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March 2, 2005
Dell, The Harrison Bergeron of Corporate Computing
I mentioned I'm replacing my Powerbook with a Dell - the "corporate standard." There are three options available, the X300 - an executive sub-notebook, good for email and powerpoint, but not much else, the D610 - a light reasonable performer with a small (14") screen, and the D810 - a "desktop replacement."
I've concluded that Dell is the Harrison Bergeron of corporate computing. They trade stand-out engineering and performance in the name of "compatibility."
The HP Compaq nc8200 looks like a nice notebook - similar spec to the D810 and nearly a pound lighter - but it's not "the standard" and I've already played my "break the rules" card.
Bloody hell.
Posted by dberger at March 2, 2005 9:01 AM
Comments
Whoops - posted on the wrong post... it belongs here.
I'm going through something similar right now - although they don't issue break the rules cards around here. I've decided on a laptop at work, and there is exactly one choice.
http://tinyurl.com/47bfl
The IBM T42 Thinkpad. 5.3 lbs, 15" monitor, crappy 32MB Radeon 7500 video chip. But it does come with a fingerprint reader (!?)
Posted by: Cosmo at March 2, 2005 9:51 AM
I'd actually be happy with that model - 'course I'm not in the gaming industry ;) Sure, it'd be nice to be able to play HL2 on my notebook, but I'm more interested in actually being able to carry it around without developing a permanent hunch, and having a screen large enough to get more than two postage-stamp sized windows on. The drive on that machine is a bit undersized (I have a bigger drive in my jukebox at this point...) and it's not the fastest notebook in the world, but I've had pretty good luck with Thinkpads in the past.
Posted by: Dan Berger at March 2, 2005 1:19 PM
I've used the T40 for the last 1.5 years. At first, it was great. It's light, big screen, good keyboard, and sufficiently fast for office work. XFree on Cygwin is a dog, but I can't imagine any platform where it isn't.
I'm currently on motherboard #3 (bad wireless and later bad something-that-made-cmos-crap), a new disk (which doesn't have all the screws anymore), and countless reinstalls. I finally have IT sufficiently tired of me that I get to pick my own laptop the next time this one fails.
I don't expect the thinkpads to get any better with the acquisition.
The T42s with the thumbprint reader is actually quite cool. They are hard to fake with a gummy bear and have nice integration with WinXP. It adds good security to the third greatest threat to corporate security (after email and general user stupidity visiting web sites and starting things they shouldn't): lost laptops. Everything on the disk can stay encrypted and require your fingerprint to open up. If you lose your laptop, the OS can be reinstalled (you still lose the laptop) but at least the data is wiped.
-Steve
Posted by: Steve Shah at March 9, 2005 10:33 PM