Don't you need a mac for Keynote? Doesn't that basically tie your hands right there?

If you can stretch your requirements to a 12" screen, a Lenovo Thinkpad X series might be of interest. Thinkpads work very well with Linux.

Apart from the whole Keynote thing meaning you only really have one option...

To me there is really only one "travel" laptop. I really like mine (even if its a 5-6 year old model now) http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/laptop-computers.asp

Panasonic also still makes the laptops themselves. Not foxconn, not some outsourced company in china. Still ALL made in Japan. And this is why they are more expensive.

I'm selling my grandma's old laptop. Check it out here: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/joshshua989/1142_3_25_2008.jpg

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The 10" MacBook Air is getting stellar reviews. Though you might want to wait a couple of months - as there seems to be a few technical kinks with the display.

AFAIK, Keynote (and iWork) won't run on windows (your only option with Sony)
You can run windows apps on Macs using Parallels, VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox. (I've used all of them, the newest parallels is about the best feature wise, but costs money where virtualbox is free. Vmware has a free Player for other OS, but not for mac). You can also dual-boot a mac to windows, but this is less convenient.

The macbook air has a max memory limit of 4GB. This might limit your work in Matlab, depending on the toolboxes you use and the datasets you create. Also, the macbook air does NOT have a firewire 800 port, so if you want to use an external hard drive, you are stuck with USB 2.0. I also heard the new Airs have some technical problems, so I agree that you should wait a few months.

I would suggest a Macbook Pro, but this has 13" screen, and is over 3lbs.

So if those are both "must have" requirements, then the only thing you can get is the 11" MacBook Air. Those only have an SSD option, and between the OS, AutoDesk, and Matlab, will start to quickly fill that 64 or 128GB capacity (more like 120 after formatting).

Don't forget to buy the $29 mini-displayPort to VGA adapter if you are going to use this for presentations - most places still have VGA connections on projectors. (monoprice has one that is slightly cheaper and also works fine)

Yeah I saw there are some linux based presentation freeware that is similar to Keynote. I really like the autoalign features in Keynote. But the rest of the iWork crap does not do the job for me. I thought if I got the Viao or any other PC I would consider installing OSX on it or Linux. I would be hard pressed to use Windows again.

Unfortunately, you cannot install Mac OS X on anything other than a Mac. (officially that is. There are some intel motherboards which can install an EFI bios and get a hacked copy of OS X, but in general you can't)

OpenOffice 3.2 is about the best package for linux, but I'm not sure how it compares to Keynote. You can download it for windows or mac os x as well - it behaves pretty much the same on every OS, so try it out.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

I thought if I got the Viao or any other PC I would consider installing OSX on it or Linux. I would be hard pressed to use Windows again.

HP HDX 18t notebook PC

Well, there are ways to install Hackintosh if you really want to on an otherwise windows machine.

I've even gotten a version to run in virtualbox on my AMD windows machine. Good times.

>> ^dag:

The 10" MacBook Air is getting stellar reviews. Though you might want to wait a couple of months - as there seems to be a few technical kinks with the display.


Apple - It just works - except for when it doesn't.

I went macbook air. We will see how it goes.