner would have to be
external, but the Portege has built-in USB2 (and 802.11b, not that that
is relevant to the burner..).  The disks are 1.8" and tend to have a
quiet high-pitch whine that is unnoticable during operation around
background noise but which can fill a quiet room.  Still a very quiet
laptop.

As a 'runner-up' for ultra-portable I would recommend the Dell X200,
which has more ports, smaller length&width, but is thicker.

For the best desktop replacement laptop, I would recommend the Sony GRX
series.  The GRX series can be had with 1600x1200 16.1" LCD (with the
best color I've ever seen on an LCD), DVD writer, 7200RPM disks (IIRC.
Laptops normally have 5400RPM disks.), the keyboard preferred by the
person holding the world record for fastest (accurate) typing.  A bit of
a clunker at around eight pounds, but outstanding as the best desktop
replacement.  It is also completely silent except for quiet 'tick'ing
sounds while the disk is working.

I couldn't reccommend anything in-between as 'top of the line' just
because the impressive technology seems to me to be at the extremes.

If your boss is looking to impress people, go for the Portege and be
prepared to wipe off drool before it hits the keyboard.

I -highly- recommend against any keyboards that are not full-size.  Most
ultra-portable laptops do not have full-size keyboards, and some
manufacturers seem reluctant to admit this.  I have small hands and they
still cramp up after typing on even a 90% keyboard for a while.  Anyone
with RSI risk will find such a keyboard deadly.  For someone who is just
paging through PowerPoint (I mean OpenOffice) presentations a small
keyboard might not be so bad.

Hope this helps,
Nicholas