(I used to love Thinkpads, but this guy is right -- Lenovo cannot find a good supplier of screens. I heard this is because they will only use Chinese parts where possible, instead of Taiwanese, Japanese, or Korean parts. Needless to say, the Chinese cannot make LCDs.)
HP doesn't make good laptops, Dell doesn't make good laptops (they are good at making laptops whose batteries last for about 15 minutes after a few weeks or so), Apple is Apple (nice screens, same crap everywhere else), etc.
I might consider Asus next -- the eeepc 901 is the nicest laptop I've had. Nice screen. Unfortunately, the wireless card is a piece of shit that sometimes takes several tries to associate to WPA2 networks. "Known firmware issue." Great.
Basically, everyone wants cheap, cheap, cheap, and that's what they get. People that actually use computers are part of their profession and not just for watching porn are shit out of luck as a result.
(I will edit to add -- pricing things out, the desktop is an amazingly better value. For $2000, you can get a high-end Thinkpad with 2G of RAM, 2 cores, and a 160G SSD, etc. Or you can get a desktop with 8 cores, 16G of RAM, a 24" monitor, 4T of disk space, etc. Laptops are nice if you absolutely can't work at a desk. But if you can, you can save yourself a ton of money, and just use a netbook when traveling. I do this, but with a Thinkpad as my "desktop". It has not been undocked in years.)
The lack of a quality laptop on the market short of DoD certified Toughbooks is a serious market inefficiency. Is anyone interested in this problem? Email me; I am putting together a YC application that covers this problem. Macbook Air meets Panasonic Toughbook.
I am coming to this conclusion too. How should I select a desktop monitor? Are there specific features to look for? Help a clueless-about-hardware fellow HN er!
You want to look for a few things, mostly the technology that the screen actually uses. S-IPS is one of the better systems, although apparently there are a few others today that are equally good when correctly implemented.
Basically, you will pay for contrast, color reproduction (both number of colors and overall gamut), and viewing angle.
The Apple Cinema Displays and some Dell displays both had a reputation for being good, but in any given year they can go from great to crap in no time at all, so YMMV. I have a 2005 Dell 20" SIPS and it's a very nice display...but I had to purchase it as a refurb because the 2006 were not rated nearly as well.
The biggest point I wanted to make to you, though, was more general: do not be afraid to spend money on a good monitor. It pains me when I see people spending a lot of money on a computer and then cheap out on the interface devices. Unless you're building a cluster (or something else you'll rarely work with directly), that's a mistake. Aside from the power switch and maybe a few indicator lights, all of your interaction with your computer is done via the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And of those links, the monitor is the highest-bandwidth medium of interaction. It makes sense to spend money there; if you don't, your whole experience of using your fancy new computer is going to suck.
Also, interface devices have a very long lifespan if you purchase good ones. Last year, I upgraded (to the Dell) from a high-end CRT that I bought in late 2000. My keyboard is from 1996 (having long outlived the computer it came with), and my mouse isn't exactly a spring chicken either. I'm sure I'm not that atypical. (I know guys using IBM Model M keyboards that are way older than mine. Hell, they're older than some young people I work with.)
You only get a few years to recoup in productivity what you spend on a computer itself. All the expensive stuff inside that chassis will be so much e-waste within far too few years. But you have a lot longer to wring the value out of your input devices. Buy quality, and you'll be enjoying it 4 or 5 computers down the road in all likelihood.
I have had good luck with Dell; a 24" LCD and a 37" TV. Both have beautiful color rendering, good contrast, great brightness. I have had the 24" LCD for probably 5 years, and it still looks as good as the day it arrived.
I have not looked into LCDs for a while, so I don't know if Dell still makes good ones.
The best guarantee of quality is probably to buy a high-end monitor from a company that also manufactures the actual panels.
Be careful with used CRTs. Always check it out before you buy. Even good ones get dimmer with age, cheap ones can get so dim you can't even read standard white on black emacs or command line text. Otherwise, I agree, decent used CRTs still have a better image than even pretty expensive LCDs.
There is not much value to speak of here but for a laptop I have been very pleased with my Envy 133- does that count as HP? I am not sure if it qualifies for being a netbook, but it is nice size for me and offers me enough performance that I can do what I need. It is not my only computer though. If using just one I would also say desktop.
While sharing the sibling poster's preference for desktops, I have been extremely happy with my brand new Sony/Vaio VGN-NS328J. 3 GB of RAM, 250 GB SATA HD, Pentium Dual-Core T4200 (~2 GHz, 64-bit).
The 3D chip is a little lacking in oomph for a machine of these specs, but perfectly adequate for Compiz and other casual encounters with 3D in the course of development; it just doesn't run high-resolution BZflag very well. :)
No Linux compatibility issues. Works phenomenally well, and the build is relatively sturdy while remaining light. The keyboard also features big keys, good for people with big hands.
It was about $700 at full-blown retail.
EDIT: Battery life won't surpass 2 hours by much, though. Maybe you'll get a little more if you really dig into CPUFreq and backlight-dimming power management.
* the keyboard is excellent
* the touchpad is almost frictionless (it doesn't actively try to push your finger back in the opposite way: I'm looking at you, HP/Compaq!)
* the touchpad is indented, so when you're typing you won't accidentally palm to touchpad, clicking somewhere else in your document, and filling text into a different section (I'm looking at you, Acer!)
I use a sony z-series (z590) laptop. It's a 13.3" display, 1600x900 resolution, core2 duo@2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM, and it gets 7.5+ hours of battery life (with wifi enabled; ~9 without). If your eyes don't like tiny fonts it's not for you, and I had to do some unholy stuff to enable the virtualization because sony are bastards, but other than that, I love the thing. It's a carbon-fiber frame, and it weighs almost nothing.
EDIT: also, I'm running Gentoo on the thing. Everything works well except for the nVidia chip (which I don't like anyhow), the integrated camera (which sort of makes me sad), and as far as I know, the Sprint 3G network adaptor. I don't actually know that the 3G adaptor doesn't work, and I've seen claims that it does, but I've never tested it myself.
I followed the directions at http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/ , and it worked out perfectly. You basically put a modified copy of grub in a certain directory structure on a USB key and reboot your laptop. The laptop's EFI firmware (normally hidden by a BIOS emulator) sees the modified grub and loads it instead of the BIOS. Then you get to poke some flash values, and reboot. It's a little scary, but I haven't heard of anybody breaking their laptops from it. It worked for me.
