1/30/2011

Laptop manifesto

Power inlets should always be behind the laptop. If they are on the side you will wrap the power cord around your leg and as you get up fling the laptop across the room repeatedly, until the hard drive crashes in a very final way. Blogging shall resume after a fashion. While rectified in the current model, I want an apology from whoever put the inlet on the left side of the 2009 Dell Mini 10.

8 comments:

Michael Lemberger said...

You really should check out the MacBooks if for nothing other than the very clever MagSafe power connector. Accidental cord jerkings become non-events.

Tarik Saleh said...

Mo,

Good point. The laptop cost is pretty high on the Macs though. I probably will get some sort of solid state memory pucky next round of laptop to avoid damage. I am none too gentle on my laptops, but this is the first one I killed outright. I blame the powercord alone. I will check out the Macs power attachment though.

Unknown said...

if the cord plugs into the back, then it will kink (and eventually wear out) if used while slouching, ore lying down.

Booksy said...

yeah, get a Smugbook, they're awesomely overpriced and shockingly functional. also, it's the only way you can get the college girls to meet your glance at Starbucks.

adam in toronto said...

Mac power cords kink and wear out too because they're poorly stress relieved at the ends because they gotta look cool and be different. The latest ones seem somewhat better, but I still see macs all over the place with tape on the cord. Though for the devout I suppose it's just another opportunity to visit the Apple Store to drop a C note on a new gadget.

They aren't too sturdy either -- my first and last iBook would bend when I picked it up by one side (no wonder the video chips always popped off the motherboard on that model) and once the RDF unit wore out, everything else broke too. Didn't even make a good monitor stand. Also I thought it looked like a Braun waffle maker from the 70s.

Michael Lemberger said...

Yeah, notice I didn't say that the MacBooks were cheaper or more durable than their Wintel counterparts, and I agree that the power adapters are not perfect (we've had more than one wear out at my workplace.) Still, they have the jerking issue solved.

And T, maybe you know this already, but Apple's switch to Intel chips allows them to boot into either OS platform.

The lack of malware and the It Just Works usability of the Apple hardware/software universe keep me writing those bigger checks to the Evil White Empire. For the moment.

dexey said...

I've never met a cyclist who puts price first when considering his bike.
Why the worry about what Macs cost? They come loaded with software, crash rarely, and just work. Support, when you need it, is excellent and I have never been told that the problem is the fault of the maker of the sound card/video board/whatever board not complying like I was with MS stuff.
I had a short, and miserable experience, with Windows inbetween Amiga's and Mac's and regret every wasted day of it.

Apis said...

"I've never met a cyclist who puts price first when considering his bike..."

Dexey never met me. I am a full-on Scot when it comes to cycling gear and bikes themselves I am a gargantuan fan of cost benefit analyses. I ride what seems like a lot of bike for the $$$.

Same for lap tops. If Mac schitt weren't 3x-5x the cost of PC I'd be all over them. Plus Jobs seems like an ass.