Reply to: Advent

For about a grand...

I'd look at one of these:

www.rockdirect.com/notebo...ti_bus.htm

They do more expensive ones that have even more power too, but that should do most things you'd want and it has a nice high rez screen so you can see more than 5 lines of code as well

Re: brand

I knew the font of all knowledge, Milan, would turn up sometime.

Unfortunately, the font has been empty for some time.....

Re: brand

fecks sake you noddies

advent used to be the cheaper side of ibm

Milan

brand

> As I mentioned above, my Advent laptop is the most reliable bit of kit I've ever owned.

I am not knocking its reliability -- I have no clue how it is, I was merely commenting on brand and the fact that proper brand can be had for less money via mail order.

Personally myself I am inclined to get Samsung at some stage -- they have really sweet light thin Centrino models at reasonable prices.

> You carry on with your no-name brands, and if it goes wrong,
> you be without it for several weeks whilst it gets sent back.

But you pay for it and a lot -- probability of hardware things going wrong is fairly low. Say in my Sony laptop I had hard drive failure, while the laptop itself was outside warranty I just changed hard drive -- not a big deal.

I suppose if your contracting work depends on you having laptop at all times, then it is prudent to have appropriate replacement policy in place. But if laptop if just for yourself, then surely you can live without it for a week or two while it is being fixed?

Re: Lenovo

So what brand would you suggest AtW?

As I mentioned above, my Advent laptop is the most reliable bit of kit I've ever owned. Can't be that tulipe - it's running the SKA pretty well. And whereabout's has it put me over the last few days?

So what if Advent says you bought it at PC World? Bearing in mind that the Dixons group are one of the biggest mail order PC supply companies (Microwarehouse etc) in the country there's a lot of IT pros & other business that buy their kit.

I could have bought an HP, like the Compaq nc8000 that I'm typing on right now, or the Tosh Tecra M2 I used to have at the client, but compared to the Advent I bought over a year ago, the Advent still wins hands down.

You carry on with your no-name brands, and if it goes wrong, you be without it for several weeks whilst it gets sent back. Whilst I'll carry on with my next day on site or bring to store service warranty.

Lenovo

> I'd probably get an IBM Thinkpad next time.

IBM sold their PC Division to Lenovo from China, I am pretty sur e that included ThinkPads. Never liked their split keyboards anyway, plus they have always been very expensive.

What's the general opinion on the best laptop at the 1K mark?

Compaq have always made excellent laptops, but since HP took them over the quality & reliability has nosedived. I'd probably get an IBM Thinkpad next time.

in fact

In fact consider this -- any pro who sees Advent brand would know you shop in PC World. Now kind of an IT "pro" shops there? FFS, think of your reputation!

support

Oh Christ Spod, what support? If you are an IT person than you should be able to sort out all software issues, like if formatted partition and laptop won't boot -- you don't need to go to PC World for that, do you?

Hardware issues are under warranty for at least a year, normally nothing happens after first year anyway.

Gee, people, only suckers buy in PC World unless its a distress purchase when you need some gears right now at any price :rolleyes

AtW - SUPPORT!!!!!!!!

Yes you will be able to buy one cheaper by Mail-order but what do you do if it "goes wrong"?

Advent

The main issue with Advent appears to be that of brand -- its sh1te brand and since it sells mainly in PC World it means that you should be able to get decent branded laptop for less via mail order.

I've had an Advent 7047 laptop for over a year now, and it's still in perfect condition. I use it more than my desktop.

Even a cup of tea falling on it didn't kill it. Stunned it a bit, until I spent an hour or so with a fan pointing at it. Still as good as new.

As mentioned above, you can walk into PC World to get service on it.

Do a google on the brand, you'll find very few complaints in the various hardware discussion forums.

Most Advent laptops are rebranded laptops from Medion in Germany. Most of their desktops are built by Centerprise International in the UK.

What's the general opinion on the best laptop at the 1K mark?

my Ltd company repair PC / laptop for local business we have very, very few Advent Laptops throught which are faulty, the last one had a broken rear power connector because the user had pushed the power lead in far to hard!

Ive got an advent PC (Athlon 3400 with 19" flat panel monitor) and it does the trick.

Nothing wrong with it although if I was to play games like Doom3 or Half Life2 Im sure the PC would probably grind to a halt.

However for the £400 I paid for it Im happy enough.

Mailman