If you had to buy a NON-ThinkPad laptop...

[Roark]

...well, what would it be?

The only requirements are nice, thinkpad-ish keyboard, and hi res screen (SXGA+ or higher). 14in screen would be a bonus.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[AIX]

HP Compaq 6910p? Dell Latitude D630?

[msb0b]

Panasonic CF-R7 or CF-T7. Easily the strongest and lightest laptops on the market.

While I haven't had the chance to use the latest generation of Fujitsus, I have been very impressed by their S series and P series in the past.

[ajkula66]

Panasonic ToughBook. Period.

[teetee]

I too love to have one of those Panasonic Let's note series laptops.

I've been watching the price since W2(R2,Y2,T2) but they are just not giving up the $1500+ price range.

[gator]

Panasonic toughbook CF-Y7. No other choice left for 14" SXGA+.

[ajkula66]

teetee wrote:

but they are just not giving up the $1500+ price range.

Because they don't have to. They've grabbed a huge chunk of corporate customers that were ThinkPad users once...

[mattbiernat]

do toughbooks have trackpoints?

[ajkula66]

No they don't.

[Temetka]

If I can't have a thinkpad then I will have the next best thing:

Apple.

Yep.

I have a 1.67GHz PB G4 with a 1440x960 LCD and Radeon 9700pro with 128MB of VRAM. Toss in 802.11g, bluetooth 2.0, dual layer burner, 6 hour battery and Mac OS X and you have a winner. However for the crown jewel there is the backlit keyboard.

OMG. You must use this to appreciate the KB, it's pure awesome. I want lenovo to do one. Or higher an electrical engineering student to design one for me...hmmm...that just might work.

I only use thinkpads because they are the best available PC laptops (next to the MBP) and are great machines. Since I usually run UNIX or Linux on them, Windows isn't a factor for me.

Right now I am installing / updating Solaris 10 on my T42.

This post brought to you care of my PBG4.

Check the link for the awesome specs of this machine.

http://lowendmac.com/pb2/15in-hi-res-powerbook-g4.html

[Roark]

Checked the Toughbook CF-Y7 yesterday, I HATED the keyboard... Maybe I'd get used to it, but I could barely find such a microscopic spacebar...

Still opened to suggestions, gents...

[Roark]

IBM Thinkpad T41P 2373-GGU

Sigh, that's the baby I lost last weekend... :\

[lophiomys]

Toshiba Tecra S4
with 4:3 LCD and Trackpoint
http://www.toshiba.fr/flashxnet/public/ ... anguage=ge

[Temetka]

IBM Thinkpad T41P 2373-GGU

Sigh, that's the baby I lost last weekend... :\

Sorry to hear about that.

I miss my old one sorely too.

[Andrew T]

Toshiba Tecra S4
with 4:3 LCD and Trackpoint
http://www.toshiba.fr/flashxnet/public/ ... anguage=ge

Noooooo. I urge you not to go with a Toshiba. The trackpoint is cheap and annoying. After a long time of use, once you take your finger off of the trackpoint, the mouse will move. And I am not talking about a little movement, which would be understandable, I am talking about the mouse shooting to the edges of the screen once you remove your finger. And I used a Tecra A8 (have not used an S4) and all the keys on the keyboard were in the oddest of places. Like the "~" is left of the space bar and the windows key is up in the top right corner. On the right side of the space bar, where Alt, menu, and Control should be (in that order), there is Insert, Delete, and Alt. Not to mention the small tab and shift keys.

Okay, that' the end of my rant on Toshibas.

[lophiomys]

Andrew,
Many thanks for sharing your experiences. That's very helpful.
For the moment I can fortunately continue to work with my T42p's.

[Roark]

Guys,

Still after some alternatives of laptops with 4:3 screens and hi res (SXGA+ minimum)...

I am considering the HP Compaq, as I am not very fond of Dell's quality of materials and/or construction.

Any suggestion will be VERY appreciated.

[TTY]

I don't know where you're located. If you're in the U.S., you could order through Lenovo's U.S. Internet site. On their homepage, there is a link to Lenovo Outlet. They offer several new and redistributed T61 notebooks with standard screen aspect ratio and SXGA+ resolution now. Redistributed means that the computer has been returned unopened, seal intact.

[NorrisCell]

Toshiba Tecra S4
with 4:3 LCD and Trackpoint
http://www.toshiba.fr/flashxnet/public/ ... anguage=ge

Noooooo. I urge you not to go with a Toshiba. The trackpoint is cheap and annoying. After a long time of use, once you take your finger off of the trackpoint, the mouse will move. And I am not talking about a little movement, which would be understandable, I am talking about the mouse shooting to the edges of the screen once you remove your finger. And I used a Tecra A8 (have not used an S4) and all the keys on the keyboard were in the oddest of places. Like the "~" is left of the space bar and the windows key is up in the top right corner. On the right side of the space bar, where Alt, menu, and Control should be (in that order), there is Insert, Delete, and Alt. Not to mention the small tab and shift keys.

Okay, that' the end of my rant on Toshibas.

I can't speak for new Toshibas, but the slightly older ones I've owned prior to switching to IBM all had terrible cooling problems. The factory fan/thermal grease combo was awful. I had three different ones that got so hot they would shut down on me. After pulling them apart, making triple sure the fan was clear of dust, and reapplying new thermal paste, they would still run extremely hot (>75 degrees Celcius) from time to time.

I liked the machines, but the heat was a pain.

We recently bought my wife a Dell and so far it has been impressive. The true build quality has yet to be seen, but the feel and usability have been great so far. A lot of people dislike Dells because of their bargain basement entry level units, but the other models have always served my friends well

[mini_g]

I can't speak for new Toshibas...

I know that there isn't much else to add to the discussion, but I've heard enough horror stories about the quality of the current Toshiba's to make me get even a Compaq (I consider them to be the lowest of the low, no offence meant though).

I really like the Dell Vostro 1510, but the quality is slightly sub-par in comparison to Thinkpads. However, synaptic pad is excellent. The keyboard is kinda interesting to work with, but is easy to type on for long periods of time without issues.

[Andrew T]

I also have a beef with HP. They are a pain in the rear-end to fix and HP tech support is an equal pain in the butt. But an even bigger annoyance is just the design. The design is just horrible IMO. The trackpad is horrid. It gets very hot and the material that coats it is very uncomfortable and awkward. Also, the ports are all over the laptop, as opposed to ThinkPads where for the most part all of the ports are on one side. I also hate the feel of the keyboards.

[KristianJ]

I also have a beef with HP. They are a pain in the rear-end to fix and HP tech support is an equal pain in the butt. But an even bigger annoyance is just the design. The design is just horrible IMO. The trackpad is horrid. It gets very hot and the material that coats it is very uncomfortable and awkward. Also, the ports are all over the laptop, as opposed to ThinkPads where for the most part all of the ports are on one side. I also hate the feel of the keyboards.

I have to almost totally disagree. I'm typing this post on a nw8240 (see specs in sig) and IMHO the touchpad is very good (even with its rubberised buttons), the finish is smooth and its keyboard is very very close in touch to that on my T42p. The port layout is slightly awkward, yes, but HP had to put that extra USB port somewhere. I've changed the hard drive and upgraded the RAM and the steps haven't been too difficult to follow. It's fast, the LCD is excellent with good viewing angles, and all in all it is IMO a great laptop that compares very well with the Z60m.

Maybe newer HPs are a bit less complimentary, but this one is very good. But to each his own, of course

[pianowizard]

The only requirements are nice, thinkpad-ish keyboard, and hi res screen (SXGA+ or higher). 14in screen would be a bonus.

The laptop resolutions fitting your requirement are:

SXGA+ (obviously!)
WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
UXGA (1600x1200)
WUXGA (1920x1200)
QXGA (2048x1536)

Among these, only SXGA+ and UXGA have been made for 14.1" screens. And the only 14.1" UXGA laptops that I know of were all P-III or P-4 Dell laptops from around 2001, namely the Latitude c610 and the Inspirons 4100 and 4150. They are old and poorly built, so you don't want those. But you can put one of those screens into a 14.1" T42 Thinkpad.

WXGA+ (1440x900) is currently the highest widescreen resolution for 14.1", and it has 12% fewer pixels than SXGA+. Sony recently released a 13.3" Z-series laptop with 1600x900 (WWXGA+?), but even that has 2% fewer pixels than SXGA+.

I am considering the HP Compaq, as I am not very fond of Dell's quality of materials and/or construction.

Have you used a Dell business-line laptop made in the last two years? I totally agree that most pre-2006 Dell laptops (both consumer and business lines) were terrible, but since the D620 generation, the Latitude and Vostro lines have had excellent build quality. HP's business line is also very good. In terms of build quality, my HP nc2400 is as good as the best Thinkpads I've owned.