Final Laptop Choices

I went for a Macbook Pro 2.5Ghz, 250Gb, 4Gb (aftermarket), 17" matte hi-def screen.

Mac was non-negotiable - I like my Mac. 2.5Ghz got me the 512Mb of video RAM and the performance bump even in benchmarks was too small for the 2.6Ghz to be worth adding 10% to the cost of the system. I preferred the 200Gb @7200rpm option, but that would have taken an extra week from MacMall so I decided to save the $50. Hopefully with 4Gb of RAM I won't be paging to disk very often so seek and read times on the HD shouldn't be a killer. For me a big file is a 100kb jpeg - it's not like I'm doing video editing.

The 4Gb was one of the drivers for getting a new machine. Around $140 for aftermarket RAM installed by MacMall was worth the extra few bucks compared to sourcing and fitting the RAM myself (yeah, I know it isn't a big deal, but it wasn't that much money), and the $400 for apple RAM was a non-starter.

At first a 17" screen for travel seems nuts. I remember thinking my 13" MBP was a little large after the Dell subnotebook I used to use, but as I code more I've changed my opinion. I find that mostly what I need is the ability to get work done in my hotel (or sometimes in coffee shops) while traveling. The extra size and weight is worth the added productivity in all of the places I have to work where I don't have a separate monitor. I'm looking forward to coding without squinting on my six trips in May and June! I'd heard good things about the Apple glossy screens, but after seeing side by side in the store, it was clear to me that for the range of lighting I'd encounter, the matte was a much better choice. As for the hi-res, it was a little more, but didn't add to size or weight, and to have 1920x1200 resolution for when I finally splurge on a 32" monitor for the office - that just rocks.

I wanted to protect my new investment and my last laptop backpack just broke, so after a suggestion from Sim Bateman, I ended up with a Boa 3L system (Sim pointed out the larger Python, but that was just a little too big for me!).

Of course, 17" is a bit big to sit on your lap on the subway, so I finally decided to pick up an ASUS eee 4g down the street at J&R (tax was less than shipping). It is an amazing little machine for taking notes and with WiFi, the capability to work with a 3g dongle, open office, skype, a webcam, a microphone and the ability for me to load up a linux text editor, a remote desktop utility, ssh and ftp it's a good backup for emergency server/coding issues as well as being the perfect machine for blogging and note taking (assuming you have fairly small fingers ->).

Oh, and my in ear headphones (which are in my ears about 10 hours a day most days) were showing their age, so I got some closeout Shure 4c's as I wanted the quality of the 4 series but wasn't willing to pay over $300 for the new 410's.

I may get a new two button wireless mouse sometime, and I need to figure out what to do about additional batteries (a spare MBP battery or one of the "under laptop power slabs" for the longer business trips), but hopefully that's me all the way kitted out for the next couple of years so I can get back to writing some code!