Laptop for truck driving job

[Jonathan Hutchins]

I've supported IBM, Compaq, Gateway, and WinBook laptops in office 
environments over the years.  Of the four, I would recommend IBM as the best 
quality.  I know of a lot more older IBM's that are still going strong at 
five years old, while the others have been relegated to the old parts bin 
long ago.

Service for IBM laptops was always very good, but we had corporate service 
contracts.  I don't know what it would be like if you were a "retail" 
customer and didn't have a service agreement.

IBM parts are well indexed and standardized.  You can find them on eBay pretty 
easily.  The design of the laptops is functional, and they are built to be 
serviced.  Items that are known to be fallible are modularized, and don't 
require prying apart thousands of little metal tabs to replace - usually a 
few screws and a snap-in module.

That said, you do pay extra for the IBM name.  WinBooks will probably give you 
more for your money, but are not as servicable.  When components start to 
fail at three years or so, it's time to think about replacements.

I know Tom's pretty happy with the laptops he keeps getting from Dell, but I 
think they've had his computers more than he has in the last two years.  Dell 
does not play very well with Linux, I have yet to find the specs for the 
motherboard sensors on my PowerEdge server.