[Technocrat]

My Cousin has recentlly oreder a Dell laptop from one of the online shops, he got following config

- Intel Dual core processor (dont remember speed)
- Dual Layer DVD burner
- 1 gb Ram
- 80 gb HDD

He got it for $9xx it was arnd 950 or something.

I think you should check this out.

[Venom_rider]

Originally Posted by sujaylahiri

I am not a big fan of Dell. 2 of my buddys' Inspiron's hard disk crashed in its 1st year and he had to send it back to Dell. Also their screen is awful, the viewing angle is very small and even the brightness isn't that great. Also they make bulky laptops acc. to me.
If u try u can get a Toshiba with a Centrino or an Acer with a Turion in ur price range.

No offence but Defect rate in Dell is one of the lowest in the industry; It is backed by amazing warranties.
If you are keen on the size of the screen then there are laptops which are as wide as 19's and ones that weigh only few pounds with equally good performance... It really is a matter of priority & how much you are willing to spend.

Originally Posted by zulfikar

i would say go for DELL..
i use to work for DELL and the importance given to cust over there is very high...
they will do anything to get cust satafication...

Hp is also good but i would say DELL alll the way..............

Will certainly second you on that front [Toyota of the industry in Customer Satisfaction as well :P].

[Neel]

All the good deals are at www.deals2buy.com (good for Dell and lenovo) check everyday!!

[devarshi84]

here at Toronto we are 25 people living in the building.

4 acers
6 compaqs
1 sony vaio
3 dells

do the job. I would say

vaio
compaq
acer/dell

in that order.

[GTO]

If you are shopping for laptops / electronics / most other things in the USA, you should......edit MUST go to www.fatwallet.com forums. These guys motto in life is to get the most bang for the buck. The community members there offer coupons for free / small price, and outline the exact method to get the lowest price.

Picked up my utterly reliable fully loaded X1000 for about $1100 (regular $1700). Thanks to fatwallet.

GTO

[devarshi84]

If u ultimately compare the price of an acer,hp,dell,ibm or any other manufacturer after the prices and discounts, it all boils down to the something similar.

go for something you like by specs and looks. I would say look at ferrari 4002wlmi and alienware 5500( dual graphics switch for sub $1000 with free additional battery)

Dell laptops are not that good except if u get the xps170 for sub 1400us AS IT WAS AVAILABLE UNTIL LAST WEEK.

[abhijitaparadh]

Thanks guys!! This info helps a lot.

@Technocrat
Can you please ask your cousin for the online store where he bought his model? And the model number?

I will be using this laptop mostly with Linux/Unix. I will need windows just for the sake of it.

My current laptop (3 yr old Acer model with Celeron Processor) is also working perfectly fine with windows xp but it gives a lot of problems with Red Hat linux 10.X. It works OK with Mandrake 9.1. I havent tried Ubuntu on it as yet.

So does all brands of laptops have good support for linux/unix these days? I got info from my friends that dell and lenovo have good h/w support for linux so I was keen on those two models.

Any hands on experience on unix/linux based laptops is welcome.

[Technocrat]

@abhijit: my cousin got it from www.deals2buy.com

[devarshi84]

search www.notebookforums.com

you will get every info you want about deals, linux, manufacturer support etc.

[Dud_Dodo]

I've been working for Dell for the last 5 years now. I have a Company issued D620 (its the latest in the Latitude 600 series) as well as a Personally purchased Latitude D400. I love small laptops & the D400 was perfect for me.

The point to keep in mind is that all manufacturers (including Dell) manufacture entry level laptops with the latest h/w components. Especially in Laptops cheap doesn't mean Good. Most of these cheap Laptops are targetted for the Home user & thus have the latest gizmos on it. These new features are what always cause a problem.

Obviously any home user would like to have the latest h/w (like video adapter/sound card etc) & if any manfacturer delays in releasing the same as soon as the h/w is released by the particular manufacturer, that PC maker may loose market share for that particular quarter. Thus all this translates into the latest h/w being used in the latest PC's.

Now this is what actually causes the problems since they aren't tested with the laptops. Basically there is R&D involved to check whether evrything is compatible. The Dell Inspiron Range of Laptops are targetted towards the home user. Thus the customer ends up being the scapegoat & R&D happens thru the customer.

The Latitude & Precision Mobile Workstation series from Dell is targetted towards the Corporate/Business users. These Laptops may not have the latest video cards on them but are extremely stable. Dell damages a minimum of 6 Laptops of each range before they start marketting out the finished product. These tests include of extreme shock tests too. Any Latitude range may undergo atleast 6 months of R&D before the same is released for production.

That was the reason I bought a Dell Latitude D400. Got it at a very good discount. Actual price 1.15 Lakhs but got it for 75k & it was well worth it. Employee Purchase Scheme rocks

And BTW.. With Latitude, who needs Tech Support?? Also Dell has a unique warranty known as Complete Care/Cover, this type of warranty covers Accidental damage too, even if you drop the laptop or spill fluids on it. Dell will repair/replace it for you, under warranty.

If you don't mind, try the Apple MAC too, my friend recently bought one for 58k & I'm sure my next Laptop's gonna be a Mac too..

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by GTO

If you are shopping for laptops / electronics / most other things in the USA, you should......edit MUST go to www.fatwallet.com forums. These guys motto in life is to get the most bang for the buck. The community members there offer coupons for free / small price, and outline the exact method to get the lowest price.

Picked up my utterly reliable fully loaded X1000 for about $1100 (regular $1700). Thanks to fatwallet.

GTO

Fatwallet sure does rock if you follow it keenly.

Got my dad a spare toshiba laptop...nicely equiped for 400$! via Fatwallet

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by Dud_Dodo

I've been working for Dell for the last 5 years now. I have a Company issued D620 (its the latest in the Latitude 600 series) as well as a Personally purchased Latitude D400. I love small laptops & the D400 was perfect for me.

The point to keep in mind is that all manufacturers (including Dell) manufacture entry level laptops with the latest h/w components. Especially in Laptops cheap doesn't mean Good. Most of these cheap Laptops are targetted for the Home user & thus have the latest gizmos on it. These new features are what always cause a problem.

Obviously any home user would like to have the latest h/w (like video adapter/sound card etc) & if any manfacturer delays in releasing the same as soon as the h/w is released by the particular manufacturer, that PC maker may loose market share for that particular quarter. Thus all this translates into the latest h/w being used in the latest PC's.

Now this is what actually causes the problems since they aren't tested with the laptops. Basically there is R&D involved to check whether evrything is compatible. The Dell Inspiron Range of Laptops are targetted towards the home user. Thus the customer ends up being the scapegoat & R&D happens thru the customer.

The Latitude & Precision Mobile Workstation series from Dell is targetted towards the Corporate/Business users. These Laptops may not have the latest video cards on them but are extremely stable. Dell damages a minimum of 6 Laptops of each range before they start marketting out the finished product. These tests include of extreme shock tests too. Any Latitude range may undergo atleast 6 months of R&D before the same is released for production.

That was the reason I bought a Dell Latitude D400. Got it at a very good discount. Actual price 1.15 Lakhs but got it for 75k & it was well worth it. Employee Purchase Scheme rocks

And BTW.. With Latitude, who needs Tech Support?? Also Dell has a unique warranty known as Complete Care/Cover, this type of warranty covers Accidental damage too, even if you drop the laptop or spill fluids on it. Dell will repair/replace it for you, under warranty.

If you don't mind, try the Apple MAC too, my friend recently bought one for 58k & I'm sure my next Laptop's gonna be a Mac too..

Well what differs among laptops of most different reputed brands is the service only.

Companies in South East like Quanta make laptops for Dell,HP,Acer and others. and using the same components like Same cpu, same chipset, same wireless cards nothin differs in performance and quality.

[Dud_Dodo]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

Well what differs among laptops of most different reputed brands is the service only.

Companies in South East like Quanta make laptops for Dell,HP,Acer and others. and using the same components like Same cpu, same chipset, same wireless cards nothin differs in performance and quality.

Sorry to differ on that point. Nobody other than Dell themselves make Laptops for Dell. 'm not sure about other brands. Having worked in Dell for such a long time I know about Dell's manufacturing process very well. Also because Dell Laptops aren't generic & manufacturing isn't started till ordered.

The Manufacturing of a Dell Laptop starts only after a customer places an order for it (either from the Dell website or by Phone, Website order option isn't available in India due to the continuous fluctuations in $ exchange rates).

A Dell Dimension Desktop takes 8 minutes to be built from scratch. The Dell assembly line is state of the art & no other computer manufacturer matches that. Not sure how long they take to build a Laptop though.

If possible I'll share a video of the manufacturing plant & process that we have on the intranet. Not sure whether its allowed to though so will have to first check with our Corp Comms & the Legal Dept.

W.r.t using the same components like CPU/Cards etc is obviously true because its almost always Intel & the other big players like NVidia, ATI etc. What I meant with respect to R&D done over customers is that just because a hardware component is manufactured by a big name does not qualify it to be problem free & totally compatible. Many a times big players realize about many issues like for e.g. heating etc much later.

This is only caused due to the fact that the time difference between a new h/w component being released in the market & that same product being incorporated within the PC/Laptop is very small for the simple reason that consumers always like to have the latest things & competition.

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by Dud_Dodo

Sorry to differ on that point. Nobody other than Dell themselves make Laptops for Dell. 'm not sure about other brands. Having worked in Dell for such a long time I know about Dell's manufacturing process very well. Also because Dell Laptops aren't generic & manufacturing isn't started till ordered.

The Manufacturing of a Dell Laptop starts only after a customer places an order for it (either from the Dell website or by Phone, Website order option isn't available in India due to the continuous fluctuations in $ exchange rates).

A Dell Dimension Desktop takes 8 minutes to be built from scratch. The Dell assembly line is state of the art & no other computer manufacturer matches that. Not sure how long they take to build a Laptop though.

If possible I'll share a video of the manufacturing plant & process that we have on the intranet. Not sure whether its allowed to though so will have to first check with our Corp Comms & the Legal Dept.

W.r.t using the same components like CPU/Cards etc is obviously true because its almost always Intel & the other big players like NVidia, ATI etc. What I meant with respect to R&D done over customers is that just because a hardware component is manufactured by a big name does not qualify it to be problem free & totally compatible. Many a times big players realize about many issues like for e.g. heating etc much later.

This is only caused due to the fact that the time difference between a new h/w component being released in the market & that same product being incorporated within the PC/Laptop is very small for the simple reason that consumers always like to have the latest things & competition.

ROTF........LMAO

Are you sure u worked for Dell for 5 years???? I doubt that.


Normally it takes a month for a custom built laptop from dell, hp, ibm etc coz these computers are built in Taiwan/China(somewhere there) and then shipped to US.

read this articles


http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20060425PR209.html

Sources: Quanta agrees to Dell’s notebook tax; Compal and Wistron just say no




Dell asks Taiwan Manufacturers for kickbacks
DigiTimes is reporting that Dell has asked its Taiwan based manufacturers for a 3% kickback on 2006 sales to Dell, if they expect to continue getting orders from Dell in 2007.



According to this report, Dell is renegotiating all manufacturing contracts, including those with Quanta. The companies that bend over backwards are expected to win more orders in 2007, which any rocket scientist would assure you would be at a lower margin than previous years.

The move to ask for these kickbacks is not a surprise, given Dell’s recent earnings setbacks

http://www.devlib.org/blog/2006/03/2...for-kickbacks/



some more details here
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Ar...ges=B7&seq=124

[furioussphinx]

Hello everyone, i have passed my 12th (finally!!!), am i am moving to college, now since i need to be in touch with my parents(just an excuse), i am buying a notebook next month. now there are soo many around in the market that i dont know which one to choose, so i need ur help. These are the features :

Keep one thing in mind, i am gonna work with graphics and stuff soon (3d designin and stuff)

1. Very small portable and very light, the lightest in the catagory, i guess the "small" factor kills the widescreens in my case.
2. Very Good lookin (Luv the Ferrari)
3. Amazing top end performance, no idea again.
4. 80GB or above Hard disk, and minimum 512MB RAM
5. Will think and tell....

P.S : My friend suggested to go for "Alienware" branded notebook....

So plz help me.