Originally posted by: bozack
Originally posted by: goku2100
I don't care what got what rating, I've seen PC Magazine Give HP, Toshiba and Dell Laptops a higher rating in some cases than an IBM laptop but that doesn't mean I'm actually going to LISTEN to the rating. Dell and HP and especially toshiba are piss poor laptops compared to the IBM ones and yet they at times receive a higher rating. Sure they're trying to be unbiased, but the problem is they don't factor in the quality of product months or years after purchase. Sure it may seem great when you first buy it but a year later it may fall apart or have erronious errors. This is the same thing with epox, may seem great when you first get it but a year or two later and it's broke.
Edit: Where can I find this "editors choice" review link?
For someone who doesn't care, here is a link to the conclusion of the review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2465&p=28
With regards to your laptop analogy, I am curious as to whether or not you have ever professionally supported any of those brands you mention, have any real tangible hands on experience, or are just talking out of what you have read on the net or elsewhere??
I have been a computer support professional for upwards of five years now and worked with all of the brands you mention above...when I was working for NASA they were using Toshiba librettos along with Compaq amada notebooks, when I was working for IBM we obviously used Thinkpads, when I was working for IBM at Manulife financial and then AstraZeneca there was a mix of Toshiba, dell, HP and Thinkpads, and now at my current company were are pretty much strictly HP/compaq with some Dells mixed in....
While I won't deny IBM Thinkpads were and are nice, the other companies have come out with some very good products as well, and the new generation of HP business class laptops in the EVO NC6220 series in my opinion makes the Thinkpad look as overpriced as it is....The Toshiba Tecra 8200 was a very nice laptop and easy to service, much like the Armada and EVO series Compaqs, generally I have nothing but good luck with dell inspirions...so while IBM makes (or rather made as who knows what will happen with lonovo) the others have had a couple of good ones out there too...buying on brand alone as pentium says really limts your choices, even ABIT, ASUS, MSI and the rest have bad boards from time to time...just like all of IBMs workstations are complete pieces of overpriced crap.
This is comming from someone who ran both an ECS K7S5a and an ABIT BH6, two of the most notorious boards for their suckness for upwards of three years each..and could have gone longer if I didn't upgrade for games.
Here, I'll give a list of laptops I've encountered, this will include laptops I've purchased, Loved ones purchased and ones I've worked on for others:
Dell Latitude PII -PIII, Used it between 2000-2002 (worked on/encountered). Build quality was ok, plastic felt like it was about to come off and the Pentium II system ran albiet slower than some other similar laptops I've used.
Sony Vaios- PCG F270 (PII 333MHZ), PCG F480 (PIII 600MHZ), 1GHZ Athlon based (forgot model number); Build quality on the first two seemed fairly good, nothing fell off/apart then agian were taken care of really well, Systems had proprietary software required for system to run, monitor on the 480 model for about a year would start to flicker like the backlight was turning off and on quickly and it kind of went away (about 3 yrs after purchase). The 270 model was very slow for a pentium II computer with a 333MHZ processor. The athlon 1GHZ based system was fairly fast, screen suffered same issue as the 480 model and the DVD/CDRW combo drive was defective, refused to read Certain CDs/wouldn't burn discs.
Toshibas: 3; 386, a Celeron based, and a Pentium II based (there were more but doesn't matter) 386 model, FDD went bad, and because of it going bad, no way to get information on to the computer so it was destroyed. The Celeron based laptop; keyboard would type random characters (The "K" key would type like a * etc.),mouse went bad, power jack went bad all after only 1 year!, laptop eventually wouldn't boot because of bad power jack and was destroyed/scrapped for parts as well. The pentium II system, keyboard would type random characters (The "K" would type like a * etc.), power jack went bad, laptop status is unknown because it was my sisters (assumes it was thrown away).
2 Dell 600M, mother's runs fine, speed was above average but nothing special, case still felt loose despite great care (DELL QUALITY!), sister's laptop; Screen feels wobbly, case very very loose, system overheated randomly one day and refused to turn on, RMA'ed to dell and motherboard fried, system runs fine agian but screen is still defective and case is still loose.
IBM: Pentium II based laptop, had very high end specs for it's time 1997/1998, I think it was a 380XD model, build quality was great, DVD drive and was very very fast, was my dad's but gave it away for unknown reasons. Pentium M based laptop (T42, one I currently have now) build quality is great, very fast and I've had Zero problems with.
Fujitsu: 1997 model, 755TX, average specs, limited upgrade path, build quality was fairly good, speed was nothing to write home about, few problems, laptop died after two years from juice spill, laptop was then scrapped for parts and the HDD died 8 yrs later.
HP laptop: 3 months old, build quality wasn't terrible but was only slightly better than dell, system was very slow, Penitum 4 based, 512MB ram. Ecountered because I was fixing it for a friend.
HP desktops: Pavilion 8275 Pentium 200MHZ, 32MB ram; system was fairly fast though this was after a full reinstall, system motherboard recently died. HP Pavilion Celeron 766MHZ 128MB ram, very very very SLOW, almost unbareable to use. HP Pavilion Pentium III 600MHZ, integrated video, limited upgrade path, speed is average and is only SLIGHTLY faster than my PCG F480 Sony laptop which runs at same speed though has 440BX chipset while the pavilion has the 815 chipset. Last two I encountered through friend's computers. (I added the HP desktops because I've had more experience with HP desktops than laptops).
Well, thats my experience with laptops