[techtalk] Need Notebook reccomendation

[Michael Carson]

"T. E. Pickering" wrote:

> IBM's are great if you don't have problems with them.  once you have
> to deal with IBM support, things get ugly fast.  at least that's been
> the case for two of my friends.  i've heard other horror stories as
> well.  similarly, sony vaio's are great as long as they don't break.
>

    I've had two Thinkpads (a 755C and a 310ED), and played with two others
(a 755CD and a 760EL).  Mine have run Linux wonderfully (I didn't try on
the ones that weren't mine).  I dropped my 310ED while it was in my
non-padded backpack from my shoulder (I'm over 6ft tall) onto concrete.
The CD player doesn't seek right while playing audio CDs when it's cold,
and the battery door doesn't close quite as tightly as it used to (the
battery never fell out, though).  I just haven't bothered fixing it.
Though the IBM folx did offer to repair it when I called to check on
getting a new battery door, they were also quite willing to ship me any
parts I'd need for me to do the work (I'm *very* confident working inside
my machine).  I've called for Linux support, and gotten what help they
could give (they didn't support Linux officially, but a couple of the techs
have played with it).
    Really, the only problem I've had with IBM, personally, is the G**D***
i-series.  Neat looking notebooks, but the HD is so buried into the machine
you have to take it half apart to get at it.  That and the fact that you
can land an airplane on the wrist-rest...  Oh, and when I upgraded the
memory in my 310ED, they told me the Viking memory module was why the
suspend mode stopped working, when I just needed to re-create the suspend
memory storage file.
    So, experience varies...

> i don't have a dell laptop, but their support for my old dell
> desktop was top-notch.

    A couple of friends have had Dell laptops and been happy with them,
even after a couple years of college student type abuse.

> pay attention to warranties and
> customer service when shopping around.

    This, ultimately, is the bottom line.  The warranty will make or break
your experience should things go poorly.  Watch out for exclusions for
"normal wear and tear" and "user accidents" etc.  Or better yet, buy
all-inclusive insurance.

C.


************
techtalk at linuxchix.org   http://www.linuxchix.org