Wait a minute..... the X60 doesn't have an optical drive?! Which means that the compartment that slides open to place cds/dvds/etc. into doesn't exist, and only exists if you have a dock?! That's a big deal cause I use my laptop for lots of personal use i.e. dvd watching, cd/dvd burning, etc. It's pretty inconvenient that you can only do those things if you have a dock connected to it. That might make this decision slightly easier, I don't plan to be carrying a dock around with me anytime soon.... in the meantime though I'm probably gonna be smart and wait to buy in the early summer. Any idea what type of macbooks or anything else will be available then?
No, the X60s does not have an optical drive. If this is a deal-breaker for you, then you do not want to get this computer. I will, however, mention, that the docking station for the X60s is a "base" that locks onto the bottom of the X60s. In this way, it is possible to attach the docking station as if it were part of the computer (it will not come off until you unlock it). Go look at the photo gallery of the X series on the Lenovo site; there is a good picture of the X60s and its dock:
But if you use the optical drive away from home more than once per week, you will probably want to have a computer that has an optical drive built in. For me, that's not all that important. I use my optical drive a lot, but only ever at home. I rip my music and dvds at home and I back-up data at home. When I go away and need media to keep me entertained, I load whatever I need before I go -- audio books or video (which I have archived on DVDRs as MP3s or AVIs); music, I have loaded perminantly. I feel that this is the best solution for me because then I don't have to carry around physical media with me anywhere. I'm also not a gamer, so this isn't an issue either.
This arguement for and against is centering around the hardware and specs and I think this going about the decision in the wrong way. You need to decide on the platform you want to use. If you want to go Mac then get a MacBook. If you have to run windows, you can. If you prefer Windows then get the Thinkpad.
i went to law school and can say that the possibility of crashes and file loss and destruction is so deeply just not an option that it alone is the factor to use in getting a macbook instead of the thinkpad.
i had a friend who had a thinkpad and sure it was light, but it bit the dust and rebuilding your legal career in lawschool is just not feasible in any ordinary way. the apple is just going to be more efficient, effective and effortless... which is good because lawschool is hard enough anyway.
besides, many professionals use mac's in their law offices. you can search out a mac community of lawyers pretty easily with google to get perspectives on it. i'd go macbook 10 times out of 10.
(i'll also say that during lawschool my now fiancee got an ibook and i still had a toshiba laptop and the day to day differences were pretty impressive.
If you're asking people on a mac forum whether or not you should get a macbook or a stinkpad, it seems to me like your decision is already made. I would tend to support it. The MacBook is really nice, although it's extremely unlikely that a new one will pop up after MWSF since they were just refreshed a couple of weeks ago.
Beyond that, I would stay away from ultra-portables, period. For two extra pounds you get more speed and much more built-in features. If you're looking for something really small that you can tote around to take notes on, etc, a full-featured PC is not really what you want for that. There are scores of cheap devices that have hit the market recently that are meant for this kind of thing. Many of them are targeted at school-children, but they run linux and are extremely competent tools nonetheless.
with the new DVD density of 4 layer R and 2 layer W... that is a lot of flash. For mobile, agree with you... but for stationary hardware, even some of mobile stuff (like video recording), optical still beat the flash hands down...with 20 cents to a dollar a piece of optical disc, it hard to beat (relatively safe too, optical are not easily got "accidentally erased"... with all the airport beef up x-ray, e-beam, flash got a lot more to worry about). -- my 1.74 cents
with the new DVD density of 4 layer R and 2 layer W... that is a lot of flash. For mobile, agree with you... but for stationary hardware, even some of mobile stuff (like video recording), optical still beat the flash hands down...with 20 cents to a dollar a piece of optical disc, it hard to beat
Yup, at the moment, price is the big problem. Capacity probably not so much if they can already get 32GB drives - the price will be holding back development. The 4 layer Blu-Ray is 100GB:
At the moment, a Blu-Ray burner drive will cost you about £400-500. Given that an 8GB flash card is about £100, a 32GB may be £400, though I know it doesn't scale proportionally.
Given the speed of development of optical technology, I think it's safe for a while yet but I don't think it will ever become viable as a hard drive replacement because the read/write is too unreliable and they produce too much noise.
Flash is probably only destined to rival hard drives and it will operate alongside optical storage. Other companies are stepping up their flash development too:
(relatively safe too, optical are not easily got "accidentally erased"... with all the airport beef up x-ray, e-beam, flash got a lot more to worry about). -- my 1.74 cents
You would normally remove them before passing them through customs but they should be ok:
"Taking Cards Through Airport X-Ray Machines and Metal Detectors: You can put full or empty flash cards in your checked baggage or in your carry-ons with little risk of damage from airport scanners. The International Imaging Industry Association conducted tests last year with security devices used in U.S. airports and found that no damage to the cards resulted with normal travel frequency. As an added precaution, SanDisk recommends that you take the card out of your camera before passing through security devices."
agree with most of your assessment. As for x-ray and e-beam...I assume you have to go way below 130 nm in order to get the high density or capacity match to the optical. If you need to take your cards out from the camera now, what going to happen when it goes to 45 nm? As for the price of burner, I am sure the optical RAM type could be pre-burned...(you wouldn't want someone burn their own on 4/2 layers, specifically high density format... not at current platform of burner specification)..Look at ITRS roadmap and voltage for the flash would tell the story...
I guess I should stop now, before jdphc8 kick me out...peace..(just my silly 1.7 cents)
I went through grad school with an IBM Thinkpad X31. Took it with me back and forth to school for two years, including writing my thesis every day for a full year. If you're worried about viruses, turn off wireless or get a firewall program. I had my wireless on and no firewall and *never* got a virus on that machine, so your mileage will vary.
I love my new C2D iMac, but that Thinkpad served me for three solid years before the fans started to go on it. My recommendation would be to get the Macbook & install Windows on it! (I can't stand OSX as anything more than a media player.)
That is quite possibly the worst reccomendation I ever heard anywhere on the internet, in the real world, at any time at all.
Why? I really don't want to turn this into a flame war, but the reason I bought an iMac was for the hardware - an all-in-one solution that's quiet and has a good warranty. I haven't found anything about OSX that's "better" than XP, and I certainly wouldn't purchase OSX. In the last month (since I bought the machine), OSX has crashed twice: once loading Front Row, once trying to run Safari after bootup. I honestly can't remember the last time that XP locked up on me. That, and the mousing algorithym in OSX drives me absolutely nuts. OSX is pretty and it works okay, but it's really not impressive to a switcher such as myself. Make no mistake, though: the hardware is wonderful. This is why I "recomended" a Macbook and XP to the OP. Sorry to hear that you disagree, but this is just my opinion and is as valid as anybody else's.
I say it's a horrid recommendation because you based your suggestion on the fact that you don't like OS X for much more then a Media player.
Ah, I see. It's a bad recommendation because you disagree with my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slewis
A Macbook would work only because of the actual Software that it runs, otherwise why buy both a Macbook and a copy of Windows just so you can run a Beta that will soon expire after Leopard comes out so you'll have to fork out an additional $129 to upgrade to that instead, and I doubt it will be very pretty if XP is already on the machine. Any old Dell would be fine if all you plan to run is Windows.
Your argument makes no sense. As I said, I wanted an iMac, for instance, because it has a nonexistent footprint (aside from the monitor), it's quiet, and it's fast. Could I get a Dell that is the same size as an iMac? No. Therefore, any old Dell would not be fine if all I wanted to do is run Windows.
I'm also not sure what your argument is regarding Beta software or buying an additional copy of XP. XP has been out for five years now, and finding a boxed copy (used copies are legal in some countries, by the way) is very easy. Besides, I'm not planning on upgrading to Leopard as I'm running XP when I'm not watching a movie (might as well use the remote) - why do I need to pay an additional $129 to upgrade?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slewis
I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble with Mac OS X however, my Macbook has been running splendidly while my PC needs 4 hours a week of Maintenance if you don't count the 8 hour long Virus Scans...
FUD. The last virus scan I ran on my Thinkpad took about ten minutes. Ten minutes every three months is perfectly acceptable. In five years of running XP, not one virus. I'm also not sure what you mean by "4 hours a week of maintenance." Care to explain what you need to do for four hours a week?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slewis
Then you still have to do a variety of things to keep it fine tuned, Defragging it, eliminating DLL Hell through a nice long Reinstall, etc.
FUD. I'm teaching English in South Korea at the moment, but back home I've got an Athlon 64 box. The hard drive is partitioned into two: the first a tiny partition for just Windows, the second for everything else. Reinstalling Windows consists of 1) Putting the Windows CD in the drive, 2) Formatting the first partition, and 3) Reinstalling Windows onto the first partition. Reinstall time is a little less than an hour, not counting reinstall of apps - which you'd have to do if you reinstalled OSX too.
This elitist attitude has to stop, and I don't mean just yours. Now that more people than ever are switching over to Apple, there are going to be more and more people like me who purchase Apple for the hardware and not the software, people who have been using Windows for the past twenty-odd years (since Windows 1.0). There's nothing wrong with Windows, despite what the evangelists say. The last time I dealt with DLL conflicts was with Windows 3.11, which was what, fifteen years ago?
Apple has a good thing with the switch to Intel and the superior hardware. It runs amazingly well with XP, which means that the mythical tie between Apple software and hardware is either 1) overblown, or 2) due to the superior hardware in the first place. As I said, there's really nothing wrong with OSX, but there's nothing astoundingly great about it either. Windows is comfortable and familiar - so what if I run it on an Apple machine that I love rather than a Dell machine that I'd hate?
This is a hardware discussion, so my advice stands: get the Macbook. We agree on that, right? You think that the OP should leave OSX on; I think that he should put Windows on. Can we agree to disagree?
Why? I haven't found anything about OSX that's "better" than XP, and I certainly wouldn't purchase OSX.
Fair enough, but there a lot about OS X that is better than XP. For the record, your personal experience with stability, if it's actually true, seems to contradict the general consensus. I'll list a few entirely quantitative reasons why OS X is better.
1. Much tighter multi-tasking and pre-emption: OS X has much lower interrupt latencies than XP has, and also has a more intelligent context switcher. This means it can run a lot of processes simultaneously without as much risk of leaking memory or slowing down the UI.
2. More advanced graphics layer: Windows doesn't leverage the GPU. Windows also takes a much longer time to process a document for printing.
3. More advanced display layer: It has true alpha transparency and a zillion other features that don't exist in XP. A few of these are supposed to show up in Vista.
4. It can run a unix shell: Enough said.
5. It comes with a lot of functionality that Windows simply doesn't have: If you want to image a disk, set up an FTP server, set up a webserver, etc, it is very easy to do this in OS X. In Windows, you usually have to buy and install extra software to do these kinds of things.
The bottom line is that is OS X weren't heads and shoulders beyond XP, Microsoft wouldn't be trying so hard to copy it tit-for-tat, into Vista. If you look at Vista progress it's surprising to see just how big of a pedestal MS seems to put OS X on.
It's a bad recommendation because the OP said he was tired of dealing with PC issues. So to advise him to run only Windows makes no sense.
What kind of "PC issues" would he have with Apple hardware and Windows XP? Toshiba consumer build quality is terrible over the long haul; I'm sure that his problems stem more from Toshiba than from XP.
Comments
Wait a minute..... the X60 doesn't have an optical drive?! Which means that the compartment that slides open to place cds/dvds/etc. into doesn't exist, and only exists if you have a dock?! That's a big deal cause I use my laptop for lots of personal use i.e. dvd watching, cd/dvd burning, etc. It's pretty inconvenient that you can only do those things if you have a dock connected to it. That might make this decision slightly easier, I don't plan to be carrying a dock around with me anytime soon.... in the meantime though I'm probably gonna be smart and wait to buy in the early summer. Any idea what type of macbooks or anything else will be available then?
No, the X60s does not have an optical drive. If this is a deal-breaker for you, then you do not want to get this computer. I will, however, mention, that the docking station for the X60s is a "base" that locks onto the bottom of the X60s. In this way, it is possible to attach the docking station as if it were part of the computer (it will not come off until you unlock it). Go look at the photo gallery of the X series on the Lenovo site; there is a good picture of the X60s and its dock:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...DAD8E72CF6FD61
But if you use the optical drive away from home more than once per week, you will probably want to have a computer that has an optical drive built in. For me, that's not all that important. I use my optical drive a lot, but only ever at home. I rip my music and dvds at home and I back-up data at home. When I go away and need media to keep me entertained, I load whatever I need before I go -- audio books or video (which I have archived on DVDRs as MP3s or AVIs); music, I have loaded perminantly. I feel that this is the best solution for me because then I don't have to carry around physical media with me anywhere. I'm also not a gamer, so this isn't an issue either.
i had a friend who had a thinkpad and sure it was light, but it bit the dust and rebuilding your legal career in lawschool is just not feasible in any ordinary way. the apple is just going to be more efficient, effective and effortless... which is good because lawschool is hard enough anyway.
besides, many professionals use mac's in their law offices. you can search out a mac community of lawyers pretty easily with google to get perspectives on it. i'd go macbook 10 times out of 10.
(i'll also say that during lawschool my now fiancee got an ibook and i still had a toshiba laptop and the day to day differences were pretty impressive.
Beyond that, I would stay away from ultra-portables, period. For two extra pounds you get more speed and much more built-in features. If you're looking for something really small that you can tote around to take notes on, etc, a full-featured PC is not really what you want for that. There are scores of cheap devices that have hit the market recently that are meant for this kind of thing. Many of them are targeted at school-children, but they run linux and are extremely competent tools nonetheless.
with the new DVD density of 4 layer R and 2 layer W... that is a lot of flash. For mobile, agree with you... but for stationary hardware, even some of mobile stuff (like video recording), optical still beat the flash hands down...with 20 cents to a dollar a piece of optical disc, it hard to beat (relatively safe too, optical are not easily got "accidentally erased"... with all the airport beef up x-ray, e-beam, flash got a lot more to worry about). -- my 1.74 cents
with the new DVD density of 4 layer R and 2 layer W... that is a lot of flash. For mobile, agree with you... but for stationary hardware, even some of mobile stuff (like video recording), optical still beat the flash hands down...with 20 cents to a dollar a piece of optical disc, it hard to beat
Yup, at the moment, price is the big problem. Capacity probably not so much if they can already get 32GB drives - the price will be holding back development. The 4 layer Blu-Ray is 100GB:
http://techfilter.net/index.php?a=203
At the moment, a Blu-Ray burner drive will cost you about £400-500. Given that an 8GB flash card is about £100, a 32GB may be £400, though I know it doesn't scale proportionally.
Given the speed of development of optical technology, I think it's safe for a while yet but I don't think it will ever become viable as a hard drive replacement because the read/write is too unreliable and they produce too much noise.
Flash is probably only destined to rival hard drives and it will operate alongside optical storage. Other companies are stepping up their flash development too:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09...k_flash_drive/
It's still going to have a tough time now that this perpendicular recording is coming in:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09...h_density_hdd/
(relatively safe too, optical are not easily got "accidentally erased"... with all the airport beef up x-ray, e-beam, flash got a lot more to worry about). -- my 1.74 cents
You would normally remove them before passing them through customs but they should be ok:
"Taking Cards Through Airport X-Ray Machines and Metal Detectors: You can put full or empty flash cards in your checked baggage or in your carry-ons with little risk of damage from airport scanners. The International Imaging Industry Association conducted tests last year with security devices used in U.S. airports and found that no damage to the cards resulted with normal travel frequency. As an added precaution, SanDisk recommends that you take the card out of your camera before passing through security devices."
http://www.picturecorrect.com/articles/memorycards.htm
agree with most of your assessment. As for x-ray and e-beam...I assume you have to go way below 130 nm in order to get the high density or capacity match to the optical. If you need to take your cards out from the camera now, what going to happen when it goes to 45 nm? As for the price of burner, I am sure the optical RAM type could be pre-burned...(you wouldn't want someone burn their own on 4/2 layers, specifically high density format... not at current platform of burner specification)..Look at ITRS roadmap and voltage for the flash would tell the story...
I guess I should stop now, before jdphc8 kick me out...peace..(just my silly 1.7 cents)
I love my new C2D iMac, but that Thinkpad served me for three solid years before the fans started to go on it. My recommendation would be to get the Macbook & install Windows on it! (I can't stand OSX as anything more than a media player.)
My recommendation would be to get the Macbook & install Windows on it! (I can't stand OSX as anything more than a media player.)
"Running MS Windows on a MacBook is like letting a retarded kid drive a Ferrari."
"Running MS Windows on a MacBook is like letting a retarded kid drive a Ferrari."
It goes fast but crashes a lot.
That is quite possibly the worst reccomendation I ever heard anywhere on the internet, in the real world, at any time at all.
Why? I really don't want to turn this into a flame war, but the reason I bought an iMac was for the hardware - an all-in-one solution that's quiet and has a good warranty. I haven't found anything about OSX that's "better" than XP, and I certainly wouldn't purchase OSX. In the last month (since I bought the machine), OSX has crashed twice: once loading Front Row, once trying to run Safari after bootup. I honestly can't remember the last time that XP locked up on me. That, and the mousing algorithym in OSX drives me absolutely nuts. OSX is pretty and it works okay, but it's really not impressive to a switcher such as myself. Make no mistake, though: the hardware is wonderful. This is why I "recomended" a Macbook and XP to the OP. Sorry to hear that you disagree, but this is just my opinion and is as valid as anybody else's.
I say it's a horrid recommendation because you based your suggestion on the fact that you don't like OS X for much more then a Media player.
Ah, I see. It's a bad recommendation because you disagree with my opinion.
A Macbook would work only because of the actual Software that it runs, otherwise why buy both a Macbook and a copy of Windows just so you can run a Beta that will soon expire after Leopard comes out so you'll have to fork out an additional $129 to upgrade to that instead, and I doubt it will be very pretty if XP is already on the machine. Any old Dell would be fine if all you plan to run is Windows.
Your argument makes no sense. As I said, I wanted an iMac, for instance, because it has a nonexistent footprint (aside from the monitor), it's quiet, and it's fast. Could I get a Dell that is the same size as an iMac? No. Therefore, any old Dell would not be fine if all I wanted to do is run Windows.
I'm also not sure what your argument is regarding Beta software or buying an additional copy of XP. XP has been out for five years now, and finding a boxed copy (used copies are legal in some countries, by the way) is very easy. Besides, I'm not planning on upgrading to Leopard as I'm running XP when I'm not watching a movie (might as well use the remote) - why do I need to pay an additional $129 to upgrade?
I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble with Mac OS X however, my Macbook has been running splendidly while my PC needs 4 hours a week of Maintenance if you don't count the 8 hour long Virus Scans...
FUD. The last virus scan I ran on my Thinkpad took about ten minutes. Ten minutes every three months is perfectly acceptable. In five years of running XP, not one virus. I'm also not sure what you mean by "4 hours a week of maintenance." Care to explain what you need to do for four hours a week?
Then you still have to do a variety of things to keep it fine tuned, Defragging it, eliminating DLL Hell through a nice long Reinstall, etc.
FUD. I'm teaching English in South Korea at the moment, but back home I've got an Athlon 64 box. The hard drive is partitioned into two: the first a tiny partition for just Windows, the second for everything else. Reinstalling Windows consists of 1) Putting the Windows CD in the drive, 2) Formatting the first partition, and 3) Reinstalling Windows onto the first partition. Reinstall time is a little less than an hour, not counting reinstall of apps - which you'd have to do if you reinstalled OSX too.
This elitist attitude has to stop, and I don't mean just yours. Now that more people than ever are switching over to Apple, there are going to be more and more people like me who purchase Apple for the hardware and not the software, people who have been using Windows for the past twenty-odd years (since Windows 1.0). There's nothing wrong with Windows, despite what the evangelists say. The last time I dealt with DLL conflicts was with Windows 3.11, which was what, fifteen years ago?
Apple has a good thing with the switch to Intel and the superior hardware. It runs amazingly well with XP, which means that the mythical tie between Apple software and hardware is either 1) overblown, or 2) due to the superior hardware in the first place. As I said, there's really nothing wrong with OSX, but there's nothing astoundingly great about it either. Windows is comfortable and familiar - so what if I run it on an Apple machine that I love rather than a Dell machine that I'd hate?
This is a hardware discussion, so my advice stands: get the Macbook. We agree on that, right? You think that the OP should leave OSX on; I think that he should put Windows on. Can we agree to disagree?
Why? I haven't found anything about OSX that's "better" than XP, and I certainly wouldn't purchase OSX.
Fair enough, but there a lot about OS X that is better than XP. For the record, your personal experience with stability, if it's actually true, seems to contradict the general consensus. I'll list a few entirely quantitative reasons why OS X is better.
1. Much tighter multi-tasking and pre-emption: OS X has much lower interrupt latencies than XP has, and also has a more intelligent context switcher. This means it can run a lot of processes simultaneously without as much risk of leaking memory or slowing down the UI.
2. More advanced graphics layer: Windows doesn't leverage the GPU. Windows also takes a much longer time to process a document for printing.
3. More advanced display layer: It has true alpha transparency and a zillion other features that don't exist in XP. A few of these are supposed to show up in Vista.
4. It can run a unix shell: Enough said.
5. It comes with a lot of functionality that Windows simply doesn't have: If you want to image a disk, set up an FTP server, set up a webserver, etc, it is very easy to do this in OS X. In Windows, you usually have to buy and install extra software to do these kinds of things.
The bottom line is that is OS X weren't heads and shoulders beyond XP, Microsoft wouldn't be trying so hard to copy it tit-for-tat, into Vista. If you look at Vista progress it's surprising to see just how big of a pedestal MS seems to put OS X on.
It's a bad recommendation because the OP said he was tired of dealing with PC issues. So to advise him to run only Windows makes no sense.
What kind of "PC issues" would he have with Apple hardware and Windows XP? Toshiba consumer build quality is terrible over the long haul; I'm sure that his problems stem more from Toshiba than from XP.