A Laptop Problem

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(Warning: boring nerd rage ahead)

I need help finding a new laptop.

For the last couple years, I’ve have a Fujitsu P1610 (which replaced my stolen P1510). It should last me for another year or two, but I’m pretty hard on my computers. This one has started developing problems typical of an overused, aging machine — your standard hardware failures, screen damage, random crashes, unexpected hangings, paradoxical package syndrome, retrograde memory leakage, Hamitic keyboard, fan tearing, Indian screen burn-in, dysfunctional Haskell, LCD torsion, tab key thrombosis, trackpad sclerosis, dry RAM syndrome, scroll-wheel arousal, systemic rainbow failure, peristeronic disk fragmentation, hyperactive tilde key, heat-sink apricity, kernel duplicity, space bar plasticity, and cross-site chlamydia.

So I know that in the next year or two, I’ll be in the market for a new laptop. Here’s my problem: as far as I can tell, nobody makes the laptop I want. I really only have two criteria:

  1. Weight under 2.5 lbs
  2. Screen at least 1280 pixels wide

This isn’t an impossible combination. My current laptop fits it. The Fujitsu Q2010 fit it. The Fujitsu U820 fits it but is actually too small and light (the size of a CD case, with a 270 dpi screen!). The problem doesn’t seem to be technology. And, given the recent popularity of netbooks, it’s probably not lack of demand for small laptops, either. Everyone just seems to assume that if you want small, you also want a cheap and crappy display. Is there nothing between the netbooks and the Lenovo X series (which are a bit bulkier than I want)? Other than buying a laptop that is several years old (hunting down a Q2010) or has a touch screen that I don’t really want (the newer model of my current one, the P1630), do I have any options?

(Side note: I find it odd that there are so few laptops with high-DPI screens (>175)? Everything above 150 on that Wikipedia list is either a Fujitsu or a smartphone. Aren’t we supposed to be moving out of the era of pixels by now?)

133 thoughts on “A Laptop Problem”

  3. Toshiba Portege R500. Got one here. Weighs as much as a netbook (<1kg, something like 2.2lb to you Yanks), has the screen, full DVD rewriting drive, useable 4 hours of battery under Ubuntu. Lovely machine.

    Oh, but don’t drop it off the back of your bike. But if you do, a bit of araldite should fix the cracked case up again.

  4. I got a Toshiba Portege R500 recently and I’m loving (and posting on) it, 800g (dunno about pounds, sorry) and a 12.1″ 1280×800 screen. The screen is “transflexive”, i.e. in sunlight it uses the ambient light as a backlight replacement; it looks a little washed out, but far less than normal screens. Needs a good amount of light though. Australian middays are great, I don’t know how Boston will be. Unfortunately, whether resultantly or unrelatedly, the viewing angle is arse.
    I managed to wangle one with a SSD for an inordinately low price, but if paying retail I’d have gone for the cheapest HDD and upgraded to solid state when it became feasible.
    SSDs are fantastic: Sidux cold boots in about 20 seconds, inc. a three second grub timeout.
    It’s light enough to comfortably stand and hold with one hand and type with the other for a decent length of time.

  5. Though it has a slightly lower res screen than what you had asked, I would cast a vote for the everrun note. 7″ screen at 1024 x 600. its positively tiny and only weighs 1.7lb. also it performs much better than smaller form factor laptops generally do. I had intended on buying a small tablet, but am rather pleased that I went for this instead.

    some oddness about it – it has an optical pseudotrackball rather than any of the traditional laptop pointing devices. I rather like it, but I’ve read that some find it very hard to use. though fortunately it has a touchscreen as a secondary pointing device. this is not an active digitizer or anything like you’d find on a real tablet, and tablet drivers will not work at all – its a pointing device and nothing more. The model I have comes with XP and a hard drive, but it can be ordered with an ssd and the lowest end even has a distro of linux installed so the driver support despite its hardware strangeness must exist, though I haven’t tried it myself.

    just my 3 cents…

  6. I used to use toshiba porteges, which were way ahead of the game back in the late 90s. the company has a model right now (the R500) which looks like it might fit the specs; haven’t tried it though.

    maybe I’m off-base on how small you like your laptops, but have you picked up an x300? granted, it’s nearly 3 pounds, but the display is fantastic and after 8 months my battery still lasts 5 hours if I’m not pushing it too hard. I’m guessing they’ll get lighter still (and with bigger hard drives, which is the biggest drawback for me) this summer whenever the new ones come out.

  7. What about an ASUS U1F? The screen is 1360×768 pixels at 11.1 inches and it weighs two pounds with the small battery and two and a half pounds with the “power”-battery. I own it and I love it!

  8. A lot of people mention Dells, but I didn’t see the Latitude E4200. It’s a 12.1 inch screen (1280×800) and 2.2 lbs. As the business line, the Latitudes are not cheap, but my former employer has had great success with the Latitude D series, and seems to be liking the E series as well.

  11. I am in the same boat as you. I get really frustrated when every review I read of a high DPI laptop complains of the fonts being too small. Are people really too stupid to adjust the font size?

    It seems that they are and shop accordingly. Thus, high DPI screens are unpopular because people think the default fonts look too small on them.

  12. I know I’ll get some heat for this, but I figure a macbook air might fit the bill. It’s just over your weight requirement (it’s about 3 lbs) and has a native resolution of 1280 X 800. And even if you don’t like OS X you can put your favourite flavour of anything on it.

  13. Try the Zepto Notus A12. It fits your specifications to at least two decimals when converting to metric:)

  14. @Jonathan: At least with Windows, there are serious issues with changing the font size. In particular, dialog boxes are specified in terms of “dialog units”, NOT pixels, and are based on the size of the primary font used. As such, you get weird behavior with some applications (and the fact is that most apps are fairly poorly tested), such as important stuff being off the edge and invisible. It is partly a result of poorly tested software, but also a result of trying to use raster graphics in dialogs. I don’t know if Xorg stuff has this sort of issue.

  17. Hey Randall,
    I had a similar struggle recently and spent far too many fruitless hours searching for the spec I needed, so I asked myself “Why can’t I have a custom laptop, just like I would get a custom PC?”.

    After a quick Google I managed to stumble across a couple of sites offering this (I live in the UK so I doubt you want to know the links I actually discovered (or maybe you do, in which case just email me) ;) (adding an extra set of parens so that my closing smiley, now preceding this sentence, doens’t look wrong)) – so I urge you to do it too!

    It was suprisingly cheap to – I saved around £200 getting it custom built compared to buying something of a similar-but-not-quite-right spec!

    good luck on your search :)

  18. I recommend checking out Asus EEE 1000 or Asus EEE 1000H, though they have lower resolution than you seem to want.

  19. 2.5 pounds? A nice round arbitrary looking number. I’m really interested in how you arrived at that limit…

    The Dell Inspiron Mini 12 is 2.72 pounds with the lighter battery. 12″ 1280×800 display, about 126 dpi.

    If you’re willing to sacrifice another pound (3.62lb) you might consider a tablet PC.

    -Adam

  20. How about a Vaio P? 1.4 pounds, 8″ 1600×768 display. Pixel density is enough to make your eyes bleed. :)

  21. The Lenovo tablets are around 3 lbs. Don’t be so lazy! My X41 is around 3.6 lbs with the huge extended battery that lasts 5 hours. If you want a laptop that doesn’t have crappy specs, though, you probably have to build your own.

  22. I eagerly await the results of your search. My requirements are very similar! I impose the additional requirement that it not have the god damned glossy screen that’s in vogue now. I’m sure they look good in the showroom, but I don’t want to see reflections of myself and the room/airplane/whatever I’m in.

    I’ll toss in a poor review of the Acer Aspire 1, even though the screen doesn’t meet your pixel width specification. The Aspire has poor drivers — frequently doesn’t enter hibernate or return from standby, and when it does, the Wifi often requires a reboot anyway. I don’t have any patience with that kind of BS in 2009.

  23. Another vote for the MacBook Air, if you’re willing to spend that kind of money. It comes really close to meeting your requirements (a little over a kilo), and its a high quality laptop (read: not crap).

    And like Ian said, it’s more than ready to run your favorite OS, if OS X isn’t your thing.

  25. Voodoo’s Envy 133 series, a little heavier then you are looking for and the hd size isn’t great but it’s an amazing machine with a beautiful display and a thin yet strong carbon fiber case.

  27. Like most people here, I recommend that you forget your clearly-specified requirements and just get whatever. No, don’t thank me, I know I’m extremely helpful.

  28. I’ll pretend David wasn’t being sarcastic, and say I’m with him. I thought my laptop was comparatively light, until I looked up the specs and saw it’s 5.9lbs. Maybe you can carry the sled back up the hill the next few times, and it’ll be less of an issue in the future?

    (Sorry, couldn’t help it. But hey: it has an RS-232 port, and that’s just what you need! ;) )

  29. Sony just release the new P Series Vaios, its the sexiest and more streamlined of netbooks (not sure if its a netbook) ive seen. HUGE 1600×768 Widescreen display. First thing ill remove is the Win Vista it brings, everything else is perfect as it is.

  30. You might want to have a look at the HP 2510p. It has a 12″ screen with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. Unfortunately it weighs in at 2.8lb, but it has an onboard optical drive. I’ve been using one for about a year now – and I have no complaints other than the hard drive being slower than a dead tortoise (which might be expected with pretty much any ultra portable).

  31. I really enjoy my overpriced 15inch macbook pro. But if you are as hard on computers as you insinuate, you should stick with something more durable. We use Panasonic toughbooks at work, which are heavy and explosion proof but have keyboards that just seem to fall apart with a strong gust of air.

  32. I have a Toshiba satellite U305-S something or other. It’s widescreen (1280×800), about 1.8 lbs, and has a full keyboard. All of the hardware is supported on linux (well… I haven’t tried to get the builtin webcam working) and the battery life is quite good. I can definitely recommend it.

  33. I second the earlier suggestion for the new Dell Latitude. Not cheap by any means, but you really get what you pay for. I got the E6500 (the 15.4″ version), but I imagine the smaller versions are even better (but the price goes way up). You really get what you pay for with these models, though.

  34. Another mac vote here. I bought a mac book (white) a few weeks ago and am loving it to pieces. Im in the first year of 6th form college and its brilliant. Although its 5lb its not that bad. If you could afford it i suggest a mac book air. the lack of optical drive and only 1 usb, and the price, is why i wouldn’t go for one. The only quirk OS x has that i’ve found is that it wont mount ext3 natively, which is what my desktop was using. The mother board died a week after i got this, good timing :P . Found a program to mount ext2 tho. Anyway, there really good, i love it. Im sure stuff like the free fall sensor, mag safe, and polycarbonate tough shell for the white, aluminum for the new, would be useful to you.
    love the comic
    oscar

  36. Search on notebookreview.com. They have a criteria selector that will let you browse laptops based on criteria like weight. Or post in their forums and you’ll get a bunch of suggestions.

    Just a couple that I could throw out:

    Asus U2E (a bit more than 2.5 lbs, but only about 3 lbs even with a 9-cell battery)
    Asus EEE PC
    Dell Latitude E4200

  37. I had similar wants, and ended up getting an HP2133 (being phased out, HP now sells the 2140). It’s a really great laptop, tiny footprint, lightweight (ok 2.8 lbs), high-res screen, very rugged, _AND_ you can actually touch-type on it’s keyboard. Oh, and of course, you can get it with linux or freedos, and it was way under $1000.

    The only downside is the via-nano processor & via graphics chipset, which they thankfully replaced with the 2140. If I’d have known, I would have waited, but I have no plans on replacing the 2133 until it dies, it really is that good.

    I plopped my laptop down in bestbuy a few weeks ago to compare it with the mini-1000. The extra weight from the aluminum case seems worth it, the 1000 is cheap plastic, and would never ever stand up to a few years of good use.

    Differences between 2133 and 2140:
    via nano vs intel atom
    via unichrome vs intel GMA
    1280×768 vs 1024×600(SD) or 1336×768(HD)

    The HD display won’t be available until April apparently, but if you’re not buying till then, shouldn’t be a problem :) Of course by then the Dell mini-10 _may_ be a contender, since it too will have a near fullsize keyboard, but no word on how rugged it will be.

    –Kyle

  38. > Tristan says:
    > February 15, 2009 at 2:00 am
    > … We use Panasonic toughbooks at work, which are heavy and explosion proof but have > keyboards that just seem to fall apart with a strong gust of air.

    Sorry, I have to respond to Tristan. At my work we to use Panasonic toughbooks all over the factories. We call them wuss books. At any given time we have 6-12 waiting to be returned to Panasonic for repair. Its more than just the keyboards that get busted easily, so do the screen bezels, USB ports and power connectors. The latch that holds the screen down is pretty tough though.

  40. surprised no one’s mentioned this one:

    Lenovo IdeaPad U110 – I absolutely love it. Light, functional. No optical drive built-in though.

  41. To throw in another suggestion:

    Gigabyte M912
    Pro: Fairly long battery-lifetime, your pixel-specs (1280×768), lightweight, rotatable touchscreen to make it a netbook/tabletPC hybrid
    Con: touchscreen, price-tag (~650 Euro) for a netbook.

    The price convinced me to buy a Samsung NC10 with which I am deliriously happy. Can do everything but play back Matroska HD-video content. Graphics/CPU-power of the Atom seems a little to week for that :-(

  43. I’m going to add another vote for the HP Mini 2140. I’ve been debating this one for a while, and I’ll hold off for the better resolution. The last HP I had was a champ.

    The macbook air is lusty but pricey. I don’t want my travel computer to be pricey. That’s begging for trouble of all sorts.

  44. I’ll second that you should look at the x200s. I assume you looked at the x300, and discarded them as too heavy and full of useless stuff, which they are. The x200, however, is the spiritual successor to the now venerable but much loved x61 and brethren. They’re still great machines.

    Also, why isn’t openID enabled here? The newer plugins for wordpress work quite well now.

  46. Well, as long as we’re bringing up the problems with the laptop itself, I’ve been meaning to get a dig in about “paradoxical package syndrome”. Maybe you should switch to Gentoo. ;)

  48. dpi and ppi are different things; primarily, Dpi is printed, Ppi is on screen.

    black and white line art requires a higher resolution to print well than a color photo.

    the internet is 72ppi, most images wont look any better on a 200+ ppi display.

  49. As a few other posts have mentioned, you might want to look at the Dell Latitude E4200. A 12″ 1280×800 LED backlit display, 128GB solid state drive, backlit keyboard, Intel 802.11n draft card and a magnesium alloy chassis are what it features, weighing in at about 2.2lbs. It’s a bit pricey, but well worth it from the experiences I’ve had with their E & D series. I haven’t used the 12″ E4200, but I do utilize the 13″ E4300 which is still quite compact, whilst adding an integrated webcam and DVD burner to the package. Between the ULV processor, SSD, and LED display, the battery life is quite exceptional. Consider getting the larger battery, as it provides protection for the power plug, as well as even longer off-AC time. Oh, and the neoprene case is quite handy for my model. It’ll keep it a little safer however you transport it. Hope you find something that fits you.

  50. MacBook. MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook, MacBook. (Pro if you’re really graphics-y.)

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