Disclaimer: the views expressed on this site do not nessecarily reflect those of my employer
Sunday, July 06, 2003
I've been looking for a replacement for my Thinkpad T20. First of all, I love my T20. I have done so much work with this machine. But its getting old, has some quirks, and the current plan is to bike to work as much as possible. To that end I've been searching around for the ultimate teeny tiny laptop. So far I have not found the ultimate machine - though some are tempting!
1. Sharp Actius. 2.1 lbs. This is a Curusoe 1GHz chip running Windows XP Home edition. The form factor is awesome. Took me a while to get used to typing on the keyboard but after trying for a few minutes I got pretty fast. It can do 1024x768 resolution on a 10.4" screen. Around $1,400
2. Sony Vaio TR Series. Cool looking form factor. A bit heavier than the Actius at 3.11 lbs. Sony is already sold out so this must be a hot item. Can't even find a price but I think they are over $2000. Runs a Centrino 900 MHz chip. Also comes with built-in camera.
3. Fujitsu Lifebook P5000. Successor to the 2000 (3.4 lbs) model. A beefier CPU (900 MHz Centrino), can run XP Pro. Has a 60GB disk, 512MB ram and its $2000 (configured as I would want). "Under 4 lbs.".
4. Apple 12" PowerBook G4. A pretty stoked little system, but now we're up to 4.6 lbs. Under $2000.
5. And then there is the Thinkpad X Series. A stoked 1.4 GHz with 512 MB Ram at 3.6 lbs. $1904.00. The new T40 is around 4.5 lbs.
6. Dell as the X200, which is 2.9 lbs and run a PIII 933 MHz chip, and with 512MB would be around $1900.
So nothing is ideal. I love the super small Actius. Its the lightest that I've seen, and its not the most expensive. But it would have to be resigned to email, text editing, and Groove. Remote Desktop for software development would be reasonable too. For around $2000 there are a lot of choices in the mid 3 lbs range, some of which look like they are powerful enough to do real software development work. But that's $600 and they still aren't that fast. Over 4 lbs isn't going to cut it in a backpack on my bike.
Small, cheap, fast. Pick two.
Right now I'm leaning toward the lightest possible system, being the Actius, but I want to know if I really shouldn't run XP Pro on it..
