Buying a new laptop advice

Slightly off-topic, but are the Lenovo Thinkpads as tough as the original IBM ones were?

[Luckypants]

Lenovo seem to be just the same as the IBM predecessors. I have one for work and it runs 24x7 with no issues.

Originally Posted by Jimmy2Feet

AGREE!!!

Dell are a discrace! it will break in no time at all!!!!

+27. Garbage with buttons on.

Right some extremly useful replies as ever from the org. Thankyou very much to all who replied. I'll let you know how we get on, cheers Matt.

No worries matt

Same one my wife got..

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-g62...02382-pdt.html

Down sides -
Fan vent sits on top of leg causes it to run noisy, I position it ok and it settles down no problem
shortcut keys on keyboard means its different to my work keyboard so when I borrow it I am forever launching dvd player, Wife is fine with it as she uses it all the time.
Oh its burgandy... she wanted red.

all the best

[timwilky]

People have obviously had issues with Dell, my own company buys 1000s of laptops per year off them and have no issues, my current one a Dimension quad core M6500 has been excellent, apart from battery life. But as I very rarely need to run without power it is not too much of an issue.

I would say these days I would never buy a laptop without at least e-SATA and/or USB3, ieee 802.11n etc

Originally Posted by timwilky

People have obviously had issues with Dell, my own company buys 1000s of laptops per year off them and have no issues, my current one a Dimension quad core M6500 has been excellent, apart from battery life. But as I very rarely need to run without power it is not too much of an issue.

I would say these days I would never buy a laptop without at least e-SATA and/or USB3, ieee 802.11n etc

I think its more down to the entry level machines,

Professional machines are built better than entry level machines, the pro dells I have used have been fine but the home ones are appalling.

I have a friend of the family who runs IT support business and he too only supplies dells, he was surprised I ran HP.. its swings and roundabouts I guess.

[timwilky]

Probably true about it being an entry level thing. Although I do know the onsite tech has to get a dell service technician in about once a month to swap out a motherboard etc.

One other issue I have had is getting drivers/software for it that support XP64 (yes still running XP, company policy), so I cannot use the company iPass/smart card authentication system

[Sir Trev]

Everyone's experiences differ. I used to work for EDS and when we got taken over by HP and their laptops started to arrive the failures rate was much worse than our older Dell lappies.

It's true that consumer/home spec machines are a lot different to corporate spec stuff but for the use the OP wanted a machine for they should all do the job equally well if looked after. My mum has a base model Dell Inspiron, uses it for pretty much the same thing, and has no problems.

Id stay away from x2 and get the cheapest i3 personally.