On Sun Apr 14, 2002 at 12:59:55PM -0500, Jason Guidry wrote: > yeah, this may not be completely on-topic, but I need advice from users > who are not necessarily winXP + Intel freaks. > > So, howbaaadit? I need to replace my trusty tuxtops K6 with a sub-$2K > laptop. I'm going back and forth from a Sony FXA-49 and an iBook. > while opinions on these two are welcome, I'm interested on > opinions/experiences of any variety. Is there anything just on the > horizon? stay away from brand X? good experiences from dealers, brands? > > thanks for your wisdom.
Well, I can give you my own experience. I've got a Toshiba Satellite... it's a little on the older side (forget the model number)... only has a 10GB HDD, maximum 160MB RAM... works ok. Not bad... have it dual-booting Win98 and Mandrake 8.2... the PCMCIA ethernet and wireless cards work great. But I just picked up a 600MHz ibook (G3) the other day... comes with built-in 128MB RAM expandable to 640MB (waiting for a 512MB SO-DIMM to come in right now). Has a built in ethernet, 2 usb, firewire... comes with a cable to hook it up to an external monitor, and you can buy AV cables to hook it up to a TV (RCA style). Comes with an internal modem (no idea how well it works). I bought the Airport card and it works *awesome*... wasn't autodetected, but it was on the list and once I selected it, eth0 was for the built-in ethernet and the airport was eth1... works awesome with my SMC wireless hub. In short, the Toshiba is just sitting around not doing much right now... I may blow Mandrake and Win98 off of it and use it to play with FreeBSD or OpenBSD. The ibook is my laptop of choice... it's only 5lbs, smaller than the others, and does 1024x768 resolution. And Mandrake 8.2/ppc works *awesome* on it... couldn't ask for a better OS. I also have it dual-booting OS/X just because I want to fiddle with it a little. I have no personal opinion on the Sony, but I've heard from a few folks that they'll never touch a Sony computer again. My vote is the ibook... it's cheaper than the currently-available (new) lower-end laptops... the G3 ibook is pretty cheap (the G4 tibooks can be a little more expensive). Oh, this one also comes with a DVD-ROM, so I plan on fiddling with the DVD players too. I absolutely love this machine... =) -- MandrakeSoft Security; http://www.mandrakesecure.net/ "lynx -source http://www.freezer-burn.org/bios/vdanen.gpg | gpg --import" 1024D/FE6F2AFD 88D8 0D23 8D4B 3407 5BD7 66F9 2043 D0E5 FE6F 2AFD Current Linux kernel 2.4.18-6mdk uptime: 3 days 2 hours 41 minutes.
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