Super hot laptop Deals at DELL

[F360°]

Well,, if anyone need a laptop this is the time to get it.

http://www.bensbargains.net/ktalk/1098183637,6633,.shtml

The 600m and 700m make great laptops

-Nick

[Southpaw Samurai]

They had a similar deal (40% off) on desktops last week. I decided to swallow my pride of putting together my own PCs and load the puppy up on anything that they weren't gouging on. It's always nice to buy a $3000 PC that you could've put together for maybe $2000-2500 for just a little over $1500.

Some of those Inspiron laptops are on par with my old desktop in raw general power. You always have to be weary of mobile versions of processors and graphics cards, but some of them look like they'd make good LAN party gaming machines without having to lug around desktops and monitors...

[Duke Togo]

Its too bad Dell is strictly "Intel Inside".

[F360°]

ah, you got on that 40% off desttop deal too?.,,, my friend did that just for the Dell ultrasharp 20in lcd ( think it was around $390 with a system). Now almost all of them have freaking 20in lcds instead of just me

[Blaine23]

Dell is just a great company. If you want an affordable, easy to use, out of the box system - go Dell. My company has purchased about 12 now and I've had almost no problems whatsoever. When I have had an issue, their tech support is really easy to deal with.

Personally, I'd never have one at home - I build mine with one upgraded component at a time for about 10 years - but for work or for a non-techie friend needing a reccommendation - I'm all about the Dell.

F360 - I feel your pain. I *need* a flat screen monitor like nobody's business. I'm personally thinking of sabotaging an older box here at work, just to get the hookup on a good flat screen in the process. Okay, I'm not really... but if one the older boxes even hiccups, that computer's going the way of the buffalo and Daddy's taking home a 20in. Flat

Edited October 19, 2004 by Blaine23

[Mechamaniac]

In sharp contrast to Blaine23's good experience with Dell, my company purchased 3500 Dell Laptops a few years ago, and we had a miserable time with them.

The LCD's started failing at an alarming rate almost immediately. Those of us who were stuck supporting them knew there had to be a defect, but Dell never admitted it until two years later. At that point, our failure rate was OVER 65% across the board.

This ran the gamut from machines used out in the field, to machines that never left a desktop.

We found out (ironically, when Dell was courting our parent company for a big contract) that there was indeed a manufacturing defect that effected all of the Dell Latitude, and Inspiron laptops manufactured during a certain time frame, and ours was one of them.

Then Dell tried to blame our repair facility for costing THEM money. They said that the problem was caused by a faulty LCD cable, and therefore, all that should have been replaced was the faulty LCD cable. However, when our depot reported the problems to Dell, Dell sent them an entire LCD kit which they claimed cost them over $600.00 per incident. They told us that if we suspected the cable, then WE should have told THEM and saved them money. So, in short, WE should have detected, and reported THEIR DEFECT to them. Right...

What was their solution? - trade in these turds for NEW Dell laptops, of course!. Sure, why not?, the ones they sold us were crap, so let's replace them with new crap.

Now we have IBM's, and the difference is night and day.

So, like Blaine said, for the end user (IE: not computer savvy) they are OK. But if you are technically challenged, or hard on computer equipment, DONT BUY DELL. Obviously, if you know enough not to buy pre-made crap anyway then you wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole.

[Knight26]

My experiences with dells have been mixed. MY first PC was a DELL 486 DX-33, loved that beast to death had it for years, mind you I upgraded it continually until the case could no longer support the newer motherboards. The computer had no issues except when my Dad accidentally deleted the command.com the second week we had it trying to delete some pirated software. THe guys from Dell tech support were on the phone with us for about two-three hours helping us fix it since my Dad and I were not the most PC savy at the time, having moved up from Commadore 128.

Now at work we have DELL laptops, in the two years I've had mine the tech support folks have had to replace the hard drive four or five times, and the motherboard three times. I don't necerily blame dell for this, more the NMCI that manages the computers and is constantly pushing and pulling software on and off the machine. THe biggest gripe I have with the design is the P!$$ Poor cooling design, especially when in the docking station. It got so bad at one point that I started spraying it down with canned air when running intense applications, or rendering. We are now starting to get new laptops which from what I have seen have much more efficent cooling setups and better docking ports, we will see how that goes though. I am tempted to go for this deal, so that I can have a better laptop to take on travel, but if anyone can recommend something better let me know, especially if the price is right.

[Southpaw Samurai]

Yep, the 20in LCD was too good to not throw in...and I generally have disliked LCD quality.

I've had mostly good experience with Dells. My 486DX2 and first Pentium were both Dells and served me very well and the one time the mainboard died, they had another out to me with a guy to swap it (I suppose very useful if you don't know how to do it) within about 48 hours, if I recall. For almost a decade I had since been putting together my own, but I've had a lot of experience supporting Dells at work. Generally speaking, the old CP (and C600/800) series were pretty tough and rugged and I liked them for everything but their general bulk. I'd say they were superior to the Compaqs/Toshibas of their generation. Their LS series had basically the same problems as all the lightweight versions do...too much hot stuff crammed into too restrictive a place. And its hard to convince people that when your processor is a sliver of the size of its comparable desktop version it's going to be slow, no matter what its listed speed. We've gone Compaq/HP in the recent years (bought out by a company that basically lives, breathes, and dies with Compaq/HP), so I can't comment on the most recent Dell generations, unfortunately.

The nice thing about the Dell desktops (at least the Dimension series) is that they are almost entirely standardized so if you're in need of a massive overhaul, you can grab one and use it as a base to upgrade (until the next time there's a motherboard form factor change, of course ). I do agree that it would've been nice to get an AMD instead of Intel, but I suppose I can live with it for now...

[Ladic]

I've had 2 dells, both rock solid.

Now, I just have my friend build my pc's.

[Agent ONE]

I loved Dell in the past, but since owning an IBM, I'd never go back. WAY better quality.

[fearyaks]

I'd have to agree w/Maniac. While I've never had a problem w/my Dell desktop, their laptops suck big ones.

Overview - ours overheats and shuts down such that the even some screen savers get it too hot. Our thermostat is obviously busted because the fan does work (turns on when you power up the system). For whatever reason, they've outsourced their tech support to an overseas company and those poor souls simply follow 'solution trees' or whatever the heck they're called.

Ex: (true story)

Me: My laptop keeps overheating. I've already updated the Bios like one of you suggested and still no go. May I simply get a request in to get a replacement or a fixit order.

Answer: I need to go through these steps first to make sure the problem is still occuring. Please do the following (no exaggeration) -

1. Remove the battery

2. Remove the HDD

3. Remove the memory

4. Remove the Modem (are you serious)

5. basically remove all removable parts, try to upgrade bios, check to see if overheating still happens.

Me: After spending 20 minutes removing the crap, putting it back in, and trying to upgrade the bios, the stupid laptop shuts down when playing a crappy Dell bowling game.

Answer: So I'll put in the order to get your laptop repaired.

Phase II:

Since it is a laptop, they'll need to send me a special box. No problem right? Well since I originally had the laptop shipped to my dad's place (it was an X-mas present for my wife and we were visiting him for X-mas), I make sure to give them my new address. Well of course the boxes get shipped to my dad's place (he's out of town so they get returned). I know it's not something a tech guy should be able to do (change an address on file) so no harm, no foul. I next call a sales person, start to explain my issue and they transfer me back to tech support (before I can even explain things). I finally get back in touch with sales, find someone who knows how to update my address and they 'confirm' the address and place an order for a repair.

What happens? Instead of actually replacing my Dad's address with mine, they mix the two and it gets sent to Oregon with my address in the 2nd line. Well this confuses the heck out of the FedEx/UPS chap and the box gets returned. So I'm getting pissed at this point and I try to just get a total refund. However, by now (waiting for boxes and such) I'm outside the 3 month window to get my money back from Amex and from Dell. I try one more time to get the correct address and the box somehow manages to get as close as Fresno (about 3 hours north of me).

So, screw them, we've got a crappy laptop that serves as a word-processor/internet surfing device. It's heavy as heck, thick as a brick and is an overall piece of crap.

At work we've got IBM Thinkpads and they're much better (lighter, no issues with over-heating) and at home my wife and I now use Apple laptops (Powerbook and iBook).

I think if you were going for a Laptop, consider an Apple one (good form factor, small, less issues) or a ThinkPad.

For now, I think the only thing Dell has going for them is their good LCD monitors.

But it is a good deal if you want a POS laptop.

[Knight26]

Every year the mechanical engineering department at my college would have at least one group whose senior design project involved better ways to cool laptop computers. SOme of the designs they came up with were great but the overwheming theme was not to make laptops so thin, continue to shrink the components inside yes, but give them ventilation room. One year a group decided to go all out, I don't remember the brand but they got this really thin laptop that they then overclocked and would run to the max, basically it could run for about five minutes ful tilt before getting too hot and shutting down. They then added I think they were 1/4" spacers all around it to give more air around the processors and several small high efficiency fans for blowing out the hot air, no intake fan, but you could feel a vaccuum at the intake vent when it was running full tilt. Finally they hooked up this interesting little gadget that was thermostat controlled and had one of those mini-CO2 tubes plugged into it. Whenever the laptop reached a certain preset temp the CO2 canister would fire a burst onto the processor, memory and some other parts (sorry don't remember where) cooling them down. The canisters actually lasted a long time and kept the laptop cool and running efficiently. The sponsors that year thought the design was great but said that the CO2 canister concept was not commerically viable and so what the added thickness in their opinion. Its too bad because that little LT really rocked when they were done with it and was still very compact and portable, oh well.

[areaseven]

Thread lockup imminent.

[Ladic]

Thread lockup imminent.

thanks for sharing.

[areaseven]

thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

[fearyaks]

Every year the mechanical engineering department at my college would have at least one group whose senior design project involved better ways to cool laptop computers. SOme of the designs they came up with were great but the overwheming theme was not to make laptops so thin, continue to shrink the components inside yes, but give them ventilation room. One year a group decided to go all out, I don't remember the brand but they got this really thin laptop that they then overclocked and would run to the max, basically it could run for about five minutes ful tilt before getting too hot and shutting down. They then added I think they were 1/4" spacers all around it to give more air around the processors and several small high efficiency fans for blowing out the hot air, no intake fan, but you could feel a vaccuum at the intake vent when it was running full tilt. Finally they hooked up this interesting little gadget that was thermostat controlled and had one of those mini-CO2 tubes plugged into it. Whenever the laptop reached a certain preset temp the CO2 canister would fire a burst onto the processor, memory and some other parts (sorry don't remember where) cooling them down. The canisters actually lasted a long time and kept the laptop cool and running efficiently. The sponsors that year thought the design was great but said that the CO2 canister concept was not commerically viable and so what the added thickness in their opinion. Its too bad because that little LT really rocked when they were done with it and was still very compact and portable, oh well.

That's fine. I think most laptops these days run so hot that you'd burn your thigh if you actually used them as such.

I don't really think heat is an issue unless you're playing games or doing a lot of number crunching.... the issue that I simply had was about how difficult it was for me to try and replace my faulty laptop. The larger Dells and PC based ones are understandably thick and nasty because of what you mentioned.

Shoot, I wouldn't mind buying an external fan attachement or something of the sort. How about a liquid-cooled system that you could hook up to your faucet?

[Noriko Takaya]

I've been pretty happy with the 2 Dell systems I have owned, so I took advantage of that deal on getting a new desktop from Dell. I got practically everything but the kitchen sink thrown into it. I figure I should be able to get a few years out of it before I have to go and upgrade again. I also got the Dell 20" flat screen monitor and I can tell you it is outstanding.

Edited October 20, 2004 by Noriko Takaya

[TheLoneWolf]

My roomate graduated with a CIS degree and is good to his computer hardware. But last fall he bought a Dell Inspiron and twice, in less than a year, he's had to send it back for a hard drive failure and a faulty motherboard. It's not like the laptop was taken to a bunch of fraternity parties or off-roading, the Inspiron just went through average everyday use. Thank goodness for the warranty, because this amount of failures in such a short amount of time is inexcusable.

Dell used to be a great company 5 years ago, but these days it seems their quality control has gone down the crapper.

[Amped]

Wow, awesome deals.

My 2 Cents:

As an owner of 2 Dells (and as the de facto tech dork for about 12 in my design department), both a laptop and a workstation: I must concur that Dell quality is superior... for the desktop. Avoid Dell laptops. Big, hot, slow 'n' heavy sum 'em up. Tech support is pathetic. I'm an avowed PC guy, but even I recommend the Apple Powerbook if yer lookin' for a laptop. We've got 2 in my department (mainly for our Mac-loyal graphic designers) and they are amazing.

Still, if I were a budget-concious student, those Dell sale prices'd be dang tempting...