So at the Clinic yesterday a fine fellow brought in a brand new Zareason laptop. Very impressive machine. Comes with Ubuntu (among other options) pre-installed, which it boots in 15 seconds. My appetite whetted, I checked their website and they offer what I want, except that I really must have a docking station, and they offer none. A phone call today confirmed that there will never be a docking station for any of their computers. Crossed Zareason off my list. But I'm still shopping.
Why do I want a docking station? Because I have three USB 2.0 devices and one USB 3.0 device that I want attached at all times when at home, plus an ethernet cable. The USB and ethernet ports on every laptop I have ever seen are on the sides, meaning I would have five cables strung down the sides of the computer interfering with the papers I have on the left side and the mouse on the right. This is not acceptable. There exist universal docking stations, but they connect via a USB 3.0 cable, so I still have one cable down the side of the computer, plus they do not power the computer. I am spoiled by the mini-dock that I use with my Thinkpad T61. And if I buy a new Thinkpad I can get a similar docking station for it. My first question here is: Are there other laptop manufacturers out there who offer a real docking station other than Lenovo? My second question is: Are there dealers in Portland who sell high end laptops, e.g., with blue-ray burners, 512 GB SSD drives, Intel i7 CPUs, and stuff that will probably cost me ~$2000 or more? I bought my Thinkpad from a company downtown close to PSU, on Clay or Jefferson west of the freeway, but they no longer sell Thinpads. Are there any real Thinkpad dealers in town, i.e., not the big box stores? _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
