I bought one of those SmallTalk Ultras GW Micro used to sell. I was
disappointed in it because it got hot and WindowEyes stopped talking and I
had to reboot it all the time. Also, the battery life wasn't that great. I
didn't like the keyboard, either.
For me, a laptop can't replace a good notetaker. Of course it was smaller
than a laptop. Perhaps today's small PC's are different.
Terri, Amateur Radio Call Sign KF6CA.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David" <[email protected]>
To: "Chip Orange" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 12:52 PM
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
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