[TriLUG] Suggestions wanted for Linux laptop

[Chris Merrill]

On 12/8/2011 2:23 PM, William Sutton wrote:
> On the other hand, I have to second what Randy says about Dells.  I've known too many people and/or
> been involved with too many situations where Dells crapped out due to hardware issues.  If I was
> going with an PC laptop (not Apple), I'd get a Sony or a Thinkpad.

FWIW, my experience with Thinkpads and Dells has been roughly equivalent. I've had
4 Thinkpads (T20, T22, T23 and Z61 IIRC) and 2 Latitudes. I can't speak to the
personal line of Dells, but the business-class Latitudes seem to be about the same
quality as Thinkpads. I have used them all heavily at work (in a dock) and at home on
the couch - usally every night. They are on 8-10 hours every weekday and see a lot of
travel back an forth. But in general, I take pretty good care of them.  I've had roughly
an equal number of failures.

FWIW, my current Latitude e6510 is the best of all of them - I may actually keep this
one for 3 years rather than my usual 2 years, thanks to the i720 quad-core, 8G RAM and
dedicated video.  I pay the price in battery life, though :(

IMO, Thinkpads were going downhill in quality a few years ago - I had more failures with
the T23 and the Z61 then the T20 and T22. The dock for the Z61 failed and they refused to
fix it, even though it was under warranty. So I gave Dell a try. I don't recall any repairs
on the last one. The  current fried the motherboard this week. MS gets part of the blame -
Windows said it would shut down after applying updates so I threw it in my bag and went
home. 30 min later it was still on and hot as a toaster. Worked fine that night and the
next morning, but died while I was at lunch :(  They had to replace the motherboard 3 times to
get one that would recognize the battery.  Serves them right for putting DRM on a frackin'
battery.

C


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