I work for HP - got a new HP laptop a few months ago. Its already had a new screen. now the network connection is playing up. Always had Dells from work before that and never had a problem with them even when I've been given a 4 year old 3rd hand one to get by with.

Kerry has an Acer that we've never had a problem with. I also have a Sony Vaio but the hard drive packed up (not sony's fault) but sony wanted 300 pounds to fix it as they said I had dropped it - I got a replacement for 40 quid and fixed it myself. The DVD burner packed up on the sony, and the mouse pad is not that good either.

At the end of the day you are paying for a badge, and the internals are made by other people. Intel or AMD make the CPU's. Western Digital, Seagate etc make the hard drives.

Not wishing to disparage your experience, but that's a long time in I.T and my experiences are the polar opposite of yours.

But you know, pissing contests aside, it doesn't matter what brand of PC you talk about, you'll find someone who's bought a shit one and someone who's never had a problem with them. At the end of the day, if you're sure you're going to get good support, it mostly comes down to the price and operating system. Windows 7 is an improvement on Vista, but that's like saying that gonorrhoea is an improvement on herpes.

and mac osx is just an expensive version of Linux

with millions of man hours developing the UI and the usability of it.

'Just'

Its like turning a Ford Model T into a Porsche

JTL

I don't use the UI so wouldn't know about that....

As for the Model T to Porsche analagy - I said Linux and Mac, not Wondoze and Mac.

Ere we go, another thread that decends into Mac V windows.

You'll never agree so why bother arguing ya point.

J

Mac users seem to be like Missionary's, out to convert the Windows heathens.

Me, I just use Windows 'cos that's what I've always had from work and really couldn't give a stuff what the O/S is.

Bang on really... You said Lenovo were pretty good and I've had nothing but grief with them over the last few years. Luck of the draw somewhat. What I will say about the Lenovo's is that from a team of a dozen or so half of us have had replacements in the last 12 months... could just be that they don't get treated that great being work PC's.

Completely agree, that is donkeys years in IT. However I remain friends with most people I knew in the industry, including having very close friends still working for Acer and Sony. Acer, according to them has not changed one bit. Dell on the other hand clearly has as they have moved into the channel.

We use Dells at work and I am now on my third screen, second motherboard and fourth graphics card. If it were a bottom of the line machine I'd be more forgiving but it's not at all. I've also seen the result of trying to get something fixed under warranty with Acer and I would never go that way. I suppose if you work for a company that has a single brand policy then you will only have a view of that brand, plus you will likely have some sort of service level agreement that is not valid for your average consumer. Also, something that people should be aware of is that the machines that are available to consumers through your HN or DS etc are completely different machines to those that are supplied by the IT channel to companies for work use and therefore I find that generally the professional machines are a lot more robust than the consumer machines

Fully agree. The industrial models are far better built than the “home” laptops.

The HP NC6000 was built like a tank. Mine just ran for ever. The Dell Latitudes were the business models, and again ran for ever. They had better cooling, stronger cases (the NC6000 had Magnesium alloy case). They don’t have all the crap loaded into consumer laptops – they aren’t games or home entertainment PCs. But they last for ever.

why not try Dell you get them direct from Ireland and much cheepness!! and really good quality

Ok guys, all this talk of warranty and service issues has got me thinking which companies are the leaders in their field. A guy in havey norman told me yesterday that toshiba were excellent.

Your thoughts?

J

my experience tells me that yes, this is the case, very closely followed by HP then Lenovo

I'm no Mac Missionary. Only had our one for a few days now. My daughter is having a small amount of trouble adapting to the fun things she does. Probably more to do with Habo than anything else. So I had one full free evening on the Mac yesterday.

I like to rip DVD's, and turn them into different formats. The Mac actually left me slightly bemused... if thats the right word. Reason being everything I did with the bloody thing worked straight away.... I'm used to tinkering with programs. I was fairly gobsmacked at the way the unzipping worked so easily.... not so easy to delete files as windows.... but thats probably a good thing. Took me about 1 hour to work out exactly where the things were on the OS. It wasnt all plain sailing though Mac the Ripper wouldnt work with 64 bit Handbrake because of 32bit VLC., but the fix was so easy to find (unlike windows.... again a bit of a letdown or a quantam leap change in the way I'm used to doing things)... and found that If I loaded a program called Fairmount 32bit, then it would work..... and it did about 90 seconds after I found out that Fairmount was the program I should go for... Amazing.

Ripped a 2 hour movie in 45 mins.... a 20 minute improvement on my 2.4 dual core desk top, to a 680 mb MKV file.... also ripped it to MP4v and then converted to AVI for the hell of it (well actually because AVI is the only format that will work on a USB stick in my kids rooms) Sound Synch issue was barely noticeable, possibly less than 1/20th of a second.... so well worth the 3.8gbs of Hard Drive space saving over a straight DVD rip. BTW all of this was on the fly.... took me ages/weeks to fix sound synch issues on a dvd fly rip with my Windows PC. (BTW AOA DvD ripper is the way to fix the windows problem)


I think I can get used to this, but what am I going to tweak now.

I'm sat here thinking I wonder if Linux would give me the same performance boost on my Desktops, I've a feeling it would.... tweaking issue over

Probably not quite the right place to post this. However I bet there are plenty out there that rip DVD's and this honestly is the way to go. Just be prepared for a lot of extra spare time though !



BTW I used Prism to convert to AVI couldnt see the option on Handbrake, even though it's supposed to be there ? . Twas so easy to find a alternative way though., very suprising.


.

Welcome to the fold brother!!