Of all the laptops out there -no good choices for business users

Having bought over 100 laptops for my businesses over the past 10-15 years, I can tell you that the needs of TRAVELLING business users are not being met by todays laptop (and screen) manufacturers. They have totally missed what we want and need. That is a small , light notebook that doubles as a desktop replacement meaning that it HOOKS TO A LARGE WIDESCREEN REMOTE MONITOR THOUGH A DVI REPORT (mor eon that later) here is a list and see if you agree:

1> Size and weight- no problem here we need typically 12-14" widescreens that weigh about 4-4.5 lb with batteries - and these units need to be 9" or less front to back SO THAT YOU CAN USE YOUR LAPTOP ON A PLANE COMFORTABLE. Remember I am talking Traveling Business Users here- a major demographic. The size is right and prevalent but...

2> THE SCREEN RESOLUTION IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH ON THESE UNITS!!! The 14" widescreen pixel count on all laptops is 1440 x 900 (WSXGA) that simply does not give us enough cells of a spreadsheet, fields of a database etc... The 13" size of the Sony SZ and new Dell is perfect for travel but NOT with the anemic 1200 x 800 resolution. That is great for teenagers wasting their youth on My Space and Twitter but not for business users. And 12" is the same. The answer (that will NEVER come) is that all resolutions need to step down one screen size! WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050 needs to go down to 14" WS. 1440 x 900 would be PERFECT ont he newer 13.3" widescreen models and the same resolution would be perfect on 12" widescreens. Yes some of you would gripe that it makes the fonts to small. There are ways around that and again this is for us business people.

3> POWER is not enough. Nope- dont want a game machine- but would like 128 megs of dedicated Video RAM, 160-200 gig 7200 RPM 16 meg cache HDs (those are becoming more available) and Core 2 Duo

4> DOCKING STATION WITH DVI out put. We want our "smallish" units to be full desktop replacements. And that means DOCK STATIONS (one reason I have only bought 1 Apple- would have bought dozens but they dont offer a docking station- a MUST in the business world- Jobs you listening. So most of the small and light laptops don't have DVI docking stations that can drive that 1900 x 1200 23" widescreen desktop flat panel. Again a must for us business users. To drive that size panel (or 20" 1680 x 1050 getting to be the desktop standard) the laptop needs a dedicated video card typically.

If the above 4 conditions were met the company that would supply these units would truly have the better mouse trap- I am not holding my breath- the flat panel makers are not going to come out with new resolutions anytime soon- and with price being an issue for many people- the higher res screens that I am asking for simply wont happen.

So I am now looking for the best compromise of the above- the Dell M1210 looks pretty good but man that resolution would just barely fit a word document after all the toolbars and larger icons of Office 2007 etc..

More choice but still no real good ones.

 

1) XPS 1210 would actually be worse than the SZ since it's heavier and has a smaller screen. The SZ is strikes a pretty good balance between portability and screen size.

2) I have to squint on my 12in screen (xps1210) and you want an even higher resolution?

3) SZ and XPS1210 both have C2d (2.33ghz max). 16Mb cache HDs for noteboks don't exist yet, and if want to improve HD performance, get Vista and a SD card.

4) I just bought a express-card based targus universal dock. It works great and has a gigabit ethernet and DVI-I

 

Do you mean you don't need special support in the notebook and still get this DVI-I through express card ? That is interesting and nice to know even though I don't have an express card model.

 

1) You're telling me there's not one sub 14" laptop that's less than 5 lbs. out on the market?

2) You may like high res screens on those sizes, but most people already find them too small. So just cuz 1 guy in the world likes high res, doesn't mean that the manufacturers will all of a sudden change for you. So given this, there is no problem with resolutions since you're one of very few to complain about the res

3)You want more power?? So a high end santa rosa c2d and a x1400 range card with a 7.2k rpm HD is not enough for you? Maybe you're in the wrong market buddy, go get urself a 17" laptop if you want power.

4)Who said there arent dvi out docking stations?

So far, all your complaints are just that, because all those points exist in the laptop market...

 

1> Yes there are sub 5 lb. 14' laptops out there (T61 from Lenovo) but they dont meet the rest of the specs

2> One guy in the world? How many developers do you know that have multiple screens open, or accountants with huge spreadsheets, or graphics people that are doing contract work at a customers place- again this is for BUSINESS users- even Apple recognized this and put a 1900 x 1200 resolution on their new 17" model- talk about squinting!

3> Thats my point MOBILE power- not 8 lb. 17" screen computer power- that is a no brainer- I am talking about TRAVELING Business user. Cant take a 17" computer on a plane or is kludgy putting in your passengers seat.

4> No I never said there are no DVI docking stations. What I said is that most of the current crop of SMALLER computers are VIDEO POWER Deficient and they cant drive LARGER 22-24" wide 1900 x 1200 resolution flat panels on the desktop. Some do have DVI outputs but can only get 1600 x 1200 (Older 20" square screens) the Fujitsus have this limitation.

 

as a businessman, you do realize selling notebook is a business and making money is the number one priority, don't you ?

 

In addition to the other good points and speaking just from a business-user point of view, laptops in the size and specs you mention are not desktop replacements. They're meant to enable you to work for short periods of time away from the office.

Nearly any notebook out there meets business user's needs to differing degrees. Unless you're an architect, audio/video editor, or work in graphics, working on a standard notebook with a standard screen seems to work for 99% of business users. You haven't identified what "business user" you're talking about, so it's hard to be specific.

Does any laptop meet everyone's needs? No. But there really are a lot of options out there. If you want a notebook with a 17" screen, there is one available. But it weighs in at something like 12 or 15 pounds. Which most people won't want to lug around. And it definitely won't work in the "airplane seats".

 

Yes I know there is use for high res screens, but it's not so much needed on 12 inch ultra portables now is it?

So you think a 2.33 core 2 duo with 4gb of ram, 7k rpm drive and an x1400 is not enough?

It's not the lack of laptop gpu power that is limiting on the resolution, it's the DVI itself. Heck, a lowly integtrated gma900 from years ago can drive a monitor at 2000+*1600+ resolutions, so check ur facts before you go blaming the limitations on the "underpowered" laptop cards.

 

How were things 5 years or 10 years ago for you? I mean, how did you get along with the options back then? Were they better options than what's available now?

 

In my opinion the Dell XPS M1210 it a superior choice to the VAIO SZ laptop because it is far more durable. It does not have a flimsy lid that bends when trying to close it. The Dell XPS M1210 also has longer battery life if that is important.

EDIT: I prefer HP business laptops, Latitudes and Thinkpads for business laptops. I even put that in my signature.

 

Ok well i can see all you gurus don't agree with me and thats OK but you are all missing the point here. Most of the heavy traveling business users (in many industries) that I work with all want more resolution on their laptops and dont want to have a desktop and a traveling laptop and don't like 7 lb. laptops (or even 6 lb for that matter- when adding the power brick of most they are still 8-9 lb.)And I think I have researched more laptops than most of you having bought over $250,000 of them over the years. I could go into Fujitsu not driving more than 1600 x 1200 on the S and Tablet series (hard even to find many 20" square flat panels anymore- Samsung still ships but they are discontinued)> Lenovos X series (could be perfect at 1280 x 1024!) but their dock is VGA only and only drives max 1600 x 1200 and looks fuzzy. Or how about Toshiba with their new R500- only XGA to begin with does have a DVI enabled dock but only drives 1600 x 1200 and NOT simultaneously. I could go on but the point is that no, no laptop is perfect but so many are so close for us heavy travelers who don't want to use SyncToy or some other thing to use on ANOTHER laptop to go out of town (which is what I do and have a Sony TX to travel with) the new Lenovo T61 14" WS is ALMOST there if the screen just had better resolution than the 1440 x 900 (that YES I understand is good for many of you but 1680 x 1050 would be perfect). But it has the horsepower to be a desktop and is slightly heavy to travel with but not that bad - it is about 5.5 lb- not bad. But the 1440 x 900 is the standard for 14" WS - just wishing it was the next notch higher- would make for the perfect machine

 

Well I bought over $40K of laptops just for my own use and my job actually have pretty close ties with some of the major laptop manufacturers so does that count? I'm a business user who also happens to be a gamer so I was willing to settle for 15.4 sub 7 lbs laptop in the past (Acer 8104, 8204) but the current corp of 14"WS with 1440x900 is actually good and is very close to what you want.

1) My ASUS A8Js is about 5.3 lbs and I use a Kensington AC/Auto/Air 120W adapter (6oz) instead of the standard powerbrick when I travel so my total weight is under 6lbs. The depth of the unit is 9.6" which while slightly deeper than what you want is perfectly usable even on smaller commuter jet.

2) My A8Js comes with a nVidia 7700 with 512MB so it has plenty of power for even the new games nowaday. While you may think 1440x900 is too low a res but My old eyes find that to be just perfect, anything higher will be too tiresome for lengthy use.

3) While my unit came with a 120GB drive, a few of the retailer will offer a upgrade to a 160GB or even 200GB at a reasonable cost. The benefit of 7200rpm over 5400 rpm is a bit overrated. I used to upgrade to 7200 rpm drive (or 5400 rpm back when 4200 is the norm) on all my laptop but in the last couple of years, I found that the newer 5400 rpm drives are perfectly fine for most day to day operation. Yea , it may take a bit longer for you to come out of hibernation but I'm not really that worry about it.

4) I too used to buy docking station for all my laptops but nowaday with most every connection (keyboard, mouse, network, printer server and NAS)available in one wireless form or another. I only have 2 cables to plug in when I get to the office (power and external monitor) and since my unit have DVI on board without the need for a dock and will display 1920x1200 on my desktop 24" perfectly. I don't consider a docking station as a prime requirement anymore.

Overall, I consider that today's top range smaller laptop perfectly usable for most business traveler. Sure, things can always be smaller and be more powerful but I'm quite happy as thing stands now (well, OK, I can't wait till larger size SSD drops to a more affordable price (say sub $800 for 128GB) so I can get better battery life and all) ;-)