But I went with Windows in style.

A few days ago, I purchased a brand new Sony VGN-FZ140E notebook computer from the local Circuit City. (Here’s the laptop homepage on Sony’s website.) Circuit City had a deal which was pretty hard to pass up. For the incurably geeky, here are the specs on my new computool:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 processor running at 1.8 GHz
• 15.4-inch widescreen WXGA LCD with reflective coating
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
• 200 GB hard drive (only runs at 4500 RPM, unfortunately)
• 2 GB of memory
• Built-in wireless connectivity to 802.11a/b/g, and even n
• Built-in webcam and microphone
• DVD-/+RW drive, which I think has that cool LightScribe labeling thing
• Slots ‘n jacks ‘n ports up the wazoo
• Only 5.75 pounds, including battery
• Windows Vista Home Premium

So why no MacBook Pro? It’s simple: the display for the regular ol’ MacBook is too frickin’ small, and the base model for the MacBook Pro is $2,000 before sales tax and shipping. What did I pay for my Sony? A nice, light $1,200 including sales tax.

And I have to say that this Sony almost matches that Apple cool factor. It’s extremely thin and light, and has this graphite coating that just begs to be caressed. The display is absolutely gorgeous, the brightest and clearest I’ve ever seen. So far, the machine’s been as quiet as a church mouse, it doesn’t heat up unnecessarily during normal use, and the Vista Aero graphics are pretty snappy. I’m not quite used to the keyboard layout yet, but the action is phenomenal — the keys are almost flat, like the MacBook’s, and they don’t clatter loud enough to wake the neighbors.

All in all, this should be powerful enough to do what I intend to do on this laptop. Which is plunk my ass down in a series of Starbucks and write Geosynchron, the third book in the Jump 225 Trilogy. There will be the occasional bit of web contract work on here, but again, I mostly reserve that for my desktop.

I’d gotten used to all kinds of inconveniences with my 2003 vintage Toshiba notebook. The lid doesn’t open and close properly, hibernation doesn’t work, there’s no built-in WiFi, and the thing vents out the bottom, so if you stick it on a cushioned surface it overheats and shuts down. Almost any new laptop I buy would solve those problems, but the Sony VAIO solved problems I didn’t realize I had. Like the fact that all of the ports are exactly where I want them to be, and the power jack includes an L-shaped connector that makes the cord take up less space.

So what are the immediate downsides I see to this machine?

• The trackpad is a bit smaller than usual, and it’s almost completely flush with the rest of the casing. Seriously, it’s only recessed about a millimeter. This means that half the time I have to slide my finger around for a second or two to actually find the trackpad. It doesn’t help that the trackpad is black with black buttons, so it’s almost completely camouflaged. In low-light situations, you can barely even tell it’s there.
• The sound is a lot tinnier than I expected. I probably should have gone for the model with the fancy-schmancy Harman-Kardon speakers, but I suppose it’s not really that big of a deal. I listen to most of my music on the desktop anyway, and if I’m going to watch DVDs I’ll be using headphones.
• No Bluetooth. Which isn’t a tragedy for me, considering that I don’t really have any Bluetooth gadgets. But I was really hoping to start Bluetoothing my office so I can get rid of some of those wires. Guess I can always go buy an expansion card.
• The integrated video isn’t powerful enough to let me run advanced games, which probably won’t be too much of an issue considering I do the little gaming I do on the desktop PC.

Probably the most noticeable thing about the Sony OOBE (out-of-box-experience) was the massive amount of bloatware that came pre-installed. AOL was infecting everything, and there were poorly designed ads for all kinds of crappy products on the desktop and hidden in the Start menu. Not to mention pre-installed trial versions of everything from Office 2007 to QuickBooks to (Lord help me) Symantec Internet Security. Not only that, but get this — Sony actually included complete versions of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 on the laptop, which you need to pay about 10 bucks to unlock. Because, you know, when I’m in the mood to watch Spidey, I prefer to watch him in gawdawful DRM’d Windows Media format.

All this bloatware tells me that Sony isn’t making much money off these laptops anymore. No wonder IBM wanted out of the business. There’s relentless downward pressure on prices — hell, they’re making $100 laptops now. So it seems the only way the company can make a buck off a Sony VAIO is by selling ad space and cross-promoting other Sony products. (The Spider-Man film franchise is Sony’s, in case you hadn’t figured that out.)

The other strategy at work here is that Sony is trying to differentiate their laptops by including all kinds of proprietary software. Most laptops come with their own branded networking apps and backup utilities. My Sony VAIO also came with a Sony media player, Sony DVD creation utilities, Sony photo editing package, Sony audio recording software, Sony camera utilities, Sony desktop wallpaper, Sony power management, Sony driver update utility, Sony wireless networking, and Sony video conversion. And in case you missed the hint, there’s a Sony Memory Stick slot right in front of your face.

So let me just say this to the good product managers at Sony: you’re not Apple. You’re not even Microsoft. Sony, you make clunky programs with lousy user interfaces, and nobody in their right mind is going to buy your laptops just to get a copy of your lame-ass SonicStage media player. Your core competency is cutting-edge electronic equipment with fantastic design. But if you’re going to pretend to be a software company too, you need to hire people that know enough not to put dialog boxes in your update utility that say “Please install manually some patches.”

My existing Toshiba Satellite 2435-S255 has served me well since 2003, but now it’s showing its age. I banged the left corner at some point, making it difficult to open and close the display. About 33% of the time, the laptop doesn’t wake up from hibernation properly, and I have to shut the whole thing down and reboot (losing whatever I hadn’t previously saved). No matter how careful I’ve been, the keyboard is carpeted with crumbs from a million Starbucks muffins and the screen is a little splotchy. The battery life is down to about 45 minutes — which is generally fine, because I almost always use a power outlet.

So now here’s the big question: should I buy a Windows laptop, a Mac laptop, or a Linux laptop? And what brand?

Here are the primary things I’m looking for:

• A nice big, clear screen
• Just enough horsepower to run office applications, but not totally choke when I try to crank up Photoshop
• Light weight
• Good battery life
• If I choose a Windows laptop, it’s got to be Windows Vista and Office 2007 ready, in case I decide to upgrade
• Cooooool look and feel

As you can see, this doesn’t have to be a real powerhouse of a machine. It’s mainly going to be used for word processing, Net surfing, and the occasional light web programming/Photoshopping. I won’t be playing Quake 4 on it, and I won’t be storing my music collection on it — that’s what the desktop’s for. I do keep multimedia reference materials on my laptop (e.g. Encarta), but nothing that’s gonna really smoke up the microprocessor.

I’m leaning towards sticking with Windows, for all of the standard reasons. It’s familiar and I already own all the software I need to run. You can find Windows laptops all over the price spectrum too, from bargain basement to luxury. And despite what everyone says, Windows XP is quite a stable and secure operating system if you know what you’re doing. (Turn that Remote Registry off, people.)

But I’m certainly open to switching to Mac. I’ve admired many a MacBook Pro from afar, and they definitely meet the coooooolness test. Macs are also reputed to have that “it just works” quality that Windows sometimes has, given the right hardware and phase of the moon.

Yet there are always the standard caveats to switching to Mac: it’s much more expensive, I’ll need to rebuy all of my software, and I simply don’t know all the cool OS tricks like I do with Windows. How do you boot one of those suckers in Safe Mode? Is there such a thing? What’s the keyboard combination to call up the Task Manager (or Mac equivalent) to kill frozen programs? Is my Firefox Google Browser Sync gonna work?

As for Linux, I’ve heard plenty that Ubuntu is a professional-class operating system that rivals Windows or Mac in usability and stability, while eating their lunch in price point and configurability. But the learning curve for switching to Linux is much steeper than switching to Mac, and nobody’s ever convinced me that it’s worth the effort. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but I’m skeptical.

Here’s the bottom line, folks: I want to write Geosynchron and thus finish the Jump 225 trilogy as quickly and comfortably as possible, with as few oh-shit-I’ve-lost-two-hours-of-work moments as possible. What’s my best option?