I'm thinking od picking up a laptop for my dad. He travels often and may need something light. Can I get your advice... VAIO or Thinkpad?

 

If you want something really light get the vaio. I own a thinkpad and it's really well built, but it's not the lightest.

 

I just did an eval of several ultra portables for our CEO. Some thoughts:

IBM X40: very nice machine and the one he ended up picking. IBM is generally the best quality and support, but you pay extra for it.

Vaio X505: this thing is unbelieveable. It's the only thing I've seen in years that made every IT geek go "wow". It has a carbon fiber case and is just about the size of a notepad and it feels about as light. It's pricey and you have to sacrifice drives, connectors, expandability, etc, but the cool factor is off the scale. This is the laptop he almost picked.

Vaio TR3 / TR5: this is the laptop that I own (TR3AP1). It's the only ultra-portable we evaluated that has a built in CDR/DVD drive. I love this thing and would pick it again for myself for the simple reason that it has a built in drive and good battery life plus USB 2 and Firewire. DVD movies look great on this thing and it weight around 3 pounds.

The Toshiba portege we looked at wasn't really even a contendor, nor was the Dell C400 (which looked huge next to all the other ones). I think Fujitsu makes a pretty small computer with a built in drive but we didn't evaluate one of those.

hope this helps.

 

DaveZ, most helpful and thank you for the in depth reply. Would you mind telling me the price to these? My dad's in HK now and we're going to compare where we can get these cheapest! Thanks Dave!

Supaman, I know exactly what you mean!

 

I've heard stories of poorly built Sonys but I don't know if that's the majority. IBMs are fairly well built and would fare better in travel. If your dad doesn't want to make any sacrifices, I'd go with the IBM T-series. All the power of a full size notebook in a small form factor. 4-6 pounds depending on config

 

Thanks Dan!

 

I'm going to second the IBM T-series vote. Our company uses these (I think the newest ones are the T43?) and everyone seems to like IBM's quality and customer service. They're not the smallest/lightest/coolest, but they seem to have bulletproof reliability. I've seen the X40 too, as some of the higher ups get those. They look awesome.

I don't know anything about the Sony laptops, so I have no opinion there.

My personal Dell laptop has been a so-so performer in comparison to the IBM. . . but I didn't have the $$ for the IBM. In hindsight, it would have been worth it.

Good luck making your decision.

 

my experince says stay away from the sony. i bought the top-of-the-line vaio laptop in the summer of 2003. it lasted exactly one year and ten days. it self-destructed with multiple catastrpohic failures. i lost everything and sony would do nothing to assist. thanfully american express bought it back from me under their automatic warranty extension program. i'm typing on another vaio right now, it's not mine. if i were buying today, an ibm would be at the top of my list. one of my client's IT shops goes gaga over the ibms.

just my $0.02

 

I have both a Sony and IBM (older models, superslim and T-series). THe IBM has been completely reliable while the Sony has been relegated to net-surfing duties despite it's sexy 3.1lb body. The unreliability of the Sony doesn't warrant heavier use.

 

I have the T41p with 14.1" screen, very good build quality (sturdy metal hinges, good quality plastic) and has been reliable. The TravelStar hard drive seems to be the weakest link, had it fail the first week I had it, but not a problem since the replacement. Advise purchasing a backup drive and doing periodic backups/ghost images (as should be done with any system). The new T4x series now come in 15" screens I believe, too large for me. There might be a 14.1" option I'm not sure - check their site.