Laptops can be incorrectly reported as desktops

[Brian Murray]

http://friendly.ubuntu.com/11.10/LENOVO/ThinkPad%20X201/I:XPQvp:BI:I8g:CNi:B9ip:EZ1:I8g:BQj:I8g/

That system says X201 (desktop) while the X201 is a laptop or a tablet. I think there is likely a larger problem in that checkbox asks the user if their system is a laptop or a desktop and it is possible for people to make mistakes. Perhaps instead checkbox should check to see if there is a battery to distinguish between the two?

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

Hi Brian,

Of course the question is being asked to a human user so the wrong answer can be given. I think I agree with you though that this detection should be automatic and right now I can't think of a good reason why someone would install a battery in a system otherwise classed as a 'Desktop'. I guess there is a possibility for the battery not to be detected (computers can make mistakes too), but this will probably be less likely than a wrong answer from a user.

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

cking points out we can use 'sudo dmidecode -t 3 | grep "Type:" | awk '{print $2}'' to check the platform of a particular system which will be reported as something in 'Laptop Portable Mobile' on a portable system and something else on a desktop. I want to do an experiment to check how reliable this is though.

[Daniel Manrique (roadmr)]

DMI information proved unreliable in about 5% of the systems I tested in; 4 out of 77 portable systems return either "Other" or "Desktop". The 73 remaining ones return either "Laptop", "Notebook" or "Portable".