[sf-lug] seeking laptop recommendations to upgrade from thinkpad t61p

[Michael Shiloh]

Thanks for all your tips. I snipped to make my replies more visible:


On 05/22/2014 02:49 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

>      What do you consider heavy?
>      Most of the ultra-lights sacrifice connectivity few USB ports, no
> external SATA ports, or RJ-45 connectors.

As I mentioned, I'm currently carrying a T61P, so anything lighter than 
this will feel great. I don't need to go ultra-light, and certainly 
don't want to sacrifice ports, keyboard usability, screen quality, etc.


>> - What's a reasonable amount to spend? I expect to pay more than $1000
>> but need to keep it below $2000.
>      Oooh! For that price you should get some good specifications.

I don't need, nor do I want to pay for, the best performance possible. I 
want to find the sweet spot somewhere between a T61p and the top of the 
line, where the increase in performance per extra dollar starts to 
flatten out. Also as you noted later, Linux support sometimes lags a 
little behind the very latest models, so staying a year or so back is 
fine. The T61p is what, almost 9 years old?



>      What is a good keyboard for you?  I like a full numeric keypad and
> light key action but if
> I had gotten a machine without them I can plug in the external keyboard
> which is what I use

Thinkpad is my favorite keyboard. No room for an external keyboard, so 
laptop must have a good keyboard built-in. Numeric not important.


>   The new HP has a touch screen and  that can come in handy.

Not for me. I'm a keyboard-heavy user (vi, vimperator, etc.) and prefer 
to leave my fingers on the keys, hence my preference for the pencil 
eraser joystick.




>      A graphics processor with lots of dedicated memory should be helpful
> too.

Great idea. I had totally forgotten that. Thanks!



>  Some later model graphic processors are not yet supported in Linux but in the current Linux Pro
> Klaus Knopper shows a user how to specify the need support for a late model of nVidia gpu.


Glad you mentioned that. I've had issues with finding the right driver 
for the nVidia GPU on my T61p. It's probably the one thing that's given 
me the most trouble, and that's on an old GPU.

Great tips, thanks!