Anon-x; I'm sure you're in good hands with PPRT as you can't beat experience but here's a little follow-up that may be useful.
The current (September 2001) edition of PC Magazine in UK has a review of 1 GHz Laptops. The "Best on Test" by far was the
IBM ThinkPad A22p at £2495 ex VAT. But because of the cost they couldn't give it best Value for Money. The Best Value for
Money was the ASUS Hi-Grade Ultinote - similar to the model I mentioned in my earlier post but newer. Worth a read as they have no reservations about it but I can't do you a link to the article yet as they don't put their articles on their Web Site until the next edition of the magazine is published.
If your cockpit laptops are going to be "Mission Critical" I imagine you will want a high spec model and the cost will be justified.
str12; my Sony PCG-CV1E is far from "Mickey Mouse" - whatever that means. Not the rigorous, pragmatic language of a software engineer!
I have the half-size full-featured PC that weighs just 1 kg. For that you get 600 MHz, 10 GB, USB, iLink (four wire Firewire), Memory stick port compatible with the Sony Digital Camera, PCMCIA socket and a 56 K card modem, display out socket, integral digital camera etc. Basic battery life is over one hour in continuous use and 2½ hours intermittent. The larger battery gives 2½ in use. Yes its expensive but completely self-contained.
Two things I would like to be different; I'm not fond of the little stick that controls the cursor because it develops hysteresis after a long period of use and the cursor drifts after the stick is released but it works well enough on the road or in the air. And I wish there was an IR port as there is on the ASUS Hi-Grade to let me use the Motorola Mobile Phone as a modem for E-mail without the need to use the modem card.
On my desk I plug in the external power, USB mouse, 15" monitor, LAN card and I have a full PC on the network with a small keyboard but the feel is good. I can plug in the DV Camera and get straight to work with the supplied editing software.
Oh, and you're not stuck with the half-size resolution on the road with the built-in screen because you can select a normal resolution of, say 1024 by 768, and when you scroll to the visible top or bottom of the screen the the desktop scrolls to reveal the part you couldn't see.
PC Magazine said of the full sized grown-up Sony Vaio PCG-FX209K "The Vaio wasn't available for the main feature but is worth
consideration." Very far from a toy!