[nycbug-talk] Laptop purchase possibility. . .

[Pete Wright]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 11:09:31PM -0500, G. Rosamond wrote:
> I was dead set on a ThinkPad, but after playing with a client's Sharp 
> MM10, I may change that.
> 
> For those who don't know them, check out www.sharpusa.com, but make 
> sure your browser identifies as IE.
> 
> They are two pounds, have 10.4" displays, and are sweet. . . with the 
> extra battery, they get 9 hours of uptime. . .
> 
> Googling shows some references to people running a BSD on them, but 
> does anyone on Talk have any experience, things I should know, etc. . .

ok i'll bite, i'm an huge fan of the thinkpads.  i have an X31 (which seems
pretty similar to the MM10).  it does look pretty good, but a couple things
that differ i think are worth noting.  first off, i'm a huge fan of the
thinkpad "nipple" for the mouse.  i've always had problems with the track-
pads on laptops, my palm always seems to move the mouse...which will end up
moving the focus on my window in xwindows.  the "nipple" is not in the way
and the thinkpad's have a real three button mice as well.

secondly the X31 comes with builtin Gig-e via the "em" device.  seems to
work quite well with 4.x.  lastly it's got a 1.4ghz chip on it, that will
scale down to 550mhz when running on batteries.  i get about 5 hours of 
battery life on it (unless i'm using my pcmcia wifi card then i loose about
an hour or so).  so performance is not too bad on the sucker either.

i don't know the price of the sharps, and granted you do pay a premium with
the thinkpad but IMO it's worth it.

-p


-- 
~~oO00Oo~~
Peter Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
www.nomadlogic.org/~pete
917.415.9866