RE: Labtop

  • From: "Karl Smith" <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:30:22 -0600

My Lenovo X61 with Vista Ultimate has a nice keyboard with an alt and
control key on both sides of the space bar and a six pack.  the computer is
a 12" unit as I don't really care about the screen.  The touch on the
keyboard is really very nice perhaps the best I've had since my old Toshiba
1200 DOS machine.

 

Karl

 

 

 

____________________

 

Karl Smith

Access Technology Specialist

Axis

4304 South El Camino St.

Taylorsville, Utah 84119

 

Phone:  866-824-7885

Fax:    866-824-7885

E-mail:  <mailto:karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Life is one dumb thing after another....Love is two dumb things after each
other.

 

From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Chip Orange
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:50 AM
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Labtop

 

it's a line of laptops, which used to be made by IBM, and which have been
sold to the company which was manufacturing them for IBM, lenovo.

 

they have a reputation for being of the highest quality and durability, and
being pricey, meant for the business world.

 

lenovo has lowered the price, and I don't know about quality changes.

 

they had a lot of unusual options back in the days when other laptops were
out only to keep the price down, and so offered few options.  I got my
thinkpad for instance with a device bay on each side, and you could hot-swap
various drives and other devices in and out of the bays as needed.  one
option I bought was a  numeric keypad which popped out from the right side
bay, giving you almost a full-size keyboard.  I had thought at the time it
would be important to my use of a screen reader.  I've since learned the
laptop layout, of jaws at least, is just as easy to use as the standard jaws
keyboard commands.  I could if I like, remove the keypad and put my floppy
drive in that bay, or an additional hard drive if I had one; they made a lot
of accessories.

 

If my wife hadn't wanted a white computer, I probably would have bought a
thinkpad, because of their reputation for ruggedness.

 

One of my relatives owns a "T" series thinkpad, and it's small and light,
with a nice keyboard, and nothing has broken on it for many years.  it's by
far their most popular line of laptops.  I believe office depot carries
thinkpads if you want to try and see one hands-on, but usually they were a
mail-order only company.

 

hth,

 

Chip

 

 

 





------------------------------

Chip Orange
Database Administrator
Florida Public Service Commission

Chip.Orange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(850) 413-6314

 (Any opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Florida Public Service Commission.)

 

 


  _____  


From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Randy Campbell
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 9:56 AM
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Labtop

Thank you for your input.  That helps a lot to know  and I know more now
than I did.  What is a thinkpad?  Thanks again and have a great day.  Randy

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Chip <mailto:Corange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>  Orange 

To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:43 AM

Subject: RE: Labtop

 

you'll get a lot of opinions, probably all of them right in some way.

 

I just bought a Dell inspiron, one reason is that it has a relatively full
keyboard, which includes alt and control keys on both sides of the space bar
(not a given with laptops), and it has all six keys of the traditional
six-pack grouping (some laptop keyboard require you to make these keys by
pressing a special fn key plus an additional key; when you're trying to make
control-shift-home, and you have to press fn+ something else to make the
home key, this can become a pain).

 

try to ask questions about the keyboard, as it will end up influencing how
you feel about your purchase more than say the processor speed.  In this
case, the heavier the laptop the likelier you are to be pleased with the
keyboard, as the larger the laptop is likely to be.

 

I bought a 14 inch screen inspiron, that weighs about 15 pounds.  I never
price shopped, I was interested in many other things besides price.  I
simply tried to bring the price down as much as I could by choosing the
cheapest screen size, which is today around 14 or 15 inches.  smaller and
larger screens usually cost you more.

 

I'd recommend you get built-in bluetooth and wifi, as these don't work
nearly as well if you have to use add-in devices later on.  built-in from
the factory means special built-in antennas as well.

 

Try to get the cheapest graphics card and sound card you can; this is
usually the one built into the motherboard.  I don't believe you'l benefit
from upgrading either, and even the cheapest sound cards today are
multi-channel.  If you ever want to do complex audio things you'll end up
doing them at some home desk setup, and it won't be an inconvenience to buy
an external high-quality usb sound card if you ever needed something better
than you got.  Complexity when upgrading the sound card sometimes causes
confusion with drivers that have too many options or features which
interfear with speech synthesizers.  still, if sound processing is what you
live for, and you know it, go ahead and get something high-end built-in.
Dell offered me a choice of 3 sound cards, much different in price, but I
had no real idea how they differed in capabilities.

 

If your money is tight, you can put off buying things like a dvd burner til
later, they can be moderately expensive.

 

the exact model of what I bought is the Dell 1420 if you're interested.
It's available in your choice of colors, including color matched accessories
if you buy any.  speaking of accessories, don't buy a leather case; they're
heavier, cost more, and are no more durable than the regular ones.

 

I'm also impressed with thinkpads (now from Lenovo).  I still own one which
is 5 years old.

 

I am very unimpressed by Sony, and wouldn't recommend them.

 

hth,

 

Chip

 

 

 





------------------------------

Chip Orange
Database Administrator
Florida Public Service Commission

Chip.Orange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(850) 413-6314

 (Any opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Florida Public Service Commission.)

 

 


  _____  


From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Randy Campbell
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 11:48 PM
To: jfw
Subject: Labtop

I am looking to buy a new labtop but I'm not sure what to buy.  Could
somebody on this list reccomend what they think is the best labtops out
there.  Thank you.  Randy

Other related posts: