New Laptops All Round
It's amazing that such a short time away from home can disrupt your life so much. I've spent the last two days just getting back on track.
One of the things I've been doing is building my new laptop. It's almost a year since realising I needed a new one and deciding on a T41. Since then I managed to patch it up with a new battery, new hinges and a new motherboard. Then last week I spent a week surrounded by T42s, as you can see below:
This was enough to persuade me that my laptop (which I had there with me for comparison) was rubbish and that I wanted needed a T42. The price seems to have dropped a little since last year. I got a decent spec for £1100 (exc. VAT), which includes 1400*1050 resolution and a gig of RAM. It was waiting for me when I got home.
It's a good job I did buy a new one, as I came home to find that Karen had got a new one as part of the Laptops For Teachers initiative and it's really nice. She's loving the fact that she's got a sleek-looking widescreen Sony Vaio and all I've got is a clunky-looking IBM machine. I made the mistake of telling her I'd been thinking of getting a Vaio but couldn't afford it. She now thinks hers is better and that I'm jealous. As I told her - she's got a Saab 93 Aero and I've got a Range Rover Discovery. What car is your laptop?
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I've got a Porsche 928 S4 and a T42 and my last car was a SAAB '90 Aero. I've also got a Dell Lattitude C840 (I had an Inspiron 8100 - I think - before that but it was stolen hence the Lattitude). What sort of Disco do you have? One of the newies?
BTW, I don't think the T42 is clunky at all. Mind you, they're not as nicely designed as things that come out of Apple, like my iPod photo (which I only bought a couple of months ago and now they bring out the video version).
I've got a Alfa Romeo 156 2.5 v6 and a Robin Hood Exmo Kitcar, bought from Robin hood Engineering, which is based near you i believe in Mansfield. The Kitcar has a race tuned pinto with big DCOE carbs. Great induction roar. It did take me four years to put together , well worth the wait.
My Laptop is an IBM R51.
Hang on guys, I think there is some confusion. I was asking what kind of car your laptop would be if you had to draw parallels. Not what kind of car you actually have. Poor old me doesn't even have a car!
Ok, so I stuffed up.
I also have a T42 and I reckon it's more like a Subary Liberty 3.0 R-B (Legacy in the UK - I live in Australia).
As a side note to my previous post, the UK Subaru site needs some serious work. Check out the Australian website www.subaru.com.au, for example (I'm not comparing the UK and Australia, just comparing HTML).
I digress.
That's more like it Phil. You're right. The T42 is more Subaru than Land Rover. Subarus aren't much to look at but they take a good thrashing and have plenty of power.
I have got a Dell X1 which must equate to some form of hairdressers car ;-)
Either that or a SMART car (or is that same thing lol)
I have a Dell Inspiron XPS, which equates to a Luxury Coach Bus ({Link} It's has all the same amenities of a desktop, but it's difficult to park ;o)
Toshiba Libretto = Lotus Elise
I've had them since 1998. Same philosophy - lightweight, eminently impractical, both run out of steam at high speed - yet lovable.
//R
A Fujitsu Lifebook, which in my opinion is definitely a Reliant Robin on a cold frosty morning.
I dont have a car, I have a helicopter, to be more specific I think its an Apache. At least it sounds like one
Btw. its a T43p with 2gb ram.
Infiniti G35 Coupe = 1.5 Powerbook
I have the powerbook and would really like to also have the car.
Dell Latitude D610 - as it's a work PC it's probably the equivalent of a company car - Vauxhall Vectra 2.5 V6 - i.e. a bog standard machine with some upgrades to make it look sexier - which it never will be.
u can compare my laptop to an old fusca 1978 =) actually i have 2. one is a fujitsu k62 and the other one is a nec with the keyboard in japanese. LOL!!!
I have a Dell Latitude X300, not sure what car that would be. Something between the hairdressers car and the luxury coach bus. any suggestions?
I Have a Dell Latitude D610 with nice specs: 2Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 80BGb HD, DVD+/-R, Bluetooth, WiFi and so on...
It's fast...but the buildquality isn't rock solid so I guess it makes it a Peugeot 407 SW or similar.
I "drive" a Subaru Forrester (ThinkPad T42). I looked at some Mazda 6's (LG), Audi's (Apple) and Lexus' (Sony) and decided to stick with what has worked for my entire career...
I still think I'll grab an "Audi" for driving on the weekends...
I have a R51 and I think it's a Mercedes. Expansiv!! Problems in the begining but now it runs and runs.
Well, since I gave my Toshiba 7200 Cte (probably analogous to a Mistubishi Murata, small, cute, nothing remotely resembling practical, durable or reliable) to my wife, my only remaining mobile at the moment is my iPAQ, which is probably the equivalent of a Honda "Helix" scooter. :-)
I think my T43 (14" screen 1400 * 1050, 2GB RAM, 60GB faster disk, Radeon X300 - no OpenGL nonsense - good for games) for portability) is more akin to the M3 CSL. Not a Porsche - in a good way because it can accommodate three friends, but light, not too flash but keeps up easily with the competition, but very nicely put together - a purist's machine if you will. Arguably a bit overpriced though.
Well, I have a T42 - LOVE it and yeah, I guess its like a Subaru (which I drive) but perhaps actually probably more like a Toyota (functional, reliable but somewhat rough around the edges).
Like Greg Evans, mine is an identically configured T43. He didn't mention the fingerprint reader, which only took about a week to fall heads-over-heels in love with. It's my sixth or seventh Thinkpad. I've had a few Dells & Toshibas, but this is my Lexus.
I agree Dick. The "biometric" security got the chaps in the office all excited. Very mission impossible. I've given Dell a good crack of the whip for a few years, but now I think it's ThinkPads all the way.
Acer Travelmate 220 (1 GHz Celeron, tacky but honestly plastic case). Reminds me very much of a '71 Datsun pickup truck I once had. Needs accessories to do things that come standard with anything normal people would buy, and it's not the sort of thing you'd use to impress the chicks. If you had to meet somebody important, you'd probably borrow a friend's so you'd be taken seriously. But it does what it needs to do, it's cheap, and if it gets banged up a bit on a camping trip, nobody's going to notice the new damage.
I have a Vauxhall Cavalier. (Both in real life and in Laptops). It's actually a Sony VAIO VX71P.
And my Reasoning: At the time they came out they were a hot item. Everybody wanted one. But the glamour quickly faded away. Now it's just seen as a common place workhorse that gets the job done. Easy to buy bits for or fix up. Last a good while on a full tank of charge. Still looks kind of smart when you turn up to clients. But has enough hidden under the hood to give people a run for their money.
Dave W - brilliant analogy. Had me in quite a chuckle.
Now if Notes/Domino was a car, what would it be?
I'm really struggling to find something apt but I guess my pick would be .... no, I can't think of anything!
If Domino were a car. Now, there's a good one. Let me think about this one...
Notes / Domino a car? ..... - Lotus of a kind I presume.
But I dont think that analogy can be made. All car manufacturers, have a great marketing department who tells tells the customer about their product's strengths.
My Dell Inspiron 4100 reminds me of a 1966 Buick Special that I had a long time ago. It had seen a lot of driving, but it got the job done. When it wasn't in the shop for repairs, that is.
My Gericom Masterpiece XL is very large and heavy though it is really fast but consumes much power. And it is inexpansive. This has to be an asian car, KIA Opirus 3.5 V6 fits in very good.
I think Lotus Domino is much like Citroen...
I know we weren't supposed to talk about OUR cars, but I just wanted to say that I don't have a car because I can't afford one after I bought an Apple Powerbook ;)
If Domino is a Citroen, it's not just any Citroen, but a DS.
My laptop at work is a T42 and I'm not sure, if I can compare that to any car. Might be sort of a work horse, but it fits my ideals of unobstrusive elegance much better than some of the other products mentioned.
And I'm pretty happy it did not come with a fingerprint reader at that time. Just saw a nice feature on TV a couple of days ago, where just a digicam photo of a finger print was used to remodell a fake finger print in plastic. Worked fine on the next best finger print reader.
Well, if your Discovery is anything like mine, you will be rebuilding it at regular intervals just like your old T41!!
If domino was a car, it would have "Trotters Independant Traders" along the side of it. If Notes was a car, you know when you go to the circus and the clown gets out of the car and the doors fall off? That is when you get that cure little red box in the middle of the screen...