Posted: 12/17/2007 4:14:16 PM EDT
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I'm looking for a laptop for my wife. She's not going to use it for much business mostly for use in the home. Its also a possibility that in another two years this laptop may venture out with our oldest daughter into the world of higher education. I've decided to look at either the Dell Latitude 830 or the Thinkpad T61. Both seem to be good laptops but I'm not sure who's got the better hardware. BTW the Dell is slightly less expensive with the same specs. I use Thinkpads for work and love them. Dragged one all across the country for years and my company gave it to me when they upgraded me (after four years). Unfortunately the LCD screen died and rather than replace it I figured a new laptop was the way to go. What says the ARFcom gurus? |
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I work for a steel erection company, we have people out at jobsites all over the western United States. Some of the job sites are pretty barren and hard on laptops. We usually get our guys Dell D830s. They seem to be holding up pretty well. We have about 20 out in the field and so far we got one with a broken backspace key. They are pretty fast for the money, and we haven't had any software issues with them yet. |
not really
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With the Dell 830 you can run a media battery in place of the optical drive as an addition to the main battery. They say "up to 15hrs of use' I run two batteries in my Dell 4000 and get 7.5hrs total of surfing time. About 5hrs with heavy drive activity. I tend to believe if not 15hrs then at least 10hrs with those two batteries. The Dell 830 is my next purchase. |
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No Macbook. The wife does not compute Macbook and is quite familiar with Microshaft XP so I'm sticking with that. Plus, if it does go to college with my oldest I'm not sure how much Mac is supported. Here's what I'm looking at for specs: Win XP Pro Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.00GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 800MHz Dual Core 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM 128MB NVIDIA video card CD/DVD writer Fingerprint reader? Bluetooth 80 gb 7200 RPM HD (should I get more?) |
You could easily spec out the D830 with all that and more |
She might compute XP, but does she compute Vista? I take back my post about elearning compatibility issues if your daughter isn't going to be in college for two more years. |
The closest thing they could find was an expensive Sony Vaio? Please. A Dell D830 with 2.2ghz processor, 1.0 gigabytes of RAM, 120 gigabyte hard drive, DL DVD-R drive, wireless card, camera is $1079 according to Dell's website, free shipping. A Apple Macbook with the same specs is $1299. Go for a slower processor and a smaller hard drive on both, the Dell is about $900, the Macbook is $1099. |
The Dell D830 can come with Windows XP for no extra charge..... |
Problem solved. I know they did this for a while, but thought they stopped. Either way we are stuck with Vista for the next two years at least. |
| I was is a similar position a few years back. After a ton of research I went with a Fujitsu. It was a tough call because they only have sales outlets on the west coast so I all had to go by was the pictures off the net. I have to say when it arrived I was overly pleased with my choice. In the three yrs I've had it no-zero-nada problems. It is light weight but has takes the abuse of being shleped around everyday in my work bag to and from the house in and out of the train. I have a S series Lifebook. Give it look if nothing else. |
Mossberg is the Wall Street Journal's computer guru. I'm not sure what other hardware specifications he considered when trying to find laptops comparable to the MacBook. Regardless, even if your assessment is true, I'd gladly pay the $100-200 difference for the Mac's installed software suite, and the freedom from viruses/adware/spyware, and the OS stability, and the overall ease of use. To the OP: Macs are more compatible with the PC world than you may realize. |