A piece in today’s NY Times reminded me not only of me when I travel, but also something I’ve been considering for some time – namely that battery life is beginning to supplant whiz bang features when I evaluate new devices or hardware.
It wasn’t always thus. There was a time several years ago – this was pre-wifi, pre-MP3, mind you – when all I was concerned about was getting the biggest, fastest, most feature-rich device. Then I began to travel. A lot. And my primary concern became not how infintesimally faster my processor would run Word, but how long my machine would run without the power lifeline.
Just a few weeks ago, I was in Denver and worked out of the Starbucks on 16th and Blake for a day. My primary concern? Keeping my iPod, Nokia, and Thinkpad all juiced up. Fortunately, this Starbucks had readily available outlets.
So it is that as I begin consider what a replacement for my Thinkpad X23 might look like, power is a major consideration for me. Flitting from outlet to outlet at coffee shops, airports and offices like some demented hummingbird gets old, you know?
Josh Hallett says:
January 6, 2005 at 10:28 am
Of course I would say Go Mac! for your new machine. I am teetering between a 12" iBook or a 15" Powerbook.
On the PC side, I have always loved the X series, but to save money I have always thought about just ordering the base unit with no dock or cradle, or whatever it is.
So the question to you is, how much do you miss the CD/DVD drive? I don't know what I would do on flights without a DVD player in the machine. Of course you could carry the base, but then you're back to carrying all that gear.
I just got a R40e for my wife via the IBM Employee Purchase Program. Sure the R40e is stripped down of the standard IBM extras (no docking port, no UltraNav, etc..) but I couldn't beat a P4 2.2/40GB/512MB/14.1 for a little over $900.00
sogrady says:
January 6, 2005 at 11:14 am
i thought about a Mac, but i'm fairly wedded to Linux at this point, and while PPC does support it, i'd probably end up using OS X.
as for your other question, i don't miss the drive a bit. i have an Ultrabay dock with a DVD drive, and the last time i used it was when i was screwing around with some init scripts and rendered my machine unbootable. apart from that, i just don't use it very much.
on the DVD front, i've never gotten that into them b/c few of the planes i travel on have DC power jacks, and unfortunately, with the drive spinning the X23 usually doesn't last for a full movie.
so no, i don't miss the drive at all really.