Welcome to Laptop Thoughts!

[Jason Dunn]

<p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1276040330.usr1.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>I want to welcome you to the launch of the next Thoughts Media site: <strong>Laptop Thoughts</strong>. This site will not only focus on laptops/notebooks, along with their smaller netbook siblings, but also on the variety of tablets and slates hitting the market this year. I've always taken an organic approach to growing the network of sites; <a href="http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com" target="_blank">Digital Home Thoughts</a> is traditionally the place where we've talked about laptops, so over time it only made sense to launch a site focused on this important computing form-factor. Obviously, some of the other sites in the network overlap with this site - <a href="http://www.applethoughts.com" target="_blank">Apple Thoughts</a> is where you'll go to see more in-depth news on Mac laptops, but we'll still talk about them here at a high level (big announcements, etc.). You'll see all laptop/netbook news here from now on instead of Digital Home Thoughts.</p><p>It took me a while to get my first laptop - I didn't purchase one until 2001 - but since getting that first laptop, I've been hooked on the idea of having a full-featured computer with me wherever I go. Smartphones are great and all, but sometimes you just really want to run the apps and get at your data in the same way you do on your desktop computer. We'll have some fun talking about the history of laptops - I know many of you got started with laptops long before I did - but that will come later.</p><p>With the launch of any new site, there's the inevitable question of "If I build it, will they come"?. So my request to you, the community, is to make Laptop Thoughts the focus of your laptop-based efforts. Have a question about a laptop? Come post it in our forums. Looking for a new laptop? Come here first, and use our links and resources (more on that later) to help you in your research. If you're a laptop expert, become a regular in our forums and help to create the knowledgeable, friendly community that Thoughts Media is known for. <a href="http://www.laptopthoughts.com/contact" target="_blank">Submit laptop news to us</a>, and let us know what you want to see from this site. Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/tmLAPTOP" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, subscribe to our <a href="http://feeds.laptopthoughts.com/laptopthoughts" target="_blank">RSS feed</a>, sign up for the weekly newsletter (in the right-hand sidebar), and subscribe to our channel on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ThoughtsMedia" target="_blank">Youtube</a>.</p><p>I've been looking forward to launching Laptop Thoughts for many months now, so I'm excited it's finally happening. Welcome! Oh, and in case you're wondering, we'll definitely be having a grand-opening contest...I'm working on gathering up some prizes now. Stay tuned!</p>

[Jason Dunn]

Psst - this this is a new site, things might not quite all work right. If you see any problems, please let us know and we'll squash the bugs. Thanks! :)

Current known issues:

1) RSS feeds in the forum at the top are broken
2) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/580975/laptopthoughts.png

[Jonathon Watkins]

It's nice to see Thoughts Media continue to expand Jason and I'll be checking back here, especially for the tablet reviews.

God job! I really like the design and look of the site. :-)

[crimsonsky]

Good to see the site, Jason. I have three laptops here (Macbook, Macbook Pro and a HP Mini netbook) so I'm pretty into portable computers! This should be a great addition to the family (I read Apple Thoughts and Digital Home Thoughts daily & the other two occasionally since I don't own any devices that they deal with anymore).

Looking forward to the development and growth of the site. Although since you've broken laptops out from Digital Home, how long will it be before we see a Digital Photography Thoughts? :)

[Tony Rylow]

It's great to see the site launch!

[Jason Dunn]

It's nice to see Thoughts Media continue to expand Jason and I'll be checking back here, especially for the tablet reviews.

Yeah, this is definitely a big year for tablets/slates, so I figure the timing is good. Although when I was creating the tablet/slate sub-forums, I ran out of forums to create - beyond the Dell Streak, the Archos stuff, the iPad, the HP Slate that's now in limbo, and the JooJoo, what other tablets are there on the market today from the major players?

Good job! I really like the design and look of the site. :-)

You can thank Fabrizio from Creative Pattern (http://www.creativepattern.com) for that; he did a great job, didn't he? I'm excited to finally have a site patterned after my favourite colours: black and red. :)

PS: Your SEO-focused signature gave me a good chuckle. You go man! :D

[Jason Dunn]

Looking forward to the development and growth of the site. Although since you've broken laptops out from Digital Home, how long will it be before we see a Digital Photography Thoughts? :)

Funny you should mention that: I was certain that there were no good domains names available for a site like that, but I just checked and Photography Thoughts.com was available, so I snagged it. I figure, long term, photography is going to be thought of as digital by default (it more or less is now anyway), so keeping it shorter is probably for the best. I have a long enough domain nomenclature as it is. :D I'll keep digital photography stuff on Digital Home Thoughts for now, but at least now I have an option for it in the future. Thanks for the reminder! ;)

[Dilpickle1]

and i thought it was a pain having two websites.....

Also: Just a bug - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/580975/laptopthoughts.png That's not supposed to be there :P

Congrats on the new site!

[Jason Dunn]

Also: Just a bug - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/580975/laptopthoughts.png That's not supposed to be there

Ugg. Yeah, we're seeing that stupid thing pop up here and there...thanks for pointing that out!

[ucfgrad93]

Congrats on the new site!:) So, when is AndroidThoughts coming?;)

[Jason Dunn]

So,;) when is AndroidThoughts coming?

Sooner than you might think. Stay tuned...:D

[Fritzly]

Yeah, this is definitely a big year for tablets/slates, so I figure the timing is good. Although when I was creating the tablet/slate sub-forums, I ran out of forums to create - beyond the Dell Streak, the Archos stuff, the iPad, the HP Slate that's now in limbo, and the JooJoo, what other tablets are there on the market today from the major players?

This is a joke, isn't it? Toshiba , Lenovo, Fujitsu are jsut the first ones on top of my mind.

I already had four Toshiba Tablets although my next one will probably be a Lenovo.

BTW All the above mentioned companies make "Real" Tablets PCs. iPad and Co. are not Tablets, more SmartScreens revisitations.

[ctmagnus]

Ooh! Another Thoughts Media site! Good on ya!

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Congratulations Jason! Despite laptops being prevalent there aren't many good sites about them. Looking forward to the content here!

[Jason Dunn]

This is a joke, isn't it? Toshiba , Lenovo, Fujitsu are jsut the first ones on top of my mind. I already had four Toshiba Tablets although my next one will probably be a Lenovo. BTW All the above mentioned companies make "Real" Tablets PCs. iPad and Co. are not Tablets, more SmartScreens revisitations.

Uh, no, not a joke. Anything with a keyboard, even if it's a "Tablet PC", goes under the laptop category. Touch screens are coming all over the place now, so that's not going to be much of a differentiating factor in the coming years. The tablet/slate forums are for pure form-factors...no hardware keyboards. In fact, the HP tm2 I'm reviewing (video going up on this site tomorrow) doesn't have the word Tablet PC *anywhere*. That name has some stink on it from a marketing perspective, so HP doesn't want to use it.

Do any of those companies made consumer-focused slates? I'm not going to be covering vertical-market or enterprise-focused slates...

[Jason Dunn]

Ooh! Another Thoughts Media site! Good on ya!

Thanks! I hope to see you posting here, that post count is so LOW still. :D

[David Tucker]

Funny, I've never considered a laptop prior to the previous few months myself but now I'm very likely to have the refreshed M11X soon :)

Looking forward to new news!

[Jason Dunn]

Funny, I've never considered a laptop prior to the previous few months myself but now I'm very likely to have the refreshed M11X soon

Maximum PC just reviewed that in their latest issue, and even with the slower CPU, they loved it, giving it a 9/10 rating:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/alienware_m11x

[Jerry Raia]

Jason, Stop! Enough! Don't drag me back into this! :D

[David Tucker]

Maximum PC just reviewed that in their latest issue, and even with the slower CPU, they loved it, giving it a 9/10 rating:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/alienware_m11x

Yeah it gets incredible reviews. I'm probably going to get the i5 variant since even with the Core 2 it does so well. :)

[Tony Rylow]

Yeah it gets incredible reviews. I'm probably going to get the i5 variant since even with the Core 2 it does so well. :)

I've been looking at this one as well.. Need something with a little more power than my Dell Mini 12. I've got it in m cart with the Core i7, 4GB RAM, and 250GB HDD. Lots of coupon codes floating around for these.

[David Tucker]

I've been looking at this one as well.. Need something with a little more power than my Dell Mini 12. I've got it in m cart with the Core i7, 4GB RAM, and 250GB HDD. Lots of coupon codes floating around for these.

If you could point me to one I would be quite happy :)

[Craig Horlacher]

Sooner than you might think. Stay tuned...:D
Yes! I'm looking forward to AndroidThoughts!

[Craig Horlacher]

Congratulations on launching LaptopThoughts.com!

I think this is a great addition to ThoughtsMedia. I look forward to checking it often!

It would have been great to have 2 months ago when I got my new laptop. I am extremely happy with my choice though. After around 8 years of hard use my good old ThinkPad finally died.

I got an HP Pavilion dm3-1130us. It has 4GB of RAM, expandable to 8GB, and a dual core 64 bit Athlon NEO CPU as well as an Radeon HD 3200 graphics subsystem. It's an ultraportable with a 13.3" LED backlit LCD running at 1366x768 and only 4.12lbs. It also has a 7200rpm 320GB hard drive! I also like that it has built in HDMI and VGA. It was under $500 after a $50 rebate.

It has HP Web Start (really SplashTop) which is some kind of linux based instant boot system probably in bios. This is great! It has, among other nifty media tools and things, a mozilla based browser which is a very fast way to check things quick without going into windows. My wife uses this to check her email.

It also has technology to park (that probably not the term now but that's what it was back in the day) the hard drive if you drop it so it doesn't scratch the disk when it hits the ground. I thought only IBM/Lenova did this.

Anyway, I recommend this to anyone! Battery life is good if you use typical low power settings. I'd say I can get 5-6 hours. It also has bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n. Only a 10/100 nic but that will work for me. It doesn't come with any optical drive. I got an external usb powered (takes two ports) DVD burner for $80 that works great - really nice to not need another AC cord. The laptop has 4 USB ports so I still have two even with this plugged in. You can also use Virtual Clone Drive to help get around not having a physical drive.

I think I got a great system for under $500 (ok, more with the burner)!!!

BTW...this is really the first I've used Win7 and while it took a little getting used to I absolutely *love* it now and would never want XP back!!! It's fast and I love the changes to the interface (after getting used to some that really annoyed me at first)! Most of the changes didn't annoy even at the start.

[Darius Wey]

Congrats on the launch, Jason. I know how much you had been looking forward to this. :)

[timmy]

Great! I can see from the other replies that I am still a junior when it comes to posting, but I am checking in daily for news on the other sites, and has been since PPCT was launched...

Good to see that there will be a serious laptop site as well. Count me in among the recurring readers, and good luck!

[Tony Rylow]

If you could point me to one I would be quite happy :)

http://www.notebookreview.com/dellCoupon.asp
http://www.alldealscoupons.com/deals/getdeal.php?id=35593&d=20100611

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2062748 ---Someone lists deal as dead, but other people are still using some of the info to get discounts.

[Tim Williamson]

Congrats on the launch of the new site Jason! :)

[bleeman]

Congratulations on the new site Jason. It's nice to see things still going strong here in Thoughts Media land. I remember the early days with PocketPCThoughts and I still have my iPAQ 5555 although now it's pretty much my wife's game machine (She loves Pocket Pop and Spider Solitaire).

I'll definitely add this to my list of sites to keep tabs on. No new hardware here, I'm still using my HP TC4200 and HP TC4400 Tablet's. My wife has the HP 5101 Netbook and loves it! We're running Windows 7 Professional on all of them.

Good luck and I hope this turns out to be another winning site for you.

[jgrnt1]

Congrats, Jason! I rarely visit Windows Phone Thoughts now :(, because I switched to an iPhone a couple of years ago. I do hang out at Apple Thoughts (until recently, only because of the iPhone) and occasionally visit Digital Home Thoughts as well.

I have a big honkin' company laptop (XP), a netbook (Win7) and an iPad, so I have good reason to dig myself back into the Thoughts family.

On a more serious note -- Have you considered expanding the Thoughts family into more mundane things? Technology is everywhere nowadays. How about Kitchen Appliance Thoughts or Cordless Yard Tools Thoughts? ;)

On an even more serious note (seriously) -- You need to add Laptop Thoughts to the thoughtsmedia.com site. Have you thought about expanding the News from the Network section there? It could become an Engadget type site, aggregating all your various sites under one roof, for those that want to read everything about technology.

[jazboy01]

Congrats on new sites Jason. I am very happy to see that thoughtsmedia is growing. Thoughtsmedia sites are my one of primary source to keep updated with latest tech news.

[Darius Wey]

On an even more serious note (seriously) -- You need to add Laptop Thoughts to the thoughtsmedia.com site. Have you thought about expanding the News from the Network section there? It could become an Engadget type site, aggregating all your various sites under one roof, for those that want to read everything about technology.

It's now live. :)

[Jason Dunn]

On a more serious note -- Have you considered expanding the Thoughts family into more mundane things? Technology is everywhere nowadays. How about Kitchen Appliance Thoughts or Cordless Yard Tools Thoughts? ;)

You laugh ;), but I do have some non-technology domains...with my franchise model, all I really need is a domain name and a super passionate person to operate the site - and people are passionate about many things outside the technology realm, so you never know what types of sites I'll be launching in the future. :D

On an even more serious note (seriously) -- You need to add Laptop Thoughts to the thoughtsmedia.com site. Have you thought about expanding the News from the Network section there? It could become an Engadget type site, aggregating all your various sites under one roof, for those that want to read everything about technology.

It's now added - it was on our to-do list and took a little while to get to. :) Right now it's basically headlines that you click to be taken to the full site. If I were to try and aggregate everything together into one site, I'd have to put ads up on it to monetize the content. Right now I like that it's fast and simple - it's like a gateway to all of our sites.

[Jason Dunn]

Congrats on new sites Jason. I am very happy to see that thoughtsmedia is growing. Thoughtsmedia sites are my one of primary source to keep updated with latest tech news.

Thanks, that's really affirming to hear - now if there were only about 200,000 more people like you. :D