laptop Opinion

[Striek]

One more suggestion: when buying a laptop with a TrackPoint mouse (little red pointer stick in middle of keyboard), be sure to get three or four dozen extra caps for the damned TrackPoint. Once they get dirty, which happens rather quickly unless you are a hypochondriac and wash your hands 15 times daily, they become very slippery and smooth and near impossible to use. Other than that, those little dots are far superior to touchpads, and much easier to use.

[ivi]

As for the best laptop, I really do think that the best one in every sence is Apple's Powerbook. Since you want it PC compatible, its probably not what you looking for (This is actually the only one). But you can run OpenBSD, Linux, NetBSD and Darwin on it + (MacOS X is based on FreeBSD kinda) and you can have a virtual PC within MacOS X to run windows. Just Check the Apple's site for more info. The new ones come with 1Ghz G4 Motorola RISK PPC, which outputs 7.5 GFlops.

[bimmer]

i've been using HP Omnibook 6000 , nice one ... but now i'm using toshiba sat P4 ... gr8 , stable, but a bit heavy ... thats the toshiba problem.

well, u didn't mentione anything about ur budget.

[LoggOff]

i use a Toshiba Sattelite, all my hardware is detected in SuSE7.3 except the winmodem, but theres drivers for it online everywhere, after that it runs great (untill i try and put KDE3 on..... but thats a config problem)

[Spyrus]

I went through this same delimma about 10 months ago. The only bonus I had was that I was working retail for the last 2 years so I got to see what laptops came back a lot and which ones were reliable. Now after being on the road for the last 9 months I have seen the true test of what laptops are good and which arent.

I purchased a Sony Vaio which you are supposed to be able to install all kinds of OS on it. Now if any of you are interested in reliabilty I have used just about every laptop there is on the road.

Sony has held up the best to normal wear and tear. My sony also has the cleanest, and Brightest Screen of the bunch, only problem is it like to use up power, battery life of 2 hours

Compaq: 3 guys I work with have compaqs and 2 have had battery issues. Battery life of 25 min on both that bombed

Dell Latitude: I have gone through one of these in the last month. I had issues with the LCD screen and then bad sectors in the hard drive, I am currently on number 2 which is doing ok so far. Dell was the only laptop I have had that allows for com port access (needed for terming into routers and switches). Good battery life of 2.5 hours

HP: 1 guy I work with uses a HP, he hasnt complained about anything so far, and I believe this is multi OS compatible too. 2 hour battery

IBM: The other contracting firm that works with me are all supplied with IBM thinkpads. This seems to be a good laptop too, the model they have also has com ports and seems to be able to withstand some heavy duty beating also. 2.5 hour battery

I hope that this will educate some and help some others as to what laptops they want to use, or answer some questions you might have had. This info has all been based on the fact that I make about 4 airplane flights a week and have been coast to coast for the last 8-9 months. I am a newbie to this all so if this is too long of a post lemme know.

[blankmeyer]

well, I haven't seen anyone post about the laptop I use - or even the brand for that matter. I use a Gateway 600XL. It's pretty expensive ($3000 decked out), but work paid for this one, so I can't complain. It's a full desktop replacement. Its a bit heavy for a completely mobile user, but it suits me fine. I use it on the road and in the office. You can't beat the screen (15.7" viewable) and its powerful too. Wouldnt trade mine...

[gore]

hey thanks guys i really appreciate this, right now my decisions so far either an HP pavilion (they have one at best buy around here with a 60 gig HD and 512 MB ram and its really nice for $1,799) and the IBM think pad which seems really good and the dell inspiron, but thanks again guys=)