On portable laptops.
Today marked the end of a summer-long quest to find the perfect laptop. My stalwart Thinkpad X40 was returned to my former employer, leaving me laptop-less, so I took a nice long time to do some research on laptops. This is the summary of my adventures to find a replacement for the X40.
First, some criteria. Clearly I wanted Santa Rosa-based hotness with all-Intel video and wireless. I wanted a 12-13 inch form factor, and needed to be a business-class laptop. There is a distinct difference between the typical laptop people buy at stores and the ones that they sell to corporate customers. Hellion Prime does an awesome job explaining criteria that you should look for in a sturdy laptop. These are the criteria that I tried to follow.
- My friend Trevor was kind enough to lend me his Dell X1. This is a great laptop, basically a rebadge of a Samsung to be sold in the states. Unfortunately, the lack of Trackpoint drove me nuts. (Note, a trackpoint is a "nipple mouse", otherwise known as the immaculate pointing device). I mulled buying the "upstream" Samsung model, but since they're not available in the US I didn't feel like importing a laptop for support reasons.
Thinkpad X61 - Surely the natural progression from an X40 should be an X61 right? The X40 has 2 problems I didn't like. The first is a 4200rpm 1.8 inch hard drive, which is slow. This was replaced with a more conventional 2.5 inch drive in the X61 (yay!). The second is an XGA screen. This is 1024x768. Imagine my dismay when the X61 was unveiled. Surely they would update the display? Nope. What is Lenovo thinking?
- System76 Darter - great specs, exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately it's consumer-grade. I've met the System76 guys at a UDS and Ubuntu Live, they've been shipping Ubuntu since before it was cool, and do a great job supporting the community through the forums, stickers, and even lending laptops to LoCos to showcase Ubuntu. I wish they had a more high end business line, something hardcore with a magnesium frame, etc. The Darter is a great value though, cheap and great support; I will continue to recommend system76 to friends who aren't so abusive to their laptops as I am.
- Dell M1330 - Released to much fanfare. On the expensive side, and technically 13.1 inches, but you can really crank up the specs, and has an LED backlight display. Totally sexy, with an SSD option too! Finally, I had found what I wanted. But they botched the launch. I don't have time to wait _2 months_ for a laptop, and I don't need a laptop that was rushed out to production, leading to really terrible build issues. I know the m1330 was supposed to be Dell's "answer" to the macbook, but they didn't have replicate the quality problems as well.
- Dell Latitude D430 - great specs, but not nearly as sexy as the m1330, though SSD option is available. Dell's Latitude line has really improved, they used to be so terrible. One of these passed through my coworker's shop in my last job, and I was really impressed. My only problem was the keyboard, which is too mushy. (I consider the Thinkpads to have the best keyboards, so that's what I use to measure other keyboards). This was my 2nd choice, mostly because of the keyboard, but also unfortunately too expensive.
hp compaq 2510p - I never even considered an hp until I visited the hp booth at OhioLinux Fest. The first thing that snagged me was the keyboard. Feels just like a thinkpad, and has a nipple too. Great specs, 1280x800 screen, tough frame. I can't help but say "What the X61 should have been".
The one gotcha, like with most 12 inch laptops, is a 1.8 inch 4200rpm hard drive. So ... being clever, I bought a SAMSUNG 32gb Solid State Drive to offset the slowness, before I received the hp latop, which sucked, because little did I know that though the drive is listed as a "PATA" drive that I would find some kind of funky plug when trying to put the SSD drive in the laptop.
Does anyone know if there's some kind of adapter for this? Luckily for me, there is a decent demand for an unpackaged 1.8 SSD drive, so I'm confident I won't lose /too/ much money if I can't find an adapter. I should have checked the technical manual for the laptop before I purchased the SSD, doom on me. Also, it's not an attractive laptop in the least, something it shares with thinkpads.
The latest Ubuntu 7.10 iso installed on the hp just fine (a big thanks to all the kernel and userspace folks involved), my only problem so far has been that the display dims after about 30 seconds, totally ignoring the settings I selected in gnome-power-manager. I just unboxed it today, so I'll be updating this page as I learn more: LaptopTestingTeam/HP2510p. I'd love to see hp ship Ubuntu ootb like other vendors, but for now I'm happy I could get it with FreeDOS and not pay an OS tax.
... and lastly, I will say that no company makes a laptop I want to totally love. If you're in the market for a 12 inch laptop you have to make compromises. The most damning is the 1.8 inch drives with performance so horrible that they are totally unacceptable, but not nearly as horrible as Lenovo trying to ship a high-end laptop with a 1024x768 screen. I chose the hp because it matched the criteria the best, even though it's as boxy as a 1980 Volvo and has some bullshit plug for the hard drive I've never seen before . I would love to say that the 2510p is the best 12 inch laptop you can buy, but unfortunately the best I can say is that "It sucks less than the others". On the other hand, it get's the job done, which is probably what hp designed it to do in the first place.
Discuss.
I am having exactly the same problems ... another thing which keeps me from buying an X61 (which is my favourite) is the not existing DVI-Port ... 1024x768 is okay for traveling, but not okay for the desk.
If you find an SSD-Adapter, let me know - the 1,8" drive is a total knockout criteria ...
Cheers a7p (typing at an X40)
Posted by: a7p | October 17, 2007 at 20:49
You can choose a X61 tablet that you can customize with SXGA screen. If you end up using that disk i would like to know about performance, battery life and reliability.
(a t60 owner)
Posted by: gus | October 17, 2007 at 21:23
Take one more layer off that HDD. You'll find your plug.
That cable is a [funky little thing] to [normal plug] converter. Or at least, thats how they used to be.
Posted by: None | October 17, 2007 at 21:51
Jorge, my man!
Found your new blog. Welcome back!
Your 2510p looks almost exactly like my work laptop, a tc4200.
Except mine is a tablet.
And significantly older.
It was really awesome to have EVERYTHING, including the tablet screen work out of the box.
If I'd felt like it I could have even scripted the tablet buttons to do stuff through X. When I first got it I thought I would. Recently I've felt less motivated, since I basically end up just using it like a laptop anyhow.
Hey, regarding the lighting issue, does yours have a light-sensor that adjusts the screen brightness based on ambient light by any chance?
Mine annoyed me for the longest time because it would—seemingly randomly—just get darker and then lighter, until I realized that it would get darker if a shadow (or my finger) covered the light sensor by the lid.
Posted by: Simón A. Ruiz | October 17, 2007 at 22:25
a7p, if I find an adapter, i will blog about it here. I know for sure that 1.8 drives in the X series are incompatible with anything else, which is pretty crap.
gus, yeah, I don't buy into the tablet model though. If I'm going to pay thinkpad prices, I want thinkpad-level hinges, not some tablet single-hinge stuff that is crap. I've handled the tablet X series, and it's not the same, especially considering that there is really no Linux software to take advantage of the tablet anyway.
Simon, yeah, it has an ambient light detector, but my display dims even when I shut the detector off in the BIOS. I suspect that since it's an LED backlight display that there is something there I haven't figured out yet, it being brand new hardware and all.
Posted by: jorge | October 18, 2007 at 00:16
It's a shame about the funky ribbon connector, hopefully you can find an SSD that will work with that or an appropriate adapter for your current SSD. 1.8" 4200 rpm hard drives really are the Achilles heel of many subnotebooks.
HP seems to just about gotten it right with this notebook, I actually like the boxy, "professional" look of the notebook. I don't like the "nubby" HP trackpointer though, my GF has a nc6xxx series notebook from her job and it just doesn't feel as nice to me as the smooth trackpoint on the Thinkpads. Too bad about no higher res for the x60/61 other than the quite expensive and (presumably due to the hinge) less rugged tablet.
Posted by: Alphacheez | October 18, 2007 at 02:04
Hmm... There are connectors that look a bit like that in the old creative zen micros (the black+white screen ones)
Lookee here: http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1331&cid=9&pg=1
Posted by: Tom Mann | October 18, 2007 at 02:17
Hi Jorge,
Interesting pick. I have a Toshiba tablet, and I gotta say, the software isn't that bad. Wacom-tools works perfectly on it, as does GIMP. Sadly, there's no quality tool to compare handwriting support to in Linux. Xournal / Gournal do basic note taking, but need some lovin. I think my hinge is fairly good for a convertible tablet, but I haven't had a chance to handle a X61t.
But what really interests me is, which fingerprint reader is attached to that? I have a UPEK, and brought thinkfinger into my PPA. It's quite handy, but I hear many have an authenTEC or something. The ubuntu wiki has a fairly detailed page on the software and shortcomings.
Posted by: jldugger | October 18, 2007 at 02:38
Very good ticket. What about the MacBook? Has anyone something to say about it? It looks quite cheap, it has 802.11n wlan, 13" screen, ...
Posted by: Chris | October 18, 2007 at 15:03
The interface is probably JAE50, but I'm not sure if anyone makes an adaptor going the way you want. It's more commonly used in laptop optical drives, and the adaptors for those are fairly large.
Posted by: TRS-80 | October 20, 2007 at 01:54
I'm posting this from an xps 1330, and i have to say its the bees knees. Only drawback is that I can't get XP installed and have to stick with vista, which, franky, doesn't add much value and seems to sap much of the xsp's cpu cycles for eye candy effects.
Posted by: Danny | October 21, 2007 at 08:52
Detailed instructions as to how you got Suspend-Resume to work 100%?
I.e. how to make the backlight switch on after resume?
Thanks.
Posted by: Thomas | November 26, 2007 at 13:50
Why r u bashing the X61? There is a XGA+ (1450x1050) screen option.
Posted by: Pete | July 04, 2008 at 18:54
great post.. I bought this laptop last month... and yes its used or second hand.. but its in very good condition.
Im surprised that hp could make such a nice and sleek looking laptop :)
Oh and I have windows xp and linuxmint installed on it
Posted by: Cheap Laptop memory | May 04, 2009 at 02:46
On portable laptops are very very good contracted and high speed laptops with nice screen
Posted by: used computer | June 22, 2009 at 21:30