Laptop Recommendations

Re: DELL

Tech support is in India.
Customer Care in Ireland, but from the conversations i've had recently i got the impression it is to be moved. Guess where.

I don't want to be controversial but my dealings with TS have been good and my dealings with CC bad.

BTW the kit is first class.

Re: DELL

Maybe when you buy, but when you need support it's not...

I've called the support line a number of times and it goes to India...

That's through the business though - personal might be different?

DELL

I got an Inspiron 5150 from DELL.

I haven't seen a higher spec laptop, and the price is cheap when compared to other companies.

3.06 Ghz, 512MB, 15"TFT, 60Gig HDD, 64MB ATI 9000 and a free printer from Dell, for £1300.



And the call centre is in Ireland, not India.

Check out the Panasonic toughbooks - r2 (tiny), t2 (bigger), w2 (cd drive) at www.dynamism.com. Excellent build quality and designed to withstand dropping.

FS

Fujitsu Siemens currently do two ranges - a business range and a home user range. I have never come across the Xpert so I am guessing it is the home range ?
I think they also inherited some flakey stuff from icl.

As for laptops I use FS B-Series 1.3 kg, 10" screen ultra portable. built in ethernet/modem touch sensitive screen no probs with drivers. I am not sure it it still applies but FS used to certify all their business kit as linux compatible mine runs suse 8.2 at the moment.

the S-series is about 1.7/1.8 kg so a bit heavier(still far less than the 3.5I see quotesd for many laptops though.
and it does have built in dvd/cd rather than the external one for the B series.

Also consider the samsung X10 - many people thing they are excellent although I have never used one it is on my short list when I replace mine.


declared interest - I sell them ;-)

My modem is good and provides a better connection than the one in my desktop. Reasonably quiet (I haven't noticed it anyway) and the sound quality is good for DVDs and CDs. Though I use the CD player in Accessories rather than the Micro$oft Windows Media Player because the sound quality is better - go figure! (a better driver maybe?).

Can't comment on FS desktops.

Dell kit is great - until it goes wrong...

Indian call centre will make you vomit blood if you ever have a problem...

I've bought 3 Dell laptops in my time... Since the support problems I've had I reverted to HP...

> You have obviously never had a mac.



whatever you buy - dont get Sony. They look nice and brand name is cool but its struggle to get drivers and old models used crappy ATI cards. If I had to do it again I'd get Dell.

Sorry Jacko, but you might not like this!.

Its a Fujitsu Siemens Xpert. I'm not impressed at all with it.

It's noisy. Hard drive is sluggish at best. It came with a built in win modem (new one on me) but effectively useless for anything other than email -so I had to buy a seperate modem.

Also, sound runs off the motherboard and is not a seperate card. So certain games either do not play or play badly.

My own fault. I bought it in a hurry..whereas when I bought the DAN way back in 1995 I did a lot of research first.

You sound impressed with your laptop, so maybe I just bought a bad model.

Thanks for the advice.

Fujitsu Siemans Amilos are good. I have an Fujitsu Siemans Lifebook which I love but is too heavy for travelling. I'll still buy FS next time but will go for something smaller.

The Amilo is for the Home market and is therefore a bit cheaper than the Lifebooks.

What desktop PC have you got now, btw?

You have obviously never had a mac.

Hi Guys,

Looking to get a laptop to supplement my home PC.

I'm not looking for a power beast.


Probably only something to run Office type programs.

Also, I'm likely to use it to demo a program (which is no more graphically challenging than say Word). The demo's are likely to be one to one affairs. Anything bigger than that and I will probably look to some sort of overhead demo screen from the laptop.

Anyway, I'm not looking to buy the best or spend the most. However I am looking for a reliable machine with some shelf life.

Any advice always welcome.

Cheers,

Mike

PS..Just to even the balance a bit, here is some feedback from me. I wish I stuck with DAN when I renewed my last home PC. You only recognise Quality when you no longer have it!