Glitchy laptop? Its not that old!

[steve-in-kville]

I think after reading all this, I'm going back to Dell. I got almost ten years out of that one.

I buy almost exclusively Dell PCs and laptops for my business - refurbished off-lease business computers from https://www.dellrefurbished.com/. The important things to watch for on the site are coupon codes which typically run up to 40 or even 50% off, and also the fact that many of the units don't have Windows 10. But you can typically get good business quality PCs and laptops for a couple hundred dollars or so. And they come with exactly none of the bloatware that you get with consumer PCs.

Good to know. I bought a 17.5" laptop from Dell in 2010. Still have the receipt for some reason... $700. Windows 7, IIRC. Finally about two years ago it started running hot. Older gentleman I know dug into it. May take a fan and I would be good to go. Still in its case under the bed.

[Neto]

Our first laptop was a Toshiba, purchased Dec 1990. (1st computer was a Kaypro II, purchased 1984.) Best one we ever had. The T1000LE. 20 MB HDD, DOS 3.3 (later upgraded to 6.1) Used it for 12 years, only work was a replacement HDD. But that was not a normal HDD failure. We used it in Brazil for all but somewhere around 18 months, on two furloughs. There are some crazy critters in the Amazon. There are ants that like electricity - must get a buzz out of it. They crowd into your home's electric panel box and can eventually cause a short if there are enough of them. But there is also a very small species of ants that must grow rubber-eating mold or something or other. (Or else it is the oils in their scent which they leave behind from hanging out on rubber parts. Any way, the tech who helped me source a new drive said that he believed me, because he had been in Vietnam, and the soles on their their military boots would disintegrate, just like I'd seen the soles of especially women's dress shoes crumble in Brazil.) So what happened with these ants is that the rubber seal between the two HDD case halves turned into a runny adhesive sort of mess, running onto the disk. Our first Windows laptop was also a Tosh, but it was a piece of trash. The keyboard was clunky, missing engagement unless you hit the key hard, and dead center. (A Brazilian tribal team had the same model, and it was the same.)
I tell this to say that once you identify a brand with a good product, that doesn't mean you can depend on them to continue building a quality product. After we moved back to the States (2003) I bought a Dell desktop, back in the time when you could only purchase one direct from them. From what I've heard, the quality went down after they started selling through Walmart. (I've also heard that they've been working to rebuild their reputation for quality workmanship, but I don't like laptops, and after having built hundreds of computer systems, I would never buy another off-the-shelf computer of any brand. With one exception. I have worked on (customized) a few of the HP mini-computers, and I was impressed with the design, especially the ease of access to the HDD bay, RAM card area, etc. (I cannot remember now if the CPU is soldered in or not, but I think it might be. That is a deal breaker for me.) I strongly prefer a main board that is standardized - not proprietary. You would be surprised (well, unless you've already had to deal with it) at the cost difference between even a standard PSU vs a brand specific one. All-in-ones? Nice concept, but the ones I've worked on were not easy to open up or access the parts once inside. I would rather have a mini-computer that mounts on the back of the monitor via the VESA mount area.
Back to SSDs. Most of the ones I've installed for customers were the M.2 type that mount directly on the MB. And most of those were the NVMe type, which are said to be 5 - 7 times faster than an SATA SSD, whether it is an M.2 or the 2.5" type. And in comparison to HDDs - and I'm talking quality drives in both cases, not some unknown knock-off brand - I have some HDDs still in use that are in excess of 15 years old, some much older than that. They are also small capacity drives, which I've wondered about, since the increased capacity of a multi terabyte HDD is packed into the same size case as the old ones running only 13 GB or so. Same for flash drives. The oldest ones I have are nearly 10 years old, at 4 GB capacity. Lots of the bigger ones have burned out in those years, but these smaller ones keep in going.

[Neto]

I think after reading all this, I'm going back to Dell. I got almost ten years out of that one.

I buy almost exclusively Dell PCs and laptops for my business - refurbished off-lease business computers from https://www.dellrefurbished.com/. The important things to watch for on the site are coupon codes which typically run up to 40 or even 50% off, and also the fact that many of the units don't have Windows 10. But you can typically get good business quality PCs and laptops for a couple hundred dollars or so. And they come with exactly none of the bloatware that you get with consumer PCs.

Good to know. I bought a 17.5" laptop from Dell in 2010. Still have the receipt for some reason... $700. Windows 7, IIRC. Finally about two years ago it started running hot. Older gentleman I know dug into it. May take a fan and I would be good to go. Still in its case under the bed.

I have also purchased a number of refurbed Dell computers (on the Dell auction site), mostly laptops, both for personal use & for customers, and the only down-side I've experienced is that almost all of them, when they warm up, start putting out a strong cigarette smell. But as concerns quality issues, the big difference is that these are business laptops, not "entry-level" systems.

[mike]

I have also purchased a number of refurbed Dell computers (on the Dell auction site), mostly laptops, both for personal use & for customers, and the only down-side I've experienced is that almost all of them, when they warm up, start putting out a strong cigarette smell. But as concerns quality issues, the big difference is that these are business laptops, not "entry-level" systems.

That's interesting. I've never had that happen.

[steve-in-kville]

Maybe this should be a thread all in its own, if I don't need the portability, why shouldn't I consider a desktop? Wouldn't I get more bang for my buck?

[mike]

Maybe this should be a thread all in its own, if I don't need the portability, why shouldn't I consider a desktop? Wouldn't I get more bang for my buck?

Desktop all the way if you don't need the portability. Absolutely more bang for your buck.

[mike]

Another thing to consider in terms of laptops is Chromebooks. If you primarily use it for web browsing, don't need Windows apps, and are comfortable with using Google office products like Docs & Sheets, which are online but can be set up for offline use, you simply can't beat them for speed and efficiency. Or if you have Microsoft 365, the Office web apps work nicely. They boot up in seconds, and have few to no problems with viruses and malware. I have a couple at work, and I ended up buying one for my parents when their Windows PC needed to be replaced. They don't seem to slow down with time like PCs do when they get overloaded with software, photos, etc.

[RZehr]

Maybe this should be a thread all in its own, if I don't need the portability, why shouldn't I consider a desktop? Wouldn't I get more bang for my buck?

Desktop all the way if you don't need the portability. Absolutely more bang for your buck.

Yes. Desktop. With two screens. Curved.

[Neto]

Once you get away from the whole battery powered requirement, there are lots of options along the spectrum toward the full-blown desktop tower. Like All-in-Ones, or (better in my opinion) the mini-computers that mount on the rear of any monitor that has the VESA mount capability. The advantage of at least a micro-ATX case is that you can use standard desktop PSU, CPU, RAM, drives, etc. The mini-ATX would be the next step back toward less available parts, but is still fully upgradable. Deals like the Intel NUC are cool, but the CPU is soldered down, so forget future processor upgrades. (I think at least some of the piggy-back systems do use standard CPUs.)

[mike]

Maybe this should be a thread all in its own, if I don't need the portability, why shouldn't I consider a desktop? Wouldn't I get more bang for my buck?

Desktop all the way if you don't need the portability. Absolutely more bang for your buck.

Yes. Desktop. With two screens. Curved.

I know I would like a dual monitor setup, but that would cover my entire desk, and I have a paper organizer the whole width of my desk behind my monitor which I need to be accessible. Envelopes, deposit slips, invoices that need to be dealt with, etc.

One thig is clear. An office can be a lot less cluttered with paper in the digital age than it used to be.