Twokinds Forums

In the next month or two, I expect to have enough money saved up to get myself a nice laptop to replace my aging IBM T40.
I figure my budget is somewhere around $1000-$1200, going up to $1500 in a pinch.
The features I'm looking for are:
1. TrackPoint/pointing stick/whatever. One of These.
2. Decent processor - I figure 1.8ghz X2 at a minimum.
3. Decent video card - I expect to be able to play Runescape HD(java-based, Open-GL rendered), TF2 and Halo decently. This shouldn't be hard. Just make sure its a ATI or Nvidia; I refuse to have any Intel-based integrated accelerator.
4. Good resolution screen. I'm looking for something with a fairly high DPI value. The actual pixels will change depending on the size of the laptop - I've seen everything from 1600X900, 1680X1050, 1600X1200... etc.
5. Battery that doesn't stick out. Often times there is an option with say a 6 vs a 9 cell battery. The 6 cell sets flush with the bottom of the laptop, the 9-cell sticks out. I am sort of hard on my equipment, and I know I'll get things stuck on a protrusion like that.
6. Quality device. I want something that can take a bit of a beating; not a flimsy thing thats going to break if I look at it sideways.

Now, as far as use, I expect to be tethered most of the time. One hour of good battery life is plenty; I just need to be able to take it from one place to another or boot it up to grab a file.
If it happens to have a 9-pin serial port, great. If not, no big deal - I can use a USB adapter. I use this port to communicate with some CNC machines in my line of study/work.
I plan to dual-boot windows 7 x64 and Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu being my main OS... so I'd like to make sure at least -most- of it works decently with Ubuntu.

I've started my own research, and have found a couple of things:
1. HP Probook 6545b ($1,221)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 (MS Office Trial NOT included)
AMD Turion II™ Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Technology M600 (2.4-GHz, 2MB L2 cache)
15.6-inch diagonal HD+ LED anti-glare (1600 x 900) WVA
ATI Radeon™ HD 4200 Graphics
2048MB (800-MHz, DDR2, 1DIMM)
160-GB SATA Hard Drive

2. Lenovo ThinkPad T500 ($1,169)
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8800 (2.66GHz 1066MHz 3MBL2)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
15.4" WSXGA+ TFT, w/ CCFL Backlight(1680X1050)
ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 with 256MB
2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm

Those are what I've come up with so far, custom and new.
I'm perfectly willing to get something used, so long as it meets my criteria(and is proportionally cheaper).

Any thoughts or ideas?

-Robbie

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebook ... =19&~ck=mn
Alienware! No trackpoint thing though.

Thanks for the link(that laptop looks -sweet-), but I need a pointing-stick-type-device.

Really? I actually prefer the touchpads, heh. And you are welcome.

I'd go with the Lenovo over the HP, personally.
Then install another 2GB DDR3 stick in it for like $60.

For what it's worth, I'd go with the Lenovo too. Reasons bring:
1. My mom's IBM laptop (T42) was built by Lenovo, and ~5 years on, it's still going strong. (Except for the hard drive, but I think that was more because I left it on for 30 days straight with multiple torrents running. =\)
2. From what I've heard, Lenovo's stuff is generally better made than HP's. Once you actually get the laptop, at least. Horror stories of delayed shipments from Lenovo abound.
3. The larger vertical resolution will help I believe, especially in technical diagrams. (Unless machining involves diagrams and stuff on paper, which I kind of doubt.)
4. A Core 2 Duo blows the Turion II out of the water right now in terms of performance I believe. (When I last checked the reviews, at least.)
5. The RAM is faster. (Ok, not a significant difference, but every little bit extra helps.)

For what it's worth, I'd go with the Lenovo in a heartbeat. Good luck with whatever you decide.

I'm looking to buy a new laptop too and I keep going back to Lenovo. They are FANTASTIC computers.

I have an HP dv2050us now (I bought it Aug2006) and the graphics card is going, the internal battery has died, I needed to get a new fan, new cd/dvd drive, and the screen died -- in less than 3 years. I like my computer, but if I had known it would have had SO many issues, I would have gotten a toshiba.

Also, AMD processors do not compare to Centrinos.

(You may want to check out Toshiba -- when I had my first Toshiba (Satellite something) it had a pointer.)

Well, aside from the A11, it seems that their models have nothing better than a C2D processor - the newest set of Lenovos all have I5/I7.

Also, I can't find much about the reliability of this particular model... Any ideas or input is good.

Currently, I'm leaning towards a T410/T510 with a Core I5 processor and Intel on-chip graphics(being about as good as the dedicated cards, and having better Linux support).

The T510 is supposed to be a fantastic computer -- however the T410 is less expensive.