So, my wife is going to be leaving me for about six months here shortly, and wants a new laptop to take with her.
She's got a few requirements, most of which I don't think are going to be a problem. I just want to know who's going to be the best bet to purchase from, seeing as how I now have a hate-on for all Dell laptops.
Requirements:
Lightweight (Hopeful no more than 10 lbs)
Full size alpha keyboard
Integrated Webcam
2+ usb ports
Battery life of 2+ hours
Enough space for her music (10-15 GBs) - not a problem, I think
decent length of powercord.
DURABLE (Expect sand to get EVERYWHERE)
WiFi
Things she wants:
The ability to play CoX, even if only at low graphics settings.
Niceties (I.E. things that would be cool to have, but definitely not necessary at all.)
Rotating monitor
Touchscreen
Bluetooth capable
Any help finding a good make/model would be greatly appreciated
As a general suggestion, I'd advise avoiding anything made by HP/Compaq.
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead
Might want to check out Digital Storm and see if they have anything that looks good. I'm assuming this is for military personel in which if I remember right they give a special discount to .... I think.
-ZK
"There are no problems that cannot be solved with cannons."
-Chief Engineer Boris Kraus of Nuln
Don't know about the sand resistance, as we've never actually taken it into a desert or on a beach, but the Dell Vostro we bought over two years ago seems to match your other requirements, and has been a trooper, more dependable even than my desktop system. I can't remember the specific model number at the moment, though.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
The sand everywhere bit worries me, I would take a look at a ruggedized laptop.
Somehow I doubt the ability of most modern laptop internals to deal well with fine grain particulates . So make sure there is a warranty on whatever you end up getting (most credit cards have a year warranty for all purchases, but it's a good thing to check).
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
If it wasn't for the CoX requirement, I'd say investigate a tablet or similar technology.
A laptop stored in ... "safe" conditions (say the back of a vehicle where it is sand free) and a tablet which goes to everywhere.
You wife, she going on a dig or something?
ZK had it right, she's deploying to the ME. And she told me its less sand, more 'bumped, squished, sct' from traveling 20+ hrs on a plane.
Ahh, well if it's less sand, and more squish I say get a load bearing case.
Laptop screens react badly to non-lateral (anything that isn't pushing from the sides) forces. It's one of the drawbacks to having them so light and thin
Pelican sets the bar in this department (they also seem to offer military discounts)
Depending on how much force you expect to be dropped on the case will determine how much foam you need inside (and how thick the case ends up being).
I've seen them hit with a sledge hammer and the contents be fine afterwards.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
Hmmm... Recent laptop offerings have improved in this (protection of the screen against non-lateral forces). Have you ever seen a 'coffin-locker'? It's a rack where you stow all your stuff in compartments underneath it. Mine was packed to the point of my having to use my body weight to secure the lock, and my laptop was always kept in there. (Just imagine how much pressure was on it for a prolonged period of time when I slept in there!) I've had two Toshiba Satellites and they both held up extremely well with the abuses that is ship-board life in the US Navy.
The only thing that really worries me is the sand. Sand will fuck up anything - even ruggedized laptops if given enough time or the right opportunity.
If it's just really dusty out there, then I suggest just clearing out the ventilation ports with a can-of-air on a weekly basis. Also before buying, check to see if someone makes a keyboard cover for that particular laptop - that will go a long ways to keeping nastiness about of your keys.
Finally, if you're honestly on a budget, buy something with an AMD chipset. They may not be as good as Intel (for the moment) but you do get a decent bang for your buck - certainly enough to play COX. I've seen AMD Toshiba Satellites going for as low as $350 at a Walmart.
My current machine is a Toshiba Satellite A665D-series laptop. It's AMD and cost me $800 at the Navy Exchange. It plays Portal 2 with all the bells and whistles at a pretty nice frame rate. However, in order to support the graphics the battery will only last an hour. Power saving features can make it sip - about two hours for video playback and heavy wi-fi downloading; four hours for less demanding tasks. The display is pretty, the sound is nice, and it has a full size keyboard with a numerical keypad. 3 USB ports, 1 USB/eSATA port, 1 HDMI port, 1 VGA port, 2 3.5mm RCA jacks (mic, headphone). Headphone jack is also 3.5mm digital fiber-optical output for digital surround sound systems.
Nice little bonus: it has an accelerometer installed. The moment it senses dangerous movement it parks the heads of your hard drive, thus ensuring maximum life of your HDD and protection of your data. Oh, and it's not 'shiney' like a lot of these other laptops. You know the ones - the display model looks all nice and everything, but after five hours its all smudged with finger prints. Mine is tastefully textured to prevent that.
It's handled life on a USN ship, Japanese rail commuting, air travel, unplanned flights, and my brothers - all with nary a complaint.
I can honestly say that while it's not the best machine out there, I certainly appreciate it.
Does she need a real keyboard? Or will those artsy chicklet keyboards that are so popular right now work? (I find them to be terribly impractical.) The only thing I've seen of late with real keyboards are the Alienware models, which are something I doubt you'll fit in a budget, sadly.
When I had to deal with a high sand area, I had Sharp (fanless) laptop. It survived the whole time I was there with no problems whatsoever... and then I dropped as I was unlocking the door to my place on getting back from there. Sigh. Be that as may, though, the Sharp laptop had the interesting feature of having rubber plugs for all the ports. I haven't kept up to what has that sort of thing now though.
--
"Remember, the truth is out there." —Johnny
"It is? Oh, I hope it doesn't maul anyone this time." —me