Now that I’ve had the new laptop for a while I’ve found myself doing a little traveling and in need of some type of carrying case. I have a Targus Notebook Backpack but that has so many pockets I find myself throughing everything in except the kitchen sink. Of course since the new laptop has a 12 cell batter and I’ve been getting 4 – 6 hours out of it I figured it was time I went with something a little lighter. So after hearing about a sleeve on a forum or two I went searching and I must say I found a great company with a great product.

My requirements were the laptop needed to fit snug and provide protection, but that’s it. No need to worry about pockets to carry cables or cords, just make it simple. After a bit of searching I ran across a place in San Francisco called Waterfield Designs. This company makes a variety of protective cases for laptops, ipods, ipod gear, keyboards, cables and wallets. I’ve had it now for about a month and it is great. What I got was a Sleeve Case exactly like the one pictured. Made from high grade neoprene with ballistic nylon shell it is rugged and looks great at the same time. You can select from 14 different laptop manufactures with all there current models and customize features such as orientation, closing flap, sholder strap, or a piggy back.

If you have a similar need and are looking for something unique, this is it. Not to mention they are made in the USA, at $45.00 with no extras it was well worth it.

With the new year hear decided it was time to lay the IBM (i1200) to rest and replace it with something current. It has been a great workhorse for the last three years and took it’s share of abuse. What finally did it in was my attempt to inspect and fix a broken LCD hinge, needless to say it is broke and I don’t want to fix it that bad. It went through a number of configurations and has had a number of OS’s.

WinME
XP Pro
SUSE 9.0, 9.1
Fedora Core 2, 3

.. and it didn’t miss a beat with any.

I had two drives for it, a 20gb and a 10gb, but only 192mb of ram (64 + 128) and a Celeron 700. It had no on board NICs and only a CD ROM.

Well for the replacement I wanted to at least try and find something that had a little more punch from the get go. I’d have to put up some more cash but if it lasted longer, in the end it would be worth it. Yes I know it’s technology, you should never think that way… ;)

I did as much research as I could on brands, styles, and guts but each time I thought I’d found it I’d have to come back to my first choice Compaq’s v2000. I had seen the r3000’s and even purchased on for my mom but the v2000 is a little different. For me I had only a handful of requirements.

1. Had to run Linux.
2. Decent battery life.
3. Good keyboard.
4. Stylish.

5. Good resolution.

Three through five I did not have much trouble with but one and two, well those were going to be the tough ones. I will say my i1200 did just fine with all of these except #2 but as it goes Linux tends to do a little better with hardware that’s been out for a while. That is unless you compile kernels and modify code, but that I do not do.

I spec’d the v2000 out from http://www.hpshopping.com with the standard config with two exceptions, 1gb of RAM and a 12 cell battery. A note about the 12 cell it does not form fit to the bottom of the laptop like the 6 cell. It raises the base up about a inch and a half. At first this disapointed me but after a few hours of use I was over it. The angle the battery puts the laptop at makes it better for typing, IMHO.

Here is a sample image that was found on hpshopping.com.

So after two weeks I can say it was an excellent choice. As you can see below sound is currently not working, it did under FC2 but not on any of the current FC3 kernels. At the moment it is not a priority so for me it’s not a concern.

Spec's
Feature        Installed                   Working
-----------    ------------------------    ------------
OS             Fedora Core 3 (2.6.9-1)
Hard Drive     60GB
Processor      Intel Pentium M 1.4ghz
RAM            1GB
CD/DVD         Sony CD/DVD CRX830E         Yes

Firewire       Texas Instruments           No (Unknown device not tested)
Ethernet       Realtek 8139/8139C/8139C+   Yes
Wireless       Intel Pro 2200BG            Yes.. see http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net
Mouse          Synaptics TouchPad          Yes.. with add fuctions (hoz & vert scroll)
Sound          Intel 82801DB               No
Video          Intel 82852/855GM           Yes.. current res 1024 X 768

To get a better idea of the size here is another pick I took from http://www.notebookreview.com/.