wrecked laptop

[ProPain]

Well I managed to wreck another laptop. Apparently there's a rule that a every laptop I own breaks down after this period. This time the screen gave up on me which is quite annoying as working without a screen requires leet ninja crystal ball skills I lack.

Next week a guy will repair the thing but as I've had problems with performance on the laptop anyway I'm looking into buying a new one as well. Any recommendations? I very much prefer a HP/Compaq as that's the only brand of computer we use in the office. I value light weigth over huge screens (working on a 15" wide screen 1650*1280 has been fine for me over the last 2 yrs) but I need high performance to run some demanding apps and games.

[digger760]

Well i just bough an Acer recently


T7350 Core Duo
4MB Ram
9600M GS Graphics
13xx by 7xx (not sure exact size)
250Gig Hard Disk
16" widescreen (Probably to big for you PP)

On Paper Acer seem to offer the best value for money however:
Build Qualilty is quite cheap
Battery life is poor
Screen only opens to a max of about 120 degrees
Other wise the specs above provide pretty good performance


Also the Intel naming scheme is very confusing here is a basic rule to remember T = 25W power dissipation P=35W power dissipation. Theoretical you would expect something with T to be better on batteries...but nothing to do with Performance..that all comes dow to CPU speed, size of L2 cache, and speed of FSB.

[barbu1977]

Well i just bough an Acer recently

4MB Ram


That is the CPU cache memory?

[Furiey]

I've also just got an acer laptop, bought with Tesco shopping vouchers so cost me bugger all.

T7500 Core 2 Duo
Only 2GB RAM though
Crap intel graphics - but it runs Civ 4 smoothly
1280 by 800
160 Gig Hard Disk
15.4" widescreen
Vista home premium

I actually been very pleased with it despite only 2GB memory and the intel graphics. Definitely a step up over a very old P4. I can not get used to using a touchpad though...

[akots]

I've just got Toshiba Porgete M750 tablet. Looks pretty cool. I'm not sure about graphics and heavy applications but it is certanily portable and I like tablet features and 12-inch screen.

[barbu1977]

I've been working with colleagues that use some of theese:

http://www.humanware.com/en-usa/products/blindness/braillenotes/_details/id_22/braillenote_mpowerbt_32.html

Cool, but you need some training.

[digger760]

That is the CPU cache memory?

nope just the normal sodimm memory. IIRC L2 cache memory is 3MB

[digger760]

Here is an interesting chart at the following link..pretty much confirmws my thoughts on Acer build quality

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/tech_panel_notebook_poll_results/

Asus or Lenovo look to be the best pics based on those charts

I have a Lenovo at work, and i'd have to say you would have to do well to wreck one of those.

[barbu1977]

nope just the normal sodimm memory. IIRC L2 cache memory is 3MB

I was refering to the fact you had writen 2MB instead of 2GB.

[socralynnek]

My first machine had half a MB as RAM. And I was very proud when I bought another 0.5 MB as upgrade.

[Shabbaman]

Laptops suck.

[ProPain]

Thanks for all the info!

I have to say I have very bad experiences with Acer machines so I vowed to never buy one again.

My Compaq laptops (mostly on the more high end spectrum) have always performed rather well apart from always breaking down after 2 years. I've always bought upto 3 years of garantee, next business day on site and I have to say that garantee issues are handled very well by Compaq.

Thinking about the HP 8530 p/w now. But it's a hard choice between the HP and the braillenote. After all the braillenote is a lot smaller and lighter than the HP.

[akots]

HP has horrible tech support even with extended warranty. The University here had a contract for HP laptops and they broke it so many tiime, it were canceled. It is now either Dell or Toshiba. At least they fix things while with HP, sometimes we had to wait up to 6 months for a repair. And this is with 24-hour on site contract.

[digger760]

here is some more statistics for you PP

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-asus-lenovo-computer-reliability,7364.html

Check out the table on Reliability. Asus & Lenovo on top (matches up well with the other survey i posted). Seems that HP is worse thatn Acer for reliability.

Why dont you give Asus a try out? Never had one myself, but these report seem favourable.

[Shabbaman]

Thinking about the HP 8530 p/w now. But it's a hard choice between the HP and the braillenote. After all the braillenote is a lot smaller and lighter than the HP.

If small and light is what you want/need, get a netbook as well as a normal laptop. What do you want to use your computer for? Heavy stuff or standard office programs? I guess you want to play civ and other games as well, but you don't need to use the same computer for that. I would recommend against it.