My HP Omnibook 510 (from the now defunct HP laptop division that was dropped when they merged with Compaq) has given me good service, but the built-in 802.11b wireless basically sucks. It's got short range and the lame driver (which shows no signs of being updated) has a habit of wedging my machine. That and I recently dropped it, causing an ugly but cosmetic-only crack in a corner. Time for something new.

Critical features I have to have:
- 3 pounds or maybe less (sadly, no Apple products fit the bill)
- 3 year comprehensive warranty (to fix it after I abuse it)
- normal pitched keyboard (knocks out many of the cool Japanese models)
- 1GB of RAM
- CompactFlash (either native or via PCMCIA adapter) for my digital camera
- 802.11b/g
- USB 2.0, maybe firewire, definitely Ethernet and modem
- VGA out (for PowerPoint presentations)

Bonus points for bigger hard drives or longer battery life. I don't need any kind of CD/DVD support.

Poking around, the Dell Lattitude X1 comes pretty close. $2231 gets me 1.2GB of RAM and a 60GB disk (is anything larger available that's 8mm thick?). It's got a CF slot. That includes three years of CompleteCare warranty coverage. Could well do the job.

An IBM/Lenovo X41 tablet PC is also an intriguing option. You get a faster CPU and the whole tablet thing, which I guess could be cool for Photoshop use, but it's a little heavier and you end up spending a little more money ($2486) for the same sort of warranty. Plus, you only get a 40GB disk. The fingerprint reader seems like a gimmic.

Edit: you can get a 60GB disk, but only from a reseller. The IBM/Lenovo web site only sells the 40GB model. CDW.com, for one, has some 17 different variants to choose from, but no custom configurator, and no way to know what the specific features are for many of these variants. Very frustrating.

Toshiba has the Portege M200 (tablet) and R200 (notebook) computers. The tablets are 4.4+ pounds, so they're out of the running. The notebooks are much lighter (2.7 or 2.8 pounds), have a magnesium case, and a 60GB disk. To get a configuration similar to the Dell, including warranty, you end up paying $2516, but you get a free Epson Stylus C86 printer and a free Netgear wireless DSL router (after mail-in rebate). I could probably get some use out of the printer, but the router doesn't do much for me.

The Sony Vaio T-Series has a smaller 10.6" screen, although it's apparently very bright. You get integrated EDGE (i.e., high-speed GSM data) and a MemoryStick slot. Not very interesting to me. You get a built-in CD or DVD burner, depending on the model. Don't need it. It's much more expensive than the competition. Probably not the right laptop for me.

HP, so far as I can tell, doesn't offer a single laptop anywhere near three pounds. They'll sell you a ~3 pound tablet PC, but to get it near my specs, it becomes far too expensive.

So, based on what I've seen so far, the competition seems to be between the Dell X1 and the IBM/Lenovo X41.

Meta-observation: each of these vendor web sites is just awful. It's quite difficult to answer even basic questions like "is there a PCMCIA slot?"

Well the 4lb limit knocks my (superb!) Dell Inspiron 9300 out of the running. But for anyone else wanting a (relatively) cheap 1920x1200 display in a Linux compatible (BIG) 8lb notebook..

Too bad you need something smaller/lighter. Because I've yet to see or hear of any notebook that comes close to an Apple for look, feel and usability. The sub-notebook is definitely a market where Apple has missed out on a great opportunity.

Bruno

I had a similar kind of spec sheet last year, with the extra that I did want a DVD player. I couldn't find anything, and decided eventually to compromise on the keyboard. Got a Fujitsu P7010. Love it, thoroughly recommended.

I decided in the end to give up on the keyboard because that was the thing that seemed to be the overall size determinant - seems that the manufacturers work it as "ok, if we're going on a full size keyboard, that gives us lots of empty space in the chassis, so we might as well shove it full of stuff".

My reasoning was that if I am really going to be doing a lot of typing in a fixed place I can plug in an external keyboard and mouse for $40 or less.

Regards

Mark

I haven't seen an X41, but I did play with an X40 for a few hours the other day (which I believe is very similar apart from the rotating screen). I am a bit of a Dell fan, but I was impressed by just how much better built the IBM was than my current Dell.

We have fleet of about 75 Thinkpads, and with few exceptions, they just keep going. About a third of them are 4 (or more) years old. They are not used lightly, either - they are "desktop replacements" for the users. We've replaced a couple dozen keyboards over the years - the letters are just painted on, not an inlay, and do wear off.

Well, OK, there was the time the employee showed up at the gate with one too many carry-ons, and checked the briefcase with the laptop... Idiot. She got a replacement desktop.

I just hope Lenovo keeps the standards up.

-jk

The arrow keys are by default mapped to backwards and forwards in your web browser. I'm not sure how dificult it is to change, I'll check next time I'm on my girlfriend's laptop if no one else has mentioned it. The lack of page up/down is one of the more frusterating things about my powerbook. (Anyone know how to make my enter key a fn key?)

Matthew

You can remap single key presses in the registry in XP or 2003.

There's a guy who wrote a key scanning/registry editor to simplify it. I haven't used it myself, but I hear it's pretty good.

-jk

Okay, that's a cool trick. I just killed my caps lock key with extreme prejudice. Me like.

Very very cool. Thanks for that link.

Oops. Just don't kill a key you need in your login password. Good thing I have a spare login...

-jk

Edit: hit the damned button too soon.

Two of the guys in our office have the Latitude X300 (last year's version of the X1) and they adore them! They both have the media base that includes the DVD drive and all the extra ports. When they leave the office, it's simply a matter of popping it off the base and walking away, with no cords to unplug ever.

For some inconceivable reason, there doesn't seem to be a media base for the X1.

If it were me, I'd buy an X300 and upgrade the memory and hard drive. The only downside to that is the warranty.

EDIT: It looks like you can get an X300 from the Dell Outlet with 60gig and 1128meg with Dell's 3 year warranty.

There's an external that comes with it as well...same as the X1.

The major advantage of having the second one in the media base is that the majority of the time when you're using CD's to install software, rip music, etc...you're doing it from your desk, and you don't have to fish out your external drive. Plus you don't have to pack your drive up whenever you leave, you can just leave it in your notebook bag.

Then again...for someone who's truly mobile (no single place where they use the notebook often enough to justify a port replicator), there are certainly better solutions.

If the laptop is your sole computer, then you clearly need a DVD drive. If you've got a desktop, then you can share the DVD over the network. To watch movies on the road, you can always rip the movie. (For me, I'd rather spend the extra disk space on music, not movies.)

I've got to agree, I convinced my girlfriend to buy a thinkpad, only to find that IBM's website and priceing structure were far more arcane than Dells, which I thought was bad enough. With Dell, you price out your laptop in the four available stores, apply all coupons and see where you are. With IBM, there's only one store, but every model has who knows how many different variants, and each variant allows different things to be customized. The different variants are not all centrally linked.

I didn't deal with them on the phone, but I hear the salespeople are helpfull, so you might as well give them a call. The telephone support post-purchase was very quick and helpful on the only minor issue the machine has had so far. Why more companies don't go to the "submit request online, get a call back in half an hour from the support rep" I don't know.

In short, good machine, good support, bad website.

Matthew

I'll be ordering an X1 for one of my staff members, so I'll let you know how it is. Of course, my only other experience with a sub notebook (besides endless Toshiba Portiges that I've drooled over) is an HP Omnibook 600C. The built in mouse is the coolest laptop feature ever, next to the lift-up keyboard of the IBM ThinkPad 760XD. Man, I never should have sold that.....

No way the coolest feature ever was the butterfly keyboard.

My first laptop was an HP Omnibook 300 or 400 or something along those lines. No screen backlight. Greyscale only. It has the cool pop-out mouse, and they somehow smashed Win3.1 into a PCMCIA read-only memory card that it could boot from. I then bought a 200MB or thereabouts PCMCIA type 3 card. This was enough for me to run Quicken and a terminal emulator. It was small, tough, and a great laptop. After that, I had the same Omnibook 600-series. Color screen. Real hard drive. Ran Win95 and friends. I added in some kind of cheesy Ethernet card and that machine got me all the way through graduate school. The only major screwup was that the VGA output tried to auto-detect if you had a projector, which didn't work with about half of the projectors at the time. Otherwise, a fine machine.

Once I finished grad school, it was on to the Sony Vaio 505G or GX. Basically, Sony's first and still amazing subnotebook. The only stupidity was the big ugly dongle you needed to get VGA output. That eventually crapped out and I got the Omnibook 500 and later 510 after the 500 had self-destructed enough times. In many respects, the Omnibook 500-series really got things right. Nice rubberized pads for your hands. No sharp corners. Very clever design, just dumb, crapola device driver support, and now lost in the HP/Compaq merger.

I definitely want to hear how that Dell X1 works out. I'm not buying tomorrow or anything, but if I did, I'd be leaning toward the ThinkPad X41 Tablet. The tablet functionality, at no extra weight, seems worth getting to play with.

Amusing footnote: shortly after I got to Rice, I went along on a research pitch to Dell (hitting them up for money to support our work). They never gave us any money, but they were remarking at my Sony 505. "Don't you need a CD?" "Naah, I've got all that back in the office." At the time, the lightest Dell laptop was stil in the 6-7 pound range. A few years later, they finally caved and started offering subnotebooks.

I'd recomend one of the sony S series. It seems to meet the requirements.

I have the s150, one of the first of the line. I've had no problems with it.

The problem with Sony is that their stuff gets obsoleted rather quickly, and support for older models is poor.

I ordered the X1 today through educational pricing for $1800, but that's using a discount from late-May that I'd locked in using an E-quote, and it has less options than you wanted.

However, I priced an X1 through the Dell Educational Purchase Plan (EPP) which allows people affiliated with a Dell-purchasing university to get decent discounts. The same X1, was $1700 or something, thanks to 12% discount and $150 mail in rebate (and $100 instant rebate for purchasing online?). A call to Dell regarding all the confusing rebates revealed: They are running back-to-school specials now, which, as the sales rep said, "is like Christmas for computer sellers."

Try the Dell EPP Customer Sales at 1-800-695-8133 - Option 2 to see if you can get a deal. Then, for the better online pricing, buy through the EPP via: dell.com > Higher Education > "Faculty, Students & Staff Personal Purchases" > "If you do not know your member ID..." > Notebooks > X1 > amazingly low "starting" price. Good luck.