[ltp] Why do you love your ThinkPad?

[Charles E Taylor IV]

On Tue, 7 Jun 2005 20:19:54 +0200
Matthias Posseldt <matthi@gmx.li> wrote:

> Two friends of mine each have a Toshiba X10, and you could think that if
>  one has little problems with something, the other should also. But one 
>   
> of them (and only one of them, unfortunately he's the one who wants to 
> use linux) cannot resume his notebook after suspend, not even when 
> closing X or similar.

It could be that (like IBM's notebooks), "X10" represents a whole series
of notebooks which may have substantially different hardware.

Take for example the IBM X20.  Some have functional modems under Linux
and some don't.  The fancier X20s (with XGA screens) don't have enough
video RAM to do fullscreen 3D, but you'll have no problem setting up DRI
with the SVGA/Celeron model.

IBM does one better than most, probably, in at least having a detailed
model number and good website, so if you're buying a notebook you can be
reasonably certain exactly which hardware combination you're getting.

> My A30p has no problems at all with suspending. 

Wish my X22 was as well-behaved.  I've been experimenting with ACPI and
software suspend 2 and it's a *lot* more reliable now than a month ago, at
least.  APM suspend-to-disk works pretty reliably, but APM
suspend-to-RAM hangs on resume about one time out of four,  Must test more
before giving it to my wife, though, since I've touted the reliability
aspect of running Linux to her.  Looks like I will be setting up ACPI
on the machine, though.

And don't get me started about getting the VGA output (to a
projector) workibg right... :)

> And I really often suspend this machine (90 days uptime and suspending 
> every day ... this baby is sleeping very quietly).

My 380XD (which I just pulled out of the closet to see if it still worked)
had been hibernating for about a year.  Booted right up.  Now THAT'S
sleeping very quietly!

[Thinklight]

> Some freaks will say: You can use your TP even if your girl friends 
> wants the lights off when sleeping ...

... but the screen itself provides enough light to see by.  That's what
confuses me about the Thinklight.

> > Get an X series! :) 
> Maybe I'm buying a new TP in one or two years. For now this is perfectly
> fine! But, if you have some spare money ... ;-)

I usually buy my Thinkpads new, since the price tag on the fanciest /
smallest Thinkpads is a bit more than I can afford very often.  With the
durability of most Thinkpads, I'm usually confident that I'll get one that
works properly.  I'd be less confident, say, buying a Dell used.  I've
seen too many broken ones at the college.

Plus, even a Thinkpad that's a couple of years old usually has pretty good
performance.

-- 
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*  Charles Taylor <tomalek@mindspring.com>
*  Chemistry instructor / Mad scientist / Linux enthusiast!
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*  Web: http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/
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