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HOLIDAY 2008
ROAD WARRIOR'S GIFT GUIDE
Introduction
and Notebook PC
Ho ho ho, it's that time
of year again, friends. Time to figure out what
to spend your hard-earned money on, whether its for
you or for your loved ones. Well, this time we
are taking a closer look at hardware specifically
suited for the Mobile Warrior.
Yes, that person that carries a laptop, travels
everywhere, and just can't be separated from
their cell phone. So now, here are our choices
for the best set of products for the most
productivity, enjoyment, with the least amount of
trouble.
Notebook PC:
Lenovo X61 7675-A48
A road warrior's main weapon of choice is the
notebook computer. This will be the basis for
all our other purchasing and selection decisions.
We want enough power to execute typical office
tasks, occasional picture manipulation in Photoshop,
some movie watching, lots of web browsing, and it
has to be below 3.5 lbs. Yes, 3.5 lbs.
Lugging a 6 lb D600 plus all its accessories around
a packed JetBlue terminal in JFK is no way to enjoy
free WiFi. Plus, the D600's weak 1.6GHz
processor just could not keep up with some HD video
playback, among other menial tasks.
So with all these netbooks hitting the market, we
thought that a superlight netbook might be enough to
get the job done. But after doing a bit of
research, a few notebook PCs actually had enough
power to be one's main travel PC while being
lightweight. Such examples are the Mac Book
Air, the Toshiba R500, Lenovo X200 and X300, and
some ultra new units from Dell, all with no more
than 1.86GHz CPUs. But while perusing foreign
forums singing the praises of the Lenovo X61, we
found that this veteran of mobile warriorism had
been upgraded by its creators with new 45nm Penryn
processors. This increased our interest
exponentially, as we imagined the prospect of
carrying a smaller battery due to less power
consumption.
In the US, the T8300 was the
top-end processor available, which is a 2.4GHz, 3MB
L2, Dual-Core, 45nm, 35W, 800MHz FSB Penryn CPU.
But with some determined searching, the X61 is
actually available in many Asian countries with the
T9300 CPU - 2.5GHz, 6MB L2 cache, Dual-Core,
45nm, 35W, 800MHz FSB Penryn architecture.
What makes this especially enticing is the
X61's small size and super light weight. It is
actually narrower than the new Lenovo X200, slightly
deeper, but same thickness. Weighing in at 3
lbs, 1.2 oz. with the extended 4-cell battery, the
X61 with a T9300 CPU probably has the highest power
to weight ratio of any notebook PC made evarrrr!
The last bit of business is to find which SKU of X61
to purchase. With these rare gems found only
in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan,
shipping cost had to be accounted for as well.
And because memory and HDD would be upgraded anyway
(as we always do), it made sense to purchase only
the least expensive unit, and that ended up being
the X61 7675-A48, found only in
Japan. With shipping to the USA, and a bit of
extra for my friend's trouble, it cost about $1400.
Back out average shipping cost of $25 and tax
(8.25%), the system would have cost about $1270 if
purchased here. The lowest price found is
$1200 in the USA with a T8300, WWAN, and an
Ultrabase from a 3rd-tier, possibly shady merchant.
Close, but it's no T9300!
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