[techtalk] Re: Look, I'll sort myself a laptop soon, honest...

  • From: Greg Webb <greg.webb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: techtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:20:49 +0000

Paul Ferguson wrote:
>>Thanks for the recommendation. So far, I've found the branded laptops
>>rather difficult to source with slightly unusual specs - I have and
>>listen to more music than is really credible, hammer memory and need
>>XP Pro for work. If possible, I want a wide TFT and a numeric
>>keypad...
> I guess you will run into difficulties if speccing features that are cons=
> idered =
> 
> to be "unusual" (EG Numeric keypad) Hmm thinking about that, I believe it=
> 's =
> 
> possible to buy external USB numerical keypads - Belkin do them IIRC (Don=
> 't =
> 
> know if thats any use just thought I'd mention it ;)

Not ideal but thanks. Much of the time I'm anticipating this running on 
an external keyboard - I'm thinking of the machine as a transportable / 
semi portable so in that sense it's a nice to have. In the other sense, 
that spec was drawn up at a time in my life when there was just me and 
there's now a rather pleasant young lady so there's more chance of the 
machine being used on my lap from the sofa... so increasing the need for 
portability and battery life, and being able to run away from a separate 
keyboard. Annoyingly, that creates a conflicting requirement in that the 
extra portability and battery life doesn't seem to be available with 17" 
TFTs which are what I need to get a numeric pad built in to a laptop 
from what I've seen so far... suspect the numeric pad will go, 
therefore, but you never know.

>>Sorry to hear that. We've got a bunch of dell desktops and servers and
>>have had no troubles at all, and 3 of their laptops. The oldest laptop
>>caused some problems a few years ago but the 2 new ones are great. =
> 
> We don't use them for servers, we use Compaq or more recently HP.
> We do however buy desktops from them, the Optiplex GX270 which so far don=
> 't =
> seem too bad (altough I have found that their BIOS doesn't like some hard=
> ware =
> 
> EG A "no-name" CDRW that the BIOS doesn't recognise but once into Windows=
> , =
> 
> works a treat) It's a bit like Compaq machines not liking generic memory.=
>  Due to =
> 
> this problem with the Dell machines, we will end up paying out =A370 for =
> a
> Dell branded CDRW as opposed to approx =A320 :( =

Annoying. We've got one Dell with a retrofitted MSI CDRW but that's it 
as far as I know. I'm afraid I have a deep prejudice against all things 
compaq, though - told they make lovely servers but I've seen too many 
odd machines to want to use them.

> Why don't you like them?
> 
> I took delivery of 3 Latitude D600's - out of the 3, 2 had faulty
> Bluetooth modules. This is now an "officially recognised" problem =

OK, don't actually want one anyway. Planning on going for extra 
flexibility through a dongle.

> IE Dell admit to it rather than trying to fudge the issue (I think they =
> 
> must have been supplied with a large number of  faulty components) =
> 
> but, as this was the first shipment of laptops I received from Dell, =
> 
> it was not a good start !
> 
> Thankfully, their Gold Support people know their stuff and having run
> through their scripted questions and answers, they were quick to =
> 
> see that I had done enough to confirm that this was in fact a hardware
> issue and they arranged for an engineer to visit (next day) - the fix is
> to replace the entire motherboard :(

Whoops - still, ex colleague just had a near DOA Toshiba with similar so 
no-one's perfect...

In other words, though, problems with Dell are one faulty part on one 
early batch of machines? OK you got a bunch of them but that's it and 
they tracked down and fixed the issue?

Sorry if this sounds like I'm trying to undermine your argument, just 
trying to get facts straight!

> *Paul*


-- 

Greg               <><
----------------------
greg.webb@xxxxxxxxxxxx

I started out with nothing & still have most of it left.



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