Any Laptops to avoid?

Hi, B.

I know little indeed about pc's. But I would feel bad indeed if I did not say to avoid the sheer evil malevolence that is Vista.

Both myself and my brother bought XP to overwrite the Vista on our computers because of it's super slowness and nanny attitude.

I know nothing of 7 though.

Simply from personal experience, i would say avoid Compaq and HP. But then other may have had better experiences with them.

I use a MacBook Pro now, but have used Dell's and Lenovo's. Both were good experiences. I actually really like the Lenovo style, but im not sure its seen as overly 'trendy' these days.

Friends have also said good things about Sony... but i guess you'll be paying a premium.

Howard, some Compaq & HP kit I have seen has had the recovery media so encased in DRM it is hard if not impossible to reset the kit to a factory fresh (without adware, malware, limited offers, dodgy tool bars) configuration. Try and get something that gives you the silver disks OS disks to use for restores otherwise if your hard disk craps out or you suffer a massive infestation of something nasty you may have to jump through more than a few hoops when attempting to fix your kit. You could always try some preunstalled Ubuntu kit

A glance through insight will give you a good idea as to what is offered and at what price. The technology may be last years but the bin ends, end of run offers reflect this in the price and they do the business with a year guarantee. I have brought their Lenovo laptops on behalf of friends and family and have never had a duff one.

I selected Dell as my cmpy standard needing 500+ laptops for a service team.
The support, durability (service engineers don't take prisoners) was outstanding.

After I retired I bought a Dell Studio - Vista (oh no) please can I have XP. But it worked OK, what was all the fuss about.
I crashed the op system, my fault entirely, the Dell on line support was outstanding - from India - & I mean OUTstanding. They talked me through the diagnosis, told me what I needed to do, committed to call back & did so dead on time, talked me step by step through the op system reload, committed to & called back after 1 hour to check, then the next day, then again the following week a local service guy phoned & virtually insisted he called in to check it out. Like I said outstanding.

I since moved to Windoze-7, highly recommended. Forget XP, move into 21st century

You may want avoid this - great computer, but you just can't the software.

If you must buy a Windoze thing then I'd plump for one from those awfully nice Sony people.

From my work, found HP good, but the Dell and IBM ones fell to bits (both poor); Fujitsu one was fine. Apple ones have always been more reliable, but not sure about the latest ones - they dual boot so you can run everything on a MacBook.

Reconditioned Amiga would be my choice - fantastic machine.

Howard

As with much else in life, you get what you pay for. It's about price vs value. Cheapo laptops and netbooks and other goods are made cheaply and are designed to be thrown out and replaced once they fail.

Which is why I buy brands such as Naim, Miele, Leica or Apple; sure, you pay more, but you get something well-constructed, built to last and with decent after-sales service should things go wrong.

it's also why I tend to shop in places like John Lewis, specialist hi-fi shops or the Apple Store as opposed to Currys or a discounter. You don't get deep discounts but you get good advice and customer service. When investing hundreds of pounds, that's priceless IMO.

You can get good quality refurbished Macs at reasonable prices from Apple dealers - otherwise shell out a little more for a Sony Vaio or a Dull, if you have to use Windoze.

It's worth it in the long run.

I must admit it isn't anything to do with me as he will be buying it (I hope).He has seen a Sony he likes at Dixons airside.
I might try and steer him to a MAC.

Lenovo (IBM's former hardware business) also make decent, robust and fairly priced laptops.

But a Mac is still the best bet if he can afford it.

Thanks guys, son and I will have a chat over the W/E and see what's occurring.

Hi I am a software/hardware on the wintel platform for the last 19 years and have had or used pretty most all the manufactures laptops and desktops. Last year I treated myself to a MacBook pro. It's just a sheer joy highly recommended.

There is nothing to fear from Windows 7.

We have the following in the house/office I built for my wife 2 Vista computers, 1 XP and a Windows 7 Laptop and if I had to choose what one to use at all times it would be the Windows 7

We have XP and Vista on 2 computers here, OSX on the other one, so I no nothing about W7.

Howard

Over the past 6 or 7 years I have bought 2 x IBM Thinkpads (R Series) and a Macbook Pro. all are going strong and reliable, despite being mis-used by my youngest during six years at uni. She uses one Thinkpad and the Mac, I am typing this on the other Thinkpad.

I would be reluctant to buy any other laptop than a Mac or Thinkpad.

My desktop is still a 13 or 14 year old Dell running on Windows 95, so Dell can't be that bad generally, but I don't have experience of their laptops.

I have always bought as much RAM as I possibly could. Future programmes just seem to gobble up historic meagre memory!!

Cheers

Don

Colin's old laptop which still works, but only has one USB socket, small ram and H/D is an IBM Thinkpad, little red nipple for a mouse, great machine.

What part of a mouse is red and that size?

It's nose?

I have to admit that my sess-pit of a mind immediately though of some other part of its anatomy! Sorry!

PCs come in 2 or 3 flavors - consumer and business and built-to-a-price. The best way to get trouble-free operation for a long time is to buy a business-class machine - ThinkPad, especially T and R series, HP 6000 or 9000 series, Dell Latitudes for sure, but all the brands have business-class machines. One of the distinguishing parameters is a 3-year warranty out of the box (but that doesn't work for ThinkPads & Dells - a std 1-year warranty lets 'em advertise a lower price.

Having said that, 3.5 years is pretty good service from a laptop.

W7 is faster than XP on the same hardware, as long as it meets W7's requirements. W7 is what Vista should have been.

Dell is fine if you buy 500 units. If you buy 1 unit, you may very well be in trouble if you need service.

Phil

quote:

Having said that, 3.5 years is pretty good service from a laptop.

I'm sorry I must have been spoilt with "our" kit, stuff that breaks before 10 years really pisses me off, I know I live in a special Howard's World.

Unfortunately these things always cost me money, when Colin was going to buy some Jap amp, I stepped in and bought him a NAIT5.

Maybe a Thinkpad and extra warranty is the way to go?

quote:

Maybe a Thinkpad and extra warranty is the way to go

Howard, this IMHO is one of the better paths to follow and for any kit you purchase;

• Update the bios if suggested by the OS.
  
• Make a system rescue / restore disk.
  
• Do a couple of restores using your new restores / rescue disk (when you are not under pressure).
  
• Do a factory fresh restore (when you are not under pressure)

I know it all sounds boring and is time consuming but it pays dividends when the shit hits the fan for real.

quote:

Maybe a Thinkpad and extra warranty is the way to go?

Yep, Miss D spent 3 years at Newcastle and so I bought a three year NBD warranty - it came in handy once - when the DVD drive failed. It got fixed the next day and saved me a 600 mile round trip. peace of mind for a student under deadline presure.

Cheers

Don