{"id":157,"date":"2007-04-21T16:23:24","date_gmt":"2007-04-21T23:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=157"},"modified":"2007-04-21T16:23:24","modified_gmt":"2007-04-21T23:23:24","slug":"this-laptops-gotta-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"This laptop’s gotta go"},"content":{"rendered":"

I swapped laptops with a friend because my old Dell was dying, and she was more of a Mac person. The new hardware works fine…but not for me. It’s heavy as hell (7.5 pounds), eats up battery life like nobody’s business, and runs megahot because it’s a P4. I mean, it can handle WoW <\/em>wonderfully because it’s really a P4. But I don’t want the temptation of playing WoW <\/em>on the road, really, and the pains in my back from the road trip tell me that this won’t work for me long-term.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s got a problem that I’m guessing is not unique: I keep hitting the trackpad with my thumb while I type, which makes the cursor jump around and my resulting document become almost unintelligible. I cannot for the life of me find a way to turn that off, and it’s ruining my entire experience with this thing.<\/p>\n

I spotted the HP tx1110us<\/a> at CompUSA and I really liked it. It’s 12.1″, it’s got a twisty screen, but most crucially, it’s got a recessed trackpad that can be turned off with a little toggle switch right above it. Ergonomically, it’s exactly what I want. However, it comes preloaded with Vista and apparently the battery life isn’t too good. (I am spoiled by my old Dell CPx<\/a>, which had two battery slots and would regularly run for around 5 hours without complaint.)<\/p>\n

I don’t want a gaming laptop. I want a work laptop, something I can fly with, get the story with, and come back with. I want to run Word or OpenOffice and a web browser, and for fun I’ll gladly install Infocom games and MAME and be more than happy. I need to run some command-line apps to get screenshots of Xbox 360 games on my own. I do not want a mini home theater or a portable gaming rig. Basically I want something hyper-efficient — a reporter’s notebook in the form of a notebook computer.<\/p>\n

Suggestions, internet? My priorities are:<\/p>\n