I have the opportunity to buy a new laptop and I have a budget of £1,500 (plus VAT). My main requirements are decent processing power (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo + 4GB RAM) and a good quality high resolution display (ideally WUXGA 1920x1200) and a keyboard that it suited to development work (so functions like 'home' and 'end' can't involve complex multi-key actions involving several keys at the same time).

My initial shortlist included the Lenovo Thinkpad T61p, the Dell Precision M6300, and the Sony Vaio AR61ZU. I was pretty much settled on the Sony although I was concerned that this might be a bit larger than I really wanted due to the 17" display. I've now realised that the MacBook Pro is also a contender so I now have to choose between that and the Sony Vaio (which is pretty much the Apple of the PC world).

Apart the basics of email and web, I'll be using the machine for Java development work 90% of the time and the tools I use are available on all platforms. The only Microsoft specific tools I need to use are Word and Excel. They are both available on the Mac, at a price. I guess there's always the option of using OpenOffice but I don't know how well that really works, especially with Office 2007 files.

The MacBook Pro is probably the better choice for development work given that the OS is linux based (most of the development work I do is targeted at unix or linux production environments).

It's a tough call. Suggestions anyone?

Labels: hardware

I've been trying on and off for a while, and without luck, to install Linux on one of my "test lab" machines. These machines have quad-core Intel processors on Asus P5K SE motherboards, which feature a Marvell PATA IDE controller. I'd tried a good number of distributions including the latest RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mandriva releases but none of them would recognize the CD/DVD drive during installation. I did eventually manage to install Fedora 7 over the network but applications kept crashing due to kernel panics. After some research it seems that the Linux Kernel needed updating to support this motherboard and its chipset.

This morning I downloaded Fedora 8 Test 2, which was released about a week ago and the install ran absolutely smoothly and I saw it specifically load a "pata_marvell" driver, which was reassuring.

The only problem now is that the final release of FC8 is still about six weeks away so I just hope this test release is stable enough for my needs.

Labels: hardware, linux

I've had a few days to get used to the new laptop now so I thought I'd write a short review that might be useful to others considering buying this model.

First off, I should point out that this is a no-frills functional laptop rather than a slick designer laptop (and that's definitely reflected in the price). This laptop isn't trying to be a Sony Vaio or a MacBook Pro. However, it doesn't look as dull as its business-class counterpart, the ThinkPad.

The basic machine specification is: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD (5,400 rpm), 1680 x 1050 resolution, DVD-RW, 4 x USB, 1 x Firewire, 10/100MB Ethernet, Modem, Media card reader, built in web cam and microphone.

The machine came pre-installed with a rather bewildering amount of software and most of it seemed to load at startup making the machine very slow to boot. Especially worrying was a "ThinkVantage registry monitor" process which took both CPU cores to 100% for several minutes after logging in. After uninstalling most of the pre-installed software, which seems to be aimed at non-technical users, the machine now boots fairly fast and the overall performance is satisfying.

The keyboard is excellent. One of the best I've used. In fact, this was one of the main reasons I decided to go for this model.

The screen is slightly disappointing. This is clearly an area where some money was saved. However, it is perfectly adequate. The only real issues are the viewing angle (you really need to look at the screen directly) and the brightness and contrast (the screen seems slightly dark and doesn't compare well to high end laptops I've used in the past).

The other slight disappointment is that there is no gigabit ethernet. That's not too big a deal since gigabit pcmia cards are inexpensive these days.

However, at £710+VAT this laptop offers great value for money. If screen quality is important to you then the Thinkpad T61p is the machine to go for in the Lenovo range but this costs around £1,400+VAT. Considering that I'll mostly have the laptop connected to an external LCD display the extra spend just wasn't justified in my case.

Labels: hardware

I mentioned that I was thinking about buying a ThinkPad T61P for my next laptop but in the end I decided to order the ThinkPad 3000 N200 instead. This is a consumer model rather than a business model but features the same solid keyboard that I'm now used to. It has a slightly lower specification than the T61P but is literally half the price. I expect the main reason for the difference in price is that the 3000 has native resolution of 1680 x 1050 compared to 1920 x 1200 on the T61P.

It should be with me tomorrow and I'll blog again once I've had a chance to use it.

Labels: hardware

My PC is now back from PC Specialist with a new heatsink and fan and the processor is running at 36 degrees celcius (it was exceeding 70 degrees when I sent it back). They also fixed a couple of minor niggles free of charge. I'll definitely be ordering future kit from these guys. It seems to be a rare thing these days to find IT companies providing such good service.

The PC came back with PC Wizard 2007 installed. I haven't heard of this free utility before but it provides a detailed view of your system hardware, including fan speeds and temperature of various components. Very useful.

Labels: hardware

I've started looking around for a new laptop now that I'm returning to the freelance/contract market. I've been using a Lenovo ThinkPad T60p for the last 8 months and have been pretty impressed with the performance as a desktop replacement machine. I just saw that Lenovo have announced the T61p ThinkPad, which runs Vista and will ship later this month.

It's not exactly cheap, but with Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processors, 1920x1200 native resolution, up to 4GB RAM and an excellent keyboard it will be ideal for development work.

Labels: hardware

My PC died a few days ago. It's a fairly new (less than a year old) machine with an Intel Extreme X6800 core duo 2.93GHz processor. For no apparent reason, I started getting the dreaded "blue screen of death" (BSOD) when booting into Vista and I noticed when I rebooted that the CPUs had dropped their speed down to 1.6 GHz. Inspecting the CPU temperature in BIOS showed that the y were running way too hot, exceeding 70 degrees celcius. I checked inside the case and there was quite a bit of dust covering the surface of the heat sink, which must have been blocking the flow of air. I removed the heat sink and cleaned the dust out but that didn't fix it so I've sent the PC back to PC Specialist and hopefully they'll be able to resolve this for me. In the meantime I'm using a relatively low-spec Dell PC running Fedora Core 6. It will actually be interesting to see how I get on using a Linux desktop for a week or so.

Labels: hardware