I’m planning to give my aging MacBook to my mother-in-law as a couch-top email machine, and am looking for a replacement. I don’t do much programming any more (and when I do, I need more oomph than any truly portable machine can give me), so yesterday I checked out some light and ultralight machines. The Asus Eee felt better than I expected (I’m a touch typist with large hands, so keyboard is as important to me as battery life), but I’d find it hard to work on large documents with such a small screen.
The Acer Aspire caught my eye next. It’s only a bit heavier than the Eee, but has a full-sized screen, and a not-bad keyboard. But then I saw the Asus K501J: 15.6″ screen, also very light, and a 100% keyboard with good recoil. I thought I was in love.
Until I actually tried typing on it. In the name of all that’s holy, what idiot laid out the keys? Putting “/” and “|” between the letters and the left-hand shift is bad enough; doing it on both sides (yes, duplicating one of the least-used keys on the keyboard) and then making one shift key less than half the size of the other is an act of cruel vandalism. I would have bought the machine there and then if its quote designers end-quote hadn’t decided to make typing mistakes and keyboard-induced RSI their primary aims.
*sigh*
So I’m back to square one. I want a large screen, a keyboard with all the keys in their usual places (no double-wide reaches for shift and control keys please), and good battery life; CPU power, RAM, and storage capacity are all negotiable. Any suggestions?
I’m pretty sure that’s the standard keyboard for UK english.
I have a suggestion, a Macbook.
@Travis Not a standard UK keyboard (I lived in Edinburgh for seven years, so I think I’d recognize one) — |/ in lower left fits, but doubling the key on the right?
@Rui Mac is what I’m trying to get rid of
Their lightest model is heavier and (much) more expensive than Asus/Acer/whatever alternatives.
I’m in the UK, and was perplexed by your post – I followed your link to the Amazon page for the K501J – if you zoom in on the keyboard shot, the left key is actually ‘\|’, and the right key is ‘/’. This is exactly the same as my standard UK keyboard in front of me (a Logitech diNovo). Not that it makes any difference to me – I have it remapped to Dvorak
I’m using a Dell M1530. It’s cheaper then a Macbook, and the version I’m using is a serious performer. The keyboard is pretty good, the only quirks being that the positional keys (home, page up, insert, delete) are restricted to the rightmost position), while the arrow keys are not separated enough from the rest of the keys (I had an HP Compaq laptop that had the arrow keys in almost the same position, but a bit smaller and separated with some space from the rest of the keys). You can get it with 1680×1050 resolution and nice Nvidia graphics chip.
I am a big fan of refurbished laptops. There are enough laptops around that are not that old and are better quality (maybe not raw speed or lightness) that I would prefer to have. Go for the most expensive ibm somewhere like here “http://www.laptopcloseout.ca” (thats what I got when I searched for canada refurbished). The keyboard quality will be much better and 14″ is about perfect. You will also have it work well under linux because there has been time to get the driver stuff perfect.
I’ve found a mac mini is as portable as a laptop, and I use a external keyboard (Goldtouch). The only drawback is that I have to ask clients to lend me a monitor, but that usually works out.
I recently purchased a ThinkPad T400s…it’s 14.1″ wide, slightly more than 4 pounds with the battery. If you opt for the ssd it generates no heat and is almost completely silent. I ended up with this computer after looking at nearly every other comparable notebook. Good Luck.
Pingback: The Third Bit » Blog Archive » My Mac Knows That My Thoughts Are Straying
I like a lot of the lenovo machines, they have a good price point. I almost bought one of their tablets, but my shoulders and wallet voted for the eee pc instead.