[ltp] buying a new Thinkpad

[Laurent Gilson]

Hello,

> my first priority is getting the best support under linux. I'd like to
> 	- have a good battery life. my current thinkpad draws way too much  
> power when
> 	  in suspend-to-ram - well known problem it seems

There are many ways to reduce that problem to a bearable level.

>       - , and battery life is now
> 	  under 1hour (i have a 2.5 year old R51).

There are also ways to improve the run time. The stock-runtime of my R51  
was around 2 hours, after optimizing the heck out of it i´m at 3.5 hours,  
with a one year old battery.

>       i heard intel gfx cards draw less
> 	  power than ati ones. don't know if it's true.

That is true for cards unsupported by ATI. I´m not sure about the  
supported cards. Since the ATI binary-only driver suck i sugest buying a  
intel-based model.

But the power consumption of gfx-cards in 2D mode is minimal compared to  
the power the CPU draws at medium to high load.

> 	- good gfx support : i don't need 3D , but i need to hook up a second  
> screen
> 	  under high resolution or a projector frequently (without restarting X,
> 	  so xrandr is a requirement for me).

Go intel.

> 	  i don't want to mess with binary drivers (except the nvidia ones). on  
> my
> 	  current thinkpad i'm using the opensource ati drivers, and they work  
> well.

Yes, but they do not support the newer generations. They will support them  
sometime, but right now ATI is playing silly buggers.

> 	- CPU power is more important than portability/weight.

CPU power and runtime are not really close friends. You can use the CPU at  
100% or you can get a good runtime.

> are my requirements unrealistic ? should i consider another brand ? or  
> are
> there some models that can be recommended currently.

Your R51 with a brand new battery pack.

cu