Well before I was doing contract work for Dell I was working at a cable company doing network support there and we had all brands of laptops. The Compaq Evo 610C's were pretty solid laptops- my top pick. Our higher level managers had those and out of 35 of them, we had two that had issues. We had Toshiba Satellites (1000,1200,1800). For the beatings that those things took and kept working, I'm amazed. Field techs had those and they were dropped, kicked, spilled on, slid around the middle of the seats on the floor in the vans and just generally took a beating. They help up pretty good. We had some Sony's and they didn't last long at all. Don't remember the models that they were but I didn't like them at all. The Dell laptops we had were pretty decent, didn't have much problems with them. Don't remember the models of those either.

But since working here, I can tell you what models to stay away from. Inspiron 5150's, 5160's, 600m series for sure. I've been changing out motherboards on at least one of those models once a week since I started last April. Dimensions 3000,4600, and 4700's have had many issues as well.

Obi, your 9100 hasn't been to bad at least in our area. I've only worked on about 10-14 of them, don't really remember, but it averages about a motherboard change a month.  Which if you look at it, isn't to bad.

I'm not going to bash Dell, hell they pay my checks right now, but I see general sh*t with every brand. Doesn't really matter. I've built my own machine and have gone through 4 different hard drives in the last 6 months. Then industry as a whole as gone down as far as quality goes because prices have come down so much they are trying to push more out the door. I've got an 8 Gig and a 10 Gig drives that I've had for years with no problems but get a 160 gig and it won't last more then two years, max. The industry has just gone down hill because of quality, the public as a whole wants more speed, more power and more space. I don't see this trend stopping any time soon. The only place I haven't seen this at the CPU level and more specifically with AMD although I don't see many problems as far as functionalitly (?) goes either. Both seem to be pretty solid no matter what chip or version you get.

IMO toshiba is the ford of computers, unfortuinately I own 3 toshibas... lol. Out of all 3 I only like one because it's a tank. I needa find the pic of my satellite 1755 to post here so you can all get a good laugh!

jandarsun8 is right, there are a few brands that you just need to stay away from. The worst I've seen for desktops are the dimension series. Not any specific one, but all of them in gerneal seem really bad. I'm always working on a dimension, ESPECIALLY the B110 series (entry level PC's). I've seen some pretty molested E310 series also, but their pretty stable, but when they die, god to they die! The XPS is truely an amazing machine, I've only worked on one before (600 series) changing out a powersupply (IT'S THE WHOLE FRAKING BOTTOM OF THE COMPUTER!!!!) beucae it was simply missing one of theouter plastic moldings...

As for laptops, all the widescreen ones are just $hit. alot of them have videocard and tft screen issues. I've replaced many motherboards in the 51XX series laptops and the junk 600m's dont even get me started... lol! I've worked on only one 9100 thus far and it was so long ago I don't even remember what needed to be done to it. I'm pretty sure it was the processor fan though.

If I was to go out and buy a new laptop today I would definately get an HP becuase they seem to hae pretty nice machines, mostly for the AMD processor though (that would be 90% of my choice  )

All in all the only toshiba I like is my tecra, I have a desktop and a satellite 1755... junk.

As for Dell's I HATE my printer OMG! lol... I did like my oldschool Dell laptop though, that thing got hte living $hit beaten out of it (literally it got beaten with a crowbar and still worked!) and worked flawlessly for months afterwards. I'm pretty sure the fire was caused my a loose screw somewhere shorting out in someplace it was supposed to be.

Like I stated origionally, I wanted a Dell XPS laptop but I couldnt find what I really wanted from Dell but I did from toshiba as much as I REALLY didnt want a Toshiba. I'm happy with my decision but I wish I had a badass gaming laptop becuase sine my otherboard went in my server this is currently my fastest computer I own 

HAHAHAHAHA junk.

Yours may be Junk but mine isn't stop your fury Lad, a few hundred is nothing compared to a few million Sigh BTW maybe a bad manufacture fault yeps that happens with every company lol

Well I do, nothing wrong with it so do the other hmm 400 people or so that I know no probs there, Mine is from Belfast - Ierland.

Mja dat kan ej = Dutch for yer that's possible hay

okay we all know you had a bad time with Dell but I'm sure Dell isn't that bad lol they are still one of the best leaders in the laptop market togeather with HP and IBM

This message was typed on my Dell Inspiron 9100 X-Treme  8)

oh well first you mentioned that there were a few bad ones and now it's like a few hundred well there is alot of difference between a few units and and a few hundred aren't there  D'oh

Quote:



I thought sure my laptop would be on the "stay away from" list, it's a Dell Inspiron 1200 I only paid 499US$ for it new. I figured it as fast as the tech. is changing I'll be looking at a new one in 2 years anyway, why spend an arm and a leg on something that I toss in 2 years

yeah Mine is very solid it is, I wouldn't lie about that anyway what would be the point in that anyways.

here some nice shot's of Flight Sim 2004 @ 1280 x 800 x32 FSAA x4 AF x16 really this Laptop ain't slow

Lufthansa Boeing 747-412 with Princess Julliana International Sint Maarten in the background:


Lufthansa Boeing 747-412 @ Quindhao International China


EFA 2000 Above the Kritiansund Area Mid West Norway:


D F/A 18-E Super Hornet Above the Kritiansund Area Mid West Norway:


the flight to Quindhao International China took me 12 hours from Schiphol International Amsterdam, yes I did that in realtime, first flew to Shanghai then 1867 KM south of Shanghai to Quindhao International on the i9100 and everything was handeled with perfection @ 54 frames per sec which is sufficiant.

all detail was put to it max, and I know that there weren't many Laptops that time that couldn't handle FS2004 at these settings like the i9100 Xtreme would, anyways still happy I made the move, normal laptops might overheat after 12 hours of stressfull 3D work.