New Laptop

OK guys I have a tough decision to make. I am looking for an ultraportable laptop to do things a larger computer does at a fraction of the size. The small keyboards don't matter to me as I have extremely small hands. I have made the Fujitsu P1510D and the Sony T Series my finalists. Does anyone have anything to tell me about those two? Also, does anybody have additional suggestions? Thanks guys

A sony T series is just a miniature laptop, the p1510d is so much more. check out leog.net

I'd suggest the Panasonic R4. Two words: battery life.

Fujitus is nice, but it's restricted to a 1.8 inch 4200rpm drive, so there's no faster HD upgrade yet, and I think the capacity is only up to 60GB so far. 2.5 inch drives are avail in 7200 rpm and 5400 rpm flavours, and much larger capacity.

I agree, there's no substitute for battery life. Nothing else matters when the battery is dying and you've things to do.

I too suggest the R4. I have heard that the 1510 has a very poor keyboard... The R4 is very, very nice, and so is the Sharp Mebius :-) But if you can find a Versa Ultralite.... She's my pride and joy.

Now why on earth would you want to compromise battery life with a 7200 RPM drive drawing upwards of 1.2A when a 4200 speed drive only draws .5A? Or even better, boot 98Lite off a 4GB Extreme III in a blink and draw around .2A in the worst of conditions :-)

Edited by Pete P. 2006-03-20 11:16 PM

The p1510d can be bought with an extended battery for $45 or so extra. It adds a useful hand grip while it is being used as a tablet along with 'class leading' battery life.
The R4 is, again, a miniature laptop, like the sony... I'm still touting for the p1510d!

Edited by jpfx 2006-03-21 6:10 PM

I am leaning towards the P1510D. I have to sell my 700M though. Good computer but to heavy for an ultraportable. lol

I don't understand jpfx. What do you mean more than laptop? If you mean using it in tablet mode, or just having touch screen in laptop mode, well the Fujitsu has it and the others don't. But I guess it really depends how important those features are for each person. For me I'd rather have a straight laptop with fewer parts to break.

The extended battery makes the Fujitsu as big as the Panasonic R4, but even heavier. If you definitely need the capacity of the extended battery I would suggest going for the Panasonic even more. It also has a slightly larger screen with more lines (768, vs 600 in the Fujitsu), and a 32-bit Cardbus PC Card slot (vs the 16-bit CF slot on the Fujitsu).

I mentioned the harddisk speed considering running XP, which may need quite a bit of drive access during normal operation. In some cases, a slower drive may cost even more power because it has to take longer to access the same amount of information. On the other hand when the drive is idling, it consumes very little power (relatively speaking of course), so it's sometimes economical to get the accesses done fast. Currently, 5400rpm is the recommended speed for the balance between economy and power. 7200 is a bit of an overkill for average uses, but I would still recommend for power users or gamers.