Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 17:32:42 +0200 From: Munish Chopra <chopra@runbox.com> To: "Julian Stacey Jhs@jhs.muc.de" <jhs@jhs.muc.de> Cc: mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Purchasing a new laptop...advice? Message-ID: <20010601173242.G39485@messiah.megadeb.org> In-Reply-To: <200106010838.f518cHX32967@jhs.muc.de>; from jhs@jhs.muc.de on Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 10:38:17AM %2B0200 References: <chopra@runbox.com> <200106010838.f518cHX32967@jhs.muc.de>
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On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 10:38:17AM +0200, Julian Stacey Jhs@jhs.muc.de wrote: > Munish Chopra wrote: > > I am thinking about getting myself a laptop, as I need to be mobile and > > online this summer. I'd be buying it within the next month, so I'd like > > some advice. I need to be able to run FreeBSD on it (duh!), and I will > > be buying it in Europe, after which I'll take it to North America (will > > I be running into any power supply trouble? surely...), where I'm > > actually moving. > > I don't where you'r moving from, but in case, guessing from your > name, you might be EG Indian, & not aware of the European keyboard > nightmare ;-) ... Though I'm Indian, I'm moving from Denmark. I'm well aware of the keyboard mess you speak of below (I speak every one of those languages), but since I'll be moving to Canada, I thought I might as well get rid of the problem by going US-style. If you can't win over it, move away from it :) > > Nearly every European country I'm aware of, has weirdo (non ASCII) > extra characters & a non standard keycap layout, EG French cidillas, > German umlauts, Swedish O's with line through. Germans swop the Y > & Z too. There are 2 German layouts, & 2 more Swiss German ! Even > the British (who have none of these extra characters), still swap > a couple of punctuation marks around relative to USA. > > I use USA layout (BIOS boot default) (even though I'm British in > Germany), it's a pain having either mis-labelled or mis-mapped > keyboards. I had one laptop with black keys & white lettering, > where it wasn't even possible to get an indelible felt pen & write > on the USA keymap. > > Think which country you will buy in, if the supplier or manufacturer > will really guarantee to supply you an alternate keycap set, if > uncertain avoid laptops with black/anthracite/grey keycaps. > > If you really want USA standard, maybe buy mail order from the USA. > If you want to be able to support the extra weirdo European stuff, > perhaps buy from Britain or Eire, there' you'll likely get the > extra keys, but at least default labelled mostly like USA. I've found a supplier in Denmark that will ship some nice Asus laptops, but the price is once again getting to me. I'm looking for alternatives to survive the summer, but if all else fails I guess I'll have to dish out. > Power: USA 110V 60Hz. Germany/mainland europe 220V nominal 50Hz > Britain: 240V nominal (I saw 248 in my house) 50Hz, (I heard a rumour of a > commmon aim for 230V, but doubt its true.) I've been explained that most laptops these days support all kinds of power configurations, so that won't be much of an issue. -- -Munish To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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