New laptop help

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

The specs are good and the price is very good. Things to note: That's the slowest of the i5 chips but you don't need power for what you're doing and it does give you good graphics. The 4 cell battery is why the run time is on the low side, you might investigate to see if there's a 6 cell option you can get later, if this matters to you. 8 Gig ram and a 750 Gig HD are all you're ever going to want/need.

Now for the bad news: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-L55-A5284-15-6-Professional-Laptop/product-reviews/B00DMMPQ3O/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one

Almost half the reviews are bad, all the same issues: bad keyboards & touchpads, and as a court reporter we can assume you're going to be harder on a keyboard than the average user....

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

I'm going to sound like a broken record:

Dells will be slightly better build than the Toshibas, and their support is not what it once was, but still miles ahead of Toshiba.

Lenovos are equal or just a bit better than most Dells. Lenovo Thinkpads are better than any of these, they are still the 'standard' in the business world where style takes a back seat to rugged reliability, besides the trackpoint interface gives you a less frustrating option in a world now filled with annoying twitchy Synaptics trackpads.

The trackpoint is a small red nub in the middle of the keyboard to control the cursor, Once upon a time many Dells and Toshibas offered a varation of this interface, now it's mostly only left on Thinkpads, and Synaptics is a company that makes the trackpads used by pretty much every laptop maker...btw understand, the trackpoint is in addition to your standard trackpad. These days many are complaining about the trackpads on EVERY brand.

The best way to buy a Thinkpad is via the Lenovo Outlet where all their offerings, irrespective of called new, refurb or scratch & dent arrive looking brand new, include new software and have a full 1 year warranty. The problem is the Lenovo Outlet site is totally screwed up this weekend, most of the time it fails to load any listings, and we can expect it will not get repaired til after the weekend... You were already in the Luddite thread, check the recent postings there including the one regarding the laptop I bought last week, it's in the ballpark for what you want and cost me all of $414...I added an extra 4 Gig ram that cost me another $37 at Newegg and took a whole 3 mins to install.

teddykgb · May 25, 2014

I was waiting for the Couperin bot to show up and direct you to the lenovo outlet

I will reiterate what has been said in many threads....don't get a machine that lacks an SSD. Very few people need 750GB of space, you're better off prioritizing speed.

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

1. The Outlet had very little product this past week and, yes, as I said, the site is currently broken.

2. I know two people who bought Asus laptops recently, decent quality. One of them had theirs die within 2 weeks, total motherboard failure. This was a factory refurb. The good news is Asus issued an RMA immediately, turnaround was about 8 days and did an excellent job, even preserving the HD contents as she had asked them to do. The repaired unit has been just fine.

3. I have no opinion on Acer except that they have had severely declining sales and are not in good shape financially, I see no reason to flirt with their offerings unless it's a super bargain.

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

teddykgb said:
I was waiting for the Couperin bot to show up and direct you to the lenovo outlet

I will reiterate what has been said in many threads....don't get a machine that lacks an SSD. Very few people need 750GB of space, you're better off prioritizing speed.

The problem is, aside from some ultrabooks and convertibles, nobody ships with SSDs as the drive, well except some high end machines. This leaves you with the option of buying a sale/outlet unit and replacing the drive yourself, or buy one which has the option of adding an mSata or M.2 drive and, understandably, many here don't want to be opening up and fiddling with their brand new laptop, even if bots like me deem this all to be trivial.

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

Not impressed:

This is a really slow processor (Celeron 1.4 is below i3 or i5, although at least the graphics are Intel 4000 series). Only 4 Gig ram and we have gone from a 750 Gig to a 320 Gig still slow 5400 rpm drive.
On the positive side, if you buy it, follow teddy's advice and chuck that drive and install a 240 Gig SSD, the hard drive you would be discarding isn't worth much at all...

The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa · May 25, 2014

Tim Naehrings Girl said:
Well I am killing the budget but this one looks much better...

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15r-5537/pd?oc=fndou1178s&model_id=inspiron-15r-5537&ref=2824_Titles

Since you'll be doing a lot of typing, I can't emphasize enough how good the Thinkpad keyboards are compared to all the rest, Apple Macbooks included. All the speed and graphics in the world won't make up for the improved accuracy and efficiency typing on the Thinkpad.

Couperin47 · May 25, 2014

Tim Naehrings Girl said:
Well I am killing the budget but this one looks much better...

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15r-5537/pd?oc=fndou1178s&model_id=inspiron-15r-5537&ref=2824_Titles

I don't see how this makes much sense either:

It has a much more powerful cpu, we are back to 8 Gig ram, but the HD is still a slow 5400 rpm and a large part of that price is the touchscreen. I can't imagine a court reporter, which is about the most keyboard-centric profession possible, would want to be using screen gestures ?

mt8thsw9th · Jun 23, 2014

I had years of issues with Dell (and their CS), HP, and Toshiba, that finally as someone who was a total Windows fan caved and got a Macbook. If your lack of frustration is worth even 25 cents a day over three years (when factoring the resale value of your computer when you're looking for an upgrade), just pay the extra $500 for a Mac, and there's a good chance you'll be able to sell it for at least that amount in three years.

Dell's issues aren't really native to its computers. I've encountered similar with high-end HPs I've bought, as well as cheaper Toshibas. The computers are generally cheaper because you're paying for cheap parts. It's easier when you don't have to develop your own OS.

Whatever you think your time is worth, in this instance you probably spent a hundred dollars of your time trying to get the computer you paid for to work. No one should have to deal with that with a new computer.

Couperin47 · Jun 23, 2014

mt8thsw9th said:
I had years of issues with Dell (and their CS), HP, and Toshiba, that finally as someone who was a total Windows fan caved and got a Macbook. If your lack of frustration is worth even 25 cents a day over three years (when factoring the resale value of your computer when you're looking for an upgrade), just pay the extra $500 for a Mac, and there's a good chance you'll be able to sell it for at least that amount in three years.

Dell's issues aren't really native to its computers. I've encountered similar with high-end HPs I've bought, as well as cheaper Toshibas. The computers are generally cheaper because you're paying for cheap parts. It's easier when you don't have to develop your own OS.

Whatever you think your time is worth, in this instance you probably spent a hundred dollars of your time trying to get the computer you paid for to work. No one should have to deal with that with a new computer.

Sorry, but Jobs is dead and so is his reality distortion field: crack open that Mac and what do you find ? Internals made by Foxconn and all the other parts from the exact same suppliers all the other majors use. I know you have a serious need to believe the Apple premium is actually justified... and it might be in the styling and the dubious advantages of a closed system, but in the physical build ? That's just delusion.

TNG, I told you at the start that Dell support is nowhere near what it once was. Rugged build is found on Thinkpads. The Lenovo Outlet site is functioning again, but if you want the best reliability, just look at the THINKPADS, not the other Lenovos, which are only slightly better than the best Dells.

Max Power · Jun 24, 2014

Dell Inspirons and Vostros are crap, but the Latitude series is very good. Nice keyboards, solid construction, and easily repairable. You just end up paying for it and can probably get a Thinkpad for about the same price.

Couperin47 · Jun 24, 2014

Max Power said:
Dell Inspirons and Vostros are crap, but the Latitude series is very good. Nice keyboards, solid construction, and easily repairable. You just end up paying for it and can probably get a Thinkpad for about the same price.

The problem is since Michael Dell took them private again, apparently support went from declining to pure shit. Now understand, Business and Enterprise support is still domestic and acceptable, if it wasn't they'd be dead in the water... but buy via the Home or Small business portals and all support is somewhere in India. There is another policy they are using which is even more insidious: You can buy new Dell everywhere: Newegg, Rakuten, Amazon etc. When you buy anywhere BUT Dell you get a sales receipt, what you do NOT get is a Dell Service Tag (or whatever they call it these days...) and support in India will announce over and over that they can't help you without that tag. I'm told if you spend hours arguing and being transferred you can finally get someone to admit they must support the Dell sans the tag, but they expect thru sheer attrition to renege on support for many/most items bought outside their direct channel.

mt8thsw9th · Jul 1, 2014

Couperin47 said:
Sorry, but Jobs is dead and so is his reality distortion field: crack open that Mac and what do you find ? Internals made by Foxconn and all the other parts from the exact same suppliers all the other majors use. I know you have a serious need to believe the Apple premium is actually justified... and it might be in the styling and the dubious advantages of a closed system, but in the physical build ? That's just delusion.

About reality distortion fields...I know you're incredibly price conscious, but to say the build quality and customer service of Macs isn't top notch is a bit specious to be blunt.

I'll let my parents know that the first computer they've had (that they bought open box at a steep discount from Best Buy) that hasn't been locked down by system issues, malware, and viruses within a calendar year is entirely a mirage. Given they paid less than what they paid for every other top of the line Gateway, HP, and Dell system they had prior, I'm not sure what premium you are referring to. They've all been $1500+ machines that have given them less utility than their iMac which is an SSD away from giving them another two years of issue-free utility.

75cent bleacher seat · Jul 2, 2014

Couperin47 said:
The problem is since Michael Dell took them private again, apparently support went from declining to pure shit. Now understand, Business and Enterprise support is still domestic and acceptable, if it wasn't they'd be dead in the water... but buy via the Home or Small business portals and all support is somewhere in India. There is another policy they are using which is even more insidious: You can buy new Dell everywhere: Newegg, Rakuten, Amazon etc. When you buy anywhere BUT Dell you get a sales receipt, what you do NOT get is a Dell Service Tag (or whatever they call it these days...) and support in India will announce over and over that they can't help you without that tag. I'm told if you spend hours arguing and being transferred you can finally get someone to admit they must support the Dell sans the tag, but they expect thru sheer attrition to renege on support for many/most items bought outside their direct channel.

This info is priceless....thanks

Couperin47 · Jul 2, 2014

I received an email yesterday of a renewed 'sale' at Dell: 10-15- or 25% off many items, order and on the checkout page you'll see what 'lottery special savings' you are offered. I didn't mention this at all in the tech bargains thread as you have made clear that, right now, buying from Dell is all sorts of unintended lottery: will you get a new or refurbed item ?, will it work ?, will you get any useful support whatever if there are issues ?
I never thought their home/small business products were more than average, now clearly even that bar isn't being met.

InsideTheParker · Jul 2, 2014

Tim Naehrings Girl said:
I want to say this as politically correct as possible, but it was just really frustrating literally not to be able to talk to anyone in the US when dealing with Dell, I asked and they said there was no call center here, it was all India and El Salvador.

My husband and I both have Dells and really like them. We bought directly from Dell, as that's where we found the best deals. We got the service tags. I bought the four-year support about 8 years ago. With about two months left on the deal, I started having trouble. Dell support, in India, took enormous pains to help me fix it, sent out a tech to install a new motherboard, and when that didn't work sent me a brand-new (may have been refurbished, but you couldn't tell) upgraded Inspiron with another four years of support free. My husband finally got a new Inspiron to replace his perfectly running 7-year-old one when Microsoft stopped supporting XP. I have had no trouble with the new one (Inspiron 1756) ----knock on wood---- and my second four-years of support just ran out in June. The Indian techs I've spoken to were great, though occasionally I had to ask them to speak more slowly. Since the last time I had a lot of conversations with them was 2010, I guess it's since then that the tech service has declined.

finnVT · Jul 21, 2014

I'm looking for a laptop, and a bit overwhelmed by the number of options, so looking for a little help narrowing it down. Key features needed are:

(1) Excellent battery life
(2) Not bulky (travel laptop)
(3) Decently good performance, though doesn't have to be super high end
(4) Price is not a huge huge concern, but nothing outrageous

It's mostly for travel, presentations, lots of ms office stuff. should be able to handle the occasional real scientific data crunching applications, but that's probably low on the list for this machine.

From my googling, seems like the lenovo thinkpads (e.g., x240) have excellent battery life, but are a bit bulky? The vaio's are small and good, but not great battery life? Other ones I've been looking at are samsun ativ book 9 plus and dell inspiron 14. and yes, this list is kind of all over the place, so any help is much appreciated.

The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa · Jul 21, 2014

finnVT said:
I'm looking for a laptop, and a bit overwhelmed by the number of options, so looking for a little help narrowing it down. Key features needed are:

(1) Excellent battery life
(2) Not bulky (travel laptop)
(3) Decently good performance, though doesn't have to be super high end
(4) Price is not a huge huge concern, but nothing outrageous

It's mostly for travel, presentations, lots of ms office stuff. should be able to handle the occasional real scientific data crunching applications, but that's probably low on the list for this machine.

From my googling, seems like the lenovo thinkpads (e.g., x240) have excellent battery life, but are a bit bulky? The vaio's are small and good, but not great battery life? Other ones I've been looking at are samsun ativ book 9 plus and dell inspiron 14. and yes, this list is kind of all over the place, so any help is much appreciated.

the latest Macbook Air 13" is very fast and incredible battery life, very portable. If you must run Windows instead of MacOS you can boot it either natively or through emulation, not hard to do at all. I was a Thinkpad guy for a very long time, and though I still love their keyboards, I have been underwhelmed since Lenovo took over from IBM and started messing with the Thinkpad line more drastically in the past year or two. I have been impressed with the Macbook Air/Pro line overall to make the switch. But if you absolutely must avoid a Mac at all costs, then the Thinkpad X1 Carbon is your best bet (but avoid the newest model, the keyboard layout is stupid and the battery life not as good as advertised, and performance wise it is not worth the money over the previous generation).

Couperin47 · Jul 21, 2014

There is no one perfect answer and some of your criteria are pretty ambiguous:

Excellent battery life vs. performance is a tradeoff. In general the sweet point these days for the cpu is any of the i5 Intels, the i3 or even lower dual cores are likely to disappoint on anything more than casual browsing and email type tasks. Top end i7 cpus are out of the question if good battery life is desired. All AMD cpus will be disappointingly weak.

Define bulk ? 12 ", 14-15 " screen ? Presentation says to me a 14-15" screen, preferably with an IPS panel so those off axis get a decent view. What is your idea of heavy ? Also many laptops have 4 or 6 cell battery options...you get longer battery life with the 6 cell ... and it weighs more.

Price ? On a good sale a quality machine that meets all these criteria can be had for under $450 as a factory refurb with a full warranty... or you can spend well over a thousand... what's you're idea of outrageous ?

Sony is getting out of the computer business making Vaios a bad idea. This thread tells you all you probably need to know about low end Dell atm.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jul 21, 2014

finnVT said:
I'm looking for a laptop, and a bit overwhelmed by the number of options, so looking for a little help narrowing it down. Key features needed are:

(1) Excellent battery life
(2) Not bulky (travel laptop)
(3) Decently good performance, though doesn't have to be super high end
(4) Price is not a huge huge concern, but nothing outrageous

It's mostly for travel, presentations, lots of ms office stuff. should be able to handle the occasional real scientific data crunching applications, but that's probably low on the list for this machine.

From my googling, seems like the lenovo thinkpads (e.g., x240) have excellent battery life, but are a bit bulky? The vaio's are small and good, but not great battery life? Other ones I've been looking at are samsun ativ book 9 plus and dell inspiron 14. and yes, this list is kind of all over the place, so any help is much appreciated.

I think Microsoft made the Surface Pro 3 for you. Obviously pricey but so is MB Air mentioned below. You should check it out.

AlNipper49 · Jul 22, 2014

mt8thsw9th said:
About reality distortion fields...I know you're incredibly price conscious, but to say the build quality and customer service of Macs isn't top notch is a bit specious to be blunt.

I'll let my parents know that the first computer they've had (that they bought open box at a steep discount from Best Buy) that hasn't been locked down by system issues, malware, and viruses within a calendar year is entirely a mirage. Given they paid less than what they paid for every other top of the line Gateway, HP, and Dell system they had prior, I'm not sure what premium you are referring to. They've all been $1500+ machines that have given them less utility than their iMac which is an SSD away from giving them another two years of issue-free utility.

Small sample size. We manage maybe 5% Macs but those users EASILY account for 20% of our calls. The hardware is generally pretty shitty compared to similarly-priced HP (fuck Dell, you might as well buy Fisher Price). If you don't want malware or viruses then you'll need to spend like a whopping $20 and buy the two programs that Coup suggests. We have 1300 PCs under management and MAYBE get a virus incident once every two months.

Couperin47 · Jul 24, 2014

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E540 20C6008SUS today $530 with free ship
http://www.rakuten.com/prod/lenovo-thinkpad-edge-e540-20c6008sus-15-6-led-notebook-intel-core-i5/261249595.html?sellerid=11408470&scid=em_Promotional_20140723DAILY&adid=17654

Amazon wants $595, this is for new not refurbs.

Great all around laptop:

15.6 screen (1366x768)
Intel i5-4200M cpu (2.5 GHz)
4 Gig ram
500 Gig 7200 rpm drive
DVD burner
b/g/n wifi, bluetooth, gig ethernet
full numeric keypad
trackpoint & trackpad
fingerprint reader
6 cell battery
Win 7 Pro x64

Even better this is the successor to the 535 I recently bought and love, which means it includes an M.2 slot.
You can plug in a 128 Gig (and soon 256 Gig) ssd drives into this slot, make that your boot drive and then it will really fly. ATM there is only one brand of M.2 2242 but more are coming in the next few months.

Couperin47 · Jul 29, 2014

This thread already contains a report on the current state of Dell support. Here's what happens if you need support for a Thinkpad refurb bought at their Outlet:

3 weeks after getting my refurb E531 I decide to bite the bullet on updating from Win 8 to 8.1. Turns out when you select the update, it sequentially does the update to 8.1 and then the 8.1 Update. This all goes reasonably smoothly (takes close to an hour, reboots 6 or 7 times, in several cases during the update you have no signs of progress and have to take it on faith that your laptop has not gone into a loop). When all is done I reboot and...immediately get a Lenovo Console message that my battery is now bad and has less than half the charge/time it had before the update. I assume this requires some sort of battery recalibration and the Lenovo support database confirms this. It appears I need to do battery calibration in the advanced options of the battery maintenance tab of the power manager app. This proves problematical as the power option app has no battery tab anywhere. neither the Lenovo site or Google is of any help...time to see what Lenovo support is like...

The 800 number does in fact send you, immediately, to someone with a heavy accent...but I can deal with it...he's southern and sitting in Atlanta. He asks basic info including serial number, confirms my support is good for a year and proceeds to easily solve the issues the 8.1 upgrade created. Turns out with Win 8 the power driver no longer includes these options. You reset the battery by: shutting off the laptop, remove the battery, then hit the power button on the laptop 10 times and then holding it in for 30 seconds. Reboot and issue solved.

Oh, did I mention that this all happened at 3:30 am EDST ? Thinkpad support is 24/7.

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