i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
"people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
as the specs suit me?

bob

bob wrote:
> i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
> posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
> "people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
> laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
> have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
> good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
> know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
> and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
> usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
> as the specs suit me?
>
> bob

My question would only be about the wireless, which is US channeled.
Dunno how you could go about getting wireless for England/Euro. Oh, and
the AC adapter cable plug for which a common adapter should work.

Note that you should ask about an international warranty. The US
warranty will/might not apply internationally, and you will want it to
be valid if the notebook needs repair.

Q

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 11:30:55 -0700, Quaoar <quaoar@marcabfleet.com>
wrote:

>> i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
>> posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
>> "people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
>> laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
>> have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
>> good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
>> know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
>> and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
>> usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
>> as the specs suit me?

>My question would only be about the wireless, which is US channeled.
>Dunno how you could go about getting wireless for England/Euro. Oh, and
>the AC adapter cable plug for which a common adapter should work.
>
>Note that you should ask about an international warranty. The US
>warranty will/might not apply internationally, and you will want it to
>be valid if the notebook needs repair.

sorted the warranty, but i never even thought of a potential wireless
problem!! anyone have any ideas? it'll actually be a canadian bought
dell...

bob

"Quaoar" <quaoar@marcabfleet.com> wrote in message
news:1s6dnYfUyIT5pNfYnZ2dnUVZ_sednZ2d@comcast.com. ..
> bob wrote:
>> i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
>> posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
>> "people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
>> laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
>> have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
>> good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
>> know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
>> and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
>> usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
>> as the specs suit me? bob
>
> My question would only be about the wireless, which is US channeled. Dunno
> how you could go about getting wireless for England/Euro. Oh, and the AC
> adapter cable plug for which a common adapter should work.
>

WiFi is an IEEE standard which is of US origin. Since it uses the
international 4.2 GHz band, It should be the same throughout the planet.

Quaoar wrote:
> bob wrote:
>> i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
>> posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
>> "people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
>> laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
>> have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
>> good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
>> know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
>> and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
>> usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
>> as the specs suit me?
>> bob
>
> My question would only be about the wireless, which is US channeled.
> Dunno how you could go about getting wireless for England/Euro. Oh, and
> the AC adapter cable plug for which a common adapter should work.

This is true. In the EU there are 13 channels, in the U.S. only 11. Are
the 802.11 controllers programmable to correct for this?

> Note that you should ask about an international warranty. The US
> warranty will/might not apply internationally, and you will want it to
> be valid if the notebook needs repair.

IBM used to have very good international warranties on the Thinkpad. Not
sure if Lenovo continued with this.

M.I.5¾ wrote:
> "Quaoar" <quaoar@marcabfleet.com> wrote in message
> news:1s6dnYfUyIT5pNfYnZ2dnUVZ_sednZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>> bob wrote:
>>> i just found this group the other day and have looked through a lot of
>>> posts and i must say that there is a nice lack of "dell sux" and
>>> "people who buy compaq are morons". i've been trying to decide on a
>>> laptop to take to the UK while i'm there for a year of teaching and
>>> have (i think) settled on a dell 640m. most reviews seem to say mostly
>>> good and a little bad about every laptop, but i guess what i want to
>>> know is, is there anything i should avoid? i do a bit of hobby midi
>>> and audio stuff using cubase and otherwise normal email, web and
>>> usenet stuff.... thoughts? are they all pretty much the same as long
>>> as the specs suit me? bob
>> My question would only be about the wireless, which is US channeled. Dunno
>> how you could go about getting wireless for England/Euro. Oh, and theAC
>> adapter cable plug for which a common adapter should work.
>>
>
> WiFi is an IEEE standard which is of US origin. Since it uses the
> international 4.2 GHz band, It should be the same throughout the planet.
>
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11


"The channels that are available for use in a particular country differ
according to the regulations of that country. In the United States, for
example, FCC regulations only allow channels 1 through 11 to be used. In
Europe channels 1-13 are licensed for 802.11b operation but only allow
lower transmitted power (only 100 mW) to reduce the interference with
other users of the band."

Q

M.I.5¾ wrote:

> WiFi is an IEEE standard which is of US origin. Since it uses the
> international 4.2 GHz band, It should be the same throughout the planet.

It's not the same. Similar, but with differences in the number of
channels and the hopping rate.

scharf.steven@geemail.com (SMS) wrote in
news:454b5d62$0$88655$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> IBM used to have very good international warranties on the
> Thinkpad. Not sure if Lenovo continued with this.

Warranty issues aside, I'd think twice about buying a Thinkpad right
now; Lenovo has released some ->seriously flawed software updates in
the past several months; I got badly burned by their latest just a
couple of days ago.

Go to http://forum.thinkpads.com/, visit the "Windows OS" forum and
look at the '[Warning] Don't install "PC-Doctor 5"' thread;
unfortunately, I didn't read it until I was trying to fix the
problems caused by installing the last update.

Lenovo really needs to get their software testing procedures
straightened out, fast.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN | bert@iphouse.com

It's not [the same throughout the planet], although I think that North
America (US, Canada & Mexico) is all the same.

In Europe and Japan, while the data transmission standards are the same,
there are slightly different channels/frequencies used.

I know that in the setup programs for some wireless cards, I have seen a
drop down box for changing this. In other cases, the card itself must
be changed.

M.I.5¾ wrote:

>
> WiFi is an IEEE standard which is of US origin. Since it uses the
> international 4.2 GHz band, It should be the same throughout the planet.
>
>