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Journal bethanie's Journal: A New Toy for Hubby 55

Journal by bethanie
So Hubby needs a new computer. No, really -- he NEEDS a new computer. The machine he's on now can't even surf without thrashing. It's having an effect on his health (blood pressure and such). Before I got my new machine in September, we hadn't gotten a new computer in over 7 years (as long as I'd known him). So it's time.

He wants a laptop. I'm not sure exactly what his specs are, maybe he can post a comment and be more specific for y'all. But he's looking at the Fujitsu N5010, and wants to know what y'all know about them and about Fujitsu laptops in general.

Aw hell, rather than rewrite his whole e-mail, I'm just gonna re-post it here:

All reviews I have seen on this rave about the clarity of the 16" screen. Here's a good one.

Should be about as fast as yours for about $2k. It has the Atheros wireless to make best use of our network and a floppy drive (kinda useless these days...), but no serial/parallel ports - just USB. I'll need to get a serial/USB converter to talk to the GPS receiver (Ed. Note: Hubby's OTHER new toy, a birthday gift), but those are pretty cheap.

The printers are an issue. If I get a laptop, we may need to keep a desktop machine alive just as a printer server. Hmm... I had hoped to convert those to Unix boxes, but I don't think that the printers will all work under Unix. I'll ponder that one...

So there it is, open for discussion. We'd both value your opinions & input on the matter. Thanks!!

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

A New Toy for Hubby More

A New Toy for Hubby

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  • I've never much cared for laptops. I've found them to be difficult to work on, and I always end up converting it into a workstation. I like workstations because it's easier to modify and use them. And the power settings for laptops make my head spin. Besides, desktops about about a thousand cheaper, which is very good. That's a thousand more dollars to spend on pr0n, err, beer, err, stripers, err, ummm, towels. Yes, towels. ;)

    But I'm still using an IBM Model M keyboard, so my opinion may not be supe

    • He needs a laptop to be able to carry around and test out various locations for a WISP he's trying to set up. Or at least I think that's the reason.

      ....Bethanie....
      • What's a WISP? Wireless ISP?

        Anything with a 16" screen isn't going to be great for a lot of carrying around. :)
        • Yup: Wireless ISP.

          As for the 16" screen -- mine has 17 inches, and I don't think Hubby wants to get an inferiority complex. :-)

          ....Bethanie....
      • That is a good observation. If he is working on a Wireless ISP the portable is a must. A laptop with built in wireless may not be the best receiver for testing signal strengths. I am sure there are PCMCIA 802.11x cards for laptops that have an external antenna. If not, then may be a USB Wi-Fi adapter would fit the need.

        jason
        • We live in the woods, so the WISP would be in the 900 MHz band for foliage penetration, with wired ethernet to the subscriber's network. Lower requency TV spectrum would be even better, but is not available for unlicensed use, at least for now. I would use the laptop from the truck to plug into the radio for site survey and configuration at installation. The WISP may never get off the ground, but I'd still want the laptop for home use.

          IMO, running a WISP using standard laptop 802.11 is just asking for

  • ...ever... They suck. I know, I work for Fujitsu.

    Go Toshiba, or IBM. Dells also are good too (only their laptops), my dad got a 3 year old Dell Inspirion 8500 and it still goes strong. (Of course it has been installed by myself which usually makes PC's last longer)

    And if he doesn't mind going "exotic": buy an iBook or a Powerbook. My 3 year old (or is it two year, probably 2.5 years) iBook G3 600Mhz/384Meg RAM is still going stong. I don't think you can regret buying a Mac.

    • Go TOSHIBA! I have a Toshiba that I bought in 1996 that I STILL USE on a weekly basis. Dell laptops (we have a contract with dell at work) have hardware problems. I have sent at least 25% of ours back or had a tech come out on them because of touchpad/point-stick issues and about 5-10% have had hard drive crashing issues. I just don't like Dell equipment anymore.
      • Every touchpad I have used on any PC (be it Dell, or Fujitsu) was sluggish. When I bought my iBook, I bought an USB mouse because I thought it would be the same. It wasn't... I never used the mouse, it now lives on my Dual Athlon.

        My dad had indeed two Dells (company laptops) back in the day and one had a fried BIOS and another one a flunky harddisk. I always thought this was because he wasn't the first user of those machines. His Inspirion (self-bought) never had a problem though. At work we have De

        • PCs commonly use (or did) TouchPads that are pressure-sensitive. Macs use TrackPads. TrackPads are a series of criss-crossing wires that measure the capacitance of the human body to identify the finger placement. Early models had "humidity" issues, where moist fingers would leave a trail on the surface, causing the mouse to continue moving as the center of the drying finger trail moved. I haven't seen that problem since my PowerBook 1400, though.

          As a former Dell employee (Customer Service for Home Sales) I
      • I'm definitely gonna agree on dell selling cheap junker laptops, they apparently make more money that way or something. all they do is buy the laptops from substandard suppliers, to undercut competetitor 's profit margins... toshiba and ibm, are probabbly still the only pc laptop vendors who have much of a clue.. although I've never had a really high quality laptop... (i had a compaq that was fairly rugged but sucked in just about every other way) and a dell, that had nice specs, but was as fragile as a
  • I can't stress this enough. BUY A MAC.

    "But I need to run Windows stuff so I can have virsues etc."

    BUY A MAC AND BUY VIRTUAL PC.
    • Not only that, but they seem to last longer :-)
    • exactly!
      i would be remiss if I couldn't get in my daily does of Mac whoring.

      yes, buy a mac. he and you will not be sorry. I've had my powerbook 17" since september and its an amazing machine... it is simply lovely!

      It goes so well with my dual g5 as well... they are friends. They play together and tell stories and are building a tree house out back that will have a sign stating: "No PC's allowed"

      • marry me
      • Yup, I have a work-provided Thinkpad T-40, which seems to be a pretty highly regarded laptop -- and it is nothing on my three year old TiBook. The economics are a little different with desktops, but Apple just rules the laptop market.

        If I get a laptop, we may need to keep a desktop machine alive just as a printer server. Hmm... I had hoped to convert those to Unix boxes, but I don't think that the printers will all work under Unix. I'll ponder that one...

        Oh, I'm sure that collectively we can get cupsd up

        • Oh, I'm sure that collectively we can get cupsd up and running, in merely a matter of months. This is the year for Linux on the desktop, you know.

          Well, uhm... In that case, can anyone help me install cupsd on OpenBSD 3.4 for my Deskjet 320 printer? I mean, for Linux it seems supported, but cupsd isn't a standard OpenBSD package as I have seen. Seems there are too many buffer overflows. I'd love to have a working printer on my network so that I can print from my Mac.

          I tried fiddeling with LPD, but I

        • If I get a laptop, we may need to keep a desktop machine alive just as a printer server.

          Just get a wireless print server, or better yet a WAP with one built in.

    • I have to agree with everyone else. If you hubby's half the geek I think he is - he'll love it. Clear screen, Unix stability and underpinnings with a VERY nice UI.
    • Am I late for the AppleWhore party? Fashionably late for fashionable computer users, I say!

      Anyway, Yes!! I've had my Mac for 5 years with minimal upgrading (hard drive/memory) and it's still going strong. It's not even one of the super powerful ones that you would expect to be good for a while, I have an iMac 333 MHz. (My little baby is blueberry.) Because if you have one of the original iMacs, it is required that you specify the color. :^)
    • BUY A MAC AND BUY VIRTUAL PC.

      Because Far Cry and Doom3 are going to run SOOOOO well emulated.

      No, I don't like PS2, Xbox, or the GameCube. I like gaming on the computer.

      OTOH, Puzzle Pirates is what I'm playing now, and works quite well. But, the reason I was at store.apple.com today was that I'm only about two weeks from ordering my iPod!!
      • Yeah but prolly a guy going to a laptop has stopped playing games. Besides isn't Perl game enough for anyone?
        • Not sure the quality, but a month or two after I got my laptop, both ATI and Nvidia came out with laptop chipsets that were more than capable of playing games. GeForce2Go and... Something by ATI.

          • Video Memory

            Both 15-and 17-inch PowerBook G4s come equipped with the super-fast ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR SDRAM. Available on the 1.5GHz 15-inch and17-inch PowerBook models, is the option to upgrade the graphics memory to 128MB for those users desiring faster performance with graphics intensive applications, particularly those used in content creation.
            • Excellent! I bet that puzzle thing renders incredibly well now.

              But Bethanie says husband doesn't play games, so I'd have to say he'd be hard pressed to find a reason not to get an iBook or PowerBook.
          • Except that LCD screens are notoriously laggy....:-)
      • No, Hubby doesn't do any gaming. He doesn't have time!! Plays some solitaire, but that's not what he needs the new 'puter for. :-)

        ....Bethanie....
    • Your husband will like the UNIX kernel that runs the new Mac OS 10, but it would necisitate a new purchase of Office (if he uses it) or other productivity suites.

      File sharing in a mixed MAC/Win environment is possible, but sometimes tricky.

      I have tried to use my roommates TiBook but the OS is just so foreign...

      jason
      • And here I told my wife just last night "oh, let's download OpenOffice for Mac"...which bombed out right about the dialog box saying "This is for EXPERIENCED X11 ON MAC USERS ONLY". Bleah. I'd give it a go if it were my Mac, but I don't want to risk it for her--she's not dumb, but she doesn't have a lot of patience for technical trivia either. We need something that Just Works.
  • I have a Sony VAIO PCG-K15 I bought in May. I love the screen, it's brighter and clearer than anything I've used in laptops, including my wife's mac. The only complaint I have is that I didn't stop to check the resolution before I bought it (was in a hurry), and LCD locks me at no greater than 1024x768, which is too small to get much real estate without teenyweenyeyestrainovision fonts. I'm sure they have other models with the same screen technology but better resolution.

    It also uses the Atheros wireless

    • I should also note that the power brick that comes with it is definitely a brick. I need to get a second one for work so I can stop lugging it around. And...the battery life is pretty poor, basically an hour unplugged in use. And that's under Windows with all the various drivers to manage the power as intended by the mfr....

      I still think the screen is worth it, since I rarely use it unplugged from the wall.

  • I have no experience with Fujitsu but I can testify to the one that I have.

    Dell D800 [dell.com]

    Never had a single problem with it. Just food for thought.
  • I must join the "Buy a Mac" chorus. I am extremely happy with my PowerBook (Aluminum) from last December. The iBook is great for a lower-cost, more-durable alternative.
  • If he likes MacOS go iBook/pBook otherwise, IBM. There really is no comperable laptop our there.

    Toshibas were nice "Back in the day" aka "wow is that a pentium," and have gone south ever since. Dells are very good at hitting a pricepoint, and again were good around the PII generation. They keyboards in current models are a POS; of the 12 people (I know I just made a little list) of people with P3/P4/PM Inspirons/Latitudes, 9 of them have had the keyboard die (usually number keys first); and 5 have had to g
    • If price isn't a big issue (if he can write this off as a business expense), I very much like the IBM Thinkpad. I've had a variety of laptops for work, and the Thinkpads were always the best. Now, work won't give me a Mac, so I can't compare it there.

      It's my primary system for work, so I find a docking station invaluable. System clicks in easily, and i have my full sized screen/keyboard/mouse/printer attached. So I'm big at home, and still portable.

      The T40s are nice, but if you want to save some look
  • The absolutely *BEST* laptop I've ever had (and am still using) is a Clevo. They're manufactured by the folks at http://www.clevo.com.tw , but they don't sell them directly. They're most popular as the alienware laptops. Clevo makes the barebones laptop, and the vendor adds CPU, memory, hard drive, and CDRom's. I bought it with 128Mb ram, and ordered the 1Gb module from http://crucial.com .

    I have a friend who always has to have the biggest/best/fastest toys. He's had just about every high-end la
    • For the record, I've heard similar positive things about Sager [sagernotebook.com] and for all I know it could be a rebranded Clevo since Sager does sell direct....

      • They are. :) Clevo sells the barebones to a few companies who sell them to the end users.

        Mine doesn't have the alienware sticker on the outside, but does have the logo on the inside. It was probably an oversight when Clevo refurbished it.

        My friend, who had bought the same model from Sager, said it was almost identical to his, except for the color (his was blue).

        It's kind of nice knowing that the manufacturer is used by good people. I've read through the Alienware specs quite a few times, a
  • Since Bethanie suggested it, here goes.

    Needs to be Windows, alas. XP Home will do fine. While I agree that Powerbooks are very nice, there are some applications I'd like to run (like this) [qsl.net]that simply won't work under MacOS/BSD.

    WLAN needs to support Atheros Turbo mode 802.11a and b (No Centrino!). We already have Atheros a/b in the house.

    Nice screen, at least 15" and preferably better than 1024x768 resolution. Doesn't need to be widescreen, though that might be nice. Bethanie's 17" is a bit bigger than

    • Because i'm a mac whore... one word: VirtualPC.

      there. problem solved :)

      i swear, if you try os x -- you'll never want to go back. it just works (and hardly ever fails), its dern purtty... aahhh eye candy :)

    • I agree with Blinder. If you want to do it right, go for the Powerbook and use VirtualPC. If you insist on a native x86 windows box, I am very happy with my IBM Thinkpad provided by my employer. It has everything built in you are looking for, and a better product than Sony for the extra money.

      • I run VPC (I need to run DOORS and related stuff, which is Monoculture only), and it works, but it worries me. MS controls it now, and they can hose it over any way they choose.

        And of course, running on a VM will always be slower than running native.

    • Have you thought about getting the same make/model as your wife (perhaps with a 15" display)? The added benefit is that you could swap peripherals and if one machine dies, you COULD swap HDs in a pinch until fixed/replaced.

      Reading that you wouldn't like a 'branded' machine (dell or otherwise) -- I would suggest reconsidering ONLY if you get a mid-range to top-of-the-line model AND get the 'extended service plan'. It will run you an easy $400 on TOP of the gizmo, but it could save you some serious expense
      • I agree with Jhon - I wouldn't buy a laptop without a 3-yr warranty, and the more comprehensive the better. The portability means an increased probability of damage, and I know that my Dell laptop warranty at work has saved the company at least $1000. In most cases we have called support to say that a piece has broken, and a replacement arrives 2 days later. Unless something really bad happens, your machine never leaves your home.

        My personal home laptop is a toshiba and it was not expensive at all (CDN$

    • I'd still say a Clevo (that's what Sager sells). The only thing they're short on are the wireless cards. When I got mine, there were a whole variety of CD/DVD options. It has two bays for them. I just got a DVDplayer/CDRW, because I have no need to burn DVD's (yet), but I can pull it out and put another one (or two) in any time.

      I always use my own wireless card, which is usually a better choice of technology and antennas than come stock in anything. I've been using 200mw 802.11b cards with exter
    • Did you look at Acer? I've heard a lot of nice things about them (former coworker swore by them). :-) No, I do not have pointers.

      Outdoor readability is impossible. No laptop offers that: don't believe people in ads working in bright sunlight.

      As for screens: my dad has a three year old P-III with a 15" screen. I think it's too huge (I love the 12" iBook that I have. It's small and modern laptops tend to be huge). 15" is just the limit for staying "portable". My dads laptop can do 1600x1200, and yes

    • Toshiba is good. I have an M35 (Centrino - strike one - but it includes some Atheros utility that I have no idea what it does) that I'm completely content with. Pentium M 1.5, 512mb ram, 40 or 60 gb disk (can't recall), 15" ws w/ 1280x768 resolution, geforcego 5200 (no shared memory). More than snappy enough for me, although I only really do non-exciting work and play some non-video stressing games on it. And if anyone cares it's completely supportable under linux (with the exception of the Nvidia card
  • ..just a few months ago, but my requirements were so different, that I don't know if any of my experiences are at all relevant.

    It is a Lifebook P1120. This is a lot smaller than what you're looking at (8.9" screen rather than 15") with a fairly low-powered processor (800 MHz Crusoe) and it only cost about half as much as the models you're looking at.

    I started it off with Mandrake because I was in a hurry to install, but then switched to Gentoo while I was still on the road. This machine is actually wh

    • sort of wish I hadn't bought it. Not because it's crap,[...] It's pretty slow.

      Told you so... All Fujitsu's I had in my hands got that complaint. Because everyone complains about them, I say they are crap ;-) And wait till the components start to fail, I had CD-RWs fail after 2 weeks in these babies. Why to you think that Fujitsu is the most sold brand in supermarkets (here in Europe at least... the equivalents of Wallmart only sell Fujitsu, they must have a deal or so) For me, a computer bought in

  • I went back to the Toshiba site this evening and lo & behold - they had new stuff up, including lower priced options in the M30 and P25 class machines. I swear that this was not up there three days ago, else I would not have bothered with looking around. I think that a slightly customized M30 that fits in our budget will do nicely.

    The comments about a 3-yr warranty are thought provoking. I don't normally buy into extended warranties, but in this case it might be cheap insurance since the laptop will

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