posted on June 15, 2009 12:30:46 PM new
Previously in this forum I have recommended Dell, mainly if you want to get XP. On their business class laptops you can get XP as a downgrade.
I've had my Latitude D520 for over a year and while we've had a multitude of problems with the machine almost since the beginning, I've always assumed they were related to a worm or virus.
The machine is very slow. I use it to run Turbo Lister and not much else. Yesterday I went to add a new color laser printer and, lo to behold, there were two printer entries we'd never put there.
Now I'm thinking Dell shipped me a repackaged return. You do what you want, but I'm not going to be buying any more Dell computers.
I love my new 24 inch iMac, though. It's incredible.
posted on June 15, 2009 02:15:46 PM new
Thanks for the post - I was thinking of getting one for my next computer. Did you say you got it on line from their website?
A friend of mine had something like this happen at a computer fair. She thought she was buying a brand new computer but it wasn't.
I believe that model may have only come with 512 MB of ram when it was originally released in 2006. If your still running with that amount of memory, it could definitely be made into a decent machine by simply upgrading to whatever the max supported is - likely 2 1G memory sticks to replace the two 256MB chips in there now.
It's easy to do and will finally make it into the machine it should have been in the first place, unless of course the hard drive is nearing less than 20% free space (in which case a backup drive to move some data off of it or a bigger drive in the laptop itself would be the next move.)
What were the other two printer options that you had listed? Perhaps they were some Dell application type printers that come with it and not specifically someone elses home printer (which would usually be referenced by the brand and model of printer.)
At this point there really is no point in getting an XP specific machine. If you really need to run XP for just a program or two, you can just install Virtual PC from Microsoft for free and run XP when you need to right from within the Vista OS.
All of the brand new computers out there today are going to be running 64 bit versions of Vista and with Windows 7 due out near the end of this year, there will be less and less XP support going forward anyway. - not to mention, Windows 7 is a fantastic operating system. It's everything that's great about Vista with all of the annoying bits removed (there's other good points to of course.)
posted on June 15, 2009 06:58:25 PM new
While I don't have any experience with laptops, I can highly recommend the Dell Vostro desktop. I bought the 200 model last year for an amazingly low price (under $500) with Windows XP. It's the best PC I've ever owned. Powerful, fast and whisper quiet. It's a slim model (1/2 size). Oh, and it didn't come w/ any bloat-ware.
posted on June 15, 2009 09:37:59 PM new
Hi Christopher,
My D520 has 2 gb memory, not 512 mb. I always order computers with as much memory as possible.
Your surmise about the alien printers already set up on the system is reasonable. However, one of the printers is Auto HP PSC 750 on HOMEOFFICE and the other is an HP Deskjet configured for a specific IP address(!): 10.154.33.6, which I am told is part of an address block that home businesses often use. We don't; we use 172.16.0.0 as a /16. My husband is senior engineer at the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX); I don't think Vendio is a customer but lots of other Valley companies are.
This machine is slower than my 7-year-old Compaq laptop. Really sad. Time to completely reinstall the OS.
That sounds about right then, it's likely software related issues and not the actual hardware. When thinking about HP Vs Dell Vs Acer/etc, it's really about picking who's packaging you want on pretty much the same hardware anyway.
posted on June 16, 2009 04:28:48 AM new
Fluff - did you ever get your mini? I am traveling again this week and am sick of carting a heavy laptop around!
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posted on June 16, 2009 08:27:23 AM new
The market is flooded with Minis I haven't bought one yet. My research suggests at least a 10 inch screen lots of memory and a 6 cell battery pack.
posted on June 16, 2009 09:47:03 AM new
I've been on the verge of buying one a couple of times but haven't done enough traveling in the last couple of months to compel a purchase.
I started out thinking the HP netbooks were too expensive but now I like them.
Several months ago at HSC* I bought a really nice leather case originally made for a Fujitsu device. Inner dimensions are 9 by 7 inches so I was hoping to find a netbook to fit. If you want to argue that's a bass-ackwards way to go about it I won't disagree.
fLufF
--
*HSC is an ancient and venerable electronics supply place in Santa Clara, California. The Steves (Wozniak and Jobs) bought some of the parts for the Apple I there -- they have the invoice posted on the wall. Hey, JCEarrings made the big time! Come see our site announcement!
posted on June 16, 2009 10:04:03 PM new
Fluffy - Try reformatting the hard drive and starting all over. Sometimes software issues really cause a machine to crawl. Once I did that, mine was right back up to speed. It's a PITA, but worth the effort. I also think that Windows leaves bits and pieces of junk all over the place, which causes machines to slow down.
posted on June 21, 2009 07:04:14 AM new
I recently bought a desktop (435mt) from Dell that uses a new i7 Intel chip, 6GB memory. It is incredibly fast, but the BIOS gives intermittent messages during boot that there was a problem at D0, or sometimes it says B1.
I re-load the default BIOS periodically (and upgrade it when they release a new version), and there don't seem to be any performance issues as a result, but DELL wants me to reload the OS, which I'm reluctant to do since it would require re-installing all of my programs (and any data I have on the C drive, although most of it is on removable disks).
I still like DELL, but not quite as much as previously.
