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General discussion

trouble deciding on a notebook

Sep 8, 2004 4:12PM PDT

hi,
I've been looking at the compaq r3000 series of notebooks and they seem pretty good but then there is the IBM think pads series and they come with the hard drive protection technology. The compaq comes with better video. The most graphic intense game I have is Knights of the Old Republic. Are the compaq notebooks pretty durable?
-andrew

Discussion is locked

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Re: trouble deciding on a notebook
Sep 8, 2004 10:07PM PDT

While no notebook outside the militarized units and the Fujitsu Toughbooks take much abuse, there are millions of Compaq laptops out there and working. Same for many other brands. What bothers some is the battery usually wanes in 18 to 24 months.

Bob

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Re: trouble deciding on a notebook
Sep 9, 2004 1:34AM PDT

I had a Compaq for awhile. I had several problems with it not the least of which was an inability to find batteries locally without having to go online. After a little over two years of occasional use, it stopped charging batteries altogether then the hard drive crashed. I have a Toshiba now.

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The Toshiba battery is the same technology.
Sep 9, 2004 1:44AM PDT

It's a common problem across laptops, iPods and more. About 18 months and you see the capacity be a fraction of when new. An attempt to standardize batteries was made but the public didn't buy it. So we're back to buying replacements online or from the vendor.

If you leave a failed battery that has a shorted cell in a laptop, the power supply that charges the battery can indeed fail. This failure has shown no preference to any make.

Hard disks do fail. Laptops tend to show such more for what reasons we can read about, but here I replaced my puny 11GB drive with a 40GB for 65 and 85 bucks. Much cheaper than a new laptop.

Some want an unit that will last past 2 to 3 years. There are not many units that do that. In fact none if you count the battery issue. But we have some IBMs, Dells, Toshibas and something else at the office that won't die. Mostly from the pentium era so such are relegated to data collection.

Bob

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Re: The Toshiba battery is the same technology.
Sep 9, 2004 4:44AM PDT

IBM's came out tops in notebook customer service/reliability (PC magazine poll). That does not include Apple which was not included (PC only). Sony was dead last.

Smaller players like Acer, Fujitsu, etc were not in the poll.

Dell, HP/Compaq, and Toshiba were very tightly bunched.

Sony brought up dead last in notebooks and desktops by a significant margin (over 1 full percentage point).

The IBM's are more durable and if you want to pay more and get a 14.1" notebook go for them.

Otherwise, if you want a 15" or 15.4" LCD HP and Compaq have some great values -- if you order online you can get a $100 instant discount, $100 custom order rebate, and other promos now. Also, nearly all their notebooks now have the Briteview LCD option which is similar to Toshiba Trubrite and Sony Xbrite (they just added these to the Compaq X1000/HPZT3000).