Laptop Shopping

[Jim Herrmann]

Thanks to everyone for the excellent input on shopping for laptops.  I 
think I did alright.  Time will tell, but here's what I got.

Gateway laptop:
Intel Core Duo processor T2050 @ 1.6 GHz each w/ 2M cache
1 Gig of DDR2 RAM
160 GB SATA HD
Intel 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
4 USB ports
1 firewire port
SD card reader
generic Intel sound device
Win XP with upgrade to Vista
$729 at Best Buy

It's not a black Friday bargain, but it's not too bad.  I think it's got 
enough horse power to not need any upgrade for the life of the laptop.  
I'll need some USB out-board audio and I'll be set.  I even left Windows 
on it, in a 40 GB partition.  I can spare the room.  It gives me 
something to delete if I run out of space.

Some anecdotal praise for the dual core processor.  Just for fun, last 
night I started ripping a DVD to a mpeg4 file.  One CPU was completely 
pegged, as you would expect when encoding video.  While that was 
running, I was doing other things without any noticeable slow down, 
using the other processor.  Also, the SMP kernel is not required.  I'm 
running the stock Kubuntu kernel, and it is scheduling both processors 
like a champ.

The Intel graphics is not handling 3D very well.  I will research it 
some between now and next Wednesday.  If I can't get it, it will give 
some guru a nice project at the LUG meeting.  :-)

Thanks all,
Jim