Anythnig to watch out for on a laptop?

[Andreas Mueller]

Ow Mun Heng wrote:
> > Is there anything to stay away from that has major issues with FC or
> > Linux in general?
>
> Modems. 56K that is.. Unless you have broadband, so that's a non-issue.

I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 (Centrino, 1.4 GHz). With this laptop even 
the built-in modem works, though it is a winmodem.

> > Issues with built in WiFi?
>
> Working. Ndiswrapper.

Or with Linuxant's DriverLoader. When I tried ndiswrapper it has frozen my 
keyboard, but things might have changed. There is also work in progress for a 
free Centrion WiFi driver (written by Intel): http://ipw2100.sf.net

> > Are Centrino's any good? It seems like they have taken a step
> > backwards and lowered the processor speed..
>
> In some cases, the extra cache makes thing faster. eg: During video
> encoding, I compare (not apple to apple) on a D600 1.4G 512Ram vs
> 2.4G P4 512M Ram (desktop). FPS using Helix Producer gets me like
> 11-12 FPS vs 10-11 FPS  on the desktop

It is not only the cache, Intel has created a completly new design to reduce 
power consumption.

> So.. you be the judge.
>
> Oh.. and Battery life if it's anything to you, the D600's Batt life
> sucks. 2:30 hours on a 6 cell.

Mine has more than 5 hours battery life :-)

Regards,
Andreas