Question What's your laptop?

[YL3GDY]

Hi folks,

currently I'm looking for a laptop, but it looks quite hard to find model that fits me.
Could you tell about your laptop experience?
Especially interesting would be info on battery real capacity and heating/cooler noise (this data is usually absent in official TC).

Alex.

 

[Artlav]

EEE pc 901.
Vista-free, runs for 6+ hours on batteries, makes little heat or noise, plays Orbiter finely.
Can easily be used with hands-only (held like DS).

What do you need a laptop for?

 

[Jarvitä]

1. Compal FL71
Battery life: 2-3 hours with basic browser/office usage. Often relegated to the status of "temporary desktop", by virtue of being my biggest and heaviest laptop, so I don't use the battery that much.
Heating: Not an issue, and I've used it in tropical places
Cooler noise: Tolerable.
Oh, it's three years old, and came with one of those nVidia graphics cards that are bound to malfunction...well, mine still works great.

2. Asus eee 901
Battery life: Max. 7 hours, normally somewhere between 5 and 6 hours with CPU scaling set to power save, wifi and basic browser/office usage
Heating: Not an issue. Smart fan and CPU scaling control.
Cooler noise: Completely inaudible next to my (built to be as quiet as possible) desktop PC, quiet enough to have replaced said PC in the role of the machine that gets left on overnight.

3. HP EliteBook 6930p
Battery life: between 5 and 6 hours max, normally a little above 4.5 hours with only the integrated graphics card running and no heavy use. Could be as low as 2 hours with the ati card running and heavy use.
Heating: Terrible case design, I have to clear out dust every other week, otherwise it overheats when the ati graphics card is running.
Cooler noise: Louder than I'm used to, but within tolerance levels if you use it in public spaces.

Chose asus in the poll, since it's the one I use most.

 

[YL3GDY]

Mainly I need it for education 'cause I'm going to university in few months. So mostly I will search Internet, write some exercises, use something like Mathlab, and Photoshop/Orbiter in free time. OS - mainly Linux, Windows only when needed (Orbiter is only point why I'm still using Windoz).

So good mechanics, capacious battery and low weight are actual. And average hardware inside (surely not Celeron-M, but also not so powerful video; something with Core 2 Duo and integrated videocard).

I've thought about Eee. It's quite nice machine, except screen size. I think it would be hard to work with it every day for a long time.

Alex.

 

[Jarvitä]

I've thought about Eee. It's quite nice machine, except screen size. I think it would be hard to work with it every day for a long time.

I work with it for 3-8 hours a day in uni, the small screen and keyboard were annoying at the start buy you get used to it. I've heard great things about the 1000 series, but I don't see the appeal of a heavier case and a bigger screen with the same resolution.

Also, I've upgraded my eee pc with a 2gb ram stick and the 128gb runcore SSD, so my battery life estimates might be somewhat lower than the out-of-the-box version.

 

[simcosmos]

EEE pc 901.
Vista-free, runs for 6+ hours on batteries, makes little heat or noise, plays Orbiter finely.
Can easily be used with hands-only (held like DS).

What do you need a laptop for?

Eee PC here too (XP SP3): ASUS Eee PC 1000H :speakcool:

Agree with the above: the Eee PCs are very nice little and flexible computers, little noise, good connectivity options, good autonomy, not very heavy = easy to carry everywhere (yes the screen is kind of small and if that is an issue there are a couple of other cheap options out there with more 'standard' screen sizes... other option - if available - is to connect the EeePC to a 'spare' bigger monitor somewhere ).

And yes, the 1000H runs the usual applications and Orbiter2006P1 and some other simulators / games just fine (note: have to run Orbiter2006P1 at 16bit IF wanting to have MFD and HUD showing up in the virtual cockpit... not sure if it is a question of updating graphic drivers or not). Was not able to run *BETA* versions of Orbiter (they load fine on the main computer but, on the 1000H, I have a CTD and an error message).

António

 

[n122vu]

IBM T42 here, model 2373-K1U
Original description: P M 735, 512MB RAM, 40GB 5400rpm HDD, 14.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, 32MB ATI Radeon 7500, 24x24x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, Intel 802.11b/g wireless(MPCI), Bluetooth/Modem(CDC), 1Gb Ethernet(LOM), UltraNav, Secure Chip, Fingerprint Reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

Processor is 1.7GHz. Upgraded to 2GB RAM, XP SP3. Runs Orbiter just fine in 16-bit mode, though L10 Earth textures cause a significant frame rate hit due to the video card only having 32MB memory. Runs most other apps just fine. Very compatible with Linux also, other than the obvious that it has an ATI graphics card (driver support is getting better for it though).

 

[insane_alien]

i've got an inspiron 1525 from dell.

works beautifully, except for the head phone jacks, they're a bit noisy(you hear the harddrive interfering) but the digital outputs(which i use more often) work perfectly.

also runs most linux versions out of the box too.

 

[TMac3000]

Gateway 2000 Solo, 133 Mhz, with Windows 95. Hey, I got it for free.

I almost never use it anymore. The battery is shot, and the thing heats up like an oven, but it can (sort of) get on the Internet, and most of the programs I run on my desktop machine have low system requirements anyway, so they will run on my little craptop.

 

[n72.75]

I think my forum signature speeks for its self this time.

But in terms of battery life, my ALIENWARE laptop gets about 1.5 hours of battery life and it's a 12 cell battery.

 

[Tex]

Fujitsu.

 

[Istochnikov]

See my signature