Thoughts From the Road
NOTE: This was written during my travel yesterday, but I couldn’t post it due to an early boarding process.
I usually give my thoughts from the road while traveling, and since my short business trip is almost over here they are:
Carmel, California is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Boingo is everywhere — at least it seems that way. Right now I am sitting in the Monterey Airport, at the gate, waiting for boarding to begin. I had noted previously that I was thinking of canceling my Boingo account as the MiFi makes it largely a moot point. I confess I have not gotten around to doing that however, and I am camped out on the Boingo hotstpot right now. It is simply amazing how many hotspots they have partnered with — it seems they have one almost everywhere.
The MiFi is a wonderful traveling gadget. I’m not using it right this moment but I used it constantly at the hotel in Carmel. The hotel Wi-Fi is free but I constantly battled the “too many users online” situation. I also found that the hotel Wi-Fi network could go from lightning fast to downright poky. It was not uncommon to see the Lenovo indicate the Wi-Fi signal strength was bouncing up and down. The MiFi, on the other hand, was consistently fast and available so I often just used it instead of the Wi-Fi.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s was a great addition to my gear bag for this trip. It handled everything I asked of it, and with good performance. Lenovo included two Windows Sidebar gadgets that are actually very useful, and I referred to them constantly this trip. One is the battery gauge which not only gives good visual indications of battery percentage and remaining life, but it also has a super simple slider bar to immediately alter the power scheme. The slider goes from max performance to maximum battery life and a simple slide makes the change on the fly. The other is the Wi-Fi gadget, that shows what hotspot is active along with the signal strength. It is coupled with the visual access manager which makes it a breeze to move around hotspots with impunity. Very well done.
The T400s has a multi-touch trackpad that is very nice to use. I mainly use it for two-finger scrolling in windows. I find it a snap to zoom in and out on web pages using the two-finger “pinch and zoom” gesture which is useful.
Google Chrome is much faster than Firefox under Windows Vista. I ended up totally switching to Chrome for the entire trip, the performance was that much better.
Windows Vista is still a dog. Enough said.
The one downside of taking the ThinkPad for the trip was the lack of a second battery. I was happy with the battery life of the ThinkPad, but only having the one battery I realized I was obsessing constantly about how much life I had left. A second battery removes that obsession and makes for a more pleasant working situation, at least for me. This made me realize how long it has been since I worried about having enough juice while mobile.
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LOL @ Windows Vista… you mean you haven’t updated it to W7 yet, or are you waiting to get your hands on the final RTM build now?
*sets a countdown for August 6th when I can grab it via TechNet*
When a company provides a loaner for evaluation, I feel it only fair to use it for a while as shipped. That gives both the OEM and the reader a fair shake, as my impressions will be on a unit as it can be purchased.
I would so love to put Win7 on this baby. :)
I must be the only person in the WORLD who finds Vista to be a very serviceable OS. Vista Home came on my mid-range Sony laptop purchased last year and I upgraded to Premium. Vista has met my expectations for performance and stability during this time. It works fine for Office files, light photo editing, browsing, streaming (audio and video). It was a breeze to set up on my network. It has its annoyances but not enough to condemn the entire thing.
I’d like to think that I have a fairly well rounded OS exposure to judge Vista against. I tried dual booting Ubuntu on the Sony. It ran well but failed dismally when it came to wireless performance. Fixing it required far too much exposure to the command line so I gave up after butchering it twice. I like OS X as well and run the latest on a 3.5 year old Powerbook. It still runs pretty well on the older hardware which is impressive in its own right but OS X has its own set of pros/cons.
I now dual boot my Sony with Windows 7 and it does offers some nice improvements but…really…Vista was working just fine. Maybe my expectations are far lower than most? Maybe my use cases are much simpler than others? Maybe I got lucky with some hardware that just plays well with Vista? Maybe I just don’t get it?
Actually it’s James that doesn’t get it. It’s so easy to turn off automatic updates. James always claims that he tests as a standard user of the factory install. Well, James isn’t a standard user and neither are his readers. It would serve his readers better if he would report the well documented fixes to Vista’s performance issues. Yes, there are issues but they’re easily fixed at no additional cost and very little effort. I have 6 computers of varying age and with each set up properly with a clean install there’s no difference between Vista SP1/2 and Win 7. And XP boots faster but applications run at exactly the same speed. Therre is certainly a valid argument against many of the factory installs, but these are the fault of the manufacturer not the OS. If tjhe bloatware’s gone Vista works brilliantly and leaves XP in the dust.
As for how reliable the Macs run. How many times did you have to take your Mac in before it worked right James? There’s no perfect computer solution. It’s time to get over the whinging and look at providing the solutions.
Gordon
Reading JKontheRun is like experimenting with a gateway drug. Soon you find yourself considering things you never would have before. Like getting another smartphone because… well, why not? I have three unused lines on my Sprint Everything Data plan just sitting there. At $20/month, not adding a device or two is almost like throwing money away.
I’m seriously considering adding another smart phone to use in lieu of a MiFi. I have a bulky Touch Pro, and a sleek Diamond 2 (if and when released on Sprint) coupled with the newly released HTC wi-fi router software would make a nice package. Its camera and multimedia capabilities are a nice step up from the Touch Pro’s (and the Touch Pro2′s), and its more pocketable for a night out. Google Voice solves the multiple number problem.
By not going with a dedicated device like the MiFi, I would sacrifice ease of use and battery life.
I can’t believe I’m even considering it. Thanks, JKontheRun.
You’re welcome. :)
Wow, I grew up in Monterey and I know exactly the spot you took that picture. It’s a beautiful city but I remember I couldn’t get out of that city. Very fond memories, though. By the way James, if you like shrimps you must try the original Bubba Gump shrimp co. in Monterey.
Never mind on that last sentence. I just noticed the Note in the beginning of the article. haha
“too many users online” — that was only because the entire GigaOM crew were in residence and working when they should have been laying out by the pool :)
Could be, although one afternoon I was working out by the pool. :) Gotta have some MiFi. :)
I wonder how comfortable you have been with the T400. Several reviews online have suggested that the tracklight is not configured properly compared to other thinkpads.
Specifically, when used, the reviews suggest that the LED light source is directly visible and shines into the eyes of the user.
This is not how the T500, T61, and my x61 is…
Any comments?
If you’re talking about the keyboard light this one works fine. No eye shining.
Yes, I was referring to the keyboard light…
In the updated review of the new version of the T400, notebook review stated:
“One feature that has been on ThinkPads almost forever is the ThinkLight, which is a small white LED located above the screen that illuminates the keyboard. On every other model that has this light, it works as intended and gives a little light on the keys. On the T400 the shroud in front of the LED isn’t big enough, and the end result is a light shining directly in your face. Your night vision is taken away and in the end it is a useful feature turned worthless by lack of proper design. I’m not exactly sure how this keyboard light design made it past quality control, but unless you have the screen tilted forward to an extreme degree you end up as blind as a bat.”
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4946