Buying a laptop

I guess gnease pretty much sums it up with his list above. It should be noted however that sony laptops weren't the only ones with the dodgey incendiary device batteries. Dell, Apple and at least one other company that I can't just remember off the top of my head had to do a product recall because they used sony batteries.

Personally I would steer clear of anything made by sony. Overpriced and incredibly unreliable/shoddy.

I've had a lot of dealings with Dell through my work and have had more than my fair share of hassles with them but that was desktops. Can't comment on their laptops. They have just announced that they are going to sell computers with Linux preinstalled so if you want to avoid the windows tax it may be an option.

I've come across IBM Thinkpads from time to time and they seem great although as gnease pointed out they can be a bit pricey.

For my money you can't go wrong with a Toshiba from a consumer grade laptop point of view. Reasonably reliable and reasonably priced. I've not come across too many hassles with them.

Mrs Chuckster had an HP. It had to be returned within 9 months because it wouldn't boot, the BIOS got hosed up somehow. The service was excellent though. It was collected, repaired and delivered back within 4 days despite having to go to Germany for repair. Within 18 months, however, the power supply had burnt out so has now been gutted for spares as it's out of warranty and beyond economical repair.

FWIW, my next laptop will probably be an Apple iBook. Just got myself an iMac and I love it.

Best advice is to fully research the pros and cons of each (which you are obviously doing by posting here) and don't let the spotty kid in the store talk you into anything. It won't take a lot of research for you to know more than him on the subject anyway.

Good luck with the purchase and let us know how you get on.

8)

I guess gnease pretty much sums it up with his list above. It should be noted however that sony laptops weren't the only ones with the dodgey incendiary device batteries. Dell, Apple and at least one other company that I can't just remember off the top of my head had to do a product recall because they used sony batteries.

Personally I would steer clear of anything made by sony. Overpriced and incredibly unreliable/shoddy.

8)

Not quite right -- strangely enough, Sony PC batteries do NOT contain Sony-made cells. For that reason, Sony NEVER recalled their own PC batteries. As you say, Dell and Apple were the main recalls there.

As for shoddy: every Sony I've owned or used has been better designed, used better materials and been better assembled than nearly every Dell owned or used. But then Sony cost quite a bit more for the same levels of features and performance. Reliability is a completely different dimension. All I can say on that is one of four Sony laptops in my experience fried (pretty major), and the rest were/are flawless as compared to about 40% of Dells having really annoying or serious (restore) issues. It's a crap shoot, and the service plan is very important.

I don't see why everyone knocks Dell so much, I have a E1705 17 inch wide screen, core duo, 1 gig ram, and the best video card they sold, I can play any game out there on full, it has a DVD-R, 120 Gig HD, I've had it for about 7 months and its a great machine, not a single problem.

The salesman I worked with helped me configure it exactly the way I wanted it. $1495, delivered to my door, I had a couple of questions for them about a month ago, costomer service was very nice, I can only go by my own experience, but until they treat me bad I'm gonna recommend them :)

Scott

I tend to view laptops now as disposable. I own a Dell because it was cheap. I expect two years of useful life from a laptop.

Disclaimer: I work for IBM.
I like thinkpads. ;) Seriously though, I've had three models over the past six years (usually get upgrades about every 2 years), and they've all worked very well and been quite reliable. None of them were broken when I got rid of them, it was just the normal hardware refresh cycle. I did have a hdd die in one (and the following week, they issued a recall of that model hdd), but the service then was quite good (and yes, we go through the same help desk channels as anybody else if our TP dies). However, I haven't had any experience with the new Lenovos, so who knows. The other sticking point for me is that I can't stand the synaptic touch-pads. Gotta have the red nub, so I guess I'm pretty much locked into thinkpads. The only downside is that, yes, they are a bit more expensive than most other makes, but if I were spending my money, I would almost certainly go with a thinkpad. My only real complaint has been that the IO performance sucks (compared to a desktop), but that's been an issue with every laptop I've ever used, they just don't put good IDE controllers / disks in laptops (probably not energy efficient).

About OpenOffice.. the old 1.x releases were kind of shoddy, but 2.x has picked up quite a bit. I use it regularly, and don't have nearly as many problems as I did w/ 1.x.

TZ

I tend to view laptops now as disposable. I own a Dell because it was cheap. I expect two years of useful life from a laptop.

I wish I could have gotten 2 years from my Toshiba. Right now, I'm hoping for a bit better than one year. (My son calls it his "craptop").

Ah sigh, the joys of purchasing a lemon!

Tim

I don't see why everyone knocks Dell so much, I have a E1705 17 inch wide screen, core duo, 1 gig ram, and the best video card they sold, I can play any game out there on full, it has a DVD-R, 120 Gig HD, I've had it for about 7 months and its a great machine, not a single problem.

The salesman I worked with helped me configure it exactly the way I wanted it. $1495, delivered to my door, I had a couple of questions for them about a month ago, costomer service was very nice, I can only go by my own experience, but until they treat me bad I'm gonna recommend them :)

Scott

No problem with Dell's customer service -- that's is exactly the right reason to buy Dell. But the hardware just is not that durable for road use. Yours sounds like a desktop replacement -- won't need to be so durable in that case.

I tend to view laptops now as disposable. I own a Dell because it was cheap. I expect two years of useful life from a laptop.

yep -- two years. I have a Dell because that's company issue. Unfortunately, company policy is 3 years. That last year is misery. That's when I go buy my own for the interim.

Personally I would steer clear of anything made by sony. Overpriced and incredibly unreliable/shoddy.

8)

Not quite right -- strangely enough, Sony PC batteries do NOT contain Sony-made cells. For that reason, Sony NEVER recalled their own PC batteries. As you say, Dell and Apple were the main recalls there.

As for shoddy: every Sony I've owned or used has been better designed, used better materials and been better assembled than nearly every Dell owned or used. But then Sony cost quite a bit more for the same levels of features and performance. Reliability is a completely different dimension. All I can say on that is one of four Sony laptops in my experience fried (pretty major), and the rest were/are flawless as compared to about 40% of Dells having really annoying or serious (restore) issues. It's a crap shoot, and the service plan is very important.

Sony issued a recall for a specific range of Vaio laptop batteries.

My comment about sony being overpriced and shoddy was perhaps a little misplaced and maybe not particularly helpful in this particular instance since I have very little experience of their laptops. The comment referred to sony equipment in general. I have had a lot of problems with their a/v stuff in particular and will never again buy anything they make. As I said the comment may have been misplaced about their laptops but I stand by it for most of their other products. But that is just my opinion. :wink:

8)

Sony issued a recall for a specific range of Vaio laptop batteries.

My comment about sony being overpriced and shoddy was perhaps a little misplaced and maybe not particularly helpful in this particular instance since I have very little experience of their laptops. The comment referred to sony equipment in general. I have had a lot of problems with their a/v stuff in particular and will never again buy anything they make. As I said the comment may have been misplaced about their laptops but I stand by it for most of their other products. But that is just my opinion. :wink:

8)

Thanks for the correction. Guess my colleagues and I lucked out on that one.

I won't defend Sony across the board. The various business units are run differently, and can almost be considered separate companies. This is true of many product companies.

I tend to view laptops now as disposable. I own a Dell because it was cheap. I expect two years of useful life from a laptop.

yep -- two years. I have a Dell because that's company issue. Unfortunately, company policy is 3 years. That last year is misery. That's when I go buy my own for the interim.
Two years? :shock:

Reliability is going to be important for my daughter, too, as she has no clue about the management of computer issues.

Maybe college students don't really need the portability all that much and she'll just have to have a desktop model. I know I don't need that kind of expense.

Margaret

gnease,

Ya my Dell is a desktop replacement, it never leaves my house :)

Thats a hard price point ($900) it's not quite enough to get something really nice and durable, but Clockworked should be able to find something decent.

Scott

I tend to view laptops now as disposable. I own a Dell because it was cheap. I expect two years of useful life from a laptop.

yep -- two years. I have a Dell because that's company issue. Unfortunately, company policy is 3 years. That last year is misery. That's when I go buy my own for the interim.
Two years? :shock:

Reliability is going to be important for my daughter, too, as she has no clue about the management of computer issues.

Maybe college students don't really need the portability all that much and she'll just have to have a desktop model. I know I don't need that kind of expense.

Margaret

Buy the extended warranty and accident insurance if you are worried about it. While extended warranties rarely are recommended for most products, this is one case where it might be worth the peace of mind. It will cost $250 to $450 depending on what you get, but is a lot cheaper than replacement when the Coke spills or the screen cracks when she "barely knocked it." Also, I believe colleges are now providing support for students laptops and desktops. You might want to check out plans available at your daughter's.

Above all -- teach your daughter to back up her work frequently on something like a USB memory fob. That will save her several times over the course of four years.

I just retired my old Compaq Armada M700 after about three years of constant use, I think it was the cream of 1999 technology, runs a P2 with 512 MB of memory, Windows 2000 pro software and has never given me a lick of trouble. It is my backup.

I've picked up a Toshiba Satellite 1805-S203 off a friend in trade for some work on his truck, it has a Celeron processor and 256MB of memory, runs XP Pro and Office 2003, albeit kinda slow. Also, no trouble, but upgrading the drivers is difficult, Toshiba doesn't keep up with their older stuff like other manufacturers do.

I have a Dell Inspiron 600m that is dead in the water with a bad motherboard. Apparently this is a common problem with this model, Dell says that a new board will cost about $500.00, I've found replacement boards for about $150 to $200.00. Is it worth it? I haven't decided yet.

I, also, am trying to put together a laptop for my Daughter. She doesn't want the Armada, too old! I'm keeping the Satellite for myself.

If I was going to buy a new laptop today, I think I would lean towards HP, they carry the Armada line, have pretty good customer service and the prices are competitive. I also wouldn't have a problem buying another toshiba but then price would be a consideration. I like Dell desktops, but I don't think I would consider one of thier laptops, too many issues.

JMHO, although I'm not a computer geek! (I just play one on......) :roll:

The Dell 600m.

Try this, get a known good dimm for it, take out whatever is in slot 1. Place the good dimm in slot 2. Reboot.

The 600m would overheat and the plastic that held the dimms in would weaken. A new dimm in the second slot usually fixes the issue.

I say usually, I've had two of these come to my office that I've fixed that way. They seem to keep on running though without issue.

One important thing about laptops, don't operate them on top of cushions, thick rugs or on the blanket on your bed. It blocks the vents and causes them to overheat.

I don't think you have to have one of those fan trays, but do be cautious.