laptops

Looks like they made some progress then, because, at the time (must be 5 or 6 years ago), we bought 20 laptops. If my memory serves me right, we had an average of 6 service calls per laptop on a 4 year period. Mine was in the top 2 with 13 calls… (Including trying to set my appartment on fire, while it was left alone – powered off, not plugged in – on a couch… This happened a couple of months before the whole battery fire story started.

In any case, you can understand that I’m not ready to try them again… Especially with the lousy service (incompetent & rude, and yes, i’m a professional in the IT field so I am able to judge) I got from them. To get a technician on site for a repair, I had to spend about 2 hours on the phone with their helldesk, conveniently staffed by people you usually couldn’t understand.

Frank, I’ve been using a Dell Inspiron E1705 for a few years now, and I’ve never had a problem with it. It’s a pretty decent laptop with a 256MB graphics card, I don’t even have a desktop any more because it’s worked so well. I will advise anyone buying a laptop to get an external USB hard drive though. I have a 100GB external drive that I constantly save everything onto. All of my files reside there, there is almost nothing on the laptop itself. That way, if you have to do a system reinstall or replace the computer, you still have all of your work.

thanks youve helped at lot 🙂
________
White Girls Cam

Thanks Frank I’ve benefitted from your advice too as I’m thinking of upgrading laptops so your words have come at the right time.

If the consumer line is as sturdy as their professional line, HP would be a good choice (Mine is now 4 years old, and went a couple of times around the globe, and is still in mint shape, except for some scratches here and there, as you’d expect it). Oh, and I’m not always tender with it.

Also from experience, avoid Dell: horrendous service (at least here), and a lot of problems. (I hope they improved.. )

Lenovo shouls bo ok, too (the Thinkpad line are the old IBM laptops)

Just consider 2 things: minimum 2 GB of Ram, and a hard drive working at 5400 or 7200 RPM (the faster the better performance) with 60 or + GB space. Also, check out the battery time. I’d say 4 hours is a minimum.
And, depending on what you need to do with it, the weight might also be an issue.

Now, if you don’t have any special applications to run other than Word, Excel, use e-mail & browe the web, you can go for Apple… (Macbook or Macbook pro – Avoid the air if you need card readers or to read / write CDs & DVDs)

RE: laptops

Personally I perfer the Gatway Laptops, I used to sell them and I have compared them to the rest, they are the thinest most reliable of all the Laptops I’ve ever come across.

I also like the idea of specifying what I want in a computer, and gateway offer very competitive prices.

You can see what they have on offer here:

www.gateway.net

Give me coffee and no-one gets hurt!

RE: laptops

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-09-02 AT 09:35 AM (GMT)]Hp Omnibook 4150 (so far) with 512MB of ram , docking station and 21″ external display.

OS is Win2k pro

RE: laptops

Thanks Ben for getting my thread off to a ripping start! However you do address a viable point about laptops, and thats that you have to pick a brand that has good servicing. Japaneese laptops like Toshiba and Sony are good, but if the thing breaks, they wont fix it, and your stuck with an expensive piece of junk. Thats why here in the US, its good to buy brands like Dell, who have the best servicing you can get, and make sure you have a good warrentee for your laptop. Thats why Ive started this thread, is that Im curious what the options are for brands and servicing in other countrys. For example Ive heard theres a brand in holland called tulip computers thats really good. And Ben, as far as sticking with a desktop, you ought to check the specs on laptops such as winbook who offer P4 2.4 processors, 512mb DDR RAM, SXGA screen, 64mb DDR video memory, 4 USB ports, firewire port, the list goes on. A set up like that can handle any kind of gaming, and the screen on a laptop is alot better on the eyes than a CRT monitor. Let me tell you, I dont like being chained to a desk for my internet experience. And when wireless networks like ricochet become more common and well known, then there will be no reason at all to be stuck at home for internet.

RE: laptops

We had one here, I think it was a Toshiba. Man, it sucked. We had to buy a new pc after a couple of weeks, just buy yourself a real computer, one with a screan and a real mouse.