[nzlug] Ultraportable device recomendations

[Toby Collett]

Not quite in specs, but the Toshiba R500/dynabook SS1 is 1.1kg, has an
advertised battery life of 11 hours, and runs a dual core 1.2 Ghz CPU.

In reality its about 3 hours with wireless active and without any real
effort tuning the power consumption, without wireless and with the solid
state hard disk you may get better mileage.

Also has an optical drive built in...

Toby

2008/5/12 Nick 'Zaf' Clifford <zaf at nrc.co.nz>:

> Peter wrote:
> > Im planning some extended time away from power points in the whopwhops
> > and looking for a device that i can take to get some writing done.
> >
> > Key criteria:
> > - weight: under 1kg
> > - run linux
> > - battery life > 8 hrs
> >
> >
> Dream land. If you remove the 1kg weight requirement (or at least make
> it reasonable and go 3kg), you'll be able to do it with a customized
> linux install on a good laptop (possibly requiring extended battery).
> I use to get 3 hours out of a laptop with a normal 1hr running time by
> simply using a ramdisk for everything (flushing to real HDD every 30
> minutes, and when battery low).
> Given that I've seen some laptops with extended batteries that "offer" 5
> or 6 hours, you should get 8 easily (hence you may not need the extended
> battery if you are lucky).
>
> You haven't listed price as a key criteria, so I'd look at ultra
> lightweight laptops, possibly upgrading it to a SSD. Customize your
> linux distro to mount the root filesystem as a ramdisk, and have it copy
> /home (and anything else you want to save) to the SSD every 30 minutes,
> on shutdown, and on low battery.
>
> If you are really keen on 1kg, you're going to end up with a PDA, which
> will have a tiny screen and tiny keyboard, which will make PHP coding,
> and writing, almost impossible.
>
> Otherwise, the only other option I can think of would be a OLPC laptop.
> They are designed for use away from power. Get the hand-crank optional
> extra and you can crank it until your arms drop off ;)
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
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