laptop ?

[rudeboy]

so all the laptop owners/users here... which one do you have & do you like it ?

my current one is a Sony Vaio (VGN-S150) and as you can read in my other thread, it's slowly "dying" (of old age & over use :} i really dig the Sony's...

just want to hear some opinions, been looking (on-line) at Sony's.. but am open to suggestions.

tia boys & girls...

[riskybzns]

i'm not a laptop users, but I work at sony. just thought i'd let you know there was a recall on some vaio's earlier in the week, just not sure which models they are. sorry!

[Der Alta]

I currently run a dell (and have been for 2+ years). I've done 99% pf my homescreens from it. Haven't had one problem with it since I've had it.

Currently, I'm interested in the new Dell mini Inspiron. I'd like to have a UMPC that I use for work, as I'm moving all the time. The only drawback to it, is the battery life.

I willnote that Ithink Sony has the best machine out there, based on my opinion.

[firecracker37]

I use an Acer Aspire 5050 right now. got it at Walmart for $500, and then spent another $50 upgrading the RAM. These days, with how quick major advancements in laptops are coming out, I think it is better to buy less expensive ones more often.

The only issue that I've had with my laptop is that a few keys (a and sY broke off of the keyboard. I was able to find a replacement on Ebay in about 10 minutes and got it shipped for about $20. Took less then ten mins to replace.

[ninjaap]

I used to have a dell inspiron. It served me well for 3 years until the screen died on me. Then I decided to go with compaq/hp. Got one with no software installed while I was on vacation in the Philippines. Loaded Vista and Microsoft Office myself. Best way to go to avoid all that bloatware.

[fr4nk1yn]

I like Dells. I used some Vaios, IBMs/Lenovos, Gateways/eMachines, and Acers.
Maybe I'm just used to the Dells I've been using for 6 years or so but the others all have a little something that drive me nuts.The gloss screens that seem to be popular now are the worst.

[firecracker37]

I'm hearing a lot of Dell love here. Dells are great if you never plan to upgrade the hardware; however, it gets expensive if you want to add RAM or anything because Dell uses propritary hardware that can only be purchased from them at a premium price (atleast in my expierence with them).

On the flip side they have some of the best support of any company I've ever delt with. The shop I worked for was contracted by Dell to do service and warrenty work in our area. Before you could take service calls you had to prove that you knew everything about all their equipment (printers, PDAs, laptops, desktops, etc) and you had to gaurentee to answer a service call within 1 business day.

[fr4nk1yn]

Not true, exactly.

All notebooks are somewhat proprietary by nature but RAM or harddrive upgrades are not.

Each manufacturer would of course like you to buy their accessories but parts can be bought from Newegg that's totally compatible.

Adding RAM is the first thing I do. I normally buy my notebooks used. I can get an older but better quality notebook for the same or less than a cheap model. Now desktops on the other hand are so cheap I buy those new. You do have to make sure they are expandable since a lot of the cheaper ones while not proprietary won't have the sockets to upgrade.
The fastest computer ib ny house right now is a $500 Compaq with a video card upgrade. But I digress..

[firecracker37]

My RAM situation came from a Dell desktop that I bought back in '01. I was looking to just upgrade it for my wife because it had a great graphics card and processor, but only 256MB of RAM. When I started price shopping for memory I noticed that Dell was the only one who made it, and thus it was going to cost a little over a grand to upgrade to 1GB. This was just crazy! I ended up getting her a cheap Everex from Walmart and putting a better vid card and more ram into it for less the $500 total. That is what totally soured me to Dell. My dad also had an issue with his newer Dell laptop, where it cost me about $60 bucks for 2GB of RAM, to upgrade his was more than twice that. It seems that Dell makes their motherboards run unusual speeds of ram so that very few manufacturers make it, and thus make it more expensive. But that is enough Dell bashing for one thread...back to our regularly scheduled topic :-)

[fr4nk1yn]

Your desktop probablt had RAMBUS. Not proprietary but horribly expensive and performing. Cheaper solutions work just as well. I'm so glad they're "gone".

As for speeds there's so many differences out there with different price ranges.
A guy I work with is quite anal about that he bought RAM from Dell because it "would be more caompatable" even though he could've gotten it from Newegg for a third of the price.