The laptop saga

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in December 2005, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, Yours Truly got his first laptop. An IBM ThinkPad R51e. She was a beauty and it was love. She went with me to Singapore. I achieved nerdvana under a tree with her on my lap. I blogged on a plane and on a bus. I did so much with her. And in the middle of 2007 she died.

Her motherboard blew up. It wasn't a pretty sight.

I took her to EWIS for repairs, and was told that a new motherboard would cost about LKR800,000. Considering that was close to the amount I paid for her, I decided that I would wait and get a new one. Until I could get the cash, I would use an old laptop donated to me by a friend.

This one too travelled around the country with me. All over the country and even to to India. But, by Eris, she was heavy. She was a big ol' gal. Built as a desktop replacement not a laptop. Her keyboard was busted, and the battery dead. But she was good and reliable. What made me sad was that while her specifications were good in and of themselves, they came together to be a rather slow machine.

You know how they say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? Well this one wasn't. In fact it was much less than the sum of the parts. It was a reverse synergy. And besides, I wanted a laptop. The old rig, nice as it was, came in at around 10kg. That's without the power pack, which was pulling another 2. Couple that with heat, and Dell's reputation for blowing up, it was not my (or anyone's) idea of a laptop.

So even with that, I was looking for a new laptop. My first requirement was that it should be a ThinkPad. Yes, I got pissed off at Lenovo for one of their statements about Linux support. But they quickly recanted, and I am still in love with the model if not the maker. But the two things that really got to me were the pointing stick (or trackpoint, or nipple, or clit-mouse). I find it gives me better control than a touchpad, and almost as much as mouse or trackball. Besides, I do love playing with a clit or nipple.

The other was the ThinkLight. Whoever came up with the idea of putting a tiny LED at the top of the lid so that it lights yup the keyboard was a certifiable genius. There really is nothing like it for late night computing.

So a ThinkPad it would be. Even owned by Lenovo, it still has a certain build quality to it that I find attractive. Also, like I said so many years ago, in a world of shiny, beautiful looking laptops with all kinds of shiny blinkenlights, there's something about a ugly black box that people find, for want of a better word, reassuring..

First I wanted an R500. Since they are not available in Sri Lanka, I asked Short Stuff, who was coming down from the States, to bring it down. Too late, it would not be delivered until he was here. Well, there goes that. Time for Plan B.

A cousin of mine was heading off to the US. I was hoping she could bring it down. Also another friend in .lk came up with a cunning plan of his own. If I bought it here, he could pay for it, put it on his company account, and then get a 50% tax rebate. I'd get it for what was essentially half price. That seemed good too. But since I was dead set on getting a R500, and they only had a T400 here (look up the specs and compare for yourself, I'm lazy), I decided that I would get it from the US.

The day my friend leaves the country, I hear from my cousin that she has to bring two laptops down from her office, and so she can't bring mine. Plan C time.

Shit!

I call another cousin, but none of his friends are coming to Sri Lanka anytime soon. He offers to ship it, but I have reservations about shipping USD1500 worth of kit over DHL (or FedEx, or UPS, or migrating swallows).

So I decide on Plan D - buy the T400.

On Friday I went to the bank and got all my cash together. And found that I was exactly LKR1,500 short. And since when I say all my cash I really do mean all my cash, I was within touching distance but not grabbing distance of the laptop.

Arrrghhh!

I went and asked them if they could give me a discount, but they already had. And they could go no lower. So I had to get a friend of mine to lend me the cash.

After almost2 years and much insanity, I now have a new laptop.

And like any new relationship, she and I have been spending most of our time in bed. Getting to know each other. Finding out everything we can. Experimenting. Exploring (OK I explore her and she just lies back and enjoys it).It's all very romantic.

Of course, there are the bad sides too. The 1200x900 screen is too small for me. I require more resolution. More than a few things are not Linux supported. The touchpad is (as usual) more a hindrance than a help.

But then I found a hidden bonus. A built-in HSDPA modem built in to the machine. And they didn't even advertise it!

So we're still getting to know each other. But it is safe to say that I am now officially in love.

I started off with Debian, but then found that it is not supporting many of the features on a laptop. So I decide to go for Ubuntu. Or to be more precise, Xubuntu.

So now I have a sweet rig. Core2Duo 2.4. 2gb RAM (with more coming as soon as I get some cash together) and on the whole, a really good system. It's lighter than the R51, and has a titanium/magnesium alloy case, which makes it tougher too.

I foresee a long and interesting future for both of us.