Autarchy of the Private Cave

I’ve tried [briefly] Cantor (which also supports Octave and KAlgebra as backends), rkward, deducer/JGR, R Commander, and RStudio.

My personal choice was RStudio: it is good-looking, intuitive, easy-to-use, while powerful.

Next step would be using some R-equivalent of the excellent ipython’s Mathematica-like Notebook webinterface…

This is not a review, but usage impressions. If you’re looking for LM70 reviews, try this one. It has good overall description, and is generally helpful. For general notebook considerations, see also my post.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with LG, and I have no personal benefits from this post. Text is provided AS IS, and no liabilities are assumed based on it. Use it at your own risk – though all efforts were put into making this text accurate and non-biased.

Before going to vacations this summer (you may want to see the photos), I wanted to by a notebook, in order to be able to work a bit on my important projects while I’m away. Frankly speaking, I used my new and shiny notebook more for gaming, and not for work.

I was short of time, and had to make a fast decision on what notebook I wanted. My requirements were: lightweight (NOT 3 kg), WiFi, 15-inch display with resolution not lower than 1280×800, long battery life, discrete graphics solution, DVD-RW super-multi drive, and Centrino platform. I wanted all of this to be somewhere around 1000$.
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Here I will list parameters you will most probably consider when bying a new notebook. I hope this post will help you choose what you really need.

Weight: ranges from under 2kg (1.6 for yet-fully-functional notebook) and up to 6 kg (DTR). Most of the notebooks you’ll encounter weigh around 2.5-3 kg. If you want less kilos – you’ll have to pay noticeable extra for portability.

Screen size: ranges from approx. 12″ up to 20″ (is that still a ‘notebook’ with 20″, how do you think?). The most common screen sizes are 14.1-15.4 inches. As for any other LCD display, the most important features are the reaction time (pixel on/off times), brightness and contrast. Usually you will not get those details in notebook specs; so you have to see for yourself. I just should note that cheaper notebooks (those in 600-800$ range) usually come with noticeably worse displays than more expensive laptops.
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