# staff picks



## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

This thread will allow you all to see what us TSF staff like and don't like in the world of portable computing.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

*EB's picks*

OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS THREAD ARE NOT THOSE OF www.techsupportforum.com, ITS HOST, ADVERTISERS, OR OTHER AFFILIATES.

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My personal picks...

IBM
Acer
Panasonic (ToughBook series)

Brands you couldn't pay me to buy...

HP
Compaq
Sony
Gateway
Dell

*Somewhere in the middle...*

Apple
Toshiba


Now for the reasons!

I chose IBM, Acer, and Panasonic as my top picks because I like three things in laptops: Quality/Speed, price, and durability. Those three brands excel in all three categories.

IBM's laptop line (www.lenovo.com) has been strong since the early days of portable computing and has kept up with that strong tradition. The T series are my personal favorites.

Acer (global.acer.com) makes great products at great prices. I've never had an Acer product crap out on me and I love the flexibility they offer. There's a system from them for virtually every person and every budget.

Panasonic's (www.panasonic.com) ToughBooks can literally stop a bullet. They fill the durability area in completely by being ultra durable and resilient in situations that would often destroy the average notebook. You pay a bit more for that, but the first time that durability saves the notebook you'll be glad you spent the extra bit.

HP/Compaq has never been a brand I liked. HP makes great printers but garbage computers. They're heavier than a wheelbarrow full of bricks and about as powerful. Their laptops are as equally unimpressive.

Sony is a big name in electronics but they can't make a computer to save their lives! Tall and hard to work with, Sony tends to use proprietary designs that can make upgrading a true nightmare.

Gateway used to make great machines in their early days but really dropped the ball in the late 90's with underpowered and underperforming machines. I'd avoid it unless it was given to you free.

Dell... How I despise thee. I have nothing good to say about them. All the Dells we have here at work have all DIED and have all had major repair work done to bring them back to operating condition. Many cannot be upgraded and the company itself is very explusive about what goes inside the box offering no real choice. Beware their cheap offerings, you really do get what you pay for.

Apple used to be a good company, then they went with Intel. They said it was for performance but as anyone knows, Intel's offering as of late aren't all performance. I was saving up to get one but I think I'll blow that cash on something else.

Toshiba used to make great machines up until the last few years. If you can get an older model then you'll be good.


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

IBM are Ok, but the prices on them are a bit to high.
I have a Acer laptop, I think it is great! It was at a great price too! It cost me just over £750. 
I wouldn't go for a Panasonic, they are a bit too expensive for what you get, considering I don't throw my laptop accross the room!
I think you are being a bit harsh with HP/Compaq, but yes, they are quiet thick and you could get a much better spec from Acer for the same price, and it would be thinner!
Sony is a bit stupid! They are very over priced! Though they are very thin, but they don't have a great battery life, if you want any power! 
Gateway, well I have never seen more than 1 for sell, the only Gateway laptop I have seen, is in comet! (Uk)
All I have ever heard about Dell, is that they are rubbish! They are over priced, and unreliable! And they don't give you a good enough range!
I am not sure on Apple...


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## dj913 (Jan 13, 2005)

I would probably go with a Panasonic or an Apple, maybe Acer although i havent seen or messed around with many. Im likeing apples more and more because they can dual boot now with the intels and i kinda like apple's OS although i havent done much with it though. I absolutely hate Dell's, we have carts of them at school and they suck. I have an HP right now and its on its 3 or 4th motherboard (luckily under best buy extended warrantee) it isnt that thick but is kinda hot cause it has a desktop processor.


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## Implosion (Mar 29, 2006)

Hearing all this "dell is crap"-talk i couldnt help myself, had to write a post. Im typing from my new Dell Inspiron 9400 with intel dual core processor, ati radeon x1400, 1gb RAM. Only had one problem so far (not really a problem but sometimes the cord smells burnt and i dont feel very safe knowing it might catch flames someday ^^) other than that its all just load&go. I can understand that all of you "knowledgeble" guys might prefer other brands but dell is, in my humble opinion, a good choice for the average user as long as you know a little something about taking care of your computer (keeping it updated,take advantage of the firewall etc etc.) after all with so many complaints in the past dell shouldve learned something by now dont you think?


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Learning from the past isn't something large companies do. If that were true then they'd get better components that DON'T fail repeatedly. Profit is king in this world and they're not going to spend more money to make a more decent machine.


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## bry623 (Apr 8, 2002)

My HP Compaq nx9010 runs pretty good and I have had no probs with it. It is over 3 years old.

Sony Vaio has also been good to us.


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## Nemesis02 (May 6, 2006)

Dell - I wouldn't say that they are total crap as I have had little problems with them for the past 4 years. It wasn't till around 2 months ago that my Dell actually died and for a 4 year old laptop that isn't really bad (i don't think). The only problem i've had on it was a card slot die on me. They mailed me a box to send to a repair center, and had it back within a week.

HP - My newest laptop is an HP Pavilion dv5000z. Has the AMD Turion 64 ML-40 chip along with 1GB of PC-3200. My only issue with this laptop so far is that they offered the NVidia GeForce Go 7400 for the dv5000t (Intel series laptops) and the ATI Radeon Xpress 200m for the dv5000z (AMD Series laptops). Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since they put an awsome graphics card with the Intel and a crappy one with the AMD. I've found a chart comparing all the graphic cards that have been made for the laptops over the years and the XPress 200m only did a few points better than my 4 year old 32mb NVidia GeForce 440 Go. This is the rankings of it, the GeForce 7400 Go was ranked about 3rd, the Xpress 200m was ranked about 50th and the GeForce 440 Go was about 53rd. Other than that, and hp hijacking 12 GB of my hard drive for their backup purposes (they didn't include any CDs what-so-ever except maybe the AOL cd), I'm rather happy with my HP product. Makes a good MediaCenter.


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## jnob (Nov 22, 2005)

In all my 18 years of computing experience I have never seen any laptop, desktop, or otherwise from any prebuilt company fail for reasons other than user abuse/neglect or even more likely tech abuse/neglect when simple problem arise. No computer is going to be perfect forever, but with proper care and a knowledgable tech, it's unlikely any components (minus their cd/dvd roms) from brands like HP, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba, Sony, panasonic, will fail for no reason.

However all that being said I am referring largley to 486, Pentium, pII and PIII, class computers as I have very little experience with P4 brand name computers. We do use Dells at school and while they are not as nice as my home built they work and not too bad.


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## Real_Bullet (May 2, 2005)

ebackhus said:


> OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS THREAD ARE NOT THOSE OF www.techsupportforum.com, ITS HOST, ADVERTISERS, OR OTHER AFFILIATES.
> 
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> 
> ...




I would agree with everything said.

HP/Compaq i dealt with those plenty times, worse CPU's you can buy at the price you pay for em, you give me one, fine i use it, dont expect me to buy one though.

Dell/Gateway..........$500+ for these only for the name, you can build something just as similiar and exact for $200 and it might even be better.

Sony.... I deal with Console Gaming to, Playstation.........ehhhh yeah well I ended up with a PS2, sold it, but dont expect me to buy anything Sony related because all you doing is paying for the name label.

IBM/Acer/Panasonic............not bad, and you know they get the job done for what they are designed for and nothing more. I think IBM cpus outlast any other CPU you can name.

Apple................never messed with em much, so i dont know.


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

HP and Compaq's are hard to service and most models are cumbersome. They are great for the average home goober looking for a simple machine, but not worth the price or trouble.

Dells are simply bad. They may have excellent support, but their systems often use odd parts and cannot be expanded upon. Their laptops are OK, but I wouldn't recomment them. Watch their inexpensive PCs; you get what you pay for...

Gateways are also marginal. They make some nice thinner machines, but again, it's not something I would recommend to someone looking for a machine.

Sony is another one. They use all proprietary parts and have extremely hard to service computers. As said, you are paying for that sparkling name.

IBMs are among my favorites. They are built sturdy, generally have few problems and have excellent support. While sometimes on the more expensive side, their computers come with excellent hardware and run smoothly upon first use.

Acers are ecellent machines for the price, though I have heard of a lot of display and cooling (overheating) problems, they work well for the price when taken care of.

Panasonics (Toughbook) are very nice, but very costly. They can withstand a lot and work smoothly. Too much for me to buy, but if someone needs a machine to frisbee or drop, this is the one.

Apples are apples. I personally cant stand them, but that's my opinion. Ever since they declined that financial offer, they have been the over-expensive minority of the market. They persist in managing their hardware and OS. Despite that, they still boast better computers and strive to be at the top of the market. They fail because the majority of the market is directed towards IBM-based PCs. People must buy PCs for that reason. Because of that, more software is made for that majority. I personally think Apple will never win. Their intentional encryption of music on their iPods forces you to use their iTunes software as opposed to many other MP3 players that use a simple Mass Storage driver and read music as it is. I do like some of their other software selections such as GarageBand.

Sorry for that rant...


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

My Acer is good and has only had one real problem, overheating, which I solved with a cooling pad. They are also very upgradible.

I would defintley agree with laybot on the Apples. Compatibility is their major issue. Apple also can't write software for windows for anything. Thats why so many people have had trouble with the iTunes software, it just wasn't meant for windows.

IBM laptops have also been very sturdy in my experience.


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## Ralck (Dec 10, 2004)

My family has two Toshiba laptops- one is my sister's, and one is my mom's. Both are pretty bad. I also don't like how much crap comes preloaded onto Toshiba laptops; way more than any other laptop I've found.

As far as Sony, I'm sad to see that they are getting such a bad wrap here! I have a Sony laptop and I can't be any happier! Now, I know older Sony models were overpriced junk, but they have changed a lot. First of all, they are made by Quanta; which is considered the best ODM laptop manufacturer out there. Quanta also makes IBM, btw, which though I agree are overpriced as well, but you can't deny they are good as far as quality of hardware and cooling and such. Now, I agree that Sony _is_ still overpriced, but if you really want a laptop that you can take on trips and really be hard on, you should spend the extra money and go with a Sony or IBM. I was able to get around the price though by buying through Sony's refurb system (the refurb section on SonyStyle.com to be exact). Okay, now on to the power/performance issues about Sony. I have the S series notebook with the Pentium M 2GHz and the 9700m. I don't know how much more power you want? And battery life? I get about 6 hours on the regular battery!
Honestly, this thing takes a beating going back and forth every day to class with me.
My cat did try to stick half of his hair into it though, which was kind of annoying, but nothing a can of air can't fix. I think my biggest problem with the laptop is that it's too stylish, and people think I bought it because of it's looks rather than it's performance!

Anyway, enough... my picks for good brands are Sony and IBM. I would suggest to stay away from Toshiba and Dell as there are better quality in the same price range. I've also heard a few horror stories about Averatec, though I haven't had any good experience with them.
Just my two cents.


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

Well, Averatec is a fairly new company thats only a couple years old. They will start advertising soon and plan to take a jump in the market. Their laptops are actually quite good. Their thinner models are excellent.

Toshiba's are excellent without their bloddy preloads...
Dell is evil...
IBM is excellent (pricey)
Sony is slightly less evil. They are good machines as far as operating goes, but they use too many proprietary parts. That is, parts only available specially from Sony. I had a huge problem with them on over 40 different model laptops, so they're on my blacklist...


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

I would like to point out a brand not so often mentioned - Alienware. They make the worst computers, almost as bad as dells. The video cards are good, but all the other hardware is horrible.

They're support is even worse. Take a look at this:

http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22795


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

TheMatt said:


> I would like to point out a brand not so often mentioned - Alienware. They make the worst computers, almost as bad as dells. The video cards are good, but all the other hardware is horrible.
> 
> They're support is even worse. Take a look at this:
> 
> http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22795


Yep, that's a well known fact in the techie communities. Their laptops aren't very good hardware wise. While they let you play good games, they use cheap parts that cause *A LOT* of trouble. Their desktops aren't much better, especially for that 3 grand and change you will pay. Before recently, their power desktops came with 8 noisy fans! Every other PC with the same specs had either water cooling or (in extreme cases) phase change cooling.

I haven't heard anything about their support, but I'll take your word for it...


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

Hmm, I was bored and read that entire thread. That's am amazing story.

Woot! This is my 300th post... Woot!


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## epos159 (Dec 1, 2004)

Really enjoyed the thread! I am using right now my old dell latitude CPi... all 4gig hd wow!!... I've had it around 8 years and it still runs pretty descent. I just set it up as a "community" computer for friends to be able to use to check their email or whatever when they come over. So, I do like my Dell, but I am starting to look elsewhere. 

I really like IBM, they seem to be well built machines. I haven't been able to use them a whole lot, but somewhat.

I'm currently looking for a low $ laptop, but I don't want crap. Someone said about building one cheaper... can't really imagine that. So, what is the recommendation for a good, low end laptop?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

I gotta throw my 2 cents in here since you guys seem bent on bashing Dell. 
I will only post on the ones I have used extensively. 

HP/Compaq. HP can't build desktops. What makes them think they can make a laptop. I worked with a Pavillion ZE4145. Biggest piece of crap I have ever owned. The touch pad went out twice, HDD once and the display ended my liking of that experience. Never again. 

Acer. A vendor gave us a couple of Acer AS3003 at one time to demo. Talk about sucking the battery. I don't think I could get more that an hour and a half out of a full charge. Yup they went back.

IBM. I really like thinkpads. We've had a couple of them and I like the durability of them. I haven't experienced any since Levono took them over so I question if the quality is still there. I do have my eyes set on an X60s but kinda turned off on the lack of a touchpad.

Voodoo PC. Got my hands on a Voodoo Envy Heavy Weight. UNREAL. This thing was a tank and weighed it. P4 3.2 GHz, 2GB memory, 2 60GB hard drives in RAID 0. Yes, I did say RAID 0. This thing was just as fast, if faster, than some desktops. A buddy of mine had it he used for LAN parties. 

Gateway. Our company has 40 Gateway convertible (tablet) laptop PCs. Our salesmen beat the crap out of them. We've had them for about 1 1/2 years. I don't think they will last another year. They work great, but the housing will not hold up. The case will split apart and the laptop keeps chugging along. We have already sent about 10 of them back in to have the housings replaced and I have about 5 more to send back. Good thing we paid for the accidental damage protection.

Dell. I can't praise them enough. We lease all our equipement and get new every 3 years. We keep getting Dell because they are the only ones that offer everything we want in a laptop. They were the only company that has a docking station that could do true dual monitors.(expand the desktop across both monitors.) Leveno did come out with one after we got the Dells. I cannot praise Dells customer service enough also. Everytime we have a problem, they have a tech out to our place within 4 hours to repair or replace the problem.

There is one laptop I have to talk about because I am suprised how long it has lasted me. The laptop I am typing on is a Twinhead Slimnote 9TE-266TZ. That's right 266MHz Pentium with Win2K loaded on it. I have it in my living room and just use it for surfing the web. (It barely does that but what do you expect for a 266 with 128MB of memory.) I've owned this laptop for 8 years and never had a problem with it. I remember paying $2200 for it and I think it was money well spent.


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

When you said about those companys, you have said about the hole company just through one model. You need to try out more than 1 system before you can say if a company is good or not.

I don't know how the hell you can like dell.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Joefireline said:


> When you said about those companys, you have said about the hole company just through one model. You need to try out more than 1 system before you can say if a company is good or not.


I have never liked Acer. I have tried a couple of ther desktops and they were cheap. Not only in price but quality. We decided to give the laptops a whirl. There are some things about them that are excellent but other things I don't think they put too much thought into. I have handle a few other Acer laptops but they never tripped my trigger. (i.e. the placement of the headphone/mic jacks in the front, PCMCIA slot towards the front on the side, etc.) It makes attaching things awkward. Plus this wan't the only model I have seen battery life suffer on. 

HP make darn good switches and printers. Their systems aren't much to be desired. I have handle more than one HP laptop and when you get one that leaves a major sour taste in your mouth, you just start nit picking everything that comes from the company. I admit, I was probably harsh when judging an HP but it takes 10 atta-boys to get rid of an uh-oh. 
The one thing I do like about some of the larger HP laptops is the full keypad next to the keyboard. That will give them about 4 atta-boys.


Joefireline said:


> I don't know how the hell you can like dell.


Dell machines have always been reliable. All the way back to my first Dimension XPS R400. I have hardly ever had a problem with them. The company I work for is an all Dell shop (except for a bunch of tablet PCs because Dell doesn't make them). We have had impeckable service with Dell and is probably the reason why we choose Dell every time our lease is up.

I actually think the reason ebackhus doesn't like Dell is because they are all Intel and he is an AMD man.:1angel:


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

crazijoe said:


> I have never liked Acer. I have tried a couple of ther desktops and they were cheap. Not only in price but quality. We decided to give the laptops a whirl. There are some things about them that are excellent but other things I don't think they put too much thought into. I have handle a few other Acer laptops but they never tripped my trigger. (i.e. the placement of the headphone/mic jacks in the front, PCMCIA slot towards the front on the side, etc.) It makes attaching things awkward. Plus this wan't the only model I have seen battery life suffer on.


I find my Acer laptop great. It was cheap, but quality. The places where everthing is positioned is good for me. Also, considering the performance of my laptop, it has a fairly good battery life, I can get 4 hours out of it.
I have found that they also have good componants.



crazijoe said:


> HP make darn good switches and printers. Their systems aren't much to be desired. I have handle more than one HP laptop and when you get one that leaves a major sour taste in your mouth, you just start nit picking everything that comes from the company. I admit, I was probably harsh when judging an HP but it takes 10 atta-boys to get rid of an uh-oh.
> The one thing I do like about some of the larger HP laptops is the full keypad next to the keyboard. That will give them about 4 atta-boys.


I agree with you here...



crazijoe said:


> Dell machines have always been reliable. All the way back to my first Dimension XPS R400. I have hardly ever had a problem with them. The company I work for is an all Dell shop (except for a bunch of tablet PCs because Dell doesn't make them). We have had impeckable service with Dell and is probably the reason why we choose Dell every time our lease is up.


Loads of people have had great problems with them, they are hated due to their bad customer care. They are expensive, and have cheap componants.



crazijoe said:


> I actually think the reason ebackhus doesn't like Dell is because they are all Intel and he is an AMD man.:1angel:


Trust me, this is not the case.


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## whardman (Jun 28, 2006)

Dell quality is not that bad. I still have a Dell L series 667MHz that works great. I also have a Dell Inspiron 8100 Laptop that is fine except the keyboard lettering has worn off, and a few minor things that they have fixed. If you know how to talk to their support you can usually force them into sending a replacement, or a technician. However after spending 3+ hours trying to figure out how to get them to send a replacement for a replacement monitor, I would NOT recommend them, even for a monitor. BTW, I called for the 2nd replacement before I even shipped the original one back, as it was defective.


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## minster9 (Jun 8, 2006)

Hi all,guess I'll throw in my 2 cents. I'd like to think any mfr. would like to keep a customer who leases a bunch of their products;crazijoe doesn't spec. the qty. He also didn't say how times a service tech shows up within 4 hrs. I see Dell ads more than any other mfr. I wonder why?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

minster9 said:


> Hi all,guess I'll throw in my 2 cents. I'd like to think any mfr. would like to keep a customer who leases a bunch of their products;


We don't lease the machines from Dell. We lease them from an independent company. Any warranty has to be added to the price of the machine therefore the lease price goes up. We lease every three years to stay on top of the newest tech so we aren't trying to patch some old decrepit machine. Ask any IT person from a company that uses outdated stuff and you will know what I'm talking about.


minster9 said:


> crazijoe doesn't spec. the qty.


Nothing to hide here. 9 servers, direct attached storage, tape backup, 40 desktops, 13 laptops, 40 tablet PCs.


minster9 said:


> He also didn't say how times a service tech shows up within 4 hrs.


Everytime 


minster9 said:


> I see Dell ads more than any other mfr. I wonder why?


Maybe that's why they are the largest manufacture of personal computers?


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

crazijoe said:


> Maybe that's why they are the largest manufacture of personal computers?


They have to advertise loads, or noone will buy their stuff. Acer however, they don't advertise, yet they are the fastest growing, and biggist laptop company in the UK. Suppying, QUALITY, which dell lacks, low priced, which Dell lacks, they show it as being low, but all you have to look at is the FROM. If you want anything worthwhile, you have to pay 3times more, and very wide range, featuring lots of different proccessors, so you get the one you want, Dell however, just a chose of 2 different intel proccessors. Another thing, quality service! Which Dell lacks hugly, you may say they will come over within 4 hours, but if you are a normal person, you would be lucky to get through to them!
Acer, also, has the LEAST breakages, and returns. Where as Dell on the other hand....


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

This Dell bashing thread is a waste of my time.
I'm Done.



> Ignorance must be inherited because wisdom is not.


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

While I have used some Dell PCs which were excellent, the majority have problems. The only problems I have had involve the proprietary parts and partitions that Dell uses for recovery and diagnostics, the low-end parts in their machines, their limited expandablilty and their lack of consumer support.

Dell tends to use a lot of Dell stuff. They install that funky MBR and partitioning which won't allow a full format without destroying the diag utility and recovery partition.

They also seem to use low-quality or cheap parts in their PCs. Along with this, they often provide little or no expandability in those same desktops.

Their end-user support is indeed not all that good. I have first hand experiences with them. It's not that good...


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

I dont buy brand name computers because they are so overpriced and under performing. I had an Acer Aspire 8000 Desktop I bought in 2002 and it cost me £799! for a 1.1Ghz/128MB/20GB system. I have friends with laptops. An HP Pavilion that can play doom 3 and its pretty good but only on a table. I myself have a Dell Latitude CPi D233ST that cost me £60 but £2,600 back in 1998. Its old, but its in extremely good condition for its age and the battery still lasts over an hour! Im not one for Dell desktops, because they are so cheap and cruddy.


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## jnob (Nov 22, 2005)

I've worked with two networks with close to 400 Dells over the past two years and the problems have been extremely low and easy to fix. As far as customer service I've never dealt with any, I solve my own problems or get help here :grin: 

I wonder if the quality of Dell products is location dependant? A lot of people who really hate Dell are not in America, maybe they just release better products here. :4-dontkno


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

Thats probably true. they make enough in America that they dont need to bother in Europe.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I hate Dells because I have had to service so many over the years. And don't give me that "market saturation" junk, especially for laptops. Acer is currently #3 in the WORLD for laptops sales and despite that I've never had to service a single Acer laptop. Dells? PLENTY. The city I work for uses Dell exclusively and since I've been with them I've seen many hundreds die.


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## Ralck (Dec 10, 2004)

The things I've found about Dells, is that they are very sensative. They don't like things like being moved (which makes their laptops absolutely useless in my opinion) and they also are very unhappy when it comes to heat. Even a slight increase in heat (say, 75F or higher) and they seem to break. They are also a bit frustrating with addon cards and such, because they only want Dell propriatary stuff.


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

I have to say, I have burned my legs a few times with my CPi as it gets *extremely* hot!!! One day im gonna fry and egg on it, i know that would work. I'll post some pics too  :laugh:


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## Ralck (Dec 10, 2004)

That would be an interesting... um... case mod?


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Ralck said:


> They are also a bit frustrating with addon cards and such, because they only want Dell propriatary stuff.


To get more money... And make your experiance with them CRAPPER!
The only slight good thing I can say about Dell:
My brother has this old(not really sure how old exactly, but old) laptop. But it still works fairly well, and is really thin. When the battery worked, it would last for 7 hours. But both batterys are dead now... But it doesn't seem to strong. It has a fair few bits smashed off it. 
It is r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w though. Something like 700 mhz. And the HDD is dead slow, and makes a funny noise. Though, not bad considering how old it is...
He got it off eBay for £200 a year and a half ago.


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

You think THAT is slow, my dell is 233Mhz with a 4GB hdd and 128MB RAM!!!


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Don't make me bust out my 386XS-16! *holds up a motherboard menacingly.


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

Hahahahahaha :laugh:


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

I was gonna brag about an old Dell Latitude XPi that I had. A blazing 90MHz and 40MB memory and a screaming 2GB HD, but it looks like ebackhus has me beat with that 386XS-16.

BTW, that XPi ran great on Win95 and is actually the machine that got me familiar with Visual Basic. I also just LOVED the trackball mouse...


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Umm... loving that, umm, thing.


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## minster9 (Jun 8, 2006)

Hi all,don't you wish you had in todays' dollars what those old laptops cost new? A person couldn't possibly imagine how many orders of magnitude speed & memory have become commenplace now. I used to read years ago about R&D in computers in general & never would have imagined how far along they've come. To be honest,I was skeptical of what they thought they could achieve. Now we have talk of optical,nano,magnetic,superstring[just kidding] processes. Brian Twigley,I'm gonna keep my old CF-45 Toughbook w/233mh & 128ram! It's like new to be 9 yrs old,except I'm gonna try try to cram a 40gb hd into it. The OEM 2gb just ain't enough. Great site,TSF!


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

Well, what I've come to understand is that *users are extremely idiosyncratic when it comes to portable computers*. They tend to select a specific brand for some esoteric reason and then the following things happen:
a. When they upgrade to a newer portable, they are _far _more inclined to buy from the same brand.
b. They will _always _justify whatever negative experience they're getting from their portable.
c. They will _always _scorn other brands for the things they detest on them.

The above don't happen only if a user becomes subjest to a disastrous experience during the very first stage of his virgin purchase. In this case, he/she blames everything on that laptop's brand, and starts looking for a different one. However, if this initial stage concludes smoothly, then he/she becomes hooked _for ever_. The user can _only _lay his/her hands on this specific keyboard, operate _only _this specific trackpad, plug usb devices _only _when the ports are on the "right" place, and so on. (Do all these sound to you like a cult? Yes, they do...)

We could discuss many laptop-selection-related issues here, yet we'd be still be missing the main point: *People buy things motivated by their feelings, not their logic.* Give someone the most logical arguments - they won't agree. Tell them "but ya don't wanna be called stupid, do ya?", thus triggering their emotions rather their logic, and presto - they're on your side! I repeat what marketeers learn in their very first lesson: People buy only for sentimental reasons - period! So, let us _present _ideas here, but not become tempted in _exchanging _them; we can't force-feed anyone... Just try to remember why you bought your cell phone or why you like the food you like... you may be able to cite some reasonably-sounding (at least to you!) arguments, yet the underlying truth is that this is what you simply _like!_...


WHAT I'VE SEEN SO FAR
1. Alienware are best to be avoided.
2. Sony are overpriced and too proprietary.
3. Acer support site is _totally _unacceptable.
4. Hp/Compaq support site is pathetic.
5. Dell support site is acceptable.


BEST PRACTICES I RECOMMEND
1. Choose a built-to-order, easily _expandable _laptop.
2. Buy a _full _Windows installation disc (oem).
3. Check out their support site _before _buying.


WHAT I PERSONALLY LIKE (in case anyone cares)

*Fujitsu-Siemens Celsius H series*

Specs:

1. Windows® *Vista*, XP Professional and Linux (certified for RedHat and Novell Linux)
2. Intel® 945PM Express motherboard, Intel® Core™ Duo Processors T2300, T2400, T2500, T2600, 667 MHz System Bus, 2MB Second-level cache, Memory max. 4 GByte, dual-channel DDR2-667 SDRAM.
3. Floppy disk drive (USB) is optional.
4. Optical drives DVD-ROM, CD RW/DVD combo, DVD+-R / +-RW DL.
5. Hard disks you can have totally two SATA up to 100GB @ 7200 rpm or 120GB @ 5400 rpm.
6. Slots: 1 x PC-Card type II, 1 x Express Card, 1 x SmartCard, 1 x SD/MMC.
7. Interface: 1 x IrDa V1.1, 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x IEEE 1394, 1 x microphone in, 1 x combined headphone / S/PDIF out, 1 x modem, 1 x LAN, 1 x TV-out, 1 x docking connector for PortReplicator, 1 x VGA.
8. Display / Resolution 15.4 inch TFT WUXGA, 1920 x 1200
9. Graphic: ATI Mobility FireGL V5200, PCI-Express
10. Video RAM: 256MB, GDDR3
11. Audio: ALC262, HDA
12. Modem: Built-in V.90 international modem
13. LAN: Broadcom BCM 5751M, Built-in 10/100/1000 Mbit/s Ethernet (WLAN optional)
14. Weight: approx. 3.2 kg 
15. Battery: 1st Li-Ion, 8 cells, 14.4V, 5200mAh - 2nd Li-Ion, 6 cells, 10.8V, 3800mAh
16. Options: 2nd HDD, optical drives, 2nd battery, BlueTooth, WLAN. 

Careful, though! If you look it up in Fujitsu-Siemens' e-shop, you WON'T find it under laptops; it's listed under Workstations (for obvious reasons :laugh. Actually, F-S calls this beauty a Desktop (!!!) Corporate PC. A very-decent-spec one is at £ 1,255.89 ex VAT (£ 1,475.67 inc VAT) and this price includes WinXP Pro. See it here.


WHY? (RATIONALIZATION FOLLOWS)
It's an exceptionally superb computer that moreover happens to be a not-so-heavy laptop! It is truly a series of business-spec models and NOT consumer-type ones. Thus the level of built-quality, dependability, stability, overall system integration and customer service for a Celcius is in another galaxy, compared to a typical Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo or whatever other laptop, targeted to the consumer market. Plus I never play Games so I never bother to have the "games playability" in my priority list - when dependability is numero uno! I can have 3-D apps running when making a presentation to a customer. Plus, it simply seriously kicks you know what...


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

*What I mean...*

What I mean with my previous post is nicely shown through this:

Yesterday I was looking at a new laptop from the biggest BTO OEM in Greece.

*Specs:* AMD TURION MT-37 2,0AGhz 1Mb / 2 x 512Mb RAM SO-DIMM DDR PC3200 / TOSHIBA HDD 100 GB 5.400 RPM / 19'' Wide Glare Type Screen 1680x1050 / Dual nVidia GO 7800 GTX / 2 x 256 GDDR III / DVD±RW Double layer / AZALIA 5.1 DIGITAL AC3 / Virtual surround 2.1 speakers / IEEE 1394, Lan, IrDA, Modem 56k / TV-out x 1, Microphone x 1, S-video x 1, USB x 4, PCMCIA x 1, Headphones x 1, Card Reader 5 in 1, Camera / Li-Ion 8 cell, 2 hrs autonomy / 3.10 kgr
*Price:* 2,799 euros (incl. VAT and Windows XP Home)

As soon as I saw AMD+nVidia I said "forget 'bout it"... Plus to me it had "gamer" written all over it and I simply turned my back. Is this reasonable? Of course not. Still, it's what's happening with all users...


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## V0lt (Sep 14, 2002)

Plus, that price is outrageous. My acer's pretty close to those specs, and better in some areas, and is only a third of the price. Of course, there are other factors to take into account, but I would write that one off instantly just because of the price.


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

Fox, are you sure about that? The notebook on my second post has a 19" screen (like Aspire 9800), yet it has *Dual nVidia GO 7800 GTX / 2 x 256 GDDR III*... I mean, I know people who would _kill_ to get this, and just used it as an example that I still prefer my original pick (Celcius H).


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Zazula said:


> Well, what I've come to understand is that *users are extremely idiosyncratic when it comes to portable computers*. They tend to select a specific brand for some esoteric reason and then the following things happen:
> a. When they upgrade to a newer portable, they are _far _more inclined to buy from the same brand.
> b. They will _always _justify whatever negative experience they're getting from their portable.
> c. They will _always _scorn other brands for the things they detest on them.
> ...



I disagree with you about the brand thing. I went for an Acer, because: They had great review; it was a great spec, for the price; it was perfect for my needs; I did my homework, and found they were the most reliable systems, with the least returns. I wouldn't have been able to get that with a HP, Dell, F-S, Toshiba ect. 

I love what I got, and I would go for one in the future years, as they suit my needs perfectly.



Zazula said:


> Fox, are you sure about that? The notebook on my second post has a 19" screen (like Aspire 9800), yet it has *Dual nVidia GO 7800 GTX / 2 x 256 GDDR III*... I mean, I know people who would _kill_ to get this, and just used it as an example that I still prefer my original pick (Celcius H).


Dude! Fox's graphics card is SWEET! If you need more than that, then you are a gready b**t**d.


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## V0lt (Sep 14, 2002)

Haha Joe, thanks.

I suppose it has good video, but only a gig of ram and only a _5400RPM_ 100GB hard drive, and XP _Home_? Please. When you're spending three and a half grand on a machine, those are some pretty serious compromises.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Joefireline said:


> I disagree with you about the brand thing. I went for an Acer, because: They had great review; it was a great spec, for the price; it was perfect for my needs; I did my homework, and found they were the most reliable systems, with the least returns. I wouldn't have been able to get that with a HP, Dell, F-S, Toshiba ect.
> 
> I love what I got, and I would go for one in the future years, as they suit my needs perfectly.


Sooo... you would buy from the same *brand* again??


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Well, I am sure next time I buy, Acer will suit my needs perfectly again... I would probably be doing the same sort of things, just with a bit more power, so yeah.


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## evo_y2k (Aug 31, 2006)

My laptop is a dell inspiron 1300, when i first got it i noticed a rattlling in/around the dvd drive, i asked dell to come ond collect it coz it pissed me off something crazy, i told them i work nights and to come on the date i stated. and of course theu didnt, they missed me on 5 ocations, and now the warranty has run out.
never mind, the laptop is brill thou


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## laboye (Apr 11, 2006)

I have what I need for a laptop. It was free (as are all _my_ laptops), so I'm satisfied. It's a Toshiba Satellite 1400-S151 at 1.2GHz with 768 MB of RAM. CD-RW/DVD-ROM, WiFi. RAMs expandable to 1GB. The only weakness is the 16MB of VRAM on a Trident adapter. But I'm not touching gaming on this thing, gaming's reserved for my rig :grin:

This is my 777th post. Woot!


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

When I picked out my laptop I had a choice between my current setup and a toshiba with a celeron. I logicly went for this. Note that when I bought this, it had only 512 MB of some generic RAM, but it was better than the alternitive. I am in high school, so I am on a budget.


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## Flaxon (Mar 8, 2006)

Well, I haven't had much experience with laptops, nearly none, in fact, but I recently bought an Acer Aspire 5000. 

For $500, you get :

• AMD Turion 64 ML-32 1.8
• 15.4" WXGA display 
• 512MB of DDR memory • 80GB hard drive 
• Double-layer DVD drive 
• Three USB 2.0 ports 

It also has built-in WiFi 802.11 g/b, and a DVD±RW drive. 

The primary downside I've encountered so far: the video card, which is a SiS integrated card. Obviously, I'm going to have to upgrade the memory, since the video and the CPU are sharing. Not only that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't support 64 bit graphics. So far, it's great for running Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries and Counter-Strike 1.6, but I wasn't able to get Far-Cry or even Splinter Cell: Pandora Tommorow to run on it.

Not a bad deal, for the $500 I paid for it. Circuit city is selling it for $650, and had a $150 rebate going, but I'm thinking that rebate is over with. Overall, though, I got a pretty good laptop that can do everything I really wanted to do with it: Play music, video, and quickly load PDF's of my D&D3.5 books. :grin:


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

My sister recently bought a laptop similar to the one you posted. Some of the software it came with caused problems during bootup, but Big Brother E fixed that for the Dear Younger Sister.

I'm planning on getting a Turion for my 1522 since they're so zippy.


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## Flaxon (Mar 8, 2006)

Hmm, well, so far I havn't had any trouble with it beyond the "4-way scroll button" not working very well. I have been thinking of doing a full reformat/reinstall, just to get rid of some of the random trial software thats on there, but I haven't had any funny crashes or strange behavior yet. Knock on wood!

Also, the laptop runs a bit warm, but by all accounts I've read, any parts that are damaged by the stock hardware running hot will be repaired/replaces for free by Acer. I'm in the proccess of confirming this with Acer, I'll post again when I find out.


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

Today I saw a laptop (from the same OEM I talked about in post #44) with the *second generation Intel Core Duo*. It has:

Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1833MHz 1Mb x 2 6
2 x 1GB SO-DIMM DDR-2 PC2 530
ATI X1400 MXM II with 128 MB & 384 Hypermemory
15.4" WIDE XGA Glair Type (1280 x 800)
FUJITSU 100 GB 5.400 RPM
Typical laptop goodies

...for a price tag of 1499 euros.


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## -d- (Jun 18, 2006)

My cousins have bought Gateway and Compaq laptops for use in university, and playing a few games. No complaints from them.


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## fadex1945 (Sep 21, 2006)

As many horror stories as I've heard about Dell, every single person I've ever known to own one personally has never had any problems.

I'm looking in to buying a lap top right now, and while I agree Acer is priced very nicely, you can't get an Acer custom-made for you (at least that I'm aware of.) I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world but anytime I buy a new system I do my homework and find out what I want, especially to cover my gaming habits, and so far Dell and a company called M-Tech are the only two that I can find online that allow me to customize a system to the degree I wish.

I'm not really sure I understand the "Dell uses crappy hardware" argument. Yeah, if you buy a $600 Dell desktop there's going to be a lot of lowe end Dell hardware in there, that's why it's a $600 model. But Dell allows a wide range of customization, to such a degree that if you do get any crappy hardware it's because you chose that crappy hardware in exchange for a lower overall system price.


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

fadex1945 said:


> I'm looking in to buying a lap top right now, and while I agree Acer is priced very nicely, you can't get an Acer custom-made for you (at least that I'm aware of.)


You don't need a custom-made Acer, as there is so much of a choice, that you are guaranteed to find the right one for you.


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## fadex1945 (Sep 21, 2006)

Joefireline said:


> You don't need a custom-made Acer, as there is so much of a choice, that you are guaranteed to find the right one for you.


That's just simply not the case. I think for most users you could find the right Acer for you, but I'm not most consumers. When I buy a new system I'm not overly concerned with price, but I am concerned with getting precisely the system I want, and Acer just doesn't offer one that matches that. I feel that if I'm going to spend a good chunk of money on something, it should be just how I want it, and that I shouldn't have to compromise on any of the parts.

This has always worked out pretty well for me with desktops because I research components that I want and then go to a local store and have people I trust assemble them. With laptops it's been a lot harder to find this level of customization.


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

fadex1945 said:


> That's just simply not the case. I think for most users you could find the right Acer for you, but I'm not most consumers. When I buy a new system I'm not overly concerned with price, but I am concerned with getting precisely the system I want, and Acer just doesn't offer one that matches that. I feel that if I'm going to spend a good chunk of money on something, it should be just how I want it, and that I shouldn't have to compromise on any of the parts.
> 
> This has always worked out pretty well for me with desktops because I research components that I want and then go to a local store and have people I trust assemble them. With laptops it's been a lot harder to find this level of customization.


Well, I don't see why you need to be so percise with _laptops_, I think if you are going for a 'percise' machine, you should build your own _Desktop_. And I found exactly what I wanted with my Acer laptop. It suits me perfectly.


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## Cellus (Aug 31, 2006)

I purchased an Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi and found it to be almost exactly what I was looking for (and the price was fairly mid-range too, which suited me just fine). The number of choices Acer has for their laptops is extensive - for the most part you should find something that suits your purposes. This particular one packs some fairly good hardware - you can find its system specs in the My System information dropdown below my avatar.

Don't get me wrong here, while the 5672 WLMi is an excellent laptop for the price you pay, it does have a few issues. First and foremost is heat - it cranks out a lot of heat. The area around the Synaptic Touchpad can become uncomfortably hot to use. Luckily for me I prefer using mice anyways, so I plug an optical mouse into one of the four conveniently placed USB 2.0 ports (two are located on each side). I took the liberty to purchase a Vantec Lapcool 3 Notebook Cooler pad which has kept it running even through the summer heat ($30CAN well spent). Unfortunately the air exhaust vents out the right-hand side so if you're a right-handed mouse user, your hand may get a bit toasty (not much of a problem in winter of course, if not a strange convenience). Another issue is the keyboard - it can be a bit spongy if you're a hard typist, so you'll need to be slightly more forgiving than your standard keyboard. That isn't saying it's a poor keyboard - I type on average 80wpm or more and can safely say I have few problems if any. Finally the pre-bundled software that installs during your first boot will literally take hours to install (mine took 2.5 hours). I can say though that some of the "Acer Empower Technology" software is actually useful - ePower Management makes power management a breeze with convenient sliders and drop-down menus, eLock Management allows you to lock all removable data devices, optical drives, and floppy drives with a simple radio button, and so on and so forth (there are eight utilities in all in the Empower Technology suite which can be also conveniently accessed by pressing the signature "e" button beside the power button).

There are a couple of surprising characteristics with the 5672, such as the fact that the slot-loading DVD+-RW DL "Combo Drive of Doom" literally eats your disc (crunching sound and all), but I have yet to ever lose a disc from it. The 1.3 Megapixel webcam is extremely nifty, and can even be rotated 225 degrees on the Y axis, but it can only be flipped _down_ not up, so you want to be careful not to bend up and break your fine little webcam.

All in all I found the Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi to be an excellent mid/high-range laptop and well worth the price. Sure it has a few interesting quirks and the occasional annoyance, but what it returns in performance (and those actually useful Acer utilities) is astounding. Well worth the buy.

Addendum: By the looks of things the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 has been somewhat underclocked, however I am honestly not surprised. If that baby was running to spec I am sure the keyboard under my fingers would turn into the consistency of goo from the heat.


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## fadex1945 (Sep 21, 2006)

Joefireline said:


> Well, I don't see why you need to be so percise with _laptops_, I think if you are going for a 'percise' machine, you should build your own _Desktop_. And I found exactly what I wanted with my Acer laptop. It suits me perfectly.


I guess I'm just a very particular person. I play a lot of computer games, I'm on the computer a lot in general. I travel out of town very often with my job and I'd like to be able to do just about anything I can do on my home system while away from home ( a large percentage of my calendar days are spent in hotel rooms.)


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Cellus said:


> I purchased an Acer Aspire 5672 WLMi and found it to be almost exactly what I was looking for (and the price was fairly mid-range too, which suited me just fine). The number of choices Acer has for their laptops is extensive - for the most part you should find something that suits your purposes. This particular one packs some fairly good hardware - you can find its system specs in the My System information dropdown below my avatar.
> 
> Don't get me wrong here, while the 5672 WLMi is an excellent laptop for the price you pay, it does have a few issues. First and foremost is heat - it cranks out a lot of heat. The area around the Synaptic Touchpad can become uncomfortably hot to use. Luckily for me I prefer using mice anyways, so I plug an optical mouse into one of the four conveniently placed USB 2.0 ports (two are located on each side). I took the liberty to purchase a Vantec Lapcool 3 Notebook Cooler pad which has kept it running even through the summer heat ($30CAN well spent). Unfortunately the air exhaust vents out the right-hand side so if you're a right-handed mouse user, your hand may get a bit toasty (not much of a problem in winter of course, if not a strange convenience). Another issue is the keyboard - it can be a bit spongy if you're a hard typist, so you'll need to be slightly more forgiving than your standard keyboard. That isn't saying it's a poor keyboard - I type on average 80wpm or more and can safely say I have few problems if any. Finally the pre-bundled software that installs during your first boot will literally take hours to install (mine took 2.5 hours). I can say though that some of the "Acer Empower Technology" software is actually useful - ePower Management makes power management a breeze with convenient sliders and drop-down menus, eLock Management allows you to lock all removable data devices, optical drives, and floppy drives with a simple radio button, and so on and so forth (there are eight utilities in all in the Empower Technology suite which can be also conveniently accessed by pressing the signature "e" button beside the power button).
> 
> ...


That's a nice laptop you got there Cellus! Although, I wouldn't go for a dual core...



fadex1945 said:


> I guess I'm just a very particular person. I play a lot of computer games, I'm on the computer a lot in general. I travel out of town very often with my job and I'd like to be able to do just about anything I can do on my home system while away from home ( a large percentage of my calendar days are spent in hotel rooms.)


Although my laptop may not be considered a 'gaming machine', it sertanly handles all games I have played on it superbly well! the 128MB ATI X700 dedicated graphics card does extremely well for me. It handles practically anything I throw at it, the other day, I had LimeWire running, which takes up a lot of process usage, a Virus scanner running, and ad-aware scanning, and on MSN, and on the internet, and loads of Windows open, and doing some other stuff, and it managed it! Although rather laggy, it took it! I don't see how you could find the right Acer laptop for you. Give a spec, and I will find it :wink:. (Don't try a 5GHz, 10GB RAM, 1TB hard drive ect ect., because you just WON'T get that! Lol!)


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## Cellus (Aug 31, 2006)

Wait, why would you not go for a dual core processor? Especially in a laptop?


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Cellus said:


> Wait, why would you not go for a dual core processor? Especially in a laptop?


Because, from what I have heard, from a lot of people, they aren't too great for gaming, and aren't the most reliable, and not really a choice for home use.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Joefireline said:


> Because, from what I have heard, from a lot of people, they aren't too great for gaming, and aren't the most reliable, and not really a choice for home use.


That is just not true. I run a dual core processor in my desktop and I couldn't think of ever going back to a single core. I do way to much multi-tasking and that dual core does me justice. 
Actually I am looking at a laptop to replace my desktop and it will definitely have a Merom CPU.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Joefireline said:


> You don't need a custom-made Acer, as there is so much of a choice, that you are guaranteed to find the right one for you.


When our company bought our laptops in January, Dell was the only one that could give us true dual monitor setup with a docking station. Meaning extending the desktop to another screen. Levono offers it now but not at the time we puchased the units.


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## Zealot (Oct 4, 2006)

For my purposes, gaming/school yet portable my asus W3J suits me well. I bought it in august and it has a t2500, 2 gigs of ram and a x1600 ati card. it may not seem like much but when you consider the 14.1 inch screen, its an unreal notebook. Extremely happy with it so far, build quality is great. Asus is a great company.


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## Zealot (Oct 4, 2006)

Zazula said:


> Well, what I've come to understand is that *users are extremely idiosyncratic when it comes to portable computers*. They tend to select a specific brand for some esoteric reason and then the following things happen:
> a. When they upgrade to a newer portable, they are _far _more inclined to buy from the same brand.
> b. They will _always _justify whatever negative experience they're getting from their portable.
> c. They will _always _scorn other brands for the things they detest on them.
> ...


Another good built laptop is the asus Z96J and the compal hel 80 but they have good graphics cards (although it isnt a priority for you) those are some good custom laptops.)


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## minster9 (Jun 8, 2006)

Having just built another desktop,should've bought a OEM Windows cd to begin with. My brother did most of the software install from floppys & a bootleg cd. Yeah,so what I saved a little money,took a month to get the unit in operation. Depends on your budget,I guess.


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## Fr4665 (Nov 18, 2004)

i have an Averatec laptop to be specific an 5110(i think gota look it up)
I have it since two and a half years and support from averatec was great.

There was an issue with the wifi interfering with the lcd so i sent it back after a year and a half and they replaced the screen for free and paid for shipping as it was still under warranty.

the laptop was dropped from the back of my car once or twice and its not broken yet. also battery life still after almost 3 years is awsome on a single battery for 4 hours w/o wifi and for 2 hours with wifi.

It suites me and does the job for what i need it checking email and the once or twice gaming cs 1.6 in the hotel room.


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## Cellus (Aug 31, 2006)

By the way to put the issue of dual-core laptops and gaming to rest, I among many things do a lot of gaming on my Acer Aspire 5672WLMi and it uses an Intel Core Duo processor. I have found my games benefit quite well to it. The only exception is older games that do not play nice with multiple cores/CPUs, but that is fixed by simply changing the CPU affinity.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

I would just like to recognize another brand. ABS uses third party parts in their laptops. You will often find that their laptops come with kingston RAM in them. They make some good gaming laptops, including one with an AMD Turion Mobile MT37 and a Mobility Radeon X1600. I also remember one with a Mobile Athlon 4000+ and a Mobility Radeon X700, but I can't seem to find it. There is also one with a Core 2 Duo and a GeForce Go 7900GTX! I would love to get my hands on one of those.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

ABS is actually a subsidary of Newegg.


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## pharoah (Aug 28, 2006)

*Re: Staff Picks*



laboye said:


> Well, Averatec is a fairly new company thats only a couple years old. They will start advertising soon and plan to take a jump in the market. Their laptops are actually quite good. Their thinner models are excellent..


averatec is a bit older than what ya think i had an averatec about 4 years ago,and they are older than that.they used to go under the name sotec.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

*Stickies*

find stickies in here


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## macten (Oct 31, 2004)

The only laptop I've ever owned is a Gateway 400 VTX. Good thing I took out the 2 yr. ext. warr. The sound went out just after the 1 yr warr was up. I got in a chat session with a Gateway tech and in 10 min she diagnosed it as a hardware issue so I sent it in. 4 days later I get the laptop back. They had to replace the motherboard to get the sound back. I was really impressed at how smoothly and fast the entire process went. My cost was $44 for shipping, insurance and the shipping box.

The laptop is going on 4 years now without any other problems. Although it doesn't get heavy use and I treat it with kid gloves.


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## ricklw (Jun 14, 2007)

My wife is still using my old Toshiba Satellite 4600 laptop. It must be 8 years old but she can surf the net, email, wordprocessing, and a whole lot more. One hinge is broken from a drop. Been a great laptop. I use an Acer TravelMate C110 tablet. What a great machine. I like both companies and got good service from both. Wish they still made the C110.


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

I have had a gateway and the battery has lasted for 8 yrs and still holds a 3 hr charge.


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## apluscnc (Aug 10, 2007)

Ive had every kind of desktop made I think, but I 've only had Dell Laptops and I love them. Their Customer Support is awesome. I can put in a Service Tag for a five year old Laptop and have a Support Tech online helping me with an out of warranty machine in five minutes. I have 3 C800 series (C800, C810 or C840's) and 5 C C600's ( a mix of C600's and C610's). All are P3'S between 750 to 1500 MHZ with 256GB to 512GB of RAM. They all run XP because I have a factory recovery CD that will restore XP Pro on any Dell. I get them off ebay for less than 200 bucks all the time. The only problems I've ever had is with keyboards, but I can get replacements for 20 bucks each. I love them. They will run anything I through at them.

Ignorance is Bliss.


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## craigwatanabe (Jan 28, 2008)

having worked on all of those laptop company's products mentioned, my pick for the best bang for the buck is a Toshiba.

The IBM Thinkpad being sold nowdays aren't IBM's anymore. Lenovo was licensed to take over IBM's laptop business that's why you saw both names on them. 

Now however, Lenovo own's the Thinkpad name outright and has gone forward in creating their own line of desktop towers called ThinkCentre.

Like Sony Viao, Lenovo has gone into using very proprietary software especially when trying to wirelessly link to a network. You have to use Lenovo's connectivity suite. If you try to use Windows wireless utility, Lenovo shuts down it's wifi antenna during online sessions. Verrrrry frustrating.

My wife just acquired a Lenovo ThinkCentre desktop for work and was frustrated when the brand-spankin new DVD-RAM drive failed to recognize anything put in it. Drivers looked fine so it was determined the drive was bad and she should return it to CompUSA...Well guess what? CompUSA is going out of business! At least here in Hawaii. 

I told her whenever she wants me to void that warranty to fix her computer to let me know. :4-thatsba So she's deciding what to do.

Now Panasonic is a great computer. I have an older Panasonic running a PII Intel Processor and it still runs circles around my Dell Inspiron 2650 piece of junk.


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## Snoopdogie187 (Jun 27, 2002)

For what i used:

Everyday common peron a dell is fine for if they are looking for nothing costing too much and want another in a few years.

I have a toshiba right now, people say all the software that came on it is bad, well most on mine was toshiba software to burn dvds or wireless, not as bad as the HP desktop i had and on top of that, i got a CD for system recovery unlike a lot of companies that put it on the hard drive and you have to make your own. only bad part is battery life is bad.

I also used an acer, which seemed fine too, battery life was bad though and it got hot just being on, so you have to be careful with that.

my friend has an old sony laptop (from china i think) and it seems good for its age with few problems.

HP, i heard a lot about their motherboards going and the desktop i had was no different then that.

I have used a IBM lenovo X60s, it is just what i need for class. Living on campus at a college (Rutgers, New brunswick to be exact) it takes a bating to get around campus, busses that are worse then NYC with all the people on them, all the traffic, just the distance. The X series is extremly lite and easy to carry around plus i was never afraid that it would break. it is a little pricy, not too bad though plus it doesnt use much cooling besides its size being so small that not enough heat can build up in it i think (somewhat). The battery lasts a really long time, 3+ hours min. playing a game that kills my toshiba in about an hour. then i think it was 5 hours just being on which is what i just need when i have two or three classes in a row. So yea i am trying to save up for a X61 of my own to use for class.

~is accepting donations towards new laptop~


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## Wisey! (Aug 22, 2007)

In searching this thread I don't think anyone has mentioned MESH.

I had a 17" P4 MESH laptop, my first couple of years with it were very good although battery life was crap (I bought it second hand when it was about a year old) and it wouldn't last anymore than 10minutes and it ran really hot, however it did just keep running for ages and never seemed to go wrong.

Until in the third year, stuff started to fall apart, one of the two 512MB RAM chips broke so the computer wouldn't boot with it in and then once this happend:









No idea...

And then later it started to randomly not boot, this become more and more a common occorance until had to try to boot it 3-4 times every time I wanted it on. Until eventual it wouldn't boot at all (managed to boot with a Norton file saving disc thing) so I took to a techy friend and he told me that either the motherboard or processor had gone.

======================

Now I have a pretty damn good Dell XPS M1530 (IMO) see spec at the side. And have had it about a month and have no problems with it at all (supriseingly, since it had Vista..). Boots real quick, finger print scanner is pretty cool too (and it works well). Runs Crysis on medium well (seems to be a bench mark atm). All that for £700, it's lifespan remains to be seen, but I'm very pleased with it atm.


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## fmjaguar7 (Jul 6, 2008)

well i might jump in here, agree alot with original post, except Compaq, sure they arnt the best but i have had a compaq desktop that my parents bought me for 10 years now lol, its finally hit its end but ever since i got it it has been easily upgraded to run for 10 years w/o a single hickup, i think i wiped HDD and started fresh windows once in all that time. upgraded about everything on it by now and still runs well, just cant handle any new apps such as COD4 but eh its old!

buy now i got a PC (laptop) i got to pick myself and i went with Sager, GREAT deals on their products and very reliable systems, its a 2092 with top line everything 200gb at 7200rpm an 8600GT 512mb and intel core2 Duo (2.5 Ghz) and WSXGA+ screen. very nice laptop and i love it dearly... runs COD4 on extra settings w/o a hickup, also runs Crysis on Extra but at about 20 fps, 35+ if i run it on High settings. so im gonna go with Sager as my pick for now, but really it would be a Compal (not Compaq) case assembled by Sager
www.sagernotebooks.com
anyways yea thats my product of choice, kinda of an underground Power notebook brand
when running off of battery i get 3-5 hours as well! (3 while playing COD4 and other games, and around 5 if its music)


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## V0lt (Sep 14, 2002)

Having been around the block with this, I'm going to take back any recommendations for a 'gaming' or 'high powered' notebook. 

Buying a high powered notebook is silly for a couple of reasons. The first and most significant of which is the fact that a high powered notebook will be the fastest to depreciate, and will depreciate the most out of any new notebook. Second, high powered notebooks, from my experience, are much more prone to hardware failures due to the high amount of heat that they have to deal with, often with less-than-adequate ventilation. Heat killed the crappy sunon fan on my Acer, and I had to get the entire cooling unit which cost 70+ dollars because nobody sells the fan alone. That's pretty poor.

I found a Dell C600 on Craigslist at my university for 20 dollars, and after replacing the hard drive and cutting the accupoint ribbon (which was faulty and caused the cursor to go everywhere) it is now a near perfect laptop. The battery takes a charge just long enough to change outlets, but for a semi-portable computer, it does almost anything I want it to, which is usually torrenting out my window at school to places where my desktop won't reach 

Not only that, I don't have to worry that much about it breaking since it cost me so little, and I can travel confidently with it. It's small, boots up fast, is light... it's everything that my Acer isn't and wasn't made to be. 

So, in summary, my 'pick' will now be anything you can get used for super-cheap. That's a sure-fire way to get the best value.


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## McNinja (Jun 22, 2008)

My gf recently bought this nice laptop a ASUS F8DN i think for $1049
its got a 9500 GPU, 1.86Dual coreCPU and 3 gigs of ram

The only thing thats broke was left mouse button stopped working for a week and now its good again.
It's also got the fingerprint scanner which is awesomely cool.She logs in all the time with it and it's pretty good for recognizing it
The cooling on this thing is pretty amazing for a laptop the fan in it is about as stong as a 80mm case fan


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## OwnYou280 (Jul 5, 2008)

my compaq persario sux balls currently shuts off randomly and the cd/burning drive needs replaced...only had it a little over a year and now my lil 1 year warrenty is gone and i have to pay to get somthing fix now -.-


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## C-Will - DSP (May 22, 2008)

Just one comment about the reason people buy dell.... - WARRANTY.

I am a Technician currently contracted to Dell (as well as Fujitsu, NCR and Acer) and i see people who have STABBED THEIR COMPUTER WITH A SCREWDRIVER and Dell still fixed it as "Under Warranty".


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## V0lt (Sep 14, 2002)

Yep, especially with the stuff that goes on in college campuses. I've worked on a couple of Dells at my school - my cousin's, which had a display failure, and his roomie's, which had a problem with the keyboard. I love how easy they are to disassemble- and they almost always have tear-apart guides published. That's really helpful.


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## C-Will - DSP (May 22, 2008)

I agree fox they are a heaps easier than macs or asus to break apart. Except for the XPS M1330 Laptop.... they are easy to pull apart but annoyingly hard to put back together again.


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## PVL (Sep 10, 2008)

Got a Hp pavilion 9076eu 17 inc monster. heavy not realy moibl. if you run him on full whis out battery you dont have much time about 45min - 1 hour max. on low if you want to save battre is not much too 1.5 hour to 2.5 hour max. if you want a good grafic is not much but ok. 
now i want to change my notebook from hp pavilion 9076eu to
Alineware area-51mx 15inc. what you think about this notebook ?


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## fmjaguar7 (Jul 6, 2008)

i know those alien wares look nice but no, you are paying an extra grand for a funky alien on your lid... go with a sager or ATLEAST check them out
here is a good one
http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=91133
i currently own five of their systems now, all works great and have never had a single problem, CHEAPEST PRICES around for a power packed notebook, they use GREAT components so you know it will work, and they have great tech support to go with it, i only had to call once and it was for a dell lol but they still helped me.

check them out and post what you think


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## bluegarfield (Nov 26, 2007)

i'm using Dell Inspiron 6400 intel t2060 1.6GHz, 2 GB RAM and ATi Radeon x1400. the system run quite well, no prob with the hardware except it generate a lot of heat. I think Dell should be ok for students, since it's quite cheap and stable ( as far as i concern, bcuz i keep my laptop quite well. And my friends using other brands, commonly HP and Compaq, had lots of problems)

What about Asus? anyone have experience using Asus? I want to buy a new laptop and i'm open to any offer, as long as it's the best.

(btw, i live in S'pore so there may be some differences, i assume )


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## Kailie (Dec 22, 2008)

I prefer ASUS. Their hardware they make is next to best compared to all the other companies out there. DeLL on the other hand, sucks hard core. Not only do their tech support suck. But they are way overpriced and get away with charging that much b/c the people who buy their crap know nothing about computers.


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## Pamster1 (Dec 28, 2008)

I am looking at buying a new laptop and compusa has just what I am looking for here:

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4148876&Sku=A180-16006

It's an Acer Aspire AS6930-6723 Notebook PC - Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 2.0GHz, Bluetooth, 802.11a/g/n WLAN, 4GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, Blu-Ray/ DL DVDRW, 16" TFT, Integrated Webcam, Vista Home Premium 64. I think it's gonna make me a very happy camper since I am looking for a versitle desktop replacement machine. What do you guys think of this machine? It claims up to 3.5 hours of battery life, but I will most likely use the power cord most of the time. I really like that it has so many awesome things going for it but the slower hard drive bothers me. Oh well, can't have it all for just under 1K.


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## reggaeone (Jan 22, 2009)

while i have not tried the other laptops mentioned I'm very happy with my Dell Inspiron 6000 (since 2005)....i have upgraded the memory & harddrive. Never had a problem and I also use it as part of my DJ setup. Its been dropped a few times and still very dependable.


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## Kasedie (Jan 6, 2009)

This is my two cents

In jamaica Dell is average, service doesn't mean that much

Acers are pretty good unless your little sun pours water into it and even then only the keyboard is out

i have a new toshiba (1 month) it never keeps the time and i pugged my headphone into it for the first time last week and the speakers did not come on when i plugged it out, still havent come on.

my brother's toshiba went through a hard drive in less than a year. easy to source and replace though

my sister's hp has been a headache, now my mom has a new one, hope it lasts


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## smith31 (Feb 18, 2009)

Just thank you 4 this


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## sordz99 (Jul 10, 2009)

i find some of these comments hillarious but im sure im about to get bitten in the butt sooner or later.

my aunty had a hp desktop and forever sending it in for repair so i tried not to get a hp. have had two and had problems with the fans, had to replace those and a few others but yeah not too keen on those. 

now im trying the hp so wel see how this goes. if this starts playing up then im gona throw it off my balcony


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## smoothcat (Jul 11, 2009)

What's everyone's take on Asus laptops?


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I still stand by my original picks. My ThinkPad has been through all 7 circles of hell with me out in the field and STILL works like a champ. My Acer that I use for communications and light gaming still churns along happily for me and with plenty of zip. Before i left my last job we'd just spent (as a department) a bit over $100,000 to replace a fleet of Dells that kept breaking down and had gotten too difficult and costly to keep up. Unfortuantely they were replaced by more Dells that would often overheat. My wife's HP laptop hasn't melted again but it sure feels like it's getting close after being used for a few minutes.


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## wintersnow (Aug 30, 2007)

I bought it in august and it has a t2500, 2 gigs of ram and a x1600 ati card. it may not seem like much but when you consider the 14.1 inch screen, its an unreal notebook.


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## deleted6052011 (Jul 16, 2009)

Like:
Sony - Look good, reliable, and I trust them after my years of PlayStation gaming.
Dell - Good name, you pay more but you pay for what you get.
Toshiba - Always liked them, helpful service and long lasting hardware.

Middle:
Panasonic
Compaq

Dislike:
Apple - Don't like mac and far too expensive.
HP - Unreliable and bad previous experiences.
Acer - Slow and not brilliant build quality.
Fujitsu Siemens - Poor support and low build quality.


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## sheng (Sep 3, 2009)

Goes to Dell


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

smoothcat said:


> What's everyone's take on Asus laptops?


Hello Everyone I am new here but I figured I could add to the plethora of brand hating here!

I have had limited experience with Asus laptops but the ones I have seen seem to work beautifully but their chintzy enclosures were all broken or splitting. 

Acer
I currently own two Acer laptops. Both seem to have a very decent build quality and the battery life is phenominal as compared to other laptops with similar sized batteries. Unfortunately both of my Acer laptops have display issues and 3 other Acer laptops had similar issues. The hardware is otherwise glitch free. I am also not a fan of the Acer support site. It is a bit of a pain to use.

Dell/Alienware
Alienware laptops have long been a favorite of mine until they were aquired by Dell. Dell has only ever had one thing going for them and that is unparallel customer support. The service tag system makes it a breeze to find updated drivers and software patches. Thier enclosure design is less than innovative and they all seem to be overweight and bulky, and finding compatable components is a bit of an expensive venture, especially the memory. I am a fan of the Dell Hardware Diagnostic tool set.

Sony
I like sony. I really do. They have some of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market. I just wish they could get some real power and reliability into those paper thin cases.

IBM/Lenovo
Gotta love IBM. Thier laptop design hasn't wavered in 20 years. Medium thickness black boxes. I think I saw a "silver" one once. For buisiness use they seem to be premier. Most large corporations seem to prefer them, I would assume for thier reliability. A bit pricey though.

HP/Compaq
I own a Compaq laptop. I am not in love with it but it has given me zero problems in the year I have owned it. It stays relatively cool and quiet and the display is bright and clear. I spent the first day disabling and removing all the HP proprietary software, but everything was good after that. The only thing I really don't like about it is the glossy screen. Makes it a pain to see in some lighting conditions. The only issue I have ever had (not problem) is a loud prolonged beep when I shut down Linux.

Gateway
95% of the power jack repair/replacements I have done were on Gateway laptops. They all seemed to run well despite running hotter than comparable machines. I was able to cool a few down by having the heatsinks machined smooth and using a good heatsink compound.

Apple
Not a fan of Mac OSes. Never had the pleasure of driving a Macbook or Ibook although most people who own them espouse their virtues over PC constantly. Just wait until PC finally drops BIOS and adopts EFI, mac will have a run for it's money. I think that Apples decision to adopt Intel and the x86 architecture is a step in the right direction. It's about time Mac got off his throne and acknowleged kinship to the PC. 

One last thing before I wrap this up, and I wonder if anyone agrees with me...

In my opinion... Netbooks are a waste of money and space. With the advent of smartphones and other handheld devices, what is the point. If you want a tiny screen with a tiny keyboard and no external peripherals that is only good for streaming media and surfing webpages (with eyestrain headaches) I would tell you to get an IPhone. Then, at least, you have the added functionality of being able to place a 911 distress call when your car goes careening into a ditch because you were paying attention to the Yankee's score and not the road.

Peace


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## Snoopdogie187 (Jun 27, 2002)

Just to make a more updated post:
I have had my toshiba laptop for over 2 years now. Original battery (still getting 3 hrs - but I take really good care of it I think). The hardware seems to be good, I never had any non Vista related issues. The case is glued together but that is starting to come apart, not too much of an issue, I could glue it without taking it apart, but Im waiting to take it apart so I can also clean the inside and try to redo the heatsink. The screen isn't the highest quality, it has a few stuck pixels, but this laptop was meant to be taking around and used, not for looks or gaming.

Mac: I use a MacBook for my job, and a few other macs for my job. They have a decent look, but function and control I don't like. I also don't think they can take as much abuse as I put my laptop through. It doesn't normally leave the office, and the casing its in had a chip out of it already. Also, it runs hotter than my laptop at home, and at work I don't do anything really intensive. The worst part is my laptop is running at 62 C right now in a game, with about 65% cpu usage. The Macbook feels hotter than my laptop and it has an intel core 2 duo 2.0 ghz processor (My laptop has the amd version of this). I have used iMacs also and they feel really warm like this. Probably because the iMacs are a screen and computer in one with less cooling than a normal computer and the Macbook mostly uses passive cooling. 

Being a student I do see a use for a netbook. A laptop is too much of a pain to always carry around, too big to efficiently use in class, and the battery life isn't always the greatest. A netbook usually does better for a situation outside of that. Other than that I can see a netbook being used for traveling, mostly for its weight, and portability.


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## ukbsktbll (Oct 9, 2003)

Any opinions on the MSI brand


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## macten (Oct 31, 2004)

My Gateway NX570X is now 2.5 years old and no problems. As stated above it throws a lot of heat but I have it on an Antec cooling pad. Haven't seen the power jack problem yet. I have Vista Ultimate on it and the laptop is rock solid.


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## x7Deity (May 10, 2010)

i dont see why some people are hating on gateway. Got one for 500$ 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon 4200 @ 256MB 320 gb hd and AMD Dual Core @ 2 ghz id say thats pretty good seeing as it can run Spinter Cell Conviction just fine. O and http://www.gateway.com/systems/category/529598135.php?cmpid=sectnav_sxseries might have heating probs but its damn worth the money


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## chocochoco (Jun 1, 2010)

Asus often breaks. Dell works well for a long time. Toshiba is good at sound.


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## Привет (Jun 3, 2010)

With almost everyone bashing Dell and very few supporting them, I decided I have to share my extremely limited knowledge of them.

I've had my Dell Dimension Dim2400 (Dekstop) since early 2002. All I can say is until now (I need a laptop) I have had absolutely *no* trouble whatsoever with it - except when I overfilled the hardrive and made it crash. All I know is it turns on every day. It may not be the fastest but it's kept up with me - I'm able to run 2 instances of WoW and surf the internet too - all with 756 MB RAM. 

You can hear horror stories from *any* brand. I guess it simply comes down to this:
Some computers are terrible and have loads of problems. Other computers are great and can run for countless years without any upgrades.


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