ideal laptop recommendations?

[Darryl Okahata]

"Jesse D. Guardiani" <jesse at wingnet.net> wrote:

> I have yet to hear from a single sole who actually owns a Sony or Dell and
> isn't happy with it. Sounds like a bunch of "buy IBM" propoganda to me.
> 
> I know a programmer who owns a Dell laptop and is VERY happy with it.

     My previous laptop was a Dell Inspiron 7500 and, while I did
consider getting another Dell as a replacement, my Dell laptop wasn't
exactly problem-free:

* DVDROM died after a year-and-a-half or so.  I ended up paying to have
  this fixed, but I've forgotten if Dell's warranty did not cover this
  (I had a 3-year warranty), or if I just could not wait.

* Battery died after 1-2 years (sorry, it was a while back).
  Admittedly, this isn't too unusual for laptops ....  ;-(  Not covered
  by warranty.

* The plastic over the right-side display hinge cracked and broke off.
  (If I recall correctly, the entire hinge became broken, and so the
  display was largely supported by only the left-side hinge.)  Fixed
  under warranty.

* A large, vertical-column-shaped area (~1.5-2" wide) became
  "discolored" on the display (from top to bottom).  My guess is that
  the display connector was getting tarnished, and reseating it would
  probably have fixed it.  (However, the laptop was out-of-warranty, I
  didn't feel like disassembling the laptop, and so I used this as an
  excuse to dump my 3+ year-old laptop.  ;-)

On the plus side, Dell's repair service was quite good (I only used it
once, though).  I've heard a lot of horror stories about Sony's, and so
I now try to avoid Sony whenever possible.

     Although I did consider Dell, I ended up getting an IBM Thinkpad,
largely because I found a deal that I couldn't pass up.  It's very well-
built.  Also, replacement parts "should" be easy to find, although, as I
seem to have one of the "rarer" Thinkpads (an A31), I'm not sure if this
is true for me.

-- 
	Darryl Okahata
	darrylo at soco.agilent.com

DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
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