On Thursday 01 January 2009, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi <raju.mailinglists@gmail.com> wrote about 'Re: OT: laptop recomendations': >Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: >> On Wednesday 2008 December 10 16:45:09 Micha Feigin wrote: >>>Runner up is Dell, although the hardware seems a bit cheap when looking >>> at the drivers (especially the touchpad which tends to be alps which >>> isn't up to par with the synaptic). >> >> I'm happy with my Dell Inspiron E1505. My roommate is happy with his >> more recent laptop purchase from Dell. My other roommate likes his >> Thinkpad, but it is a much older system, so I can't say that reflects >> the quality of current Thinkpads. > >I own a Dell Inspiron E1505. I do not recommend it. Get something else >(preferably non-Dell). > >I always have problems with their batteries, video card. No matter how > many times I replace the batteries, they seem to go bad after some time. > I replaced the battery 3 times. After 3-4 months the battery life will > be reduced to less than 1 hour and then after some time, they just don't > work. I'm still using the original battery, although I did get a spare for when I will eventually wear out. It depends on what I'm doing, but 4 hours of battery life is not unheard of, nearly 1.5 years after the purchase date. Running the DVD drive constantly *significantly* reduces that, but I can still use it for at least 90 minutes watching a DVD while running on the battery. >As for the video card, if I play a flash based movie in windows XP, there >will be a "blue screen memory map" error after some time. FWIW, the > movies work fine in Linux. I searched in google for this and found that > the video cards in Dell Inspiron E1505 are defective. Link please? I'd never even consider installing MS Windows on mine, but I've never had a video-card related kernel panic or even X crash. I've played plenty of flash-based video in Linux. The card / drivers don't seem to like each other a whole lot though. My Etch/Lenny mix I had on it until Dec. 8th needed to be switched to a test-mode VC and back before it would display anything after a resume. The openSUSE 11.1 (for work I need turnpike and the Novell/Nortel plugin) I'm running on it right now appears to do that for me. >In general, I think Dell's hardware is unreliable. They work fine > initially. But after 1 year or so, things start to fall apart. This is > if you plan to use laptop intensively (say 8-10 hours a day). But if you > just use it for 1-2 hours a day, then it's life might be more. Mine is a work laptop. I generally use it 8 hours, 5 days a week. It gets even more use if I've got some problems with my desktop, up to ~12 hours, 7 days a week. The only hardware-related problem I had with it was a "stuck *row*" in the LCD panel. I lived with it for a while, even using it as a guide for how I partitioned my desktop with windows (to hide it in the window borders). However, when I finally got around to calling Dell, they replaced the LCD panel with no cost to me, sending a technician w/ parts to my workplace so downtime was minimal. Anyway, I'm not sure my experience with a laptop is "norm". You probably should get multiple (>3) opinions on vendors/models you are considering. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
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