Laptop recommendations
 

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

===

I've always been partial to HPs. I believe their engineering and
reliability are a notch or two above the others. I'd also get a
wireless mouse for it since most touchpads leave a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately you will probably be stuck with Windows 10 if you buy a
new machine. People seem to like it once they get used to the new
interface but I'm set in my ways in that regard.

Laptop recommendations
 

On 3/29/2017 6:41 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

===

I've always been partial to HPs. I believe their engineering and
reliability are a notch or two above the others. I'd also get a
wireless mouse for it since most touchpads leave a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately you will probably be stuck with Windows 10 if you buy a
new machine. People seem to like it once they get used to the new
interface but I'm set in my ways in that regard.


I agree with Wayne. My last two laptops have been HP Pavilions. The
first, purchased in 2007, finally died after about 8 years of heavy,
daily use in the guitar shop. The second and the one I am currently
using, is an HP purchased in 2010, still running Win 7. I downloaded
the free upgrade to Win 10 but have not installed it.

That said however, I wonder how much of a particular brand contains
unique and/or proprietary hardware. Seems like most of the major brands
use the same CPU (usually Intel) and hard drives made by others.
I suspect the same is true with mother boards and power supplies.

I'd consider a Dell if I could find one designed for commercial use.
Seems to be many of them around that are still chugging away.

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wednesday, March 29, 2017 at 8:04:45 AM UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 3/29/2017 6:41 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

===

I've always been partial to HPs. I believe their engineering and
reliability are a notch or two above the others. I'd also get a
wireless mouse for it since most touchpads leave a lot to be desired.
Unfortunately you will probably be stuck with Windows 10 if you buy a
new machine. People seem to like it once they get used to the new
interface but I'm set in my ways in that regard.


I agree with Wayne. My last two laptops have been HP Pavilions. The
first, purchased in 2007, finally died after about 8 years of heavy,
daily use in the guitar shop. The second and the one I am currently
using, is an HP purchased in 2010, still running Win 7. I downloaded
the free upgrade to Win 10 but have not installed it.

That said however, I wonder how much of a particular brand contains
unique and/or proprietary hardware. Seems like most of the major brands
use the same CPU (usually Intel) and hard drives made by others.
I suspect the same is true with mother boards and power supplies.

I'd consider a Dell if I could find one designed for commercial use.
Seems to be many of them around that are still chugging away.

Dell does have a "business" side of their online store. I'm not sure they are more rugged, though. It seems that the biggest difference between their personal and business PCs is that the personal line has more availability of fast video cards and other go-fast goodies. You know, for gaming. The business line is more mainstream hardware for doing business apps that don't require the video performance of modern games.

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wednesday, 29 March 2017 06:18:23 UTC-3, Poco Deplorevole wrote:
This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

I was given a HP Notebook a couple years ago for Christmas.
Had a lot of trouble with the wi fi reception. Even had the cable guy in to check signal strength. He said it was probably the Notebooks antenna.
Told this to the HP support people and they brushed me off saying if that was the case the signal would never work. We went through the usual troubleshooting over the phone and eventually they authorized me to send the unit to Ontario for repair. Had to argue with them over warranty coverage...HP had 2 years but COSTCO provided 3.
Got unit back...same problem.
Went through the same over the phone trouble shooting and arguments about warranty coverage a 2nd time. Costco people told me to insist on the top tier service people and they authorized a 2nd trip to Ontario for repairs. This time they got it right and replaced the antenna and whatever board it was connected to. Has worked fine since last summer. (fingers crossed)

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

I have had pretty good luck with Lenovo (formerly IBM) and my 2 1996
vintage 365s still run but they are not fast enough to do much.

Laptop recommendations
 

wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally
giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

I have had pretty good luck with Lenovo (formerly IBM) and my 2 1996
vintage 365s still run but they are not fast enough to do much.



We use tablets. Both wife and I have iPad mini. Works well for traveling.
Gets and sends email. Which is 80% of the travel use. Other 20% is
looking up local places or maps. Tablets are great for that. We download
books from our local library as well as Amazon so when on airplanes can
read or play games. For wifi we either use hotels, phone hotspot, or
Starbucks or McDonald's. I also have Xfinity for home, and they have
public wifi wherever Comcast is a provider. The tablet is a lot more
convenient than a laptop for travel, where you do not need it for business
use.

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:04:36 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I'd consider a Dell if I could find one designed for commercial use.
Seems to be many of them around that are still chugging away.

===

I have an old Dell laptop that lives on the boat, usually at the lower
helm. It gets used mostly for displaying weather information and as a
comm terminal for the SSB radio, but it can double as a navigation
display/chartplotter if necessary. What's not to like? It has always
been flaky and temperature sensitive, requiring periodic reboots to
restore it to operation.

Laptop recommendations
 

On 3/29/2017 2:09 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:04:36 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I'd consider a Dell if I could find one designed for commercial use.
Seems to be many of them around that are still chugging away.

===

I have an old Dell laptop that lives on the boat, usually at the lower
helm. It gets used mostly for displaying weather information and as a
comm terminal for the SSB radio, but it can double as a navigation
display/chartplotter if necessary. What's not to like? It has always
been flaky and temperature sensitive, requiring periodic reboots to
restore it to operation.



Tough environment for a computer, I'm sure.

We used to buy computers to run the systems we built in my business but
I've forgotten what they were. They were used for graphical displays,
some computational purposes and storage of various process programs in a
spreadsheet. The actual connection to the system was via an industrial
programmable logic controller (PLC) that served as the input/output
device as well as the actual control and interlock logic.
We liked Allen Bradley for this.

The computers were "industrial" rated, but I am not sure what that meant
other than they were supposed to be physically "rugged".

Laptop recommendations
 

On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 16:25:49 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 05:17:47 -0400, Poco Deplorevole
wrote:

This summer will see us doing a bit of travelling, and I'm finally
giving serious thought to getting
a laptop. Any one having good or bad luck with theirs?

I have had pretty good luck with Lenovo (formerly IBM) and my 2 1996
vintage 365s still run but they are not fast enough to do much.



We use tablets. Both wife and I have iPad mini. Works well for traveling.
Gets and sends email. Which is 80% of the travel use. Other 20% is
looking up local places or maps. Tablets are great for that. We download
books from our local library as well as Amazon so when on airplanes can
read or play games. For wifi we either use hotels, phone hotspot, or
Starbucks or McDonald's. I also have Xfinity for home, and they have
public wifi wherever Comcast is a provider. The tablet is a lot more
convenient than a laptop for travel, where you do not need it for business
use.

I like a laptop when I travel because we hijack the TV for our music
and streaming movies if their connection is fast enough to do it.
Otherwise I usually have 150-200 G of movies on the laptop we can
watch.
It is also better for editing pictures and videos. Sometimes I do that
on the TV if we are connected.
Some hotels use special TVs that you can't hack into but when we are
renting a house they are regular TVs and you just plug in.