This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and +suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and +black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a +IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both +Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the +Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep +going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old +X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is +not a durable solution. + +
My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I +got a new one more than 10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
+ +-
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- Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller + than A4). +
- Robust, it will be in my backpack every day. +
- Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad. +
- Long battery life time. Preferable a week. +
- Internal WIFI network card. +
- Internal Twisted Pair network card. +
- Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty) +
- Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad. +
- Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper +size). +
- Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and + X.org packages. +
- Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of + the time). + +
You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the +list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the +last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look +at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as +robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less +robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since +Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might +still be useful.
+ +Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
+external keyboard? I'll have to check the
+