""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3485 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Timi and I both have Toshiba Satellites I think mine is an A65 or something. I love mine. Has 801g wireless built in. The only problem with it is it has the weeniest speakers. They are tinny sounding and aren't loud.
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3722 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ive been using DELL's for just about every thing except my personal performance machine. That is only because I modify my machine is some manner almost weekly testing different hardware and software. I need multi USB ports, serial ports etc.
My Dell P3 500 lappy is still running great. ITs been around the world, thrown into planes, trucks cars over teh past 5 years. Never did a reformat on it and it runs win 98 SE. The screen still has no bad pixels. The DVD player still runs. I use it on trips as a DVD player in my vehicles.
I use DELLS to run my bizz. The front desk machine is almost never turned off. My wife has a DELL for her work, my son had a dell he sold to a "head" and its still running great.
It hurts my friends feelings because they like high end machines such as VAIO's and see my lappy run continously while theirs go to the shop.
DELL has some super sales every now and then. I mean really low priced high value stuff.
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5274 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
i use a fujitsu seimens 'amilo m1420', the amilo wide screen lappy's are great, i've had mine a year now, came with a 3yr collect and return warranty, not as cheap as the the tosh satelites or other makes, but the quality is superb, i searched for about 6months before finally buying, this was the best i found, both in performance and value for money,
actually... i lie... i wanted the next model up from this one, it had 1gig of ram and the 80gig hdd but also had a wait time of 8 weeks ! this next model down has 512mbram and 60gig hdd,
otherwise it was what i wanted !
i also use it for mobile cutting,
the 2hr battery life is just that, 2hrs ! pretty good screen, sound is ok, but its a lappy, not a suround sound system !!!!
-------------------- Harris Kohen K-Man Pinstriping and Graphix Trenton, NJ "Showing the world that even I can strategically place the pigment where its got to go." Posts: 1739 | From: Trenton, NJ, USA | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am very happy with my LG LS70 it has long battery life.
-------------------- Steve Eisenreich Dezine Signs PO BOX 6052 Stn Forces Cold Lake, Alberta T9M 2C5 Posts: 774 | From: Cold Lake | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I started with a second hand Compac...Piece of crud!!!!!
First new one was a Fujitsu..Had it for 2 years without a single problem.
Second new one was an Acer...Had it for almost 3 years, also without a single problem.
Just got a Toshiba Satellite and so far I LOVE it. It was an "open box special" at Future Shop and I got a helluva deal on it. P4 3.2 gig procesor with 1 gig ram and an 80 gig HD. All the other bells and whistles. I hope I have as good luck with it as I have had with my previous two new machines.
My laptops are used daily and have traveled with me to many parts of the world. Mostly hot, humid, salty and sandy.
I'd recommend any of the above makes (except the Compac)
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
I'll be going against the grain here a bit and say that I don't do Dell's anymore....mainly for the following reason:
1.) Since they farmed out their tech support to India....I think their reputation for quick, reliable support took a huge hit...and frankly, I've read that their sales took a hit on account of that move.
I can't stand talking to someone that can barely speak the English language, and you have to ask them to repeat everything 2 or 3 times....nothing against the people cause I know they're just trying to make a living.
I still have an old Dell, and I've been extremely frustrated on the occassion when I've called in for tech support since the "India" change and waited for ever to get through....then could barely understand the tech.
I'm certain they still make a very reliable machine though, and that may be the most important reason to look at them.
Anyway...My Toshiba has been outstanding, and it's rated in the top 3 mfgs for reliability in Consumer Reports based upon actual users responses to questionaires....
And the few times I had a question (dumb me)....I got a tech in seconds...and they were from Canada or the States and I could understand their advice clearly.
Don't laugh now, because E Machines doesn't usually strike a thought of quality when considering PC's.....but a tech repair guy at Best Buy said that EMachines laptops have turned in outstanding reliability and quality in the last couple years...in fact, he said they get very few of them back for breakdowns and problems....He bought one for himself and one for his dad as well and really likes it....
Edit: I would steer clear of the Sony's....they are rated to have below average tech support and the Sales guys at Best Buy told me that their batteries are literally twice as much as Toshiba's, HP, and the others.....I think he said in the neighborhood of closing in on $400 should you need to replace a battery.....
posted
Had a couple dells. never again. Their "award winning tech support" was either before they moved to India or was an award for the worst tech support. After waiting forever to speak to someone who doesn't speak English, if you ask for someone who speaks English, they'll hang up on you. If you manage to get someone who at least speaks broken English, their answer to everything is "run windows repair". yeah, I'll do that as soon as I get the damn thing to turn on you nimrod! When the motherboard went out at 6 months (a known problem with my model) I BEGGED them to sell me a refurb (so I could pop my HD in it) and overnight it. They refused. Wouldn't even do that & bill it to my UPS account. I was going out of town to work & they refused to send someone to look at it at the hotel I was going to be living at. Fine, tell me where this repair place you'd be sending out is & I'll take it there. Nope. Had to wait til I got home, 2 months later to deal with it. Then they wouldn't replace the mother board, even though it was still under warranty. Buh-bye dell.
So I bought a Sony Vaio, best machine I have ever bought. I use it everyday for everything. Couple weeks ago it took a vacation, wouldn't power on. After freaking out & preparing to send it in, it fired right up. No problems since. Their tech support is the best I have ever dealt with for any electronic item. The 1st Sony tech support person I ever spoke to I thanked for speaking and not telling me to run windows repair like dell's answer to everything.
-------------------- Chris Welker Wildfire Signs Indiana, Pa Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Personally, I have never needed to call a tech support with a DELL machine. I have a load of them and know only one person who ever needed to call tech support for a DELL machine..
As for Sony batteries costing about $400...
Sony VaioT series Notebook Battery (T-140PL, T-150L, T-150PL, T-160PL, T-170PL. Lithium Ion, Part No. VGP-BPS3. 7.4 Volts 7200 mAh $169.00
Sony Vaio FS and S series Notebook Battery $129.00
Sony Vaio A series Notebook Battery $139.00
Toshiba - Laptop battery - 1 x lithium ion - 4300 mAh Manufacturer: Toshiba.. $169.99
Toshiba - Laptop battery - 1 x lithium ion - 6450 mAh Toshiba Satellite P25 series portable computers 129.99
Ain't seen a Sony VAIO battery yet approching $400 bux... Even the Sony double battery only costs around $250 bux..
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5274 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3485 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Am I the only one who thinks an Apple Titanium with a 17" screen would be the killer laptop. I'm currently running Tiger OS on a Mac Mini with a super drive and 1gig of Ram. My mini is 6" x 6" x 2" thick. I can't think of anything cooler. And that's wahat it's all about. Being cool.
-------------------- Jon Harl 5731 Meridian Ave. San Jose,CA 95118
jonharl@comcast.net Posts: 99 | From: San Jose, California | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Jon, that apple machine is really nice. It's super thin and I like the keyboard. I got one for a class I took, and my work paid for it through tuition reimbursement. It would have been great to keep it, but it felt better to sell it and pay off my credit card. I had it for about 3 weeks and thought it was great.
My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Protac Excel here- 2 yrs ago it was $2400, and the cheapest set of features in Oz at the time, by about $500- 15" screen, p4-2.4, 512 mB ram, 40g hd, modem, assorted ports cdburner/dvd reader.
Problems- the keyboard was pretty useless & I don't have small hands, so use a USB plugged in Kb. Battery began to fail after 6 mths, but as we were on soalr at the time I got an adaptor to run it via a cigarette lighter plug, and I kept a small car battery + plug in the office, which would give me about 20 hours' continuous running. When the generator was on the car battery was recharged.
Software probs- nil till last week when it got stuck in a booting problem & just kept rebooting half way through the POST. I used the recovery disc & ran Fixboot & that solved it. (Thanks Dave!)
Good luck with your choice, Russ!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Asus make a good machine, I've sold several M series high spec notebooks as well as a couple of lower spec units and the customers have been very happy. From the tech's point of view they are generally an exceptionally easy machine to work on, this is a bonus if you happen to have the desire to tinker. Warranty is international. Parts availability for machines we have worked on have been remarkably good. I'm over Dell, I can only assume that the U.S. Dell support and parts are provided by a completeley different group to the Asia Pacific area because quite frankly their tech support sucks and parts are worse. Toshiba also had a good value for money range in their Tecra A2 series, not sure if that is still the case but worth a look. Regards, David
-------------------- David Fisher D.A. & P.M. Fisher Services Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com Trying out a new tag: "Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth Peter Ustinov Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
i got a 2nd hand SONY VAIO...LOVE IT!!! 40 gig hard drive, 15" AWESOME WELL LIGHTED SCREEN(can us it in broad daylight). its 1.3 pentium which is plenty fast considering all laptop hard drives run at 4200 rpm. i give $600 for it back in jan 2005. sold my old thinkpad 433 celeron for $300......
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
FYI: if you ever need batteries for anything from laptops to camcorders, www.ebatts.com is a great company. Superb customer service, fantastic prices and lightning fast shipping.
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3722 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Joe...Hate to correct you but not all laptop HD's run at 4200 RPM. Mine is rated "80.0 billion bytes, 9.7mm height, Enhanced IDE, 5400rpm."
Maybe things are changing?
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
Mine is a monster desktop replacement: 3.2 Ghz HT, 100 Gig HD 7200 RPM, 256 meg video, gig of ram, 17" uwsxg Widescreen. A HP pavillion ZD 8000, the battery life is not so hot, and it weighs 9.5 lbs., but it really rocks! I love it. My favorite toy....next to the versacamm of course!
[ August 07, 2005, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: Barry Branscum ]
posted
Barry...A question..Does yours have an LPT port?
I was looking real hard at 17" laptops but couldn't find a single one with a printer port. (I need that to run my cutter). I ended up going for a 15.4" widescreen and I still like it but the 17" woulda been awesome!
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
Thanks for the input everyone.......... going out today to get one...... Toshiba has some great deals through Circuit City..... they might just be the winner ..........
-------------------- Rich Parthemore Buchanan NY rparth139@aol.com Posts: 107 | From: Buchanan, NY USA | Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
A 17" Mac Powerbook here. Two USB ports, Firewire 400 and 800. Gigabit Ethernet. Built in Airport Exteme wireless, bluetooth and DVD burner. Keyboard symbols light up in low ambient light.
Comes with iPhoto, i Movie, iDVD and iTunes and Garage Band for you musical types. Not to mention the most stable and secure OS on the planet.
-------------------- Bill Modzel Mod-Zel screen Printing Traverse city, MI modzel@sbcglobal.net Posts: 1357 | From: Traverse City, MI | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like your subtleness Dale. . . . . and agree totally!
-------------------- Bill Modzel Mod-Zel screen Printing Traverse city, MI modzel@sbcglobal.net Posts: 1357 | From: Traverse City, MI | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just picked up a HP Z6000 with the new 64 bit Athalon (2 Ghz). I haven't had a chance to play much with it but it seems to be as fast as my Dell tower w/ 3 Ghz & Hyper threading. Great deal at Compusa. A little low on the ram at 1/2 gig but it will work fine for tossin on the bike and zipping around to clients, trips, etc.
-------------------- Brian Diver PDQ Signs Everett, Wa
posted
Yes Mr. pickett. I run DELL's Yes they are cheap too. But I wouldn't compare them to Mc Donalds.
They use premium parts made by well known parts manufactureres. No generic stuff in these machines.
My DELL Point Of Sale machine runs:
a CPU made by Intel A premium 40 gig hard drive made by Maxtor a video 256k chip made by NVidea a sound system made by sound blaster a 10/100 network made by Intel a modem made by US Robotics
All of this is integrated which makes it real cheap to manufacture. Dell doesn't make the parts. Dell just assembles them and sells the finished machine.
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5274 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
thank BILL GATES for keepin MACS alive in the market....and it give the wierd crowd something else to displace themselfs with.....heheheheheheh
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
| IP: Logged |
quote: Nope. THe model before this had an LTP port, but not this version.
Wonder where a guy could pick up one of those adapters??
PCMCIA ports allow parallel adapters with full compatability with dongles and such. We got one from here and it functions perfectly. It aint cheap though.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic