Re: Laptop for graphics, writing and fun

["Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 7:47 PM, Pinkham, Jim <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com> wrote:
> Actually, despite yesterday's rather blanket dismissal of four
> generations and seemingly implicitly all models of HP laptops for the
> past year by another poster, HP is going to offer some very credible
> options that adddress some of the things you and Kevin have mentioned,
> Ed.
>
> * HP, I believe, though I haven't verified in awhile, continues to offer
> configure-to-order options.

I was quite surprised by that, and trawled the HP India website (where
I'd do my customization, naturally). Couldn't find any way to
customize a single one of their laptops. Then I went to the US
website, and found that it was possible to customize some models. So
while you're right about the feature, unfortunately it's one I can't
use :-(

> * HP will stack up very competitively against Dell at most price points,
> and, though certain sales can skew things week to week, will be right
> there with bang for your buck, too.

Mmm... I got a little feedback from a couple of friends who bought
HP/Compaqs in India, and they said the same. Worth considering, I
think.

> * Interesting on the ThinkPads -- do they have the 3D accelerometers or
> just the 2D?

According to this March 2007 post
(http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=71) it seems it's 2D, and
likely to stay that way till SSDs obviate the need for APS and HDD
head parking...


> warranty flavors. HP is one of the manufacturers with an express
> exchange program that will overnight a replacement if you go that route.

You guys get some of the most incredible offers! :-) (Color me green
with envy) :-)

> Sounds like if you do your homework and know what you're after HP, Sony,
> Toshiba, Lenovo, and Dell might each offer credible solutions.
> Personally, I'd go with one of the first three, in that order. YMMV.

You have a valid point, except that I will no longer touch Sony
equipment with a barge pole (as far as paying my hard-earned money for
it goes). After that root-kit-on-audio-CD debacle... I don't in the
least trust Sony not to have a hypervisor-based rootkit on laptops
they sell; and the rootkit would send out info to monitoring servers
to say what's going on on the machine. That's my personal view, and
not even an allegation - but in my opinion, they have proved
themselves money-grubbing, privacy-invading, unscrupulous invaders of
your PC ... from audio disks! I shudder to think of the possibilities
that open up when they have the whole laptop's hardware/firmware as
playing grounds for their snoop department.
One could argue that there's no way to prove that other hardware
manufacturers aren't doing that already - but Sony has a precedent!
:-)

> But that's my two cents -- and the last I'll invest in the subject for
> today.

I raised it another two cents ;-P

Cheers,
Ed.
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