[ubuntu-in] OT : Theory regarding newer laptops

Ramnarayan.K ramnarayan.k at gmail.com
Sun Oct 19 07:04:50 BST 2008


Hi

This is a kind of OT post - following some of the discussion on a
suitable laptop that some people were searching for.

I too have been searching for a good laptop for some friends (one that
works well with Linux and is decently new technology to last a few
years).

The laptop i am using is a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600. Its a Pentium
III with 376 MB Ram with a 20 GB HD - triple booting Ubuntu 7.04 and
Windows XP (and 2000).

On this laptop everything works - its about 8-9 years old. What does
not work is the battery - which maintains charge for about 2 minutes.

But hardware wise everything works - as does all the software i need -
its a bit slow and the RAM is always fully used.

At the same time i also have a Lenovo Thinkpad t 60 - dual core , 1.5
GB RAM, 80 GB HD etc etc. That too is running Ubuntu 7.04 and dual
booting windows. This has an ATI X1300 graphics card and has just been
under some warranty repairs of keyboard and touch pad and lcd screen
replacement. On this everything works except the compfix 3 d effects -
i tried installing the restricted drivers but this advanced laptop
refuses to budgeand its a pain trying to get graphics to work well,
invariably there is some problem with

At the same time a celeron desktop and a celeron gateway laptop both
run compfiz cube and wobbly windows beautifully.

Ok back to my theory which is that the current crop of laptops from
most of the companies seem to have a lifespan of just a few years -
seemingly till a few months after warranty (about 3 years) and this is
because companies are not focusing on longevity of their machines
because they want people to buy their latest machines. At the same
time lots of us try and get the latest and the bestest (which we can
afford) precisely to avoid having to replace early, in fact trying to
be future ready .

So what do you folk think.

The next part is not so much theory as much as an attempted solution -
i.e to invest in a top of the line laptop but a cheaper low end
current model and plan for replacement in about 2 - 3 years. And
invest in peripherals / accessories that do some of the jobs we might
expect a high end laptop to do (like a wacom tablet instead of a
tablet laptop)

looking forward to what you folks think

ram



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