I have been thinking lately it’s time to get something ultra portable. What I’m looking for is something small and light, with enough beef to work on a remote location. Even though I love my Toshiba, when trying to be mobile even a 15″ is too big and heavy to comfortably log around.
I have been working of my laptop for close to two years now, and besides the fact that a two year old machine is out of date, I want to be able to work anywhere. Also the glare in the screen of this Toshiba really bothered me today when I was planing on working outside. For the first time in years I have been looking for something else then Toshiba. When looking at laptops to replace this one, the Lenovo line keeps popping up and I must say I love what I’m seeing there. They are finally stepping away from that dreadful boxy look that we are used to from IBM Lenovo. I have yet to actually put my hands on one but the design of the new Lenovo lines look really awesome. Take the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 for instance. I love the way that keyboard looks. But when reading Mark Shuttleworth Blog about gestures with multitouch in Ubuntu 10.10, I suddenly could also consider the IdeaPad S10-3t. The S10-3t has you guessed it a touchscreen. Lenovo calls it a tablet, which you could call it even after Steve said a tabled is has no keyboard.
The only thing I am not sure about is the 10.1″ screen. Is it going to be to small to comfortably type up a Bright Hub article? Should I go 11″ or is 13″ the best? I really haven’t figured it out yet. Also I need a screen that will have almost no glare when working outside. Of course being through to my heritage, especially when it comes to price, I alway research everything to death. As I am doing that a new question pops up. Now that I am responsible for not only my own website but also others websites, via q3w.org, I really need access to my servers at all times. Even when I am out and about. As I am a server admin I don’t want to do this through some ones open wireless. Given that it is easy to do a man in the middle attack when using regular wireless. There are a few laptops out there with a SIM card-slot (which both the Lenovo options above have, it’s hidden behind the battery). So if I can get a pay as you go play for that, and the sim card slot works under Kubuntu, then that would be an awesome way to connect to the internet. Especially as I don’t really do any heavy downloading on my laptop, even if I would I would only do this at home.
The packets send for the ssh sessions to my servers are only small anyway so I don’t think that should be a problem. I don’t think I will use it enough to warrant me buying monthly mobile service. Most of m browsing will probably be done at home anyway. If I would have to guess I would only use it during softball season. Or when we go on a trip. Virgin Mobiles Broadband2Go looks to be a great candidate for what I would use it for. I would have to figure out if I can order that on the spot when I need it. This would allow me to just get the 10 day plan in emergency’s, to administer a server that is having trouble. But I must admit I have not really done any research on Mobile Broadband, I would have to look into several things of which coverage would be the number one factor to look at, besides cost.
For now I will just have to make do with my trusty Toshiba (I just noticed the “y” is going out on it).