[Big Booger]

what would be best would be to have a 17" model that weighed the same as a 12" model.


It would be in my shopping cart. Of the PC notebooks Sony's look nice, but they don't hold up well.

If you want a performance PC notebook with some style that just really cannot be touched:
Area-51m

:P

Alienware Magnesium Alloy Chassis
Intel® Pentium® 4 @ 3.4GHz 800FSB
Hyperthreading Technology
User-Upgradeable Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce™ FX Go5700
15.4"inch WideSXGA+ 1680x1050 LCD
60GB 7200rpm HDD with 8MB Cache
Infrared Remote control
3-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader
4X DVD+RW Optical Disk Drive

Those specs entice me.


I might choose the larger 16" LCD, and the Radeon 9700 as upgrades.. That is if I had close to $4000 to put in a laptop.


If thin and light is your game:


Get the SENTIA

[/url]

[DJEB]

All you really need to know:

Of the PC notebooks Sony's look nice, but they don't hold up well.

[Big Booger]

yeah Ebay sells the Alienware-ish models. Much much cheaper and pretty much the same units without the ornamentation.

Alienware comes with a bangup good warranty but the price is hard to justify.

[emperor]

I bought a Sony FR77 a few months ago here in Japan:
it got a decent amount of power and a DVD-RW.
However, Im considering selling it / trading it in in order to get something more portable (thin.light.wifi). maybe a V505? maybe the Dothan one featured at the top of this thread?

Can anyone recommend somewhere to go about this?

Has anyone ever had problems selling a Japanese OS / Keyboard laptop outside Japan? On my little island of Ireland very few would require Japanese OS so im thinking i could just wipe it and install English..

Also, at the time the laptop cost Y200,000 but its about Y180,000 new now. What do you think is a fair price after 6 months use?

[mr. sparkle]

VGN-S90PS

13.3" WXGA Xbrite
Intel Pentium M 745 1.80 GHz
1GB
60GB HDD
MOBILITY RADEON 9700 64MB
377,790 Yen.

Dang dude, that's a LOT of power in such a small package. I must say that I'm a little jealous. I'd like to see a bigger HD though. Does it have a DVD burner? That is one feature my ol' TiBook is missing sorely.

C'MON Apple. Give us 2gHz G5 Laptops! Now, if only that Sony would run OS X....

ha ha ha ha ha ha!

A very cold day in hell when that happens!

Hoping for new G5 Ti Powerbook laptops at the Worldwide Developer's Conference coming up in the next couple of weeks. With the fastest iBook at 1.2 gHz and the fastest TiBook coming in at 1.5 gHz (both G4)--they've gotta give us a speed bump.

[mr. sparkle]

Dang dude, that's a LOT of power in such a small package. I must say that I'm a little jealous. I'd like to see a bigger HD though. Does it have a DVD burner?

Hoping for new G5 Ti Powerbook laptops at the Worldwide Developer's Conference coming up in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, it has a DVD-R/W. With a bottom-of-the-line configuration 1.5 Pentium M, Radeon 9700 64MB, 40GB HD, 256 MB RAM, DVD/CD-RW, I priced it out to 215,000 yen, just under $2000. Throw in some cheap RAM and it's not a bad deal.

Unfortunately about the hard drive, I think they're using the smaller 1.8" (or whatever the small ones are), so it's harder/impossible to upgrade yourself and has limited capacity compared to other notebooks. The TRs have the same type of HD.

I thought the G5 Powerbooks weren't likely until the end of the year?

Oh, I'm not sure when new hardware comes out. Apple keeps mum about that kind of stuff. Maybe you hear things that I don't??

Man, PCs are cheap. I may have to get one some day.
I may need to run Avid Xpress.

Apple is definitely gettin' smoked in certain areas. Unfortunately, I'm under the influence of "Steve" and been huffin' Apple gas way too long.

[gpvillamil]

Actually you can get a lot of those hi-spec Taiwanese laptops in Akihabara. For example, this is the same machine as the Voodoo PC and Falcon NW laptops. It used to be sold by Alienware as well. The difference? It's $1000 cheaper in Akiba. (Without the flashy paintjob...)

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Actually you can get a lot of those hi-spec Taiwanese laptops in Akihabara. For example, this is the same machine as the Voodoo PC and Falcon NW laptops. It used to be sold by Alienware as well. The difference? It's $1000 cheaper in Akiba. (Without the flashy paintjob...)

It looks like it weighs at least 10 kg. My GF has one like that and I tell her never to bring it anywhere as I dont want to end up carrying it.

[AlbertSiegel]

Who builds the AlienWare Laptops? I know Compal builds all the Apple and HP laptops. Arima does a really good job with the eMachines laptops and the TINY brand laptops in the UK. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think every laptop is built in Taiwan.

Arima seems to like Hitachi LCDs. It is my opinion that these are the best LCDs. Sony uses LG-Philips LCDs.. Excellent quality, but not as nice looking as Hitachi. Who does Apple use? Does Apple still get their LCDs from Samsung, or is it Sharp these days?

BTW, I am so very impressed with the battery life on the 12" aluminium Powerbook. I got over 4 hours of it browsing the WEB on WiFi. By then I decided to just turn it off as there nothing better on the internet than FG and RobPongi.... and 4 hours of that is enough!

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Who builds the AlienWare Laptops?

http://www.alienware.com I guess... But really, they are the kind of laptops. that are very generic. They mostly use off the shelf parts. have little priority hardware and are "assembled" onsite. Much like dell does with PC's [eccept of the old optiplex range which had a custom MBoard from intel etc.] The alien ware cases are probably made from an unbranded taiwanese company. Then filled with Mboard, HD's CD's etc then sold. That is why they are a little cheaper because everything is off the shelf. And you can do it yourself.

on the other hand I wouldnt like to have an apple Power book or the sony 505 have a hardware fault.

http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/PCG-X505/Images/feat3_1.gif

on a side note i am still willing to whore myself to get the 505.

[kotatsuneko]

i need to buy 2 laptops, one for me, one for the wife, obviously i`ll buy the wifes one when we get back to japan, but was wondering what firm would be good for international backup if things go wrong for mine?

am looking for something rather powerful, but not at the size of a desktop replacement..

those new sony`s look nice, first laptops i`ve seen over here with the clear screens i`ve only seen in japan previously, but with sony`s terrible build quality and series of hardware faults would never buy one.. any other firms offering those ultra clear screens?

[tokyojoe]

Which of the Akiba stores has a good quality rep for their white boxes?

[kotatsuneko]

ah, cheers Ultra! will have a look round tcr tomorrow.. tho kinda suspect that fujitsu/siemens over here may not have them on sale in europe yet, heres hoping tho ^^