Laptop advice Please

[donoreo]

I wouldn't worry too much about reliability; it's usually the way that if something works when you unpack it, it will continue to work.

I have a reasonable circle of friends (I know, hard to believe) and the only laptop failure in the past few years was a MacBook Pro. Which was fair enough since its careful owner had just emptied a mug of coffee into one of the USB ports, the clod.

There is overall build quality to consider.  Things like how strong are the hinges for the lid?  My wife has a Acer with two broken ones now.   Screen still works

[Hinfrance]

I wouldn't worry too much about reliability; it's usually the way that if something works when you unpack it, it will continue to work.

I have a reasonable circle of friends (I know, hard to believe) and the only laptop failure in the past few years was a MacBook Pro. Which was fair enough since its careful owner had just emptied a mug of coffee into one of the USB ports, the clod.

There is overall build quality to consider.  Things like how strong are the hinges for the lid?  My wife has a Acer with two broken ones now.   Screen still works

How strong is your wife?   

[donoreo]

I wouldn't worry too much about reliability; it's usually the way that if something works when you unpack it, it will continue to work.

I have a reasonable circle of friends (I know, hard to believe) and the only laptop failure in the past few years was a MacBook Pro. Which was fair enough since its careful owner had just emptied a mug of coffee into one of the USB ports, the clod.

There is overall build quality to consider.  Things like how strong are the hinges for the lid?  My wife has a Acer with two broken ones now.   Screen still works

How strong is your wife?   

I have no idea how the snapped off.  One was a few months ago and one just the other day.  The second one makes sense, but the first one does not.  He never abused it in any way.  It is about 6 years old. 

[Hinfrance]

6 years is not bad, and there is always the Tape of Life® if all else fails. 6 years is about time to replace it anyway; you could make yourself a hero and buy her a new one.

[donoreo]

6 years is not bad, and there is always the Tape of Life® if all else fails. 6 years is about time to replace it anyway; you could make yourself a hero and buy her a new one.

No way to duct tape this one.   "He's dead, Jim". 

[Mick]

OK, here's a update.

I decided to give the Packard Bell TK85 a go. 

First day, it had loads of windows updates etc to install, that took ages   Second day, all seemed fine, merrily browsing the web, then it froze.  Couldn't do anything apart from power it down.  All was well again, no more errors or freeze ups for the rest of the day and evening. 

Third day.  Froze again while browsing the web, followed by a BSOD this time.  Did it again twice that evening.  Each time it does this it chucks all my cookies out the window, so I have to log into my sites again.

Phoned support (India)    Have you done a factory restore?  No I haven't it's only three days old, do I have to do this every three days.      Thanks I'll take it back to Tesco's.   Swapped it for another TK85.  This one lasted five days before it started freezing and throwing blue screens.  Stuck with for another 10 days, by this time it was driving me crazy.

Took it back to exchange it for a different make.  Oh look the prices have all changed, including the one I bought.  They would only exchange for another laptop valued at the price I purchased it for, so either had to downgrade or have another TK85.   

The price difference was only £20, but they wouldn't move on this, even though I'd used 12 DVDs to make factory restore disks, and two trips to town, around 40 miles. Plus endless hours updating it and adding and removing files and programs Twice.

Needless to say, I asked for my money back, and went and Got another laptop from PC World (for the same price). This time it's a Lenovo, http://www.lenovo.com/uk/en/  which I have to say has a better processor, and (touches wood) has been behaving itself very nicely. 

Every little helps, as they say. 

[Oldboy]

Needless to say, I asked for my money back, and went and Got another laptop from PC World (for the same price). This time it's a Lenovo, http://www.lenovo.com/uk/en/  which I have to say has a better processor, and (touches wood) has been behaving itself very nicely. 

Every little helps, as they say. 

Doesn't sound very good at Tesco's. Not much customer support there then! 

Lenovo computers are IBM's which they sold to them when they stopped making small computers. Might still call them thinkpads. 

[Kerry Holt]

thanks for letting us know not to buy laptops from tescos- i was going to say i got  a fujitsu siemens and i wouldn't recommend them because random screws sometimes fall out of it - i have had it 5 years and it functions really well but the build quality isn't too good - in case anyone else was thinking of buying one!

[skellum]

Wish I had the time to tell you all the reasons why I hate Tesco..

[Matthew]

I use the Samsung R730.......had it about a year now. It's quick and has a 17" Widescreen....touch wood (taps head), it hasn't given me any sort of trouble. It was nearer the £700 price tag though, but could get one cheaper now I would have thought. Specs are:

Processor: Intel Core i3 processor @ 2.27ghz
RAM: 3.00GB
64 bit Operating system
Hard Drive: 500GB
Intel(r) Turbo Boost Technology
ATI Graphics Chipset.
Web Cam
Dual Layer CD burner/reader
HDMI Port
3x USB Port
Serial SVGA Port for additional Monitor connection (very cool....had 2 monitors running...multi-tasking at it's finest)
Built in SDHC memory card reader

[Oldboy]

The last laptop I brought cost £1,500 and was a 3ghz with 4mb memory. It's a Toshiba with Windows XP. 

[Hinfrance]

The last one we bought, after the 8 year old Dell died for want of a new battery and the power supply failed, is an Acer Aspire 5736. It's 64 bit Windows 7, 3gb ram, 320gb HD loads of connectors and cost £310. It's a year old now and never given a moment's (wood being touched) disquiet. The only thing I don't like about it is our television, which is so old that the lowest output resolution from the Acer is still too big for it to display, Looks like I'll have to save up for a new telly