blog/data/2013-07-04-new-laptop.txt

   1 Title: The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230
   2 Tags: english, debian
   3 Date: 2013-07-04 09:20
   4
   5 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
   6 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
   7 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
   8 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
   9 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
  10 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
  11 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
  12 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
  13 with an expencive door stop.</p>
  14
  15 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
  16 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
  17 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
  18 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
  19 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
  20 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
  21 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
  22
  23 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
  24 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
  25 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
  26 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
  27 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
  28 new laptop now. :)</p>
  29
  30 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>