[plug] Recommendations for a laptop

[Brad Campbell]

On 21/05/14 17:07, Brad Campbell wrote:

> I've very kindly been lent an old slab which will do acceptable service
> until I'm in the position of not having to compromise on hardware. I've
> been sold for years on the Mac's, but those Lenovo machines have quite
> caught my eye.
>
> I very much appreciate everyone's input.
>

So just to follow up. I got sick of lugging the borrowed sack of lead 
around and finally saved up enough to get a new 13" macbook pro. 
Excepting the wireless card (which requires the broadcom binary blob 
drivers), and the camera (which I've never used anyway) it's a nice 
linux machine.

Battery life is ok-ish at about 8 hours (or 5 if I'm compiling). Screen 
is just incredible. I've got it set at 1920x1200 which is miles in front 
of the 1366x768 I had and I can actually read stuff with it turned all 
the way up, but I don't have to so I don't.

My laptop back pack has the laptop pocket in the back with a full length 
side zip. My trial by fire seems to be swinging the bag across my back 
having forgotten to do the zip up and slinging the laptop across the 
room. Score so far :

Vaio TX - Mildly dented the bottom shell enough for the white plastic 
stress marks to show through the paint.
Vaio TT - Smashed a corner off completely and cracked the surround on 
the screen. The laptop only has 4 major plastic components and I broke 
all 4 simultaneously.
iPad3 - Dented one corner pretty badly but no structural or electronic 
damage.
Macbook - Not even a smudge. I actually can't figure out how it landed 
because there are no witness marks at all. I was floored.

Yes, I'm a slow learner.

It's about half a kilo heavier than the Vaio TT with the standard 
battery. Battery life is sorta equivalent if you ignore the fact I can't 
swap it out, but then I'm not doing 11 hour flights much these days and 
the airlines I do fly have power sockets.

Given how well suspend/hibernate works, it also means I can hibernate 
linux and boot into OSX or Windows for necessary evil stuff that I can't 
do in a VM, then back into Linux to pick up where I left off.

I know Apple is evil and all, but they do make some nice kit.

-- 
Dolphins are so intelligent that within a few weeks they can
train Americans to stand at the edge of the pool and throw them
fish.ne