Steve Jenson's blog

Lugging 9 lbs of plastic, toxic metal, and liquid crystal on my daily tour of the bay area was starting to frustrate me so today I picked up a slim, light vaio v505bx. It came with a builtin wifi adapter which probably won't work under Linux. I'm dropping from a 1600x1200 resolution to a 1024x768 (from 15" to 12.1") but have gained 6 hours of battery life with the extended battery I picked up. 6 freaking hours! This means I'll use it on the train more. I was only ever able to squeeze a measly hour and a half out of the thinkpad's battery, even with the screen brightness turned down. That's hardly long enough to get me from the caltrain depot in SF to moutain view.

Please don't misunderstand, the a31p is a solid laptop and I'll handily recommend it to anybody who wants something to replace their desktop. I'll miss it's great resolution and fast opengl support. But I already have a desktop and should have gotten something smaller to begin with. My main catalyst for switching vendors was not being able to find thinkpad accessories in any stores. Do you have to order even an AC adapter through their website?

In a few weeks, I'm going to put the thinkpad up for sale. If anybody wants it, please drop me a line.

# — 20 July, 2003