Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Compaq

Cracked Compaq Laptops? 100

Posted by Cliff from the compaq-quality-control dept.
gwn asks: "I have just over 100 Compaq Armada 100s laptop purchased early in 2001. Over 60 have developed cracks in the lid just above the left hinge and at the front corners. I had one of these on a VP''s desk, no abuse, and it cracked. Compaq has denied any other reports of this with any other customer, just my problem they say. They have stopped giving me a hard time when I send these in for repair and they are repairing for free. This is still a royal pain in the rear and does cost me money. Lately, they started coming back with Compaq Notebook 100 labeled screens and it got me thinking they are running out of parts. It can't just be mine that are cracking. Does anyone else have a Compaq Armada 100s or Notebook 100 with cracking case problems?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Cracked Compaq Laptops? More

Cracked Compaq Laptops?

Comments Filter:

  • Idea: (Score:1, Funny)

    by sllort ( 442574 )
    Stop hitting them with a hammer.
    That would probably help.

    • Re:Idea: (Score:2, Funny)

      by mfujie ( 149520 )
      Actually, company-owned laptops sometimes get treated almost that badly. At a former company, the CEO was fond of throwing his laptop across the office when he was angry. Other highlights include:

      People carrying them from desk to desk using the screen as a handle.
      Spilled soda, coffee, etc. on the keyboards.
      Network cable accidentally looped around an armrest... employee swings around in his chair and propels himself towards a coworkers desk... laptop meets the hardwood floor.

      Because there is rarely any real punishment for breaking your company laptop, it doesn't take long to become completely nonchalant about accidents that would cause your hair to stand up on end if they happened to your own computer.
      • Hah! I remember one joker at my last job carefully put his laptop in the leather case on the hood of his car. Slid every cable and dongle into their appropriate slots. Grabbed it by the leather handle and snatched it off the hood of his car at the same instant he remembered not zipping the case closed ... watched in slow motion as the laptop flew in a nice arc from the case to the concrete waiting below. Cracked the screen, scratched the case up pretty good. Data was intact, at least it booted and I was able to find two virii and a buttload of porn in his IE cache. Talk about having a bad day. Glonoinha

  • Compaq Experiences (Score:3, Informative)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @04:16PM (#3939681) Homepage Journal
    I have a second hand Armada 7800 series (7380DMT), And it' been remarkably solid for the amount of abuse I've put it through. I'd venture a guess and say that the models you're dealing with probably has the problem that many Vaios have where the screen hinge and other high-stress points are not reinforced with metal/enough metal.

    My Armada, circa 1999, has only had issues with the rubber feet coming off (the glue is worthless) and the doors on PC Card slots breaking (broke within a week of my buying it, later last summer).

  • Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere (Score:4, Informative)

    by Omega Hacker ( 6676 ) <[omega] [at] [omegacs.net]> on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @04:18PM (#3939699)
    I had a Dell Inspiron 7500 for a couple years. Not only did the lid plastic crack in several places, but the hinges holding the entire LCD simply broke, three times. Dell finally got so sick of fixing my laptop they sent me a 8100 instead, which will be going back to them shortly, again, to fix a broken LCD connection that causes the screen to flash mostly green, but recently blue and red as well.

    Unfortunately, the ability of a laptop to hold up to even normal use doesn't seem to be a feature that is ever dealt with in reviews, making it very hard to determine which brand or laptop to get without significant word-of-mouth data.

    • Yuppers, that's why I still have (and love) my IBM i1472. It's old, it's slow (366 MHz Celeron) and it's built like a friggin' tank!

      Granted, the original hard-drive is long gone (replace with a higher capacity drive) and ditto the original RAM, but otherwise, the original machine.

    • I purchased a Sony VAIO and it works great technically. Unfortunately the hinge and hinge cover broke when the system was being closed normally.

      I tried to get Sony to fix it and they wouldn't. They said I was the only one with that problem and that it was not a manufacturing defect. I don't call the hinge popping off the frame a feature

      There is no way I am the only one with that problem.
      • Sony support is getting a reputation for these reactions.

        I had a problem with my Sony camcorder which they were telling me was my problem. Fortunatly I found out on usenet that many other people were having the same problem (bad firewire connection) and I sat down and wrote a two page letter on all the steps I had gone through to make sure there was a hardware glitch (tested in on three systems, under three OSs) and included as many links as I could find to other people's posts who had same problem. And oh yeah - I told them I was an IT professional.
        I sent them the letter with the camcorder and they fixed it no problem.

    • Re:Pathetic laptop cases are everywhere (Score:4, Interesting)

      by trentfoley ( 226635 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @04:54PM (#3939900) Homepage Journal
      I have great respect for the durability of the A series of IBM Thinkpads (I've got an A21p). Its been dropped, stepped on, played with by 3-7 year old children, and cursed at many many times. The titanium composite lid has never been scratched or broken or cracked.

      I've also got an older Compaq Presario 1675 that has

      1) broken/cracked usb port

      2) cracked lid near hinges

      3) 1 Hour battery life (I know, I need a new one)

      I've never bought a Dell laptop because everybody I know that has one has had to send them in for various repairs or component failure replacements. To be fair, the Travelstar hdd on my 1 1/2 year old A21p shot craps after a rough family car trip. IBM overnighted me a brand new 48GB drive to replace my dead 32GB. Nice upgrade for a warranty replacement. Makes me wonder if the original poster might be able to talk Compaq in to fixing his systems with larger screens.

      • I too have great respect for the A series. Mine has been through everying yours has. The only difference on mine is that it actually has some scratches, but its nothing a couple of OpenBSD stickers didn't fix. :-)
      • Ahmen! I've got an A21p that's has survived the student life and is still gorgeous. Being carted everywhere in a backpack and thumped around with a big stack of books it's amazing that the whole thing works. Honestly, I doubt I will need to replace this laptop for a long time - gorgeous screen, good processor, great keyboard, etc.
      • I'm typing this from a IBM t21 which I have the same experiences with: no scratches, no loose fittings, no problems. I have used it every working day for at least 8 hours for the last year. I love this machine.

        My friend and gf have t20 and a t21 - no problems at all.

      • I've also got an older Compaq Presario 1675 that has

        1) broken/cracked usb port

        2) cracked lid near hinges

        3) 1 Hour battery life (I know, I need a new one)

        Here Here! I've got an almost 5-year-old Compaq Presario 1610 that has been through the wringer and just keeps running. It survived a dozen flights, hundreds of rides on the floor of my car during my 25 mile commute to work. As I also generally carry a backback, the normal approach for me was to toss the laptop carrying case over my shoulder, and then throw the backback over the same shoulder with all its weight pressing upon the laptop. Took it like a trooper and it Just Keeps Working.

        Unfortunately, it's a 150 MHz Pentium MMX; its RAM is maxed out at 80 MB, and the 1.6 GB hard drive runs 90+ percent full. So, I've been looking around for a more capable laptopn. I'd been eyeing the Dell Inspirons, but from what I've seen here... I'm definitely reappraising that idea. I've seen a couple suggestions for IBM laptops; does anyone else have a recommendation?

        • Hehe, another 1610 out there.

          I swapped my Fujitsu 1.6 for a IBM Travelstar 4.8 gig in my machine and it runs fine. I think it'll even go higher than that, capacitywise.

          If you want a new laptop though, there are only two you should look at

          -Toshiba
          -IBM

          I had a Toshiba before I had my 1610 and it took a 7 foot fall out of my backpack. Broke some plastic off the machine and destroyed the hard disk but once replaced it ran just fine again. I stopped using it because it was a 486 and just too slow.

          All the Thinkpads I have looked at are very solid machines too, though I haven't used one recently.

      • Not just the A series from IBM rock. We've got lots of old ThinkPad 770s still in use that take all kinds of abuse. I regularly pick mine up by the display, which they claim you aren't supposed to do, and never had a problem yet.

        Only problems:

        * One drive died
        * One keyboard had to be replaced after a salesperson tried to feed it soda.
        * Another salesperson somehow destroyed the connector shield for the floppy, unbeknownst to me. I reached around blind to plug a floppy in, and after a nice *pop* the whole thing shut down.

        In the second case, I went ahead and replaced the keyboard in-house, since I knew they weren't going to fix that one under warranty. The others they took care of. IBM's warranty service absolutely rocks. On the last one, I called them up, and there was an Airborne Express box delivered a few hours later. Packed up the unit, shipped it out that afternoon, and the thing was back in my hands the next morning.
    • Inspirons are consumer models, they are actually expected to be moved less and opened and closed less, and remain in docking stations for more than 75% of their life according to the On site DELL guys here. The Latitude series on the other hand is built to survive a nuclear war...(well figuratively anyway)...I have had three, all of which lived with out a hitch for 2 years plus without a hitch...
      • Hmm, it'd be great if they publicly advertised that little gem. If they build "desktop replacement" laptops that aren't designed to be used as laptops, maybe they should do what ECS or whoever did and leave out the battery. If they're going to advertise them as laptops, they should be built like laptops, IMO.

      • Every docking station I have seen has been in a business environment. In ohter words, 100% of the consumer laoptops I have had ocntact with have spent 100% of their lives non-docked. It's the business models that seen to get the docks.

        This includes numerous Latitude CPi models - a seies I am none too happy with. Out department ordered a few dozen of them three years ago. Within a week, a third of them died. I haven't worked at the place for a few years, so I don't know about their long-term reliability. All I know is the OmniBooks that the Latitudes were replacing were tough as nails, and the Dells just didn't live up to their charge in life.
        • I had 2 Omnibooks, that all snapped hinges and clasps, several times and that was just from the activity of being in the laptop bag....screens went bad alot too...
          4100, and 4150 model.. Lets not even talk about dropping them accidently.....
          I have droped the CPxJ twice from 4+ foot hieghts and never had a probelm...once it was even running...(don't ask long story)
      • The current Latitudes are use a different build than their home user oriented Inspirons... but some of the older Latitudes look, feel and act like their Inspiron counterparts. After dealing with a couple of those, we switched to IBM ThinkPads and those have lasted through a lot more abuse than the Dells.

        I bought an IBM ThinkPad T21 laptop for personal use because the amount of abuse that they can go through but also that I can run FreeBSD over half the time :) The only gripe... the T21 at that point in time (P3-800, 256MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive, 14" TFT, DVD-ROM, built-in Intel NIC+Modem and Windows 2000) was quite costly.
    • My 8100 is doing the same things to me. I found that by opening the pannel between the keyboard and LCD and removing and replacing the cable going to the LCD fixes it.
    • Sounds familiar I've replaced:
      1) LCD screen twice
      2) keyboard twice
      3) hard drive
      4) the flaps that protect the PCMCIA slots fell off and get stuck in the PCMCIA pins
      5) the hinges that holds the screen
      6) the power supply

      The only thing original on my laptop is the DVD/floppy and the battery

  • You're all alone (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CounterZer0 ( 199086 )
    We've purchased hundres (if not a few thousand) of those things, and they are dead-sturdy. You may have gotten a bad production run.

  • armada (Score:1)

    by XO ( 250276 )
    I had an Armada come through for repair yesterday, with a toasted power supply. The guy seemed upset that the casing near both hinges had snapped. After pointing out to him that the latch holding the laptop together had obviously been forcefully broken off of it, he conceded that "maybe, just MAYBE someone tried to force it open without using the latch".

    I don't know what model it was, but this is just an anecdote.

  • it sounds like you're getting all you're going to get out of these laptops and compaq. whether or not you can prove them wrong when they say that no one else is complaining is a rather moot point, apart from the bad press they just got here on /. (i dunno how highly they were thought of before around here, all i know is that i'd certainly not buy one, had too many troubles with their desktops, let alone trying the laptops.)

    vote with your dollars, and don't give compaq/HP/whoever anymore of your business. sounds like you've gotten as good as you're gonna get from them.

  • Seriously, I only know a little about injection molding, but the thinner the piece is, the more complex its shaped, the more likely it will fail under stress. And what part of the laptop's plastic gets stressed, other than the hinge?

    I would venture a guess that Compaq's quest for ever smaller laptops, quick production/obselescence cycles, and general nonconcern for quality products has caught up them, and it's hurting you.

    Oh well.
    • Also, there has been a great push in the plastics manufacturing industry to prevent scrap and recycle. There are a few reasons why they do this, one being environmental concerns, but that is nothing compared to inventory accountability. Its insane how companies are trying to get 100% usage from raw materials. The molds and bleedoff from the extruder is reground, fed back into the system at up to a 25% ratio. Many times the operators have problems getting things to mold properly and have a stack of junk that the machine botched or QA sent back. It either goes into the dumpster, or its fed back into the system for "free." If you are a plant manager trying to increase profits, why not? It won't come back to haunt you for a long time.

      The other problem is lead content in the plastics. Lead is a wonderful metal that does magic to the plastic's heat resistance and durability. It makes it softer and more resistant to the environment. You can make fireproof plastics with a 40% lead content. Chances are, the wires in your house have a small percentage of lead in the plastic's formula. This makes it withstand MUCH higher temperatures before it breaks down and burns your house to the ground. The problem is that its hazardous to work with and leaded plastics do not recycle well. They have to go to the dump when botched. If they are reground and recycled, they do not remelt like other plastics as they have cured permently.
  • I know this doesn't answer the poster's question, but it addresses some of the other people whining about laptops and particular brands...

    I've owned two Toshiba Tecras, the 750 and the 8100, and they are incredibly durable. I've beat the living crap out of them, dropped them off desks, down stairs, even kicked 'em a couple times, all by accident of course, and they continue to run splendidly.

    Likewise, my office insists on buying Dell laptops and they are en route to and from the repair shop more often than not.

  • Notebook 100 (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tomah4wk ( 553503 )
    I have a notebook 100 which i have put heavy demand on (carrying in a bag to university every day) for the last two years and have found it to be very solid. It got damp in the rain which killed the CD-ROM drive, but thats my fault. The case has proved to very sturdy, the machine gets a little warm, mostly the hard disk and battery but they have both been reliable (battery life is very poor). I believe the armada 100 is in fact exactly the same machine, but it depends on when/where you bought it. I doubt many people put their laptops through as hard a life as i do, so i must say im suprised to hear of your problems. Guess i might just be lucky. Ive just upgraded to an IBM Thinkpad, also seems very study, hope i get a good 2/3 years life out of that as well.
    • (There are so few posts with information about Armada 100s that I figure another OT post won't hurt)

      I used to work at Oldsmobile, back when they made Diesel engines. They saw bunches of cracked wrist pins in the field that we couldn't duplicate in the lab. We tried running engines on starter fluid. We tried overloading them to the point of stalling. We even twisted some con rods so the wrist pin was flexing sideways as the piston went up and down and we never could crack one. The boss was going nuts, wondering why they stood up to our super abuse yet cracked for "Casper Milktoast" (as he put it). The point? Maybe something similar is going on here; maybe there's some residual stress in the lids that must be relieved, either through heavy use ("carrying in a bag to university every day") or by cracking ("on a VP's desk, no abuse").

      • I had an Armada 7800, I think. I cracked the case in a couple different places because I was living in a hotel with a little round table, and I tended to have the laptop on the table and sometimes rest my hand on the corner, which didn't have table under it. Sounds kind of stupid, but also I was a bit surprised about how little force it took to do that.

      • Diverging even further... :)

        We've had two of those ('82 Oldsmobile 98 V8 350 Diesels) and they were a constant source of income to our mechanic until we put a '78 gasoline engine in it. Once we replaced the starter and flywheel as well, it's been remarkably reliable aside from ongoing trouble with the power windows. The 2nd one's in the back, for parts. Just finished rebuilding the brake system (myself; about $80 in parts to replace the wheel cylinders, calipers, and master cylinder; not bad on a 20-year old car.)

        It's main attraction right now is that it is cheap, (no payment!) and that it has room.. Very few recent low-to-midrange cars have enough headroom for me, and I'm only 6'1". And I even fit in the backseat..
      • Yeah, nothing like receiving a good beating to relieve stress eh ?

        Seriously, what about the plastic getting dehydrated thanks to the typical office's hyper-optimistic air conditioning system ? Dry things are typically more brittle than damp things. Sitting on a desk for months without being moved is bound to dry up the plastic after a while.

  • I have a Dell Inspiron 5000e, with the UXGA screen (1600x1200), and it also is developing a crack on the left hand side, right next to the hinge. I was kind of baffled, but I do abuse this machine a bit, so I just wrote it off as that. Then I realized what really caused this, I was looking at how I adjusted the LCD, it was always with my right hand on the top right corner of the LCD, which should put quite a bit of tork on that corner. I adjust the screen quite frequently (I can't sit still), so it looks like this is my reward.
    • Dude. I have the exact same problem with the same machine. I've already sent it in once to be completely rebuilt. The hinges on these things were NOT designed to handle these huge honking screens. Every tech I've talked to has said that these laptops are the most troublesome of all the models Dell has made. Get the thing repaired quickly though, 'cause if you don't the damage will just keep spreading.
  • well i have an armada M700, and there are no craks as much as i can see...
    But i have a broken pin in my serial port though, and i winder where did that come from...
  • My company has 3 Compaq DL360 Servers (1U, rackmount, only ~6 months old).

    They must be made of cheap parts, because after they've been in the rack for more than a day or so, all three of them have been sagging in the middle.

    Darn things can't support their own weight!
    • Just out of curiosity, how are the servers mounted? It is mounted to a four-post rack or on rails... or two-post center mounted?
      • They're mounted on rails. I forgot to mention - obviously it's from their Proliant line (DL360).

        I wonder if I'll be getting new servers soon :)

        Before you ask, I'm just an application developer. Our IS guys who set it up just look at it, and either just shrug or laugh. I did have a look, though - they ARE mounted properly, using Compaq rails on a Compaq rack!
        • heh... I haven't had a whole lot of experience with the 1U servers (from any server manufacturer), but the older Compaq DL380's are quite nice and stable... though getting the cover back on can be a pain sometimes. Of course, a lot of our servers are sitting on shelves rather than on rails in a cabinet... silly colo facility and their lack of cabinets :)
          • Of course, a lot of our servers are sitting on shelves rather than on rails in a cabinet... silly colo facility and their lack of cabinets :)

            I've got a couple of desktop machines sitting on Compaq shelves in a Compaq rack cabinet. It's funny - the darned shelves can't support the weight of the computers - they sag in the centre too!

            I should take a picture of all of this - it's actually quite amusing, IMO.
            • Dang!!! I guess it is a good thing that we are using rack shelves rated for 250 pounds to place a semi-loaded Sun E450 on (the shelves are sitting in the lowest position of the rack).

              If you could get pictures, that would be great! I'd love to see how things look. hehe.
              • If you could get pictures, that would be great! I'd love to see how things look. hehe.

                I'll see what I can do. It might be a week or two before I can get something, but I'll give it a shot.
                • If you want to, we can take the thread off of Slashdot and converse via e-mail... you can e-mail me at [rot13]dhrfgvba@pybfrqfep.bet[/rot13]. Gotta be careful about spam bots and other things ya know ;-)
  • I guess this kind of stuff is common, though we'd all rather have it be the rare, oddball exception.

    My wife and I both have laptops; I have a Compaq m700 (which, fortunately, is doing quite well) and my wife has a Gateway Solo 2150 (which, unfortunately, isn't doing so well).

    Various things have gone wrong with her Gateway: the power management integration with Windows isn't up-to-par, the screens have habitual connection problems of some kind, and the batteries seem to fail. When I contacted tech. support about her failing screen (it would flicker in-and-out and various colors) I was confronted with the most bizzare questions that had nothing to do with the problem at-hand (my guess is it's their usual routine to avoid any hardware-based guilt on Gateway's part). Anyway, we sent the laptop in for repair and they fixed it... but only after sending it to the wrong person on the other side of the country, first. What a nightmare that was.

    What's worse, the batteries (which, I think we can all agree) are pretty damn important to a laptop computer are only covered by a one-year warranty. And, wouldn't you know it, the battery stopped working shortly after said warranty expired. Thinking we had just abused the laptop by plugging it in too much and not draining the battery, I tried looking for a replacement on eBay, etc. What I found, in addition to a bevy (sp?) of used batteries available, is that this particular Gateway is infamous for battery failure (see this webpage on user complaints [newbie.org]).

    In fact, quite a few of those people claim that there is a problem beyond the battery... but I don't really have a way to substantiate that.

    So, those of us with the Gateway Solo 2150 are left with a tethered laptop computer with no reasonable recourse. One guy (on the webpage mentioned earlier) was whispering about a class-action lawsuit... but, talk is cheap.

    </rant>

  • Interesting.... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by BitGeek ( 19506 )

    This is another case where "Macs are more expensive".

    Other than a bit of chipped paint on some TiBooks (mine didn't have it) Apple's powerbooks have consistently gotten great reliability ratings, survived being run over by cars, and dropped from tall buildings.

    And they cost less than comperable PCs (which, actually there aren't any because Intel Processors run at 1/3 to 1/6 speed on battery power and are slower to begin with)... yet have higher reliability.

    The ironic thing is you could get a $2,500 apple powerbook, run MS Office under Virtual PC-- ie EMULATION-- and get better performance than a $4,000 Compaq running the same software off of battery.... ... and it will last longer to boot. Yet people say Macs are too expensive.

    Like saying "Why buy a Toyota when you can get a Yugo???"

    Not to be obnoxious, but there really is a difference. If you're gona buy a PC laptop, get one from a quality manufacturer... of which I only know of one: IBM. Toshiba and sony may be high quality when it comes to laptops too.. but Dell, Gateway, Compaq, no-name-- how can you be suprised when your Yugo breaks down???

    • Dell and Gateway are more like Ford cars. They'll work for a while, but everyone's screwed when the tires explode ;-)
    • I like the TiBooks, but this is absolutely bullshit:

      > The ironic thing is you could get a $2,500 apple powerbook, run MS Office under Virtual
      > PC-- ie EMULATION-- and get better performance than a $4,000 Compaq

      Unless you have some benchmarks to back it up, don't go spreading around nonsense like this. Even the $3200 TiBook is a 800 MhZ G4, which is approximately as fast as a 1.8 Ghz celeron (see, for instance, cpuscorecard.com). If you think a 1.8 Ghz celeron laptop costs $4,000 (even from Compaq), well, you need a lesson in shopping. =)



      • You're right, they're about the same price.

        But the powerbook will still kick its ass in emulation.

        What you're forgetting is that under battery power intel machines don't run at full clock speed, so your full clock speed cpu comparisons aren't correct.

        Under battery power the cut the clock speed to 1/3 or 14th or 1/6th of normal, and cut performance too... because the intel processor is so poorly designed that it can't me made in a way that doesn't waste a lot of battery power.

        PowerPC laptops run at full speed under battery power.
    • The ironic thing is you could get a $2,500 apple powerbook, run MS Office under Virtual PC-- ie EMULATION-- and get better performance than a $4,000 Compaq running the same software off of battery...

      A lot of reports seem to be of the opinion that Virtual PC is a great concept, but generally too slow for field work; because of this, I doubt that the above is true. But why would you buy a PC emulator to run Office, anyway? There's a Mac-native version for years, and even the X version has been out for a while.


      • You wouldn't, I was just giving an example-- that if you require PC specific software, you're still better off getting a mac and running under emulation when it comes to laptops.

        The performance hit you take with office is NOTHING like the performance hit you take on a PC when you unplug it from the wall...

        On a PC laptop, they cut the clock rate to 1/3 of the normal clock rate to save battery power!
        • Ah, ok. Gotcha. For some reason my mind just had this blank spot regarding PC power saving functions. I'm not too familiar with PC laptops :)
        • On a PC laptop, they cut the clock rate to 1/3 of the normal clock rate to save battery power!

          I don't know about every other laptop, but on mine, this is a configurable option. Of course, I have mine (Compaq 1210US, 850MHz Duron) set to use it, but if I was doing anything CPU intensive while on the road, I would turn it off.

    • Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Drakino ( 10965 )
      And they cost less than comperable PCs (which, actually there aren't any because Intel Processors run at 1/3 to 1/6 speed on battery power and are slower to begin with)... yet have higher reliability.

      What? You mean my PIII 850 slows down to 280mhz? I don't think so. Try to 700 (only if I want it to), and that will still outpreform MS Office under Virtual PC on a $2500 Powerbook (ie the 667 model).

      I am an avid user of both Mac and PC machines. I know what I am talking about, you on the other hand are one of the poor brainwashed Apple zealots. Try to at least bash the competition properly.

      And I'd like to point out that my Compaq laptop (Also an Armada M700) has been great. Armada laptops in general (and their new name Evo) have been great machines. A wide varity are used by my teammates, and I haven't seen any need a repair beyond the battery or a replacement "eraser head" for the mouse. Plus it has three buttons, great for middle-clicking for tabs in Mozilla. Thats one thing that drives me nuts about the Powerbook. Professional laptop, one button mouse. Let me know when I can run programs like OS X and pro apps properly on a Powerbook without an external mouse or keyboard shortcuts to use context menus, and I'll consider one.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion


      • BZZT Wrong. Thanks for playing.

        Even a 700MHz pentium will get its ass kicked by a 667MHz PowerPC-- and even under emulation the exceesive speed of the powerpc will still make it better to run it on the Powerbook than on a pc natively.

        I'm not brainwashed-- you are. I simply know processor design and know that a PC running off of battery cuts the clock rate to 1/3, 1/4 or 1/6th the normal clock rate.

        Or, maybe you can run yours almost at full speed-- and get almost ZERO battery life, which of course isn't quite fair because the Apple will still get a long, normal, basttery life and kick its ass performance wise-- just not by as much.

        Oh, and piss off on the mouse issue- that dog won't hunt. This is science here, not your opinion. Multibutton mice slow people down. ITs a fact. Deal with it.
        • Oh, and piss off on the mouse issue- that dog won't hunt. This is science here, not your opinion. Multibutton mice slow people down. ITs a fact. Deal with it.
          1. Please cite the incontrovertible scientific evidence you clearly possess that multi-button mice slow people down, showing clearly how "people" is fully representative of the entire population including experienced computer users.
          2. As an experienced computer user, it's a fact that a single-button mouse slows me down when compared with a three-button mouse. When I choose equipment for my use, this is more important than how some other "people" are affected.


          • This is your perception, but not actually true.

            Three button mice slow down experienced users as well.

            The studies were done in the 80s... go check them out.

            There is a difference between perceived time and by-the-clock time.

            You perceive it to be faster, but by the clock it isn't.

            That's one of the problems with CHI. Users ignore the studies that were done and continue to insist their perception is reality, science be damned.

        • Yes, a 700mhz PIII will get it's ass handed to it by a 667 PowerPC when running a synthetic benchmark, or Photoshop, or whatever. But the 700 PC will ALWAYS outpreform a PowerPC running Virtual PC. Period, end of story, thanks for playing. If you want proof, go try it in real life sometime.

          And show me where PC laptops slow down that much. Like I said, my 850 goes down to 700. And it gets awesome battery life.

          And I have to agree, where is the scientific proof that having three buttons will slow me down compaired to having to click and hold to get to context menus. And I still stand by my point, a professional laptop needs professional features. I simply CANNOT run a pro app like Maya on a Powerbook without keeping an external USB mouse close by.


          • Thanks for repeating what you said and ignoring the facts.

            Such denial. Sheesh. You don't even know how fast the processor in your own computer actually is.

            Its a shame that so many people have been fraudulently sold pcs.

            But its unacceptable that they go around showing their stupidity and calling it superiority.

    • Flamebait. (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by BitGeek ( 19506 )

      The parent post is not flamebait. THIS is flamebait-- you fucking asshole stupid idiot moderating fucks who couldn't think your way out of a paper bag don't deserve to live, let alone reproduce, let alone moderate comments on slashdot.

      This site increasingly looses its utility because there are too few actual thinking humnans aboard and far too many goosestepping idiot pc nazis.

      Yeah, any time you point out that the macintosh doesn't suck, you're engaging in "flamebait". Sheesh. Not to long ago I had a post that was both +5 and "flamebait".

      Metamoderation needs more teeth to clean out the gene pool, you fuckwads.

      Your information, your life, it has NO value. Go kill yourself.
  • Toshibia

    These are great laptops. We have a client who is in the business of mobile tax returns. They are also very tight with money. Now they have been using these laptops for 7 years without a problem. Nothing wrong with the physical construction and the components are still spinning

    oh, plus you can't beat Toshibia's 3 year warrenty
  • I had an 1800T for a year, and just after the warentty expired, it started falling apart. The hard drive died a miserable death for no apparent reason. The case cracked at the hinge, and, depite all common sense, a peice of the case in the upper left corner cracked and broke out. The keys are pretty fragile, too; I lost the 'g' key by dropping a cordless phone on the keyboard. It breaking didn't bother me as much as the fix: I'd need to get a $100 keyboard when I probably broke about $.03 worth of plastic.

    Too bad; until it started falling apart, I really thought highly of this laptop.
  • I bought an HP Omnibook 5700 CTX and it did the same thing. It cracked right above the left hinge. I now have a HP Omnibook XE3 no problems yet. I think that laptops are built a lot better now.
  • This is Compaq we are talking about. Second worst reliability reputation of any computer manufacturer. (#1 being Packard Smell - Are they even still in business???)

    I've had better experiences with Dells than many others have, esp. their Inspiron 8000 series. My dad has one, a friend at school has one, the research lab I was in at school had one, they all rocked. Their 7500s don't seem to be as well made - My apartmentmate had one and the battery door... Let's just say it was a HORRENDOUS design. Dell's reputation used to be stellar, they've gone WAY downhill, but they still blow away Compaq and probably always will.

    A few years ago, I sold computers at my school's campus store. For destops: Gateway. Best prices, VERY sturdy design. Nice standard ATX cases - and ducted cooling, too! The Dell desktops we had at the time were subpar, with a tendency to develop weird noises.

    Compaq couldn't make a laptop screen if their life depended on it. Average life of a Compaq laptop before the screen died = 1-2 months. 50% of the laptops that came into our service department were month-old Compaqs of various models with dead screens. (Nothing physically wrong, just dead connections.)

    I agree with other posts here - IBM has the most durable laptops on the market (unless you consider those specially ruggedized ones), but you WILL pay much more for it. Toshibas tend to be solid and reasonably priced. We had mixed results with Gateway. (Unlike the desktops we sold, we couldn't reccommend one manufacturer across the board for our laptops. Toshiba ruled in the low price range, IBM in the mid, Gateway in the high end. Their low-end units sucked, but they had stuff in the high end that no one else had.)
  • Compaq has never made fantastic laptops, but 60% is a little excessive. I agree with a previous posting in that there may have been a bad production run. That being said, Toshiba laptops are *alright* but prone to hardware problems with about a 10% failure rate in optical drives, 30% in hard drives and 20ish% in batteries failing in the first year (this is of the tosh's at work). Dell has so far proved to be a bit more reliable, and their complete-care warranty is amazing. I spilled coffee on one and they replaced it no questions asked, completly free of charge.

    As for mac books, my pismo has been sent back a couple times for bad HDs. That being said, my TiBook (667 DVI) has fallen off of a table onto the front right corner (the corner with the DVD/CDRW combo drive). It was enough of an impact to crack the plastic and dent the metal casing but came through with no other problems. It's too new to judge reliability just yet though.
  • my Dell laptops are used constantly and have really had no issues with them.

    -my first one was a p1333 XPi Latitude. nice solid machine that never gave me a bit of trouble. had it for 3 yrs then sold it to my dad who has had it since then for another 3 yrs. it's still running with no problems

    -my second was a Latitude CPi model with a P333 cpu. that one had issues with the LCD screen and cable running thru the hinges. when I finally returned it for warranty work 2 weeks before expiration, somehow they lost it.....in the receiving dock.
    Dell's answer? sent me a completely refurbished CPi Latitude P666 with win2k, 128MB ram, a 10gb hard drive, and a new carry bag. all within 1 week. they didn't even bother saying "Why don't we wait and see if it shows up?"

    -my 3rd model is a 15" LCD Latitude C810 that I currently use for work since I travel a lot and use it for pen-testing and other things. again, no issues with this system.

    I've used docking stations for all of these, and again, have never had issues.

    when they asked me what kind of laptop I wanted for my job, I spec'd a Dell Latitude and said 'none other'. the only thing I wish now is that the laptops came with the old optical mouse track ball like my XPi P133 did. not too fond of glidepads because as you start typing, and then your thumb brushes the glidepad, it moves the cursor to the mouse pointer focus point. happens at least 2 twice a day.

    now, Compaq laptops on the other hand......those have been nothing but trouble for all the employees at my agency that use those. flaky 120MB floppy drives, keyboard going out, batteries not holding a charge, the list goes on.
    not even suitable for being a boat anchor.
  • NEVER BUY THIS MODEL if you plan on running anything other then WinXP or freebsd. Linux gets irq conflicts among other major problems. My case cracked within 1 week of being bought at the left corner at the hindge and it started to crack the main monitor. I got it replaced luckily.

    www.cgisecurity.com [cgisecurity.com]
  • I have 7 Inspiron 5000 in my Inventory and they crack on the left hinge and on top left corner (close to rubber stopper) every 6 months!!!

    I usually wait until a couple are broken and call them on this They send a tech who replaces them for free.
    • Fuck, this is my problem, and my warrantee is wearing out. Ugh! Someone has got to go after them with some kind of a class action.
  • Just some info on another brand of laptop... I recently bought a Sager 2850 off of a friend of mine that works as a system admin at a local ISP. He used this laptop for over 2 years bringing it home and to work and other places as well. Running Red Hat for about a year and a half, and now in the hands of me running Slackware 8.1 with no problems, this macine has performed wonderful. The only sign of ageing i see is that of some worn paint on the corners, but that's to be expected. I havn't experienced any cracking or anything like that and I _do_ adjust my LCD a lot by the top corner(s). I would highly reccomend this brand, in fact I am thinking about buying another one very soon.

Slashdot Top Deals

UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker

Close