Posted by
peekaboo
17 yrs ago
Are Dell laptops reliable? Which model is good? I am looking for cheap ones that I can use at home. Anyone using Dellâ„¢ Studio 15?
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Note that the below is my personal opinion.
The reliability of most Dell laptops is about average in the consumer space. In other words no huge difference compared to most any other big name brand. In the Dell range, the Latitude business models and the XPS high performance models are better.
Personally, I find the keyboards quite stiff and my fingers get tired after a while. Very subjective I know. Also the utility software (config, wireless, update, etc...) is subpar.
The two brands I think really stand out are Thinkpad and Mac. Sure, you're paying more, but you get what you pay for. Even if on paper the components are the same, the design, build quality, utility software and general finish is just better.
Whatever laptop you get, spring for the extended warranty. That will typically pay for itself with one single service call.
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Then which low priced Thinkpad is good?
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Will the price vary if I get it directly from Lenovo or Fortress?
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"Will the price vary if I get it directly from Lenovo or Fortress?"
I don't really know. Fortress tends to be a bit more than the little stores, though. An advantage of a good "small store" in HK is that the service tends to be quite "personal". That is, you can just walk in with your laptop after 3 months if you have an issue. At Fortress you might have to call the repair center first. Not sure thoug.
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Dells we use at work and the laptops have been so far very reliable over the past few years. I used a Precision as did one of my main managers that are now over 3 years old and still going strong, and we have 4 others still running. I recently decided I needed a new laptop and went for an XPS which is a lot lighter and had a much superior keyboard to any other Dell I have had. We run a mix of Precision, XPS and Vostro's and all are good.
For home use I have both a Fujitsu and a MacBook - not exactly budget machines but super quality.
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I have only had dell desktops, but they do a service backup that means an engineer will come to your home/office to fix if needed.
I have used this serivce twice and was happy with the service level provided.
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If you are going to keep the laptop as a desktop replacement (i.e. don't travel much) then Dell should be ok, but personally I wouldn't recommended. If you can't afford a better brand maybe you can wait to have a bit more money and get your hands into a real laptop manufacturer.
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"Then which low priced Thinkpad is good?"
X200. Got ours very nicely kitted out for 11500.
In most cases, the biggest cost item in a laptop is the monitor. Big laptops = big price. So check out the X series Thinkpads. They are quite small but I find that our new X200 is excellent if all you want to do is surf and email. It also weighs less than 2kg, which is nice if you need to lug it a lot. It is NOT a netbook, a form factor which, at least for me, sacrifices too much functionality in the name of portability.
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Toshiba just launched the NB200 (replacement for NB100). Tiny laptop, but is under 1Kg and the battery is supposed to last close to 9h. 1.6Ghz processor (Atom though).
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Yeah but that's a netbook. A bit of a different beast.
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