New Laptop Suggestions

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 130

About a month ago the Mrs's 4.5 year old Dell laptop decided to commit suicide by jumping off the coffee table. (She insists it fell but I suspect it may have been pushed.) Now the screen has a green tint to it and things appear splotchy. So we decided it is best to put it down like a faithful old dog (unless someone out there has seen this behavior before) . Rather than rushing out to buy a new Vista machine and having to deal with upgrading she dealt with the bad screen while awaiting the arrival of Windows 7. And now the time has come.

Since it has been a while since I dealt with buying a new laptop we are open to suggestions as to which brands are the better ones out there (i.e. more reliable, better warranty, better customer service). First off, we will not be going down the Apple road. Also, I know that Dell is no longer as good as it used to be so they are also ruled out; besides I have had more hardware issues with my son's 1 year old Dell than I've had with the wife's over the past 4+ years . Lenovo seems to get high ratings in many reviews but so do Toshiba and Sony. HP seems to be hit or miss.

FWIW She would like to stick with a larger screen (about 17") and we have planned to spend about USD1000 on it.

Suggestions? Warnings?

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2657

Every brand has lemons. You want to get the brand with the fewest lemons.
PCMag used to do reliability reports but I can't find anything like that.
The best I could come up with is this page
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,9,00.asp

If you scoll to the bottom of the page, you can see products, with ratings aside. It also lists the date of the review, and price. That might help in your search to rule out certain brands/models.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

You would do well to talk with people "in the PC Service business" about what is the best laptop to buy.

And remember, that ratings can be bought as easily as a burger & fries. Crying or Very sad

I've seen things with high ratings turn out to be pure JUNK. Crying or Very sad

The last time I talked with my friend at the Laptop Service Center in Orlando, he did say that Toshiba has the greatest mean time between failures of any laptop that he has to work on.

Toshiba is the one brand that I recommend to my own customers and I've never had reason to regret it.

However, I have several customers that have purchased Acer laptops and they are having no problems with them.

The little netbook I purchased a few months ago is also an Acer.
It's a fabulous little computer. (Acer Aspire ONE)

So my recommendation would be Toshiba #1 and Acer #2.
Third and fourth choice would have to go to HP and Compaq.

Happy Computing!

The Doctor Cool

bern · Joined: Mar 12, 2007 Posts: 1464 Location: ann arbor

I presently have 3 Dell laptops of various ages, running XP and Vista. I bought them all as refurbished units and have had no problems with any of them. So don't rule Dell out completely.

The point of my suggestion is to buy a refurb of whatever brand when possible. They have like new warranties generally, and have passed the "early mortality" phase of any mass produced electronics device. And in addition to probably better short term reliability, you save money.

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 130

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Whenever the subject of reliability comes up, someone jumps in with "I...blah, blah, blah" but it's always just one person with maybe one or two computers.
Somewhere, someone has had good luck with even the worse PC on the market. Rolling Eyes

When you work on as many 'Hundreds' of computers as I work on, you begin to get the "Big Picture" as to what's good and what's NOT.

Like Packard Bell and some other brands, now gone, Dell is getting a real bad reputation among service tech's the world over.

When there are so many GOOD brands out there, why even flirt with disaster by buying a PC from a company where their quality and reputation is rapidly going down hill.

There is something to be said, for buying "refurbished" units of any type from any company. Those are usually tested much more stringently than new units and may include either firmware of hardware upgrades not found in the new units.

I buy all my printers and scanners from the "Epson Store" and I look for refurbished units whenever possible. I save a lot of money over time, by buying refurbished.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor Cool

eric_s · Joined: Jul 16, 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Western Canada

Doc I'm with you - been doing this computer thing since before "personal" was part of the name. Now after 47 years the "name" I trust in P.C.s is Home Built, and since I can't build my own lappy I'll take Acer or Toshiba - a lagging third is Lenovo. After that your playing with fire in a gas station.

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 130

File this under "Knock Me Down With A Feather!"

I finally got around to ordering a new laptop for the Mrs. I went with a Toshiba Satellite Pro L550-EZ1702. It should arrive early next week. But that is not the surprising part.

My son came home from college for the winter break with his 19 month old Dell Inspiron 1525. The front indicator lights don't work. It will not sleep or hibernate when you close the lid. I notice two screws are missing from the bottom. But that is not the surprising part.

Three weeks ago he called me with a BSOD problem and back then it sounded like the HDD was failing. It is currently on its third HDD. But that is not the surprising part.

So today I run chkdsk and lo, all kinds of bad sectors and then it froze in stage 5. So I log into Dell and initiate a chat with tech support (it's still under warranty (thank the gods for that)). After a while they tell me they will send a tech to the house and replace the palmrest and the HDD. I point out that this is the third HDD replacement in 18 months. The first tech puts me on with the manager. What follows is the actual trascript.
Agent: "Hi Steven, my name is Pankaj. I am a manager with Dell Technical Support. How are you doing today?"
Me: "ok"
Agent: "I have reviewed your account and the chat session. I can understand the inconvenience caused to you because of the hard drive being replaced for the third time in last 18 months and I sincerely apologize for it."
Me: "ok"
Agent: "Steven, are you happy with the level of service and resolution provided to you by the technician on the chat today?"
Me: "yes. i had no problem with the tech just the quality of the laptop"
Me: "honestly i would feel a lot better if you just replaced the entire laptop"
Me: "if you check my records you will see that it has been a problem for a while"
Agent: "Steven, I am truly sorry that your experience with the Dell laptop did not meet your expectations."
Agent: "Your satisfaction as a Dell Customer is important for us. I will go ahead and replace the system for you."

At that point my son and I almost simultaneously say, "Holy excrement!" (Not really but this is a family forum.)

Yep that's right. They are actually send me a replacement system! Nice to see them do the right thing. Let's see how long this one lasts.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1629 Location: Central FL, USA

Well, Dell does replace chronicly BAD units, (sometimes) but only after the user is at deaths door with frustration.

I tried to fix a Dell XPS 400 for a friend of mine. It came with RAID (two HD's) and was really screwed up. I got it to run again and gave it back to him, only for it to crash again. He called Dell (I'd like to have a transcript of that conversation) and they finally agreed to send him a new PC. They didn't even want the old one back.
I got the old one, and actually had it running for a while before the PSU blew up.
I scrapped it out, saving the drives, video card, modem and fans. The rest went into the trash.

The replacement XPS 400 came with a single HD, newer mobo and CPU, and ran pretty good, for about six months, before blowing out its own PSU.
It was grossly underpowered. I replaced the bad PSU with an Antec Earthwatts 500 and it's running error free, to this day. (about a year).

So don't ask my friend what he thinks of Dell, if you don't want an ear full. Twisted Evil

Laptops? Many friends of mine have come up with great deals on Acer Laptops this Christmas season. One friend came up with an Acer laptop at a local Big Box Store, for $299. When he first told me about it, I thought it would be a little netbook, like I have. But NO, it was a full sized Notebook with Windows 7 Home Premium installed. It also came with 3 gigs or ddr2 ram and a 160 gig hard drive. Pretty nice little PC!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

The Doctor Cool

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 130

Update.

Monday, 12/28. I get a call from Dell. After much apologizing the guy explains that they are working on getting me the exchange laptop and someone will be calling me in the next couple of days.

Tuesday, 12/29. I get a call from a woman who tells me that Dell no longer makes the Inspiron 1525 and they have no refurbs available. Would I mind an upgrade to an XPS 1640? Sure.
She notices that I had originally asked for Windows 7 but she doesn't understand why the guy told me that I couldn't get it. OK, so I ask for the 64 bit version. Not a problem I'm told.
Black, red or white? Black is fine.
We have one with a Blue Ray reader. Is that OK? I ask if it can write to plain old DVD+-R. She says she'll call me back shortly. 5 minutes later she calls back. She tells me yes and that it also burns dual layer. I guess that will do.
She notices that on the Inspiron we had the T8300 CPU. She says they'll have to upgrade that to the T9600.
The one they have also has a 9 cell battery instead of the 6 cell.
I ask when will it ship. She tells me either late this week or early next week. In the meantime I do a little research and find that they are sending me a USD1500 laptop to replace the lemon for which I paid USD1200 19 months ago.

Wednesday, 12/30. There is a knock at the door. It's FedEx with a package from Dell.

The only downsides are 1) the 9 cell battery is a bulbous appendage that sticks out of the bottom and 2) I have to ship back the old laptop. I wonder if I should wait for them to call me to ask for it back.