[lug] Laptops again

[Nate Duehr]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 11:12:56AM -0600, PC Drew wrote:
> Dell Inspiron (I don't remember what model):
>   * This is my current laptop, and I hate it.
>   * The only way to shut off suspend/sleep mode is through
>      a windows utility.  I had to break off the little sensor
>      that senses when the laptop lid is shut so that it wouldn't
>      automatically shutdown.
>   * ctrl-shift-alt-delete shutsdown the laptop.  YOU CAN'T TURN THIS OFF!!
>      This sucks when trying to run VMWare in a full screen.  With the
>      HP, you can turn this off in the BIOS.
>   * Everyone may disagree with this, but I wouldn't recommend getting
>      a Dell.

Ditto.  Again, just like you, my opinions only, but the Dell laptop my
work offered to me for a while was one of the most frustrating
experiences an experienced computer user could have...

The thing constantly did strange things, seemingly related to poor
construction, loose contacts, etc.  There were numerous times where it
would hang during both NT and Linux boot processes for no particular
(that we could find) reason, and the keyboard was awful.  

Add on that it had one of those nasty touchpads, and I hated it pretty 
much from day-one.

The hand-me-down Toshiba 8000 they replaced it with has been through TWO
different users (myself and an insanely hard working salesperson who
used it as her desktop machine) and it's never done anything "strange"
yet.  I guarantee it's already seen more of the U.S. than I have in its
short life, and it's still as solid as the day we bought it.

I use that laptop both as a desktop machine and as a mobile network
troubleshooting tool daily and it's indestructible and looks nice.

The Dell claimed features like dual-batteries and other niceties, but
the Toshiba just runs and doesn't cause me problems.  Marketing Hype vs.
Productivity, the Toshiba wins hands down.

Hmmm... oh yeah, we got some ASUS laptops in recently for eval, and
they're having all sorts of problems.  I guess laptops are harder to
make than motherboards alone...

:)

-- 
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>

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