New laptop: Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T

I blogged back in August about my frustration in finding a new laptop that had everything I was looking for. I'd figured I would eventually end up with the Toshiba R700, given my positive experiences with the R200. The lack of stock proved a problem, and the differing specs between the US and UK models also annoying. I started trying to source the Sony and finally found the HD model in stock from Vizik, but the helpful people there talked themselves out of a sale by saying the Full HD was too much for 13" (they also failed to have a 3G Full HD model).

I'd only brought the EEE 901 to the US with me, so after a month of that as my only machine at home I was starting to get a bit fed up; the keyboard is too small for constant use and it crawls when subjected to my normal usage patterns rather than just used as a lightweight network terminal. So it became obvious I was going to have to compromise on what I wanted. And if I was doing that I wanted something a lot cheaper, as I thought I may potentially want to upgrade sooner than usual.

In the end I've gone with an Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T. It cost about a third of what the more fully featured laptops I was looking at were going for, which was a considerable bonus. The 2 things I ended up compromising on were the SSD and 3G support. And the name; I wasn't entire sure about what the build quality would be like.

As it turned out I needn't have worried; it appears to be perfectly well constructed - no noticeable flex while typing, solid enough, yet still fairly light. The keyboard is pleasant to use (admittedly I'm coming from the EEE, but it's a good size and responsive enough for me). I'm a bit uncertain about the touchpad, which has no physical separation from the rest of the case, but it's been ok so far. I miss the multitouch of the EEE, but it looks like there are some patches for Synaptics multitouch flying around that might eventually lead to useful support. I've ended up with a Core i5 470UM at 1.33GHz - what I ordered was the i5-430UM at 1.2GHz (and that's what the box/label on the laptop said), but I'm not complaining at the slight speed bump. It's fine for my needs. The 1366x768 screen is lovely, even in 11.6". Bright, if sometimes a little too shiny..

Installing was of course fun; it reminded me of when I got the R200 - neither the wifi nor wired interfaces were supported by the Debian installer, even from testing. I found a patch to get the (Atheros) LAN working (and have filed #599771 about potentially getting the support into squeeze's kernel) and that got me up and going. The wifi is a Broadcom BCM43225; too new for the old Free driver and the recently released Broadcom Free code causes the machine to instantly crash (I understand it has some SMP issues). So I'm stuck with the binary blob wl driver from broadcom-sta for now. I have hopes the Broadcom driver will improve though; it seems to be getting active love in the staging tree. The graphics are Intel, so well supported. And I'm getting at least 4 hours of battery life out of it, which I think could be improved with some tweaking.

So, er, yeah. Not what I set out looking for, but considerably cheaper and actually seems to meet my needs pretty well - it had its first weekend away trip this weekend and performed admirably; not too heavy in my hand luggage, decent battery life and no worries about it being too flimsy to survive. I'm still surprised it's an Acer...

No, you can't have my password

I got pulled up on my password policy yesterday; I don't tell other people my passwords. The context was arranging that a friend could use my laptop while I was away at work - instead of telling her my login details so she could use that I created a new account. This provoked a "Don't you trust me?" response. I couldn't quite manage to successfully articulate the fact that I did trust her, I was aware that unsupervised physical access meant that it was easy enough to gain access anyway but that I just wouldn't hand over my password. It's not like there's anything confidential or that isn't backed up on there. The password is for that machine only. My GPG key doesn't live on it, so the biggest effort if it was attacked would be rolling the SSH key (that has a passphrase, of course) for that machine. And yet I couldn't bring myself to do it. This is nothing unique to this instance; I spent 13 years with Katherine and she never knew my passwords nor had root access to any of my machines. I can imagine situations where I'd share root, but even then I wouldn't share my personal password.

Do I come across as untrusting, or is anyone else like this too?

(In the interest of full disclosure I have actually handed over my password [more accurately, changed it temporarily to something else] to someone in a work context, but it was really, really hard for me to bite my tongue and not respond with a curt "Shouldn't you be able to gain the appropriate access as you are part of IT anyway?".)

New Laptop Frustration

I've been talking about replacing my laptop since November. Now I've somewhat forced the issue by giving away my R200, leaving myself with just the EEE 901. I'm not planning to bring a desktop with me to California (well, I might ship bits for a media box, but probably not even a complete machine), so I've been looking more seriously at what my options are.

I like smaller laptops; the R200 is 12", I had a Compaq N200 previous which was 10". There seem to be a number of 13" options that are light, so I'm prepared to look at those.

This is going to be my main machine, so I need something with some grunt. A decent amount of RAM with a reasonable processor. I'm probably prepared to take the price hit in order to get SSD. Also a decent resolution screen along with built in wifi (does anything not have this these days?) + 3G would be nice too.

Of course, it turns out I can't have all of this. In particular the US market seems pretty dire for 3G support (no, something locked or that can't take a GSM SIM doesn't count. I expect to travel.) The UK market is a bit better, but there are still no perfect answers.

Lenovo X201s

(It's really hard for me to think of this as a Lenovo rather than an IBM Thinkpad.)

This comes in a 1440x900 resolution variant, which is nice for 12". I can have a touchpad too. What I can't have is 3G; with the 1440x900 screen there's apparently no space for the 3G antenna. Doh! Also Thinkpads are *ugly*.

Sony Vaio VPCZ12Z9E/X

I want this. Core i7, 1920x1080 screen, SSD, 3G (Gobi), sub 1.5Kg.

But. Sony. Ridiculously expensive. If it was half the price and made by Lenovo or Toshiba I'd have bought one by now. As it is there's no way I can reasonably expect it to last 3 years (and really I'd want 5 given the cost).

Toshiba R700-155

I've been extremely happy with my R200 and spent a long time eying the R500/R600. The -155 is a Core i7, 1366x768 screen, 13", 3G, sub 1.5Kg.

2 problems. One, I'd like a better resolution if I'm going to 13" - both the Lenovo and the Sony manage that. Secondly, and more of an issue, nowhere seems to have them in stock.

HP Elitebook 2540p

This has potential. Seems to be a little heavier than the other options, and it's only a 1280x800 screen (but in 12"). Available with Core i7, SSD & 3G. Oh, except once again stock is a problem.

Have I missed anything else out there? I can probably buy from the UK or US with equal ease.

Not my usual sort of keys

In a week I'll be in California. I'm not packed, though I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure how exactly what I need to take, what I want to take, and what I really shouldn't take.

One item I've been uncertain about are keyboards. When Simon went to France for a year he took a UK keyboard with him, but then they have AZERTY which is substantially different. There are a number of US keyboards lying around the office so a few weeks ago I switched to one for work to see how it went. I think I'm bringing a stash of UK keyboards with me. Annoyances with the US keyboard:

  • Enter is too small. I have this problem on my EEE 901 as well. Usually this manifests as me typing lots of half written lines on IRC.
  • The " moving location is actually much more irritating than I expected. Likewise ~
  • And, the decider, PERSON RAISING BOTH HANDS IN CELEBRATION simply doesn't flow as easily. On a UK keyboard it's left, middle, right. On a US keyboard it's right, left, right.

California here I come

On Thursday 19th August I will be leaving Northern Ireland and relocating to California. I'm keeping my current job with 3PAR (who I should point out are actively hiring in Belfast), just moving west by a few thousand miles. I'll be working in the Fremont office, but based on advice from most people I've talked to I plan to live in San Francisco.

I've got a few trips over to England planned between now and then which will give me an opportunity to see people before I go. Also I'll be at DebConf, where I hope to try and meet a least a few other Debian people from the Bay Area and pick their brains for advice about where to live & things to do.

This is something that's taken a lot longer to come together than I originally expected. I'm very glad it finally has, but obviously there's a degree of trepidation about the whole process. If I seem somewhat disconnected from reality for the next few months rest assured I'm sure I'll be back to normal soon enough once I've moved and found somewhere to live.

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