My Wife's Laptop Is Dead! Long Live My Wife's Laptop!

[roo_ster]

In 2005 my wife wanted a small laptop.  We settled on a 12" LCD Averatec, a Korean job.  Not a robust model, what it lacked in build quality, it made up for in price at ~$800 after rebates.

Well, it died last week and we needed to replace it, and fast (I usually like to take my time, but my wife was in a hurry).

I had repaired it and got 'er goin' twice before, but no such luck this time.

The options settled out into three contenders:
* Acer 2008 version of the Averatec: consumer-grade 12" LCD & current hardware, but Win Vista for ~$850.
* IBM business-grade Thinkpad T41 14" LCD refurb/off-lease, a machine that is ~3 years old, WinXP Pro, for sub-$500.
* A highly-regarded consumer-grade Toshiba 12" LCD running Win Vista for ~$850.

I spoke with some of the sales folks and they warned against blowing away Vista and going over with XP, because the manufacturers of consumer laptops can be kinda worthless when it comes to driver support even on OSes their machines deliver with, let alone one step "back" to XP.

Considering it was my own money, I was not willing to gamble I would brick my wife's new $800+ laptop.

I am very glad we went with the IBM iron.  I was able to reformat the HD and joy of joys, IBM/Lenovo had oodles of quality drivers, even a recent BIOS update.  Only one driver, the embedded doohicky, was hinky.  Also, many of the drivers were pretty recent updates & the READMEs told of multiple updates over time.  Averatec had only ever provided the original drivers, no updates to be seen.

Sucker feels stout, but weighs almost as like as the 12" Averatec.  Just a quality machine.  Also, it has a fairly decent ATI video card, so it is a beter graphics performer than the Averatec.

I have always had a soft spot for heavy iron or other quality hardware past its prime.  I think my wife can expect a shiny, refurbished IBM/Lenovo in three years...and I'll inherit the T41 and run Xubuntu or some other linux with a light(er) footprint.

[The Annoyed Man]

Thinkpad all the way.

Second best option - the Toshiba.

Avoid the Averatec.

[Balog]

I agreed to buy my wife a lappie when she goes back to finish her degree. I asked (a while ago) George Hill from THR about >$1K laptops and was advised to stay away from em, as the reliability wasn't there. Is this still a legit beef? Anyone have any recomendations, not necessarily just low priced ones, but a solid, dependable machine that'll still be kicking a couple years from now?

[doc2rn]

I am on a Toshiba Satellite A115 now and it has run for the past 4 yrs I was in college and still going. It has intel celeron M processor and best yet comes with Windows XP. It is Vista capable but I dont like Vista so I am not putting it on here. I just got the patch over so I can downolad anything in vista to XP. Took 3 mins, but well worth it. That and I love this keyboard and monitor.

[MicroBalrog]

For a college lappie, consider an EEPC.

All you need is WiFi and the keyboard to take notes, really.

[Gewehr98]

Big IBM fan here.

I've converted the entire house to that brand now, and it's great. 

[ilbob]

I agreed to buy my wife a lappie when she goes back to finish her degree. I asked (a while ago) George Hill from THR about >$1K laptops and was advised to stay away from em, as the reliability wasn't there. Is this still a legit beef? Anyone have any recomendations, not necessarily just low priced ones, but a solid, dependable machine that'll still be kicking a couple years from now?

In reality, there is very little difference in quality between the major brands. One thing I will warn you about is that dell laptops seem to have cooling issues due to where they put the cooling air intake. You make need to clean the dust out now and then.

I would avoid the off brands, just because the support level if you ever need it, is very spotty. its not that great with the major brands to begin with, but the off brands you might well be on your own.

I am not a huge fan of off lease stuff. You can often buy something new that is every bit as good for basically the same price.

Stick to XP for now if you can. Vista has a lot of issues, and very little in the way of increased functionality.

[Gewehr98]

I must disagree, from a professional standpoint.

I've been doing a good (actually, great!) business buying and selling off-lease IBM (read, "Professional Grade") workstations for about 9 years now.

I've also bought and resold the professional Dell counterparts. There's a world of difference between that level of computer and the home PCs sold by Gateway, Sony, etc.  The former are built like the proverbial brick outhouse, with over-engineered cooling, power supplies, heavier chassis metal, and other aspects. The latter are more like Yugos than Mack trucks.  I've never had a problem or had a customer come back to me with problems relating to the off-lease IBMs and Dells I've sold them, but I've also sold them those machines to replace dead home PCs with popped motherboard capacitors, dead power supplies, you name it. Off-lease corporate machines go for pennies on the dollar, and aren't really that old with respect to processor technology. A dual-Xeon Intellistation (or the Dell Precision counterpart) in the 2.4 - 2.8 Ghz range will give you plenty of performance, even with Hyperthreading disabled, and it'll be affordable, with excellent reliability. 

IBM/Lenovo keep that same construction methodology with their laptop/notebook computers.  While not GRiD (Remember those?) or Toughbooks, they're still a level above the competition.

Balog, I'd go the ThinkPad route, myself.  You have an IBM that I recommended, and you also have a TigerDirect kit PC.  Take a look at the respective construction and quality of those two machines, that'll give you an idea of what you get.

[Boomhauer]

've also bought and resold the professional Dell counterparts. There's a world of difference between that level of computer and the home PCs sold by Gateway, Sony, etc.

Yep. Dell offers good higher grade computers.

I run a Dell laptop. One of the things that appeals to me about Dell is that you can heavily customize before purchasing. My sister has a Dell laptop, too.

Select Windows XP Pro during the selection process, and no worries about Windows Vista.

I purchased mine back in '06, and it is still running just great. I'll probably get a new laptop next year, though. Maybe a Toughbook. What are other heavy duty grade laptops out there? I will gladly accept increased weight for more durability. I'd prefer a 17 inch screen, though, with a 15.4 inch minimum.

[RocketMan]

Gewehr, where do you typically pick up off-lease machines?  I'm contemplating that for my area.

[Gewehr98]

I won't give my favorite sources (obviously), but I'd look at:

www.pcsurplusonline.com

and:

www.lapkosoft.com

The last pair of IBM Intellistation M-Pro 6850 units I bought were $50.00 each, plus S&H.  I had to put hard drives in them, but that was no big deal to me.   

[JimMarch]

Just about 1 year ago exactly I spent $400 on a "Best Buy special of the week" Acer.  Celeron single-core 1.6gHz, 512megs RAM, 80gig SATA HD, can burn CDs but read-only on DVDs, Intel 945 video.

It's treated me right!  Turns out the factory memory was in a single 512 module so putting a 1gig next to it brought me to 1.5gig total.  Came stock with Vista "Home Basic", I booted that once and just laughed, loaded Ubuntu and haven't looked back.

Problem-free, even dropped it twice with no damage, once from a desk to concrete.  It gets carried at least six days a week, in a decent but nothing-special "messenger type" bag with a padded laptop compartment.

Acer makes a damned good machine.

Around the same time, a buddy bought a Toshiba with near-identical specs, and it too has held up.  And he's tough on equipment, more so than me.

When buying a low-bucks lappie, do the "screen test" - with it up and running, put your thumb at one edge of the screen.  With your fingers of that hand separated a bit, push them slowly but firmly into the back of the screen while watching the front.  You're looking for telltale signs of "indentation" from your fingertips.  The laptop's lid plastic should be thick enough to at least seriously slow the development of pressure on the back of the LCD.  If you quickly see four spots where your fingertips are, the plastic on the whole thing is way too thin.

[Phantom Warrior]

I've been happily using a $900 HP Pavilion since I graduated basic...about two and a half years ago.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

I get notes every so often about upcoming off-lease deals. One of my teammates just bought a T41 and it rocks.  The hdisk is a little small by current specs, but the memory is adequate. For what he's got in it, I could buy four of them for what a retail comparable notebook goes for on another brand.

I'm looking through the listing for the one I'll get myself next week.

Regards,
Rabbit.