Dell Laptops
 

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Although I don't have any experience with either model you are looking at I will say that you should somewhere else than Dell. At least make sure you get an extended warranty.

I've had two Dell laptops and I'll never purchase another from them. I've had functional problems with the screens on both (as in the screen going black when I open and close the top) and I've had serious hardware issues with both as well.

I would also strongly urge you to look into something other than a Dell. I've owned one and it was a disaster...I would never consider buying another one.

I concur. Dell laptops are good for about a year. Then the warranty runs out and they start to fall apart. I have an Inspiron 5160 that I got last October. It tends to overheat like crazy to the point that my fingers get hot just typing. Another word of advice, if you are planning on getting an Inspiron: they have a lot of storage space and memory because they're meant to be entertainment computers. However, they are really heavy. If you're looking for a laptop that you will be carrying around a lot, then an Inspiron is not your best bet.

I have had nothing but wonderful experiences with Dell. I am the only one in my family with something other than a Dell laptop and the network we run at work is 100% Dell.

It is my understanding that the dual core processors are really for gaming and that for your uses they are more computer than you need. That being said, the techies I hang out with LOVE the dual core processor and it isn't a huge step up in price.

Have fun and happy shopping!

I work in IT and everyone tells me that what really matters these days is the service. Dell doesn't make whats inside their computers any more than HP does. They're really just middlemen. But Dell's service is supposed to be the best overall.

/trusting my co-workers, and my experience, and buying a Dell

My first laptop was a Dell Inspiron 8200 and was an absolute excelent Computer, my only reason for upgrading is i handed it over to my younger sister as she needed a new PC..

I now have a HP compaq NX7010 Centrino procesor and i can honestly say this machine out does the Dell in quality. Im also a Network Administrator so I have heaps of experiance in alot of new machines.. All the Dell machines i have delt with have been good on the hardware side so my choice would be either a Dell or HP..

As for what specs it will need to be from what you say you intend on using it for then a celeron would be more than suitable for your needs.. Although like said the price differance isnt all that much, well here in Aus anyway..

Good luck with it all..

Yiannis

[QUOTE=damasa] I've had functional problems with the screens on both (as in the screen going black when I open and close the top) .[/QUOTE


Is this not a reg. feature of most laptops? I just bought a brand new GQ laptop, and mine does this whenever i close it- actually, not only does mine do it, but both of the laptops my family uses do it as well (diff brands), so i always assumed it was supposed to do that!

[QUOTE=pinkiebell1001]Ha Ha, so much funny.

That's not what I meant to say. What I was trying to say was that when I would adjust the top of laptop up or down, the screen would go blank and I would have to restart the computer in order for the screen to power up again. It had nothing to do with my power settings. And on one of them the screen would black out when I closed the laptop and it wouldn't power back on when I reopened it, thus having to restart it as well.

The second one got so bad that at some points when the screen blacked out the hard drive would also crash.

I didn't have any problems with my Dell until it just DIED. And it was less than 2 years old.

I love love love my Toshiba. It feels better made than the Dell and (knock on wood) no issues with it so far.

I believe it was the Celeron that my dad (who builds computers) told me to avoid. He always tells his clients to avoid Dell. Do either of those computers come with an AMD Athalon processor? Mine's been great.

My first laptop was an HP and it ran for about 5 years before I ended up needing a new harddrive. I passed that one along to my husband and got a Compaq. I know it's the same company as HP, but my HP had better options and was more functional. The next one I get will definitely be another HP. Their customer service is excellent and it ran like a charm.

I'd avoid Toshiba, too. I had a few from them that would end up just dying in the middle of writing a paper (while plugged in). I made Circuit City take them back. After that happened a few times, I got the HP, and I was much happier.

The differance between the celeron and the centrino(pentium M) is the cache, and the other is the bus speed..

A centrino will always outperform a celeron in all aspects but the main part were it will dominate will be when doing things like Graphic rendering, or applying a codec to a video file(data compresion).. Basicly when the CPU has to use its mathcoprocessor and do mathamatical calculations the Pentium M is more powerfull.

When using a PC as a web browser, email and basic wordproccesing a celeron is more then capable.. Celerons can even do the harder jobs but just not as quick..

When the celerons were first released they didnt have a Level 2 cache at all, this made them very cheap and very useless. Nower days celerons have both levels of cache but not as much nor as fast as a pentium M..So IMHO celerons dont need to be avoided anymore..

Yiannis

I had a Dell laptop that belonged to a previous company, and had a fair amount of trouble with it. Most seemed to be heat related.

For whatever it's worth.

Do you have the A75 Satellite? A lot of my classmates have it and they've had problems, although I haven't. Quite a few of them have bought the little rubber feet that prop it up and that allows the fans to vent. Blowing out the copper coil in the back with compressed air also helps it vent.

I am having the same problem. My Dell is just a year and a half, and it died today. I have had so many problems with it in the last 4 months. Forget talking to the people at Dell. I swear they have no idea what they are talking about. I am so sick of it. I am now back in the market for a new laptop. I don't care if I can fix my current laptop. It is so not worth the frustration.

Bumping this because my Dell XPS has been a major problem lately, the screen goes white if it's on for too long, and I can't turn it on without the blue screen of death coming up and so I can't even scan for viruses and everytime I call Dell they have "unusually high call volume".
This happened to my best friend who has the exact same computer and had to get a new one.
NEVER again. I'm going to get more acclimated to Mac's... no more dell or gateway crap... ugh!

I would highly suggest looking into other companies besides Dell. Everyone I know who has had one has had to replace it as soon as the warranty was up.

I have had three labtops over the course of about 11 years. I had a Compaq for about 4 years and it was great until I started having screen blackout. Then I had an HP for about 5 years; there was nothing really wrong with it, but I wanted something a little faster and with more storage. So I replaced it with an Acer, and it is awesome, too!

I had a Dell Inspiron 6000 for 2.5 years before the LCD died right before Christmas. Of course, Dell would not repair it, but was happy to replace the entire screen for $600+. That was just the last problem of MANY. I wouldn't recommend Dell to anyone.

We bought an Acer laptop in Feb. and it has been nothing but wonderful. It's taken a lot of banging around (Forrest has even knocked it off of the table a time or two) and we've never had a single problem, other than some of my old programs won't work with vista. :rolleyes:

I've only owned one Dell at work, and it's been a PITA from day one. It's barely a year old and has already been reformatted... and still has issues.

I had one Dell, and I will never buy another one. The customer service alone was enough to drive me off, let alone the problems that I had with it.

I'm on my second Dell laptop. I love it when it works. Big key there... WHEN it works. I highly HIGHLY recommend getting the extended warranty if you're going to go with a Dell. My laptop now is just about a year and a half old and I've probably had at least 6 service visits. It all started when the laptop was about 9 months old. Since then, I've replaced a keyboard, the LCD twice, a CD/DVD drive, and the hinges. I just log onto the tech support website and usually do the online chat with a technician. The techs I've had online are for the most part very good (although sometimes a little slow with their responses) and they send someone to my house within 2 business days and it costs me nothing. I got the 2 year added warranty (I think it was about $200) so I got a total of 3 years of in-home repairs and I'm SO glad I did.

HELP
 

So, I just got off the phone with the IT guy at work who was working on my Dell XPS laptop, and he said that the hard drive is completely messed up and he can't fix it unless I get a new hard drive.
I'm still paying this thing off, my warranty is expired and I definitely DO NOT have the money to fix it or get a new hard drive.
I don't even know what to say when I call Dell, any advice??? :mad::confused::(

Hmmm. Don't know what to tell you. Dell's been having bulging capacitor problems that they've been extending warranties for, but I don't know if that's only desktops.

But other than that, suck it up and pay I suppose :/

I don't know what to tell you to tell them except explain what's not happening (not starting up, etc.) and that you think it's the hard drive. Ask the IT guy, or someone else good with computers, about the feasibility of replacing the hard drive yourself or if they'd help you. I know that's a different beast with laptops than desktops.

Since other types of computers have gotten brought up...

I think it extremely unlikely that I will ever spend my own money on a computer that isn't an Apple ever again. I have the macbook and its power and reliability are years beyond any other computer I have owned or tried. If my work would let me run parallels, I would use my mac there too & never deal with other computers again.

While I have never owned a dell, many of my friends have & I refuse to ever own a dell...everyone I have seen is junk within 2 years. They do not wear well at all if you do anything other than leave it on your desk. I had a toshiba for several years & it was quite good for a long time...but I never realized how bad it was until I got my mac.

I'm not trying to convert anyone....but sort like that song that goes "anything you can do i can do better".....well, macs run windows....there's no reason not to buy anymore in my eyes

You should look into a Toshiba... My fiance just purchased one and it is nice. I own a dell and I have had a few problems here and there with it but that is what electronics are made to do... tear up so you can buy more.

I think the bulging capacitors are an Optiplex GX270 problem and they are only covering them through the end of this month. That's why, Christmas week, I went and opened up all 40 of our GX270's and checked the capacitors for any signs of bulging and had them all replaced. Thankfully, one of the first techs who came to replace one of our 270 motherboards showed me what to look for. Capacitors with an X on top are the ones at risk. If they have a K or a T, they are ok.

From a business standpoint, Dells are the easiest to work with and their business end tech support has been really good. They are easy to work on because their cases are so user friendly (no tools needed for most jobs). I have an HP at home that I wanted to upgrade the RAM on. To get to the RAM chips, I had to take the CD drive and hard drive out. What a pain. I would ALWAYS get the three year warranty. As far as other laptops.. my first was an IBM Thinkpad and it wore out quickly. The hard drive was crappy and died shortly after the one year warranty ran out. Then I had a Canon and a month after that warranty ran out, the motherboard died. They wanted $1000 to fix it, with me mailing it to them. PAIN. Since I could get a new one for that, I bought a SONY Vaio and about a month after that warranty ran out, four of the keys on the keyboard stopped working. With Dells, I always get a three year warranty but haven't needed to use it often. After three years, your computer is probably outdated anyway, so I figure it's ok if it dies then.

ETA: I also wanted to add.. in my experience,laptops never last as long as desktops either. People are HARD on laptops. My users bring them to me after spilling coffee on them, obviously dropping them (noted by the dents and scratches), etc. Make sure you get a really good padded case if you're going to take it with you everywhere you go. A bunch of epidemiologists at work have fallen in love with these new SONY Vaio's which are tiny and they ordered 4 of them. One of them is carrying hers in her PURSE. I have warned her that it will not last long banging around in her purse like that. The displays are so thin and fragile. But, they love them because they weigh only 2.3 pounds.