Notebooks

[LunarMist]

Follish question of the dfay: Are Dell notebooks as bad as their desktops?

 

[Mercutio]

Latitudes are better than many other options (Compaq, HP, S*ny, Toshiba), not as good as others (IBM).
Inspirons are a reason to slide headfirst down a razor blade into a bucket of iodine.

 

[LunarMist]

It was the Dell 700M. So I guess it is not a good choice.

 

[Santilli]

Simply put, Panasonic rules, and, Toughbooks are the girls...
:lol:

GS

 

[LunarMist]

I need a small notebook with good performance and resonable configurability, not a big tank or tiny toy.

 

[Mercutio]

IBM T-series, but they are kinda expensive.

 

[LunarMist]

The T series is way too big.

My current notebook is 7.8 x 10.3 inches. Of course anything with a fast CPU will be larger, but more than 9.0-9.2 inches high is just too much.
Unfortunately most of the new small notebooks now use crappy 1.8" drives. I need something that will accept a 160GB 2.5" drive.

 

[time]

Asus Z33A (formerly M5A) or W5A. About 9.2 and 8.7 inches respectively, both 1 inch thick including DVD burner and 2.5" hard drive.

I prefer the first because of it's taller screen and lighter weight (3.3lb). But the white and pearl appearance of the shorter widescreen model (4lb) is very classy.

They're solidly made with carbon fibre body and keys, and there's a 2 or 3 year warranty option. If you want an ultraportable, I'm still waiting to see something else that surpasses or even matches them.

 

[Stereodude]

Latitudes are better than many other options (Compaq, HP, S*ny, Toshiba), not as good as others (IBM).
Inspirons are a reason to slide headfirst down a razor blade into a bucket of iodine.

Strange opinion considering they're generally essentially the same hardware with only a difference in pre-installed software.

 

[time]

Latitudes and Inspirons are from different manufacturers, if that is what you are referring to.

 

[time]

Hmm, had a brain fade there. Here it is again: Asus Z33A (formerly M5A) or W5A.

 

[Mercutio]

Strange opinion considering they're generally essentially the same hardware with only a difference in pre-installed software.

They aren't even close, and a cursory examination of even the chassis is quite enlightening in that regard. Latitudes are manufactured to MUCH higher standards and have Latitude-standard parts across the product line. Inspiron = Vomit box.

Lunar, have you looked at IBM X-series models?

 

[Buck]

Time, have you tried the V6V?

 

[Adcadet]

I've had an Inspiron 8200 for 3+ years now, and used a 600M for the first two years of med school, provided by my employer. The 8200 is so-so quality wise, but I was impressed with the 600M. I beat the daylights out of it for 2-years and it never flinched. Except the powercord did die on it (frayed cable from being bent all out of wack for too long for too many years)

 

[JKKJ]

Here it is again: Asus Z33A (formerly M5A) or W5A.

Another vote for Asus. I've had an M5N for about 6 months now, and have no complaints. Came with a CD burner / DVD player, and I put in a Hitachi 7200 rpm drive and more memory (it takes a micro-dimm that I hadn't heard of before).

I'm not a road-warrior by any stretch, but it follows me everywhere, and apart from a few scratches due to my occasionally thoughtless handling is still in good condition.

 

[timwhit]

I've never even seen an Asus notebook. How is the build quality?

 

[Will Rickards]

My Dell lattitude D600 has been pretty solid, even runs F@H.
Doesn't always hibernate correctly through the OS though. But does if you just shut the lid. Only one scare with the HD about a year ago when I got a hdd not found error. But reseating it fixed that.

 

[Adcadet]

Wow, I'm a moron. My school-provided laptop was a D600, not a 600M. I turned it in months ago, so I've kindof forgotten such details.

 

[Mercutio]

Asus notebooks look like a pretty good deal. They can be customized in much the same way as a desktop and have nicer chassis than your typical vomit-book.
I have no idea how durable they are, how hot they get or whether their service is worth a handfull of spit.

 

[Stereodude]

Latitudes and Inspirons are from different manufacturers, if that is what you are referring to.

That is what I'm referring to, and I have to respectfully disagree. I have a Inspiron 8600 at home of my own. It is virtually identical to the Precision M60 we have at work here, and the Lattitude D800.

At my last job I had a Latitude C810 which is virtually identical to my friends Inspiron 8100.

There are some Latitudes that don't overlap with the Inspirons and vice-versa, but I find it hard to believe that Dell has two different companies making two essentially identical notebooks to two different quality standards.

 

[Stereodude]

They're not the same, but they use the same parts?

http://www.bay-wolf.com/partslist.htm

 

[Mercutio]

Nonetheless, that is the case. I'm sure there are parts that overlap, but the laptops are indeed made by different companies. Inspirons are made by the same company that makes most Gateway and HP vomitbooks.

 

[sechs]

If you buy a Dell, you're buying service.

If you buy a Thinkpad, you're buying a computer.

 

[Tannin]

Huh?

 

[LunarMist]

Apparently Asus does not sell notebooks in the US, so the only options are onlne (useless cripplied confirgurations) or some local computer shops it seems. In my state that is basically zilch so I wouyld not know wehre to get one. CVrappy though it may be, at least one can buy a Dell in about five minutes.

 

[Tannin]

Yes, but why would you want to?

In my book, there are only four brands of notebook worth considering:

IBM
IBM
Fuijitsu
IBM

ASUS make such bad motherboards, why would they make a good notebook? Stranger things have happened, but you have to wonder.

Gigabyte are selling notebooks now, at least on the domestic market, but I imagine that, like their optical drives, they are actually just rebadging 3rd-party items. Still, if it's Gigabyte that's doing the rebadging, I have extra confidence. Their optical drives seem excellent (rebadged BTC, or Lite-On, depends on model.)

I used to like NEC a lot, but that was a long time ago, and they don't seem to do notebooks any more. Of course, what gets sold in the Oz market under the NEC brand might or might not have anything to do with any other brand or any other market. For now, I'll stick with the big four.

 

[LunarMist]

Tony,

Unfortunately the upcoming Fujitsu P has gone to the dogs now, basically copying the little Sonys. The IBMs are too large, except the tiny one with 1.8" HD, and dont; have the Forewire.

 

[Tannin]

Ahh, I'm the other way around from you, LM. I think that the current crop of notebooks is too small. And I currently run an R-series IBM. In fact .... No. This thought is good for a new thread. I'll take it over there.

 

[time]

ASUS make such bad motherboards, why would they make a good notebook? Stranger things have happened, but you have to wonder.

That's the sort of stupid statement worthy of Tea.

Despite my bad experiences with some Asus motherboards, I've also had extremely good experiences with others. In general, I've found it best to avoid their budget models.

However, Asus notebooks I've seen, regardless of model, have been exceptionally well designed. Big or little, cooling has been excellent.

For example, I've sold a couple of Athlon 64 models with Radeon Mobility 9200/9600 graphics (performance was great). One of this model's listed design features is that everything is accessible after removing just 2 or 3 screws. That's a huge advantage over many other notebooks.

Lunar, they are new to the US but they are available.

 

[Tannin]

Crap. It is a balanced and rational statement based on considerable hands-on, practical experience with the most over-rated motherboard brand on the planet. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have sold good ASUS motherboards and been entirely happy with their performance and reliability, and sold some others which were certainly as good as most boards get.

The most recent board in that first category was, alas, back in Pentium MMX days, and the second (i.e., good but not great) category was in the time of the K6-2/500. That's a long, long time between good products.

My assumption is that ASUS probably make good Intel-based product, because they sure as hell have sold me some utter crap by way of AMD platforms in the last five years. We have not sod one single ASUS product in all that time that could cut the mustard. Not one. We have tried about 8 to 12 different ASUS mainboards over that period. (Sometimes it's hard to get the brand you want so you figure an ASUS will have to do, sometimes you figure that they can't go on selling crap forever without someone noticing, so this new model should be pretty good.)

They fall into two broad categories:

(1) mainstream boards: slightly over-priced, tend not to actually fail, but are a complete pain in the arse to work with. All sorts of weird stupidities. Ridiculously fussy and very often difficult to get going right, but you can get there. Eventually. Most of the time. Hell, MSI is easier.

(2) Budget boards. Absolute crapsville. Big-time crap. Quite possibly worse than PC-Chips/Elite. Their ASROCK boards are stunningly bad.

This ain't just me. Kristi hates them worse than I do. Cyril has had nothing but trouble from them. ASUS used to be good. In Socket 7 days. ASUS are the Symantec of hardware. All fluff and shiny boxes, can't deliver even basic functions as reliably as lesser-known products that just work.

I hope their Intel-based product is OK because (to my irritation) a supplier just shipped me an ASUS P4 board. We need a board that actually works properly all the time instead of throwing everything into PIO mode for a customer who was lumbered (not by us) with a pile-of-crap ASROCK (ASUS budget brand) board. So I ordered a replacement for him. Told my supplier "any brand, so long as it's decent quality". Silly me. I would have been happy with Gigabyte, Soltek, Albatron, Biostar, even MSI or Epox. (Epox boards have, on our books, a substantially lower failure rate than ASUS product.) But I'm stuck with it now.

Wish me luck.

 

[Buck]

There must be these terribly quick gnomes that roam the world, sabotaging all Asus and ATI things that go to Tony, and all WD stuff that goes to Mercutio. (Gnomes build PC Chips and ECS stuff just for fun.)

 

[Will Rickards]

gnomes... I thought they made shoes... or is that elfs.
I'm pretty sure gremlins are responsible for their issues.

 

[Will Rickards]

elfs... should be elves... sorry to all the pointed toed among us.

 

[Fushigi]

Elves make cookies.

 

[timwhit]

Gnomes steal underwear.

 

[CityK]

Its elves out joy riding in Santa's sleigh Buck.

Anyways, this Laptop Review Site might provide some insights.

 

[LunarMist]

Ahh, I'm the other way around from you, LM. I think that the current crop of notebooks is too small.

Unfortunately I travel with a ton of photo gear, so a small notebook really makes a difference.

Of course it would be nice to own 15" notebook for general use, but I have to carry a corporate notebook for business travel.

 

[Stereodude]

Nonetheless, that is the case. I'm sure there are parts that overlap, but the laptops are indeed made by different companies. Inspirons are made by the same company that makes most Gateway and HP vomitbooks.

So, if they have the same plastic case, and the same screen, and the same CPU, and the same optical drives, and the same wireless card, exactly what parts of them are different?

 

[e_dawg]

I was just going to say IBM X-series or Asus M5N or S5N (or whatever their successors are called). The Asus notebooks are as sexy as Apple's stuff.

After some bad experiences in the past with IBM, I have to say that I am thrilled with both IBM's I have used at my current company: T23 and T42. Love the integrated Wi-Fi and IBM Access Manager that comes with the T42.

 

[LunarMist]

Hmmm. It appeeras that the Asus notebooks have large protrudingsd battery packs, unless the unsless little 3-cell battery is used. Witht eh lareg batteries the notebooks are excesives. Notebooks sucks.