The day my laptop died.
I came home the other night to a partially dead laptop. The power adapter (brick) refused to react to being plugged into the power (the light wasn’t turning on and it was emitting a rather funny smell), so I’d think it was a power surge. The only problem was, I got a replacement charger/battery and the problems didn’t stop there. The screen (whilst displaying a perfect picture) flickers and can’t draw the screen fast enough, so whilst I can still type on it (like now) and use it for email, it’s pretty much useless for any other task.
The screen looks like an old 40’s reel-tape movie/video with the flicker every second or so and what looks like dust flecks in the corners, like an old, pre World War II Donald Duck Cartoon:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG3R3rMu12E[/youtube]
I’m sure there was an older pre-war video somewhere
But seriously, I’m now confronted by the situation where I can pay to get this laptop repaired, which I’d estimate at about £150, or order a new laptop on Higher Purchase via Dell, both of which I really shouldn’t be considering as money is tight at the moment with everything coming up! But whats a little more debt on top of the pile?
A couple of years ago when I was looking for my last laptop, the choice was fairly clear as to what was the best options. Basically for the price, I didn’t think there was anything worthy but an optioned up Dell Latitude. Dell is still (of course) by far the best bang for the buck, nothing comes close price/specs wise but I’ve looked at:
- Dell Latitude again (over priced business use)
- Dell Vostro (Cheap completely customisable Business series)
- Dell Inspiron (Consumer, very little difference to the Vostro’s)
- Dell XPS (Dell’s Cream of the crop, great mix of everything)
- Dell Precision (Over priced, performance Business Model)
- Alienware (True performance, but I thought with ageing hardware & very expensive)
- Apple Macbook Pro (I’d love one of these, not worth twice the price of the equivalent Dell machine though); and
- a range of Gaming Acer, Asus, HP/Compaq, Lenovo and Sony models which were either under performers or largely over priced
Once again, the Dell range offer the best money to nuts ratio, and quite often offer the newest (and thus best) hardware out of all the major players, so Macbook boasting aside, Dell gets my vote.
On second look, the Vostro looks like the best option, it can be optioned up to the max, and comes with a lot of extras that would otherwise cost money on the Inspiron range, so the clear winner for the time being is the Dell Vostro 1700.
Now why didn’t I pay the extra $100AUD for 3 years international warranty, when I last had the chance?
Tags: laptop
April 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
You’re missing the other pieces to the laptop puzzle - size, weight and the heat it generates on yer balls. Oh, and battery life.
for those reasons, I think I’d get something other than a Dell next time. Having said that, apart from a replaced hdd, my dell from 2004 is still working well enough.
But if i had an actual reason to buy a laptop these days, other than to take advantage of salary packaging, I’d probably get something else. I’m also obsessed with the ultra-portable market for some reason.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Hmm, that’s the thing though. My current Latitude (when it had a battery) got almost 4 hours of battery life, never got particularly hot and it wasn’t hugely heavy (though of course you get much lighter).
I wish I could get Salary Packaging over here, that’d be ace, although this ones definitely a lot cheaper than the one I bought in Aus a few years ago.
I think the other thing with the ultra portables is this laptop never goes anywhere but the couch, the bed and the front dining table.. If I was taking it to work every day, then a Dell XPS/Sony Vaio or Macbook Air would probably be the goods, but for home use when I don’t have a Desktop at all, I need as much balls as I can get!
Bought the Dell Vostro for £795 last night by the way, huge special knocked down from almost £1100!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Can’t be a special eh!
yeah, I know what you mean about the ultra-portable stuff. I just love the way that things can get so small and still do all the things I want. I think if I get a smartphone that I can check my email on and maybe fb, I’ll probably not turn my computer on again for a long time.
Having said that, I was thinking a while back that I’d probably get one of the Dell XPS One’s as my next compy if they ever release it in AU. Or maybe I’ll just save my money.