Laptop troubles
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Posted by Carl Navarro on April 19, 2007, 12:12 am
Please log in for more thread options Almost 2 years to the date my current laptop is dying. Being chea^h^h^h^h frugal, I'm serioulsy looking at an Acer Aspire with Bluetooth, Wireless, Wired and 1G memory and 120G HD for $600.00. It has Vista something equivalent to XP Media Center. It's a cheap computer which usually means fragile, but I can't afford a Toughbook. I'm serioulsy considering springing the $129 for a 2 year warranty AFTER the 1 year Manufacturer's warranty. That would be unusual, because I can't ever remember keeping any laptop for 3 years and I've used one for 20 years. Since all of my manuals are on CD and all the new phone systems require PC's, what do you guys all use? Any happy stories, or is it just keep putting aside $30 a month for technology maintenance and grab another laptop two years down the road? Carl Navarro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Rich Piehl on April 19, 2007, 9:12 am
Please log in for more thread options Carl Navarro wrote: I used a Dell, but I bought it used. It was a couple years old so it wasn't at the edge of technology or OS, but was still current enough to be usable for several years. And the price was 30% of what a similar new one would have run so that if something did happen to it I wasn't out megabucks. Even with manufacturers warranty a lot of the problems I've had with laptops wouldn't have been covered. Like the one where it was in my closed up van on a 105 degree day and the screen cracked. Or the one where the pins on the serial connector broke loose from their mounting point and fixing it would have required replacing the mother board. Take care, Rich God bless the USA -- Et in terra pax | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by T on April 20, 2007, 6:43 pm
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rpiehl5REMOVETHISFOR@NOSPAMcharter.net says... > Carl Navarro wrote:
> > Almost 2 years to the date my current laptop is dying. Being
> > chea^h^h^h^h frugal, I'm serioulsy looking at an Acer Aspire with > > Bluetooth, Wireless, Wired and 1G memory and 120G HD for $600.00. > > > > It has Vista something equivalent to XP Media Center. > > > > It's a cheap computer which usually means fragile, but I can't afford > > a Toughbook. I'm serioulsy considering springing the $129 for a 2 > > year warranty AFTER the 1 year Manufacturer's warranty. That would be > > unusual, because I can't ever remember keeping any laptop for 3 years > > and I've used one for 20 years. > > > > Since all of my manuals are on CD and all the new phone systems > > require PC's, what do you guys all use? Any happy stories, or is it > > just keep putting aside $30 a month for technology maintenance and > > grab another laptop two years down the road? > > > > Carl Navarro >
> I used a Dell, but I bought it used. It was a couple years old so it > wasn't at the edge of technology or OS, but was still current enough to > be usable for several years. And the price was 30% of what a similar > new one would have run so that if something did happen to it I wasn't > out megabucks. > > Even with manufacturers warranty a lot of the problems I've had with > laptops wouldn't have been covered. Like the one where it was in my > closed up van on a 105 degree day and the screen cracked. Or the one > where the pins on the serial connector broke loose from their mounting > point and fixing it would have required replacing the mother board. > > > Take care, > Rich > > God bless the USA > > Agreed - the biggest failure points are hard drives, CD/DVD drives, and system fans. That's the thing about my Dell XPS M140, it's very easy to take apart. Just dropping a couple screws on the bottom of the machine gets you at the wireless card, bluetooth device, RAM, CPU, hard drive and optical drive. I recently upgraded the RAM in my machine to the 2GB maximum (Prices on Crucial.com keep dropping like a rock!) and even though I had to slide the keyboard out it was easy to do. Two screws and pry up the panel above the keyboard and flip keyboard forward. Of course I did manage to find all the documentation on doing these things on Dell's service web site. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Carl Zwanzig on April 20, 2007, 3:59 pm
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>Almost 2 years to the date my current laptop is dying. Being
>chea^h^h^h^h frugal, I'm serioulsy looking at an Acer Aspire with >Bluetooth, Wireless, Wired and 1G memory and 120G HD for $600.00. I've been using IBM Thinkpads for years, and so far they've been the best I've seen. Not as robust as the panasonics, but enough for most people. You can usually find refurbs for reasonable prices and memory/ batteries/disk/etc are cheap enough. >It has Vista something equivalent to XP Media Center.
Then add the cost of installing XP back on it, vista is generally not ready for prime time, and some of your programming apps probably won't run on vista. z! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by T on April 20, 2007, 6:44 pm
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> >Almost 2 years to the date my current laptop is dying. Being
> >chea^h^h^h^h frugal, I'm serioulsy looking at an Acer Aspire with > >Bluetooth, Wireless, Wired and 1G memory and 120G HD for $600.00. >
> I've been using IBM Thinkpads for years, and so far they've been the > best I've seen. Not as robust as the panasonics, but enough for most > people. You can usually find refurbs for reasonable prices and memory/ > batteries/disk/etc are cheap enough. > > >It has Vista something equivalent to XP Media Center.
>
> Then add the cost of installing XP back on it, vista is generally not > ready for prime time, and some of your programming apps probably won't > run on vista. > > z! > Actually Dell is now letting people buy computers with XP instead of Vista. The outcry was so loud that they had to do it. Friend recently wanted to buy a new laptop and Dell was still pushing Vista so she ended up going to HP and managed to get an XP laptop from them. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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> chea^h^h^h^h frugal, I'm serioulsy looking at an Acer Aspire with
> Bluetooth, Wireless, Wired and 1G memory and 120G HD for $600.00.
>
> It has Vista something equivalent to XP Media Center.
>
> It's a cheap computer which usually means fragile, but I can't afford
> a Toughbook. I'm serioulsy considering springing the $129 for a 2
> year warranty AFTER the 1 year Manufacturer's warranty. That would be
> unusual, because I can't ever remember keeping any laptop for 3 years
> and I've used one for 20 years.
>
> Since all of my manuals are on CD and all the new phone systems
> require PC's, what do you guys all use? Any happy stories, or is it
> just keep putting aside $30 a month for technology maintenance and
> grab another laptop two years down the road?
>
> Carl Navarro