IBM wins hands-down in my book. I buy a laptop every other year (mainly as a write-off, but also to stay current). Of all the brands I've tried (and repaired), IBM is the best built laptop around. Yes, it is true that they are always a little behind the other guys in terms of capability, but it is because IBM carefully engineers and tests their products before releasing them. The result is true business-class machine that is often never seen in retail stores. Get one! Every IBM ThinkPad I've owned has lasted at least 2 years in daily, heavy service before I sold it to my friends, and when I sold it, it was still in perfect shape (except for keys worn shiny from so much use). The only other brand I would recommend for durability/reliability is Sony, though Sony tends to load tons of devices on their laptops that need lots of intricate driver updates. I spend far less time maintaining my IBM (and Apple) laptops than other brands.
It sounds like you want a lug-able . I have had very good experience with FOSA (basically no name, but they have been around for a while). They have both light and cool, as well as heavy and powerful laptops and their features tend to be something you cannot get in the name brand laptops (example - can have 3 hard drives, 16.1" display and a full size keyboard with number pad) If weight is not an issue, you can get one that is about 11lbs but is totally loaded http://www.fosa.com/Products/notebooks/8880EU.html Basically has everything under the sun in it. Their other models: http://www.fosa.com/Products/notebooks/index.html I have dealt with them since around 94. Had to have warranty work (and out of warranty work) done a couple times. Once on a corporate and once on my own laptop. Their techs know what they are doing The company does not really push it's retail sales. They tend to concentrate on B2B sales to resellers, so don't be put off by the relatively sparse web site. I have personally visited their facilities in NJ NOTE: Call them to get the most up to date spec sheet and detailed pricing. From my experience, they tend to have more options available than what is on their site - like more hard drive, memory or CPU options. Also NOTE: (and this is for any brand laptop) - Laptops tend to be one of the few products where getting an extended warranty is actually recommended.
buy whatever looks/feels best for you, 'cause you can't buy a computer not powerful enough for trading anymore. this trading stuff is pretty low computation compared to running Quake 17 or whatever version it's up to now. my primary development tools are a couple of recent Macs, but the primary execution tool is a 6 year old 300MHz PII dell laptop running linux, IB's TWS and custom monitoring and execution software. it also talks to another similar-vintage laptop for on the fly sync in case one goes down. like nitro said, these things are all commodities now, so buy the brand of chewing gum that tastes best to you.
Is there a specific ibm model that you would recommend - for someone who largely wants to use this as a destop replacement? I do care about the quality of the screen/video.
I agree with this. Until the cards are phased out, Centrino will continue to be marketed as " the ultimate wireless". The cards are down to about $40, and they work in any WI-FI environment (SBUX, BKS, etc). Mercedes wants an extra $2k for the top-end GPS system, you can buy an I-paq and get the GPS software and cradle for a fraction of the cost. It will work better and is "mobile". Allow your needs to dicate your resources, not the other way around. I like DELL laptops personally. My experience: service is real, tech comes to offices/houses and fixes the problem, wiped drives were replaced by DELL with all of my files intact. When the machine goes off warranty, I am able to make most repairs myself (I'm not that bright and patient and I have five thumbs) I have replaced fans, hinges, keyboards, mouse pads, screens, hard drives. I couldn't see spending money and I love it when someone tells me I cant do something, whether it's DELL or the neighborhood tech guy.
Lol.....I agree. I never get rid of my old computers.....I just buy a new ones and add it to the router which uses cable modem access. I use the older, slower ones for applications that they can run and I put the power apps on the new one (currently have 2 compaq laptop's(window's 98) running email, ET and trading platform that are 5 years old, I have a Pentium III running charts on XP pro). When I can find an old Pentium 4 used on the internet I may take a gander at it... Michael B. P.S. I never buy new cars....just ones that are 1 year old with low mileage...(last car I bought was for 2k in the local newspaper 2 or 3 years ago from a private party)
Amen to that brother E.S. Its just like lifting the offer of a stock that's quoted $8 x 10 and it's in a daily and weekly donwtrend. I look at cars as mules, I'm willing to bet mules cost less. There was a great joke about a mouse that owned a Corvette and an elephant that owned a Dodge Dart. Once I heard the joke, I never looked at cars the same
Yes, so true...applying this mentality to trading is the real message(or vice versa ). It's funny as traders we go for the efficiency and fight over position...but when it comes to other matters such as tools, why don't we do the same? Michael B.
That might explain your opinion. Of course everything will run smoothly even on the slowest Pentium if you use a decent operating system. But have you tried your setup on a Windows machine? I have been using Windows XP for a couple of years now because it came with my computer and I wanted to give it a try, and even though I was positively surprised, it's still Windows, which means you have to re-boot every few hours and clean up your temporary internet files every couple of days, otherwise even the strongest CPU with gigabytes of DDR RAM slows down to a crawl, and don't even think about surfing the internet or receiving e-mail while trying to run any other program.
i agree with nitro here. doesn't matter what computer/laptop you use. the least important and imho highly overrated portion of a trading business these days. i have 2 vaios, with 1 broken (shift) key on one of them. they are great for little things like the interfaces and the infrared stuff. i have a dell inspiron 2650 that i picked up for $600 that blows either of them out of the water and its a great laptop. i use it for r&d. the 550 mhz vaios i use for production. see, doesn't really matter....