It has happened. Today I had the impression that my display was a bit darker than it used to be; and later it started by slight changes in brightness, then real flickering - and then only darkness remained…

I can still somewhat read the display, since I’ve started using black-on-white two years ago when I noticed the increased readability in pure sunlight.

Now I’ve hooked up a TFT, but it’s not yet running optimal, since my laptop had a 1600x1200 TFT, while the 17” display I’ve attached has a physical resolution of 1280x1024 I guess.

I loved my IBM ThinkPad, especially because of it’s display. Compared with much more recent displays, it had an excellent viewing angle, next to no reflections on it, and stunning sharpness with it’s 135 dpi. I’ll miss it. And I’ll definitely miss the page-left and page-right keys next to the arrow keys I’ve gotten addicted to for desktop switching…

The laptop is now 3.5 years old, so out of warranty. More stuff had started breaking; just before end of the warranty the harddisk died and I got it replaced, the main battery doesn’t charge any more and my secondary battery holds for half an hour. Bluetooth never worked for me, and doesn’t show up on USB like in all the Howtos. Heck, even of one of the two USB1 ports (no USB2) falls apart - the plastic part to keep the pins from touching is broken off… So it definitely doesn’t pay off to have the display fixed. They would need to fix just about anything there.

What sucks most is that I had intended to buy myself a new laptop in 10 months. I’d like to get one with a Core CPU then, but I don’t trust the early models… and I’ll have to decide which brand to buy. I loved my A31p display, but 15” and 3.5 kg is too large and heavy for my current taste. I’d go for an IBM ThinkPad X* (and I’d love the X50 I guess) if they weren’t a bit expensive… maybe I’ll get a Samsung now, but I definitely would want to test the display first… can’t stand some of the displays I’ve recently seen on Dell (don’t even think of watching a DVD on them unless you are at most 2 people, and they reflect like shit.)

Does anyone know if there is a sponsorship program for Linux developers to get new laptops cheaper? ;-) Or at least without having to buy a useless Windows licence? Of course I’d help writing drivers and document the installation process…