>From what I could tell, window-eyes did not work well with her HP. She got a
>dell and her husband who has more vision, uses the HP. As I said she is on
>this list.
-----Original Message-----
From: David [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 2:52 PM
To: Chip Orange; [email protected]
Subject: Re: Off topic New laptop
As in so many cases, you often get what you pay for. On the market today, there
is a long line of laptops, that are really low priced. And if you are looking
for trouble, go ahead and save your money, and buy one of these cheap crabs. If
that is what you are going to do, you might as well buy any brand, any model in
that price range. They will sooner or later break down.
Over here, there is quite a few students, for instance, that has been
complaining, due to laptops not withstanding the transportation from one
classroom to the other. One person did tell, that his monitor would not stand
upright any longer, due to the hinges being such poor quality, that within less
than a school year, they were worn out.
Well, what I am trying to say, is that it really might not be valid to blow one
brand, just because you get a bad story. Again, the experience your friend had,
was that due to harware trouble, or was it more of a software trouble. If
software, it likely would not really matter which brand they were running. I
recently talked to someone complaining a whole ton about their laptop from
Packard-Bell, and absolutely everything was wrong about it. I suggested for
them to run a cleanup of the system. Two weeks later, I talked to the people
again. And what do you think they had done? Gone to the store, and bought a
brand new computer. And, believe it, this new computer worked like a dream. :
They still might live under the impression the reason for the new computer
running that much better would be the fact it is of another brand. I, for my
part, still wonder if a good system cleanup would have fixed their old system.
This just to give you a few examples of how little reliable "stories" from
others are.
I really agree with Chip here. You should not dismiss a given brand, simply
because you hear one or two bad stories. There is a real multitude of models of
all the big brands. And even the same model, might differ greatly, according to
the actual specs of the system.
Personally, I have two laptops here, both being HP. I have had them for some
years, and they have been really steady and good, reliable computers. But when
I did my choice back then, I did go for the business class models. Yes, they
are a bit more expensive, but you also will feel the difference right away.
Simply just touching the computer, you right away get a feeling of solidity and
reliability. All I had to do, was to upgrade the memory, and I did put in a
bigger hard disk in both machines. Currently running XP, they still meet the
specs for upgrading to Windows7. So who kknows, maybe I won't even bother to
pay for new computers for a year or two yet.
And just to let you know, it is not all that many years ago, people were
suggesting you stay away from anything that had the Dell, or the IBM, brand
name printed on it. Now, just because HP might have had a dropdown on a few
models, you are told to stay clear of them. I'd say that it all cooks down to
personal taste and feeling.
One thing that I want to suggest, if you have a particular brand and model in
mind, is to do a search on the net for the stuff. So, you could for instance do
a search for things like:
HP Envy review
or,
HP Envy Specifications
, if you were looking at the HP Envy. Thing is, that many times you will find a
long line of articles, written for different computer magazines, like PCWorld.
These reviews, when compared with each other, would give you a pretty good idea
of whether the quality is good or poor. Often, the people writing for the more
serious magazines, will have been in touch with numerous models, and so would
be able to make a good comparison cross the line. They also tend to put the
computers to somehow extreme tests, even measuring the performance down to the
milliseconds at given times. This way you will get a good feeling as to what to
be aware of, and maybe some good tips for which upgrades might be helpful to
consider, for the given model.
If the model is crab, you will usually pretty soon be made aware of it.
Cheap toy models, will typically be "burned" in the public, and you will find
numerous complains about the model on the first few pages you read.
I have done such searches, when buying both machines and additional hardware,
and even do so when I am buying other electric equipments like house
appliances. It often proves well worth to read through a handful reviews. At
least you know what to expect from your new unit.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chip Orange" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 9:12 PM
Subject: RE: Off topic New laptop
> Hi Sandra,
>
> the one thing about a 17 inch screen is that it really eats battery power,
> and adds quite a bit to the weight; both bad if you plan to go mobile with
> your laptop.
>
> Marvin was just telling me that he thought Toshiba and Acer made 15 inch
> laptops with numeric keypads.
>
> I understand about not wanting to buy a particular brand once you hear a
> bad
> story; but Marvin was just pointing out (see my reply to see his message)
> that there's quite a lot of variation from one model to the next within a
> given brand.
>
> I don't think I'd give up on a brand unless they had a reputation for
> consistently poor quality; or some policy (such as you had to pay for any
> support) which applied to everything they made. I admit to being quite
> surprised to see such a strong recommendation for HP from a laptop
> reviewer
> (I thought they had made poor quality items, but he says the new "Envy"
> models are really quite different). We're also considering buying an HP
> Envy all-in-one printer, because it's reviews are so good and it's so much
> smaller than the average all-in-one. Again I never thought I'd buy HP,
> but
> since their troubles a couple of years back, they seem to be making an
> effort to turn out quality items.
>
> Chip
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Sandra Fouts [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 2:51 PM
>> To: 'Chip Orange'; [email protected]
>> Subject: RE: Off topic New laptop
>>
>> Hi. I'm think about buying a laptot sometime this year. I
>> do want mine with a keypad. But I don't want HP. I know
>> someone on this list who had an HP and started and she went
>> back to a Dell. Even though I'm a total, I may get the
>> 17.03 so it will already have the numberpad with it. Plus I
>> don't want little bitty keys.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chip Orange [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 1:24 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: RE: Off topic New laptop
>>
>> Hi Ivan,
>>
>> I'm replying onlist because I have questions as to how some
>> laptops might be better suited to use with WE.
>>
>> First, I've had a Dell Inspiron laptop for years, and thought
>> its quality was just superb. I also owned a Thinkpad (now
>> made by Lenovo) before that, and also thought it was very good.
>>
>> However, recently I've seen someone here mention they owned
>> an HP 15 inch laptop which had a numeric keypad built-in (a
>> separate keypad). I'd love to hear more about that from the
>> owner if they see this message, as it's about time for me to
>> buy something new. In addition, I've seen a blog column
>> written by a laptop reviewer who said, he's never seen a
>> laptop as good as the HP Envy series, and he'd buy that for
>> himself the next time he buys a laptop.
>>
>> The Inspiron has been good about simulating the numeric
>> keypad by using it's fn key with alphabetic keys, but there's
>> one key it cannot simulate, or WE is blocking (I'm not sure
>> which), and so I am interested in good laptops with separate
>> keypads, if they aren't a huge 17 inch screen.
>>
>> One thing I can recommend; you often have the option of
>> buying a bigger than normal battery for a slight upcharge; I
>> did that with this Dell (bought a 9-cell battery) and was so
>> glad I did; you can never have too much battery, and it only
>> extends less than an inch beyond the back, not noticeable at all.
>>
>>
>> hth,
>>
>> Chip
>>
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Ivan Cribb [mailto:[email protected]]
>> > Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 12:57 AM
>> > To: [email protected]
>> > Subject: Off topic New laptop
>> >
>> > Apologies for an off list question. I want to buy a new
>> good quality,
>> > I emphasize good quality, laptop. My wife used to have a little
>> > Toshiba laptop which performeed very well.
>> > Puzzled as to what to get, I wonder if there are people who
>> have had
>> > experience with the better quality Toshibas and what they think of
>> > them. If you reply, please do so off list.
>> > Ivan
>> > If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original
>> > sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list
>> and your
>> > message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your
>> > message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it.
>> >
>> > GW-Info messages are archived at
>> > http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list
>> subscription
>> > at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
>> >
>> If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the
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>>
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>>
> If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender
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>
> GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can
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>
If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only.
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GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so
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