From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 7 09:10:49 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EA7FA37B401 for ; Wed, 7 May 2003 09:10:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ns1.vagner.com (ns1.vagner.com [65.39.87.179]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECBEC43F75 for ; Wed, 7 May 2003 09:10:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from george@vagner.com) Received: (from root@localhost) by ns1.vagner.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) id h47GAk5F008836; Wed, 7 May 2003 09:10:46 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from george@vagner.com) Received: from vagner.com (pcp01602196pcs.manass01.va.comcast.net [68.50.240.22]) by ns1.vagner.com (8.12.9/8.12.8av) with ESMTP id h47GAfCC008826; Wed, 7 May 2003 09:10:41 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from george@vagner.com) Message-ID: <3EB93003.9040502@vagner.com> Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 12:10:43 -0400 From: Laszlo Vagner User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20021229 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Darryl Okahata References: <200305071538.IAA04908@mina.soco.agilent.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-28.6 required=4.0 tests=EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES, REPLY_WITH_QUOTES,USER_AGENT_MOZILLA_UA version=2.53 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.53 (1.174.2.15-2003-03-30-exp) X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-11 cc: jesse@wingnet.net cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ideal laptop recommendations? X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 16:10:49 -0000 Darryl Okahata wrote: >"Jesse D. Guardiani" wrote: > > > >>I have yet to hear from a single sole who actually owns a Sony or Dell and >>isn't happy with it. Sounds like a bunch of "buy IBM" propoganda to me. >> >>I know a programmer who owns a Dell laptop and is VERY happy with it. >> >> > > My previous laptop was a Dell Inspiron 7500 and, while I did >consider getting another Dell as a replacement, my Dell laptop wasn't >exactly problem-free: > >* DVDROM died after a year-and-a-half or so. I ended up paying to have > this fixed, but I've forgotten if Dell's warranty did not cover this > (I had a 3-year warranty), or if I just could not wait. > >* Battery died after 1-2 years (sorry, it was a while back). > Admittedly, this isn't too unusual for laptops .... ;-( Not covered > by warranty. > >* The plastic over the right-side display hinge cracked and broke off. > (If I recall correctly, the entire hinge became broken, and so the > display was largely supported by only the left-side hinge.) Fixed > under warranty. > >* A large, vertical-column-shaped area (~1.5-2" wide) became > "discolored" on the display (from top to bottom). My guess is that > the display connector was getting tarnished, and reseating it would > probably have fixed it. (However, the laptop was out-of-warranty, I > didn't feel like disassembling the laptop, and so I used this as an > excuse to dump my 3+ year-old laptop. ;-) > >On the plus side, Dell's repair service was quite good (I only used it >once, though). I've heard a lot of horror stories about Sony's, and so >I now try to avoid Sony whenever possible. > > Although I did consider Dell, I ended up getting an IBM Thinkpad, >largely because I found a deal that I couldn't pass up. It's very well- >built. Also, replacement parts "should" be easy to find, although, as I >seem to have one of the "rarer" Thinkpads (an A31), I'm not sure if this >is true for me. > > > I had very good luck with toshiba, seems like its very stable and after 3 years everything still works fine, i got it dual booting freebsd and win2000, the only shortcoming is the lack of serial port and the lucent winmodem. its is an s2805-401 700mhz P3 with 15 inch display that is clear and bright. needs a cd burner though.