Considering to buy a laptop? Avoid IBM!

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

If you are thinking about buying a laptop, let me suggest not to ever buy an IBM.
At the company where I work, we have bought a couple of IBM thinkpads. Mine broke down after 3 weeks (display stopped working properly). We had to send it back, only to receive it back after 2.5 months (with the problem only partly resolved). Then I had to burn a CD, but it didn’t work anymore. We were thinking drivers and other problems but as it turned out, IBM removed the DVD/CD burner and replaced it silently with a simple CD-ROM player when it was back for repairs. And they refuse any responsibility.
Add to that, other collegues are now starting to get problems with their laptops as well (mainly failing CD burners), and the laptops seem ridiculously slow compared to the specs; sometimes it just plain freezes for a couple of seconds regardless of the software you’re running.

So be warned!

#2

IBM laptops have alwais been crappies… Never buy IBM harware thingies, because it crashes after some weeks of usage and the client support is very, very bad… (I had some problems too with IMB hardware)

Chman

#3

Had a thinkpad at my work. It was the best laptop I’d ever had (We had Compaq) before…

Sure you havent been unlucky?

#4

[quote]Sure you havent been unlucky?
[/quote]
I’m sure I’m unlucky ;D
I’m not the only one here at work with laptop problems. They almost all have problems with the machine suddenly freezing for some seconds. Some have failing CD burners already.
We’ve had a number of other laptop brands before these, like toshiba, compaq and dell. I’d prefer any of these over a thinkpad. Maybe we just had a bad batch of them, which didn’t have to be so bad if the client support wasn’t so appallingly bad.
Maybe you’ve been lucky :slight_smile:

#5

heh perhaps I were. But I worked for a large company(2500 people), with their own test and supportdepartment. It was a 2 GHZ machine with 1 GB ram and a Radeon 9700 Mobile card + a 5400 RPM 20GB HD.

anyway perhaps I was lucky.

#6

i have yet to see a notebook maker that has a flawless record.

my x22 laptop is going on three years strong without a hitch. i wouldn’t hesitate to buy a new t42p (one of the few laptops that can pass-thru DVI to a monitor.) but… i have heard that over the years production is slowly moving out of the us and japan and over to china. ibm also offers 9x5 on-site and next day service on new machines for a few extra bucks.

#7

I own an old IBM thinkpad (pentium IIRC), and it is in perfect working condition with a bunch of upgrades (ram = 40M woohoo!, hard disk ~1G, etc…). The thing just keeps on ticking.

On the other hand, my relatively new Dell laptop doesn’t seem to have a working serial port anymore, the laptop gets so hot I think its overheating my pcmcia cards (wifi), the ethernet chipset doesn’t work with my router, and I think something has gone screwy with the pcmcia slots causing intermittent errors.

In general, I think it probably depends a lot on the particular model you end up getting from a company. And everybody’s tech support probably sucks horrendously - although I’ve heard Apple’s isn’t so bad. If you’re looking for the least amount of problems, you probably need to buy a laptop model that people have been already using for a year or so and has had very good reviews. Of course, by that time, it’s already obsolete. :frowning:

God bless,
-Toby Reyelts

#8

I’ve had relatively good luck with 2 models of ASUS so far (touch wood), but Dell has been a bleedin’ nightmare. Mouse buttons broken off, the keyboard is starting to fail, the battery died months ago… and oh yes, don’t bother looking for replacement parts on Dell’s website, cause you can’t find them. I mean, I don’t expect to find replacement keyboards for sale on Dell’s website, but surely replacement batteries are an obvious thing to include?

#9

[quote]Mouse buttons broken off, the keyboard is starting to fail, the battery died months ago…
[/quote]
Oh my gosh, forgot to mention that too. The up-arrow key on my keyboard is loose and my battery only keeps about a half-an-hour charge now. Blech. I’m seriously considering buying a Powerbook as my next laptop, even if it is seriously overpriced.

God bless,
-Toby Reyelts

#10

i’ve found the best place to get notebook parts is on ebay, especially for dell notebooks. search for for “parts” or “broken” + your model number. i’ve rebuilt a number of notebooks all from ebay parts.