[ltp] Recommended Thinkpad Model? $1500?

[Steven J. Owens]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 07:19:35PM +1300, Bret Comstock Waldow wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 18:45, Steven J. Owens wrote:
> > However, most of the traffic since I subscribed is about
> > thinkpad hardware problems :-).
> 
> As opposed to "works great!", "me too!, "me too!, "me too!, "me too!,
> "me too!", ...?  Those folks don't post.  8-)

     Well yeah :-).  More to the point, the posts seem to be less of
the "here's how you do xyzzy" and more "yeah, that's a problem."  So
are there particular models I should avoid?

> The T series (I have a T21) are "Transportable".  A balance of size &
> weight, and magnesium frames which make them durable.
> 
> Some of the recent T series have 15" displays.

     Is it just the T series that have 15" displays, or are these
available in other models?
 
> >      - good availability of docking stations (I want to get one for
> >        home and one for work)
> 
> If you don't need to add PCI cards or drives to the docking station, you
> might save some $$ using a USB docking station.  Some I've seen are
> small enough to put in your pocket, and provide mouse/keyboard/printer/
> etc connectivity.  Now I've written that, it occurs to me I don't know
> about GNU/Linux compatibility, though.

     Is the USB docking station an entire cradle?  Does it also power
the laptop?  I'm fairly happy about using the full-sized dock with my
tecra, the ease of use of inserting and removing it makes it a lot
easier than mucking with cables.  I find it really easy to do,
significantly easier than hunting for the end of the cable and then
hunting for the socket.  Currently I have a docking station with 19"
monitor and keyboard, both at home and at work.  I also spend a fair
amount of time - maybe 10-15 hours a week at a coffee house or similar
location, without the docking station (*).

(* Though I do like to keep a full-sized keyboard in the trunk of my
   car for use in at coffehouses and such... I'd like to find a fairly
   compact, yet full-sized wireless keyboard for such purposes.)
 
> I'd max out the budget for RAM before budgeting for the CPU, at least up
> to 512M to 1G.  A fast CPU swaps to disk quicker than a slow CPU, but
> still...

     Yeah, RAM is still definitely one of the best places to spend
money.

     Somebody elsewhere steered me to Panasonic's semi-rugged
toughbooks (the panasonic fully rugged toughbooks are apparently
legenday).  Anyone know how well thinkpads compare to these?

     http://www.toughbooksales.com/information_semi-rugged.asp


-- 
Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com

"I'm going to make broad, sweeping generalizations and strong,
 declarative statements, because otherwise I'll be here all night and
 this document will be four times longer and much less fun to read.
 Take it all with a grain of salt." - http://darksleep.com/notablog