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Re: Laptop advice



How to assess cheapness?  I saw that prices span quite a large range...
Everyone here seems to agree that a ThinkPad is "nice" but expensive.  So what
does one get for the higher price (with respect to other laptops)?

Cheap computers are VERY expensive, if your time is worth anything. Figure the time needed to debug 'fleeting hardware failures' and find out there isn't support for buggy components that were discontinued. Poorly designed components that are bought by the integrators at firesafe prices are part of what make cheap computers cheap. Some of these components have such poorly written specifications that it is almost impossible to write good drivers for them - the provided drivers may have enough bugs in them that they never get widely adopted and the chipset or component gets 'dumped' into 'discounted' computers.

If you have more-time-than-money, it might make sense to buy a cheap computer and spend your time debugging low level drivers - but if you can do that, you probably have more-money-than-time anyway.

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Karl Schmidt                         EMail Karl@xtronics.com
Transtronics, Inc.                     WEB http://xtronics.com
3209 West 9th Street                    Ph (785) 841-3089
Lawrence, KS 66049                     FAX (785) 841-0434

When everything is coming my way, I'm probably in the wrong lane.

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