The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on March 26, 2008

Dear computer companies,

You all suck.

You desktop makers aren't too bad, because I can take your crappy boards an cheaper than dirt power supplies and not buy them, and just roll my own. Effectively, I can ignore you.

You laptop guys, however….

Needs:
- 1680×1050 screen (WSXGA+) or better. WUXGA is perfect.
- 15.4″ max screen. Anything else is just too big to carry around.
- A proper keyboard. The home and end keys do not go to the right of the enter key, they go on top of the backspace key. The slash is to the left of the right shift key. Thinkpads do it right. Other companies.. not so much.
- It needs to not crack or break because of normal use. Yes, the screen is big and heavy. Put on beefy hinges and make the laptop have a proper shell which doesn't break.
- It needs to not overheat when used at 100% load for 8 hours straight, regardless of where it is (on a desk, lap, etc.)
- It needs to not intake or exhaust through the bottom of the machine (because then it would fail the above).
- Use a video card supported in Linux by open source drivers. Intel GMA series or the R500/R600 ATI series. (Good support for these will be out real soon now).

What I don't need:
- 3D. Sure, it's nice to have, but that is why I have a workstation.
- Huge speed. Again, nice to have, but 1GHz isn't exactly slow. If I need more, again, workstation.

The point of a laptop is being able to code in random places. Coding requires a screen which I can look at for long periods of time, and has a high enough resolution to display lots of things.

Lenovo used to make something in their R series line which did this. Now, in order to get a proper screen, you need to go to their mobile workstation line, which means you get saddled with a useless Nvidia Quadro FX card.

Category: LJ Import
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