Re: [gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
Apparently, though unproven, at 01:09 on Wednesday 08 September 2010, Paul Hartman did opine thusly: > On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:58 AM, John Blinka wrote: > > Hi, all, > > > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? > > Basically all laptops are widescreen (or shortscreen ) now, your > best bet is to try to find one that is 16:10 instead of 16:9, it will > at least give you a little bit more vertical screen space. > > If money is not an option: there is a 15.X" WUXGA which is 1920x1200, > 16:10 ratio. It will probably be very difficult to find one with this > screen and the laptop will probably cost a fortune (or be old). I > think Lenovo and Asus made laptops with this resolution screen at a > sub-17inch size. Maybe Apple, too. Not old. Expensive yes. Dell offer this in the Precision range in a 15.6" screen size. Beware of the Precisions, they are great big ugly chunky square brutes that make Thinkpads look incredibly pretty. Put caterpillar tracks on 'em and you got a good simulation of a rocket-proof Army battle tank. And they are *heavy* - they're basically desktops with a few concessions to power consumption. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
Apparently, though unproven, at 14:58 on Sunday 05 September 2010, John Blinka did opine thusly: > Hi, all, > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? > > If I'm stuck with a 16x9 aspect ratio, then I'd like to get something > significantly narrower and more portable than my 1545 (14.75", 37.5 cm > wide) and with as many horizontal lines in the display as possible. > > Any suggestions? > > (And, yes, I'm open to a non-Dell solution.) I seem to have deleted the mail you sent me direct :-( It was the one where you mentioned you'd been to dell.com and couldn't find something 1200 pixels high. I see now what Dell have done - they change their model lineup periodically. My XPS M1530 seems to be replaced with the Studio 15. I have multimedia keys and speakers to the rear of the keyboard, this makes the notebook deeper by just over 1 inch and gives room for a gigantic extended battery. Screen size is determined by the height x depth so they made the pixels slightly non- square and there's room for 1200 of them. True 16:9 is more like 1920x1080 and they've done that on the Studios to suit the HDMI native aspect ratio. Makes sense for a machine that will play multimedia a lot, I suppose. That M1530 is an excellent notebox btw. Our techies can choose whatever they want within limits, I know 6 chaps that have them and none failed or gave any trouble whatsoever. Our devs hammer their notebooks :-) The Inspiron is the cheapie and student range. I didn't bother looking there. Of the Latitudes only the E6510 seems to have 1920x1080 screens - probably a side effect of the model re-arranging. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:58 AM, John Blinka wrote: > Hi, all, > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? Basically all laptops are widescreen (or shortscreen ) now, your best bet is to try to find one that is 16:10 instead of 16:9, it will at least give you a little bit more vertical screen space. If money is not an option: there is a 15.X" WUXGA which is 1920x1200, 16:10 ratio. It will probably be very difficult to find one with this screen and the laptop will probably cost a fortune (or be old). I think Lenovo and Asus made laptops with this resolution screen at a sub-17inch size. Maybe Apple, too. The most bang-for-your-buck will probably be 1920x1080, they are mostly 17" models as well (lower pixel density) but it's easier to find a 15.X" version of these than the above. Asus had a "gaming" laptop about 6 months ago which sported a 15.X" 1920x1080 screen and Core i7 processor for around USD$1500. Since 16:9 panels are the same shape as the ones TVs use, I assume that's why they are cheaper and why the industry prefers them. I care deeply about vertical pixels, but also about DPI. I really don't like using a tiny monitor, nor do I like to use a monitor with less than 100dpi. This requirement usually makes the rest of the details worth themselves out naturally. :) My laptop, which is a few years old now, has a 1400x1050 (116? dpi) and that is a very comfortable resolution for me. In order to get the same vertical pixels on a new laptop I'd have to go up to 1680x1050 (16:10) or 1920x1080 (16:9) and it would probably be at least an inch wider than my current laptop, which is 13" wide. At home on my desktop machines I have a 4:3 20" 1600x1200 (100 dpi) as well as a 16:9 23" 2040x1152 (100 dpi). The latter is essentially the same height as the former, but wider. The 1600x1200 can be rotated, often times I use it in 1200x1600 orientation if I'm mostly browsing WWW or working on documents. (The particular graphics card and/or drivers on that computer don't support acceleration in rotated mode, though, so performance suffers.) I also have in my pocket a Nokia N900 which has a 800x480 screen (5:3 aspect ratio) with 256 dpi in a roughly 3.5" screen. I haven't tried to install Gentoo on it... yet. :)
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
2010/9/5 John Blinka : > Hi, all, > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? > > If I'm stuck with a 16x9 aspect ratio, then I'd like to get something > significantly narrower and more portable than my 1545 (14.75", 37.5 cm > wide) and with as many horizontal lines in the display as possible. > > Any suggestions? > The typical recommondation I read is Thinkpad. Do a general search for linux laptops. I.e. I find: http://linuxcertified.com/linux-laptop-lctp.html Maybe look at ebay. Al
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
Am 05.09.2010 14:58, schrieb John Blinka: > Hi, all, > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? > > If I'm stuck with a 16x9 aspect ratio, then I'd like to get something > significantly narrower and more portable than my 1545 (14.75", 37.5 cm > wide) and with as many horizontal lines in the display as possible. > > Any suggestions? > > (And, yes, I'm open to a non-Dell solution.) > > Thanks for your suggestions, > > John Blinka > I couldn't find a 4:3 laptop when I tried to replace my Dell Latitude D520 which had a marvelous 1400x1050 display, either. In the end I settled for an HP ProBook 6450b with the "better" display option of 1600x900 (14"). The whole case is 33.5cm wide. All at all pretty good. Wifi drivers are not in-kernel but in portage (broadcom-sta). Everything else works out-of-box. Keyboard is also good for typing but needs a bit more pressure than the Dell. The docking station is inferior to Dell's. No SPDIF output and it lifts the laptop to quite some angle. On the plus side it has eSATA and the larger one even a built-in HDD. Performance and noise levels are also good. Hope this helps. Florian Philipp signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
[gentoo-user] OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
Hi, all, My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? If I'm stuck with a 16x9 aspect ratio, then I'd like to get something significantly narrower and more portable than my 1545 (14.75", 37.5 cm wide) and with as many horizontal lines in the display as possible. Any suggestions? (And, yes, I'm open to a non-Dell solution.) Thanks for your suggestions, John Blinka
