[Gllug] Seeking some laptop advice

[Karanbir Singh]

On 06/05/2009 09:12 AM, tid wrote:
> My experience* of the Acer midrange Aspires differs from this: They're
> cheap enough, but have poor battery life and varying screen problems.
> No-one reports anything positive about them. YMMV

I got an Acer Ferrari 4005 wayback in Nov 2005, its still with me and 
works quite well - the build quality has been far better than what Apple 
iBooks from that time had, or what most dell kit have ever had. The only 
machines I've seen with better build quality have been some of the newer 
IBM X series and a couple of the HP machines. During this time, however 
I've had to replace the battery ( after 2 years, it would take 3 hrs to 
charge, then 15 min to loose it ). With the new battery I would get 1hr 
45 min to just under 2 hours, with this replace new battery I get about 
an hour and 20 min.

Also, I second the 'general' Acer experience - most of their range is 
massproduced, and it meets the spec for a cheap machine, does most 
things but dont expect great things from them. Even their upper end 
Ferrari models etc are not things I'd buy, in todays markets. I have no 
idea about their netbook's - some people say those are quite nice machines.

On the other hand, plenty of people here seem to think Dell produce good 
laptops - I beg to differ. Most dell kit is built as cheap as possible ( 
even if it looks good ), and it looks and feels it - including the much 
hyped Alienware lines. Its not uncommon to see 'loose keys', cracked 
plastic, components that just seem to move a bit, battery doors that 
have just that slight gap, display' hinges that just dont move smoothly 
- on Dells that are 6 - 8 months old, have been actually used as 
portables. And this is mostly based on personal experience. One of the 
places I do some consulting with are an exclusive Dell client, have 
about 150 laptops and regularly buy a few more every month.

btw, Lenovo and Fujitsu still produce some decent kit as well these days.

- KB
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