NPCT

My trusty Dell Inspiron 8500 is on its last legs. Actually, it’s totally fine except that the power socket in the mainboard is screwed and only makes an intermittent connection. The net effect is that the battery runs down and the thing shuts itself down all the time. This is extremely frustrating and I’ve taken it all apart in an unsuccessful attempt to fix it. Almost certainly, it will require replacing the mainboard, and at their cheapest they seem to be $300 on eBay. I’m figuring that sending it in to Dell would cost around $600, plus the downtime of not having my laptop in the interim. As such, I’m looking into just replacing it. My needs have changed pretty significantly since I bought it. It is large and heavy with a full-size keyboard and a gorgeous 1920×1200 screen. It is great as a desktop replacement. Unfortunately, it is not portable at all, especially now. Living in Cambridge and travelling regularly finds me wishing that I had a much, much lighter model, so I’ve been thinking of replacing it with an ultraportable.

It looks like there are four ultraportables out there that have a shot at fitting my needs: Dell Latitude X1, Sony Vaio VGN-TX610 series, Fujitsu Lifebook 7010 and the Lenovo Thinkpad X Series. I’m going to break them down a little bit, but first, my priorities: weight and screen size. It needs to be able to run Linux also. I’m probably going to install Ubuntu this time around. I will put as much RAM in it as I can and get as large of a hard drive as possible. I don’t care much about processor speed. It needs integrated WiFi and I definite prefer and built-in optical drive. Battery life is nice, too, of course.

Dell Latitude X1: $1935

• Intel® Pentium® M Processor 733 (1.10GHz ULV)
• Microsoft Windows XP Home
• 12.1in WXGA Display (1280×768)
• 1.28GB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM
• 80GB Hard Drive, 8MM, 4200RPM
• 24X CD-RW/DVD
• Bluetooth
• 11.26″ x 7.7″ x 0.98″
• 802.11b/g
• 2.8 lbs (with 6-cell battery)
• 3.5 hour battery life (6-cell battery)
• Smallish keyboard

Largish screen and big hard drive. Sounds like the keyboard is really cramped, though, and not having an integrated optical drive sucks. No PC slot.

Sony Vaio VGN-TX610: $2000

• Intel Pentium M Processor Ultra Low Voltage 753 (1.20GHz19, 2MB L2 Cache)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• 11.1” WXGA display (1366×768)
• 512MB RAM + (1GB from Newegg for $100)
• 60GB Hard Drive
• CD-RW/DVD-ROM
• Integrated V.90 modem (RJ-11)
• 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Ethernet with RJ-45 interface
• Intel® PRO/ Wireless 2200BG
• Integrated Wireless Wide Area Network (WAN) accessing Cingular Wireless National EDGE Network
• 10.7” x 0.83” – 1.12” x 7.7”
• 2.76 lbs.
• 6 hour battery life

Pretty awesome battery life, integrated optical drive, good sized screen. Possibly-cramed keyboard. Don’t need the EDGE wireless thing.

Fujitsu Lifebook 7000: $2170

• Intel Pentium M Processor Ultra Low Voltage 753 (1.20 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 400 MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Windows XP Home with Microsoft Works 8.0
• 10.6″ Crystal View wide XGA TFT display (1,280×768)
• 1 GB DDR2 400 MHz (2x 512 MB)
• 60 GB Hard Drive
• DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (Internal)
• Modem, Ethernet LAN, and Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection (Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g)
• Bluetooth
• 5 hour battery life (6 cell battery)
• 10.25″ x 7.75″ x 1.5″
• 3.3 lbs.
• Smallish keyboard

Largish screen and integrated optical drive, but the keyboard sounds like it sucks.

Lenovo Thinkpad X40: $2128

• Intel Pentium M Processor Low Voltage 758 (1.50GHz, 2MB L2, 400MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• 12.1 inch XGA (1024×768) TFT Display
• 1.25 GB RAM (2 NonParity DDR SDRAM SoDIMM PC2700)
• 40 GB Hard Drive
• Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet and 56K V.92 designed modem
• Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG
• Full-size Keyboard
• 24X/24X/24X/8X Max CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo (External)
• Bluetooth
• 9.3″ x 10.5″ x 1.0″
• 3.2 lbs.
• 5 hour battery life (8 cell battery)

The screen and hard drive are both a bit small. The external optical drive is suboptimal. Thinkpads tend to be high quality, though and the fullsize keyboard is appealing.

Roundup:

• Most Screen Pixels: Sony TX610
• Longest Battery Life: Sony TX610
• Lightest: Sony TX 610 and Dell Latitude X1
• Thinnest: Dell Latitude X1
• Most HD Space: Dell Latitude X1

In terms of features, it’s pretty close between the Dell and the Sony, and they’re also the cheapest. The Sony has to win out, though, with the internal optical drive, larger screen and longer battery life.

Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 11:45 am.
Filed under Computing, Linux.
Subscribe to RSS 2.0.
Skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging disabled.