Good/Bad Wintel Laptops
Ok, so this evening, my brother asks if he can borrow my iBook to take the minutes of a meeting he is going to. Being a nice brother, i said "sure ok".
So i was at home, my mum eas using our desktop computer so i decided i would use her laptop (given to her by her work). Its a toshiba satelite pro or something.
So anyway, i bring it up to my room, open it up, and it take about a minute to wake up from sleep mode. I then click on the start menu, and it takes at least 30 seconds to load this. Please bear in mind that this is supposed to be a higher spec laptop than my iBook.
So at this point im starting to get fustrated with it. I then open firefix to connect to the internet. Though i am sitting two metres away from our wirless router, it wont open any webpages. After a restart (5 mins) i gget a connection. I am then informed that i need to dowload the latest version of msn messenger. When messenger is installing it tries to get me to install the msn toolbar, set msn as my homeoage as well as two other things i dont want to do. It alos criples the internet access so i have to restart again.
When finally get on the inernet, i find the keyboard of the 15" laptop is worse than that of my 12" iBook, it is awful.
Two minutes later the laptop runs out of battery and goes to sleep. (battery life of about an hour)
5 take it back downstairs and read a book till my iBook came home).
On talking to my mum later, she said that last week, it randomly just reset on three different days.
I also felt that the toshiba laptop had quite a poor build quality and generally felt cheap.
So sorry about the rant, and usng a mac seems to have turned me into a bit of a computer snob!!
So what are you experiences, are there any really good wintel laptops out there? or just more bad ones?
stu
So i was at home, my mum eas using our desktop computer so i decided i would use her laptop (given to her by her work). Its a toshiba satelite pro or something.
So anyway, i bring it up to my room, open it up, and it take about a minute to wake up from sleep mode. I then click on the start menu, and it takes at least 30 seconds to load this. Please bear in mind that this is supposed to be a higher spec laptop than my iBook.
So at this point im starting to get fustrated with it. I then open firefix to connect to the internet. Though i am sitting two metres away from our wirless router, it wont open any webpages. After a restart (5 mins) i gget a connection. I am then informed that i need to dowload the latest version of msn messenger. When messenger is installing it tries to get me to install the msn toolbar, set msn as my homeoage as well as two other things i dont want to do. It alos criples the internet access so i have to restart again.
When finally get on the inernet, i find the keyboard of the 15" laptop is worse than that of my 12" iBook, it is awful.
Two minutes later the laptop runs out of battery and goes to sleep. (battery life of about an hour)
5 take it back downstairs and read a book till my iBook came home).
On talking to my mum later, she said that last week, it randomly just reset on three different days.
I also felt that the toshiba laptop had quite a poor build quality and generally felt cheap.
So sorry about the rant, and usng a mac seems to have turned me into a bit of a computer snob!!
So what are you experiences, are there any really good wintel laptops out there? or just more bad ones?
stu
Comments
Every windows notebook I've had I've been pleased with. I've used an HP, Averatec, and Acer, and all were built well and performed great. None took longer to boot than 25 seconds. The Acer had the best overall quality, IMO, but the other 2 were a close second.
Originally posted by stustanley
Please bear in mind that this is supposed to be a higher spec laptop than my iBook.
Ok, so what are the specs? My guess is 128MB RAM.
So at this point im starting to get fustrated with it. I then open firefix to connect to the internet. Though i am sitting two metres away from our wirless router, it wont open any webpages. After a restart (5 mins) i gget a connection. I am then informed that i need to dowload the latest version of msn messenger.
Please don't think that's normal 'cause it ain't. This is not a Windows problem.
When messenger is installing it tries to get me to install the msn toolbar, set msn as my homeoage as well as two other things i dont want to do. It alos criples the internet access so i have to restart again.
You didn't pay attention. It asks if (a) you want to install the MSN toolbar, and (b) if you want to make MSN your home page. Don't blindly click through and then blame the software.
I've never had MSN cripple my internet access. This system has other problems.
When finally get on the inernet, i find the keyboard of the 15" laptop is worse than that of my 12" iBook, it is awful.
Pretty subjective. I have yet to see one person praise the 12" iBook keyboard yet I find it totally acceptable.
Two minutes later the laptop runs out of battery and goes to sleep. (battery life of about an hour)
This isn't a new notebook, which would explain the poor performance and battery life.
So sorry about the rant, and usng a mac seems to have turned me into a bit of a computer snob!!
Sounds like it...
So what are you experiences, are there any really good wintel laptops out there? or just more bad ones?
Toshiba isn't a good notebook. An IBM Thinkpad is a good notebook.
EDIT: And from my experience, Toshiba's laptops are exceptionally crappy quality, even compared to most in the Wintel world. The best are, without a doubt, IBM's (Lenovo's?) Thinkpads
Originally posted by grad student
the only wintel laptop i'd buy would be a thinkpad. they are close to as good as a powerbook, and in minor ways, sometimes better.
Exactly
Originally posted by mynamehere
I have a 5-year-old Compaq Presario 1800 laptop (860Mhz PIII, 300-something Ram), with XP Pro, and while it is a piece of crap and takes a couple minutes to load and has annoying freezes, your system definitely has issues...get a virus scanner and a firewall (not the built-in one).
EDIT: And from my experience, Toshiba's laptops are exceptionally crappy quality, even compared to most in the Wintel world. The best are, without a doubt, IBM's (Lenovo's?) Thinkpads
I have a compaq presarrio 1700 that is now 4-5 years old and it works exceptionaly well for only having a 1ghz prosesor that runs at 760mhz.
Not all laptops have the capabiltiy to go wireless, I have a 10yearold godknows what laptop I got from a friend and that runs Internet at 11mbs while that compaq refuses to use wirless anything
The best built laptops are buy Compaq(before the merge) that persarrio got ranover by a car in a soft case and still worked with minor damage
your system definitely has issues...get a virus scanner and a firewall (not the built-in one).
We have Norton Antivirus with regularly update virus definitions, and i do a full systems scan every couple of weeks, also we have a NAT firewall in the router, and another software firewall on the laptop, and we also use firefox to try to cover all bases.
Not all laptops have the capabiltiy to go wireless
This one deffinately does, but the built in windows software doesnt seem to manage the connection very well. Frequently drops the connection even when very close to the router. I will be changing it back to the software that came with the card, as it was much more reliable, although it didnt have as large range.
Ok, so what are the specs? My guess is 128MB RAM.
1.8ghz celeron, 256 shared RAM
Please don't think that's normal 'cause it ain't. This is not a Windows problem.
As said above, the windows management of the networks is patchy at best, though we do get a longer range out of it when it does work, so i will switch back to the card suppliers software.
Don't blindly click through and then blame the software.
I've never had MSN cripple my internet access. This system has other problems.
Ok, i was annoyed when i first posted, but it did annoy me that these were all selected as default, ok no big deal really, but just if you want to install something quickly, you have to check each page to make sure its not doing something you dont want it to do. The software i use for antivirus is above. As for cripling the internet access, i only couldnt connect back after i had finished the installation. I mentioned above about chnaging from the microsoft network management.
As for the other pproblems. I went to see my mum at work today, and had one of the tech guys have a look at it. He said that he couldnt really see any problems with any of the settings etc, but people with the same laptop had complained of sime similar problems such as slow boot up, said it was a combination of the bad ram, bad hdd, and also said some people had problems with the power regulator, with it not giving enough power at certain times etc.
Pretty subjective. I have yet to see one person praise the 12" iBook keyboard yet I find it totally acceptable.
Sorry, what i forgot to mention here is that i find the 12" iBook keyboard to be very very good, and the tosiba laptop has much smaller keys, which seems alittle strange as it is a larger laptop.
This isn't a new notebook, which would explain the poor performance and battery life.
Very true, though when she first got it, it did about 2 hours. Luckily she uses it mostly plugged in and so it is ok, but i find it personally dissapointing that a portable computer has such a poor battery life.
Sounds like it...
Hey be nice
Toshiba isn't a good notebook. An IBM Thinkpad is a good notebook.
When thus one dies, i will try to convince the tech guys at her work to get her one of those then (the dont use macs at all there). I dont think they would need to much convincing not to get a tosiba again though.
Sorry, but that notebook has other issues if it took 5 minutes to reboot, 1 minute to come out of sleep, and 30 seconds to load a page. I won't begin to assume what the problem is, but unless that notebook has 128mb of shared SDRAM and a 500mhz cpu, it's not toshiba's fault.
after talking with the tech guys at mums work, im not so sure, they said that the ram and hd in the laptop are awful, and that there ahve also been reported problems with the power units, like them not waking up properly at first or something like that. Of course, they had alook through all the setting to check if anything was amiss, but they said they were all ok. After a bit of housekeeping, defragging etc, there is alittle improvement, but its still sluggish. I think a complete reinstall will be next.
Sorry about before, i was alittle fustrated with it.
Stu
This one deffinately does, but the built in windows software doesnt seem to manage the connection very well. Frequently drops the connection even when very close to the router. I will be changing it back to the software that came with the card, as it was much more reliable, although it didnt have as large range.
I've noticed this myself on various laptops running windows. It can get annoying watching the little notifaction balloon pop up.
Originally posted by Wingnut
Yeah, Tiger is the fastest OS when it comes to connecting to a wireless network. Windows XP still has a long way to go, IMO, especially when it comes to using a secure network.
Windows and "secure" really shouldn't go in the same sentence.
Back to the point, does anyone know anything about Sony's laptops...some of them actually come fairly close to Apple on design, but I don't know much about their quality.
the only wintel laptop i'd buy would be a thinkpad. they are close to as good as a powerbook, and in minor ways, sometimes better.
Good luck. Why do you think IBM sold their notebook division to Lenovo? Same reason as they sold hard disk division to Hitachi - piss poor reliability. When your laptop is made in Mexico, you start to wonder.
If you want a good laptop that will last, go with the one made in Japan. Fujitsu, some of the Sony models, some Toshiba models. They last forever.
Yeah, Tiger is the fastest OS when it comes to connecting to a wireless network. Windows XP still has a long way to go, IMO, especially when it comes to using a secure network.
My experience has been the opposite. I can connect to wifi point (even AE) faster with my XP notebook that with 15'' and 17'' TI books with Extereme card.
Originally posted by skatman
Good luck. Why do you think IBM sold their notebook division to Lenovo?
Ummm, because they're a services company and they wanted to unload the unprofitable parts of their business? I'm sure it had nothing to do with the quality of their product and much more to do with gaining a prescence in the Chinese market.
Same reason as they sold hard disk division to Hitachi - piss poor reliability. When your laptop is made in Mexico, you start to wonder.
Yup, same reason as I mentioned above. IBM is a services company and wants to get out of manufacturing hardware.
Originally posted by stustanley
1.8ghz celeron, 256 shared RAM
My dad's Toshiba also has a Celeron and takes forever to boot up and to wake out from hibernation. IE also takes a few long seconds to open. Did I mention the trackpad sucks? And don't get me started on port location and the loudness of it's fan...
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the quality of their product and much more to do with gaining a prescence in the Chinese market.
If you believe that, I wish you luck my friend.
My experience has been the opposite. I can connect to wifi point (even AE) faster with my XP notebook that with 15'' and 17'' TI books with Extereme card.
That's odd. 10.4 connects to my wireless router in a matter of 2-3 seconds. When I boot up the XP (SP2) machine in the house, connecting to that network takes closer to 15-30 seconds. To each his own, I suppose.
Now I have a Dell Inspiron 510m which is waaaayyy better, but still lacks the elegance and quality of a PowerBook. It takes very long to boot (about 3 min), and has very low performance.
Don't know of other brands, but I think Apple's Notebooks are of the best manufacturing quality.
Originally posted by grad student
the only wintel laptop i'd buy would be a thinkpad. they are close to as good as a powerbook, and in minor ways, sometimes better.
But they're so UGLY!