Lastly why would you want an HP laptop, they just break with a tech support staff that just bills you for warentee repair (its quite sad actualy). Atleast apple honors there warentee when it's stuff breaks.
I am going to assume by your assinine comment that you have never owned an HP product on which you used the warrenty, we had a HDD go bad on a Pavilion and called HP, they sent us a box next-day, we shipped it to them and 4 days later we had it back good as new at no charge, I know Apples support is superb, but I don't think HPs is all that bad, if it were, it wouldn't be one of the top business vendors.
Yes, you are wrong, at least as far as the Apple hardware is concerned. Apple even includes detailed instructions in the user manual on how to install extra memory. Guess you are not a Mac user .
Although it is to cwestpha to respond to your question, I think (s)he means that HP will often try to charge you for repairs under warranty, pretending that you broke something, not that this is an official warranty term. This happens at times in the Apple side too, but it is rare.
Apple Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White, circa 1999 (Yes I do own a SlowerMac (SN: SG9023B8FPZ), upgraded with an EMBEDDED 500MHz G4 (You know, the one with the ?1E-999 Hz FSB?)). Given the current situation, with CIJ and his flawed RDF, I doubt seriously I'll ever buy a Mac again (Too expensive, and I'm tired of Ferrari's with Yugo engines, thank you). As Buzz Lightyear would say "To 64-bit LinuxAMD and beyond."
Depending on the HP model you can at least replace the secondary memory module; on some models you can replace both. It looks like both the HP and Acer models cited above need a service technician to install the primary memory module (thus it would appear that doing this yourself would void the manufacturer?s warranty). But like I said before, so what, who cares, big deal (and once it?s out of warranty, all bets are off). Don't know about the other vendors (their service manuals don't seem to be available online).
I must admit though, Apple does write an excellent user manual (But do I really want to spend an extra $1-2K for a user manual?)!
Since I saw the thread for the new iBook wishlist (here), I figured I might as well start another for the new PowerBooks.
So:
- What features do you think will be/would you like to see in the new PB's?
<snip>
Enjoy!
As I type this on my solid, trusty 2400c/G3, wary eye on cranky PB G4 15" hoping the HD therein holds up long enough to complete a backup in progress, before shipping it back to Apple for a replacement keyboard and soon to be dead HD, have but two wishes. I want a robust keyboard and an easily replaceable HD; as easy as replacing the Lombard's was.
As I type this on my solid, trusty 2400c/G3, wary eye on cranky PB G4 15" hoping the HD therein holds up long enough to complete a backup in progress, before shipping it back to Apple for a replacement keyboard and soon to be dead HD, have but two wishes. I want a robust keyboard and an easily replaceable HD; as easy as replacing the Lombard's was.
What Powerbook G4 model do you have? The keyboard in the Aluminum models is one of the best, if not the best, you can find in a laptop. For the hard drive, yeah, I see what you do mean.
So? You dont think these things havent been writen by crafty lawyers to make the consumer think they are getting more protection then they are and for the company to slip out of a repair bill?
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All 3 are 12 month limited warranty's, I believe these are fairly standard in the industry, I believe all 3 have language such that ANY non-approved modifications/parts void their respective warranties, this I assume would be anything including end user memory upgrades (I may be wrong here, but one would think that the language would need to be fairly explicit).
HP, Dell, Apple, etc will honor their warentee if it has something not to do with the modified memory subsystem (ie screen defect, hard drive failer, battery problems, etc). However Acer is different. If you place in 1 extra stick of ram into your laptop you void all warentee. The only way around this is to buy the standard memory configuration, pay to have it shiped back to Acer asia, pay their price of two to three times the cost of regular RAM, and then pay to have it shiped back to you. I dont know of any other company that makes you do this. I meen they make you ship it overseas and not to a north american repair area, that just adds insult to injury.
I was going to buy an Acer, but after talking to their sales people about getting 1 gig of memory upgrade I decided it wasnt worth the $600+ extra dollars for the 512 meg sim. (paying to ship it insured both ways overseas priority, paying for the chip and labor, then paying for another certification of the hardware)
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Also, each warranty states that parts and labor are included for the first year, where does it say that HP charges for warranty service?
I work for a company that sells a lot of iPaqs for point of sale devices. Our number 1 complaint with them is battery problems and side grips of some modles breaking. When you send them to HP for warentee repair (we have a three year repair contract with them) they will fix the battery problem most of the time. However almost all of the time we send in broken sidegrips or sometimes batteries (this is less then 60 days after they went into service) We get a call for HP repair depot that both have evidence of "excessive wear" and then they give us a bill.
Both of these problems are vary common, so common infact the sidegrips could be considered defective out of the factory. To fix this we told them that if they dont fix the battery problems we will take our buisness elsewhere and sue them. With the sidegrips we told them that it has become clear to us that they are defective. Then we bought aluminum side grips at a cost to our own bottom line. Now we buy about 30% Dell and 70% HP and only buy the HP higher end ones because they actualy honor all of the repairs and defect repairs on them. We use the cheap Dells to train new people on (if they get damaged Dell has a compleat care and if they get lost it isnt as big deal).
Also I have had three freinds giving me horor storied about HP repair centers. I am used to Dell's turn around in under a week. When they send it in it takes an avarage of two weeks and they have goten calls like they wont cover "excessive" keyboard damage (the metal components under the keys are prone to fail with constant use) and if the springs keeping the LCD in place go you are out of luck.
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Nevertheless, a warranty has never stopped me in the past (I've installed upgrades for every removable part of several computers, and I'm batting 1000% (so far)). So what if I "technically" void the warranty, oops, I broke something by installing something that broke the computer, oops, I installed the original equipment and returned said computer to the manufacturer, oops, the manufacturer repairs said computer at no expense to me (and pays for the shipping to boot). Dishonest? Yes! Do I care? No, not in the least!
Well with almost every other company you can upgrade the memory and, at worst, they just wont support it if the new chip burns out the slot. Dell will support your laptop no matter almost whatever happens to your laptop (even without compleat care). I have droped my dell down flights of stairs and cracked the case horibly. they fixed it. I have had keys fail due to use. they fixed it. Batteries failed. they sent me new ones. My power brick started getting burning hot. they sent me a new one. removable floppy drive got junked up. They sent me TWO.
All of this and I never even bothered removing the extra 256 mb of Crucial PC-133 I installed. They didnt complain. They didnt say no. All Dell did was fix it, clean everything, replace a few parts that also looked like they could become trouble. Sent it back to me without me paying a cent beyond the original purchess price. Now THIS is a company that knows how to keep customers.
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So you don't like XP x64? Too buggy you say? I could have a dual-boot (XP x32/x64), or quad-boot (XP x32/x64/Linux x32/x64) setup? How do you like them Apple(s)?
Well the Microsoft People at Intel Channel Conference a few months ago said that we should grab the free copies of x64 but wait 6 months before deploying them. Driver support for everything is awful. This is Microsoft PR people saying not to do it.
You can dual boot, but why dual boot XP to XP 64? There is not one program that a consumer has that would benefit drematicly with 64 bit windows right now over regular 32 bit windows. Graphics drivers are not nearly as optimized as in 32 bit windows. support for things like printers, scaners, storage devices, sound cards, etc is still miss miss hit. Vary few programs are compiled to actualy take advantage of 64 bit addressing, and the largest memory advantage for 32 bit programs would be if you had a program trying to grab 4 gigs of ram and you had more then 4 gigs in your computer (since a 32 bit program can nativly address up to about 4 gigs and the OS can support giving other programs beyond the 4 gig limit).
Sure there are other benefits to 64 bit windows, but they dont rationalize the extra wasted hard disk space or the struggle to find drivers and get them to behave.
Oh and for the record, right now I am waring the Microsoft shirt they gave me at the Last ICC. Its their 64 bit marketing t-shirt. Hay it was free, as were the coppies of it.
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"Options, I like options."
I do to:
Desktop: Windows XP 32bit (primary), Ubuntu Linux, PearPC running Mac OS X 10.4.1, VMWare running Darwin x86 8.1 (so I can play with the OS X for Intel leaks)
Laptop: Windows XP 32bit, Ubuntu Linux (primary OS).
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And I need to go really, really, REALLY fast (Yes, a Ferrari suits me just fine), in a very, very, VERY portable fashion. I don't really need a GUI, but its nice to have one, all I really need is a fast CPU, fast DDR, vanilla LCD, and fast HD! If I really need the rest of the laptop functioning, I'll use x32 whatever.
Personaly the most prompt intensive thing I do is compile linux kernels. But that is quite a few hours of text entry with NANO.
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Unfortunately, neither 64-bit compiler will work on Apple's SlowerBook (and probably won't work on the first MacTel laptops, since It's rumored that they will be dual-core 32-bit Yonah's).
Now I get it, you are one of those AMD fanatics that is un-happy that there was no way Apple could do buisness with AMD. And there is almost nothing about Yonah that hasent been confirmed. Yes its dual core. Yes its 32-bit cores. No there is no way yet to add 64-bits to the Pentium M chips without getting a 10% hit in battery life. Yes it has improvements in the FPU. Yes when you go to battery power by default it altranates between the cores to keep power consumption and heat down. Yes Turin is still a wana-be Pentium M.
Now I like AMD on the Dektop, but Intel is king in portables. AMD just doesnt have resources togo after Centrino. They cant make a package, support it, and push it like Intel can. That is why Apple went to Intel. Yah Intel used illigal tactics to keep AMD down. Think Apple cares about being politicaly corect?
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So no, Apple is NOT at the forefront of laptop technology, and will not be at the forefront of laptop technology for the foreseeable future!
For the record throwing in a dekstop chip and adding some portable technologies isnt laptop technology. IBM and Intel are the ones on the forefront of laptop technology. Everyone else is playing catch-up.
A line of processors that are compeditive to desktops, dont need active cooling 90% of the time, and consume hardly any power, a single low powered chip that can hand a/b/g/pre-n/and WiMAX in the labs? LCD light sensors, sensors to selectivly lighten up specific areas of the screen and save 30% backlight power with a minimal hit to user experince, sudden motion sensor, hardware encryption with boot time biometric protection, etc. These are bigger laptop developments then being able to stick a desktop CPU into a huge power hungry package.
AMD's answer to this cant compeat. They just used aggresivly binned desktop processors, a southbridge, and one of a number of aproved wireless chips. AMD cant tweak and optimize nearly as much as Intel can. And AMD cant get K8 to directly compeat with the Pentium M.
Bottom line is on the Deskstop AMD has caught Intel's pants down. With laptops Intel has caught AMD with it's pants down. Guess which market is growing faster?
Lets wait for another year or two and see who is on top then, and if AMD can figure out how to make a platform (what Apple and laptop users need), and not just chips (what desktops use).
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Apple's laptops may look like a Ferrari, but they still have a Yugo engine!
I would say Apple is more like a MINI and HP and Acer laptops are more like SUVs. Apple gets you there eventualy with the ocasinal problem, while those laptops you get you there with constant recharging, even more problems, and noise.
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Finally, 1-2 months of HD DVD product availability does not make "2005 the year of HD," $1000 HD DVD players does not make "2005 the year of HD," $3-10K HD camcorders does not make "2005 the year of HD." When the price point comes down to the Joe Sixpack level, then you can say that "2007 is the year of HD."
Jobs said 2005 is the year of HD content. That is MAKING HD content. Next year is when HD becomes widely deployed for viewing that content. And let me tell you, nothing is better then watching the cable only HD chanels. Its like a large moving postcard with 5.1 seround sound.
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BTW, my name's Bill O'Cracker, you'd know me from the O'Cracker Factor!
lets see... portraying opinion as fact and spouting talking points... now all you need is to say "shut up" constently whenever you have a disagreenment with someone.
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What isn't off-topic is that I think that we could see the new Powerbook as early as MWSF - and yes, with Intel Inside. The Powerbook seems to be the ideal place to launch the "Mactel" platform - not only is it where a new processor is needed most, but it's also one of Apple's "flagship" products, and you had better bet that the sleek new Powerbook would be plastered on the cover of every computer magazine. Who knows...maybe we'll see all of Apple's notebooks go Intel there (rampant speculation is fun!).
Its most logical to deploy Yonah late 05' to early 06' (Intel's schedualed launch of the platform). Then do a mini upgrade with this chip. Lastly I see the sucessor to Yonah (a dektop, laptop chip not based off of netburst in late 06') as the start of the real desktop transition with them finalizing laptop transition about this time.
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I want a solidstate storage solution. No whirring harddrives for me nosireee
You want to pay several grand for a hard drive that will only work for a half a year and then not re-write any more?
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Although it is to cwestpha to respond to your question, I think (s)he means that HP will often try to charge you for repairs under warranty, pretending that you broke something, not that this is an official warranty term. This happens at times in the Apple side too, but it is rare.
With the apple store you can atleast make a deal with them. like you pay the company price for the part (like twenty bucks) and the warentee covers everything else. I have actualy done this with a freind's iMac. HP doesnt do anything like that, and Acer just rapes you.
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I am going to assume by your assinine comment that you have never owned an HP product on which you used the warrenty, we had a HDD go bad on a Pavilion and called HP, they sent us a box next-day, we shipped it to them and 4 days later we had it back good as new at no charge, I know Apples support is superb, but I don't think HPs is all that bad, if it were, it wouldn't be one of the top business vendors.
I have owned iPaqs (have about 40 out in the feild right now that I could be called at a moments notice to support... and another 10 being programed on my kitchen counter), have freinds with HP laptop DTRs, and one of the companies I sell iPaqs to has about 6 HPs. So I would say I have some experince with HP tech support.
and isnt the Pavilion a Desktop (sorry that company hasnt called me to support their desktops in a while)?
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I must admit though, Apple does write an excellent user manual (But do I really want to spend an extra $1-2K for a user manual?)!
Who needs a user manual? I just crack open the Dell laptop whenever I want to and have at it with an air can. Violates warentee but Dell (once again) didnt care I broke the seals. Wow am I hard on my technology.
So? You dont think these things havent been writen by crafty lawyers to make the consumer think they are getting more protection then they are and for the company to slip out of a repair bill?
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Wow, that was a long missive (I'll try to keep mine relatively short (ha ha)).
From what you said about Acer, this sounds like you wanted to upgrade the primary memory module? What all with them being in Taiwan and everything (i. e. Is the laptop factory sealed (thus obfuscating said warranty wrt the primary memory (and other hardware)))? From what I can find on their site, all of their user manuals show the end user how to replace the secondary memory module. One would think that if this voided the warranty, why show the end user how to replace said memory?
Yes, I generally like Dell (except for the fact they have no AMD products). IMHO, their hardware and support is every bit as good (if not better than) Apple's. Pretty much the same goes for Gateway (except for their financial situation), but again their current lineup (I believe) has few if any AMD products. Yes, IBM also makes great products (more on that later), but again few if any AMD products. The reason I'm high on HP, is that they are the only major vendor that has significant AMD products (particularly in the laptop arena). This AMD lawsuit thing IS going to be very interesting!
Yes, the Pentium M (nee Centrino (nee Pentium III))) is an excellent and efficient CPU. There's an interesting article at tomshardware (yup, they appear to have an AMD bias) where they use the M as a "desktop replacement" for the P4 in a desktop! Seems that the M compares quite favorably to the P4, so much for the MHz myth (i. e. within Intel's own product line)? Both the P4 and Athlons run high heat/power/noise, the same is true of the G5 (so this seems to be a level playing field). The Turion appears to be approximately 80-90% as efficient in battery life as the M, so it's almost a level playing field.
No, I don't think Apple made the wrong decision going with Intel (for many of the reasons you state, but mainly product delivery, shear size (i. e. market share), and integration).
You could call me the John Kerry of computing, I'm a flip-FLOPer. I want the lowest price point per FLOPS (i. e. I don't want to pay workstation prices). Whatever CPU gives me the lowest $/FLOPS on any given day gets my vote every time. And I really need DP FLOPS (i. e. DP on x32, SP on x64), since almost every problem I've solved in the past has eventually needed to be DP on x32 (by default I always DP my code for x32 and take the performance hit). Heck, look at Excel, its DP for christ sake (take the square root of 2, cut and paste special, and look at the resulting cell, 16 digits)!
So, what I had to do as DP on x32, I can now do as SP on x64, depending on the CPU architecture I'll usually get an approximate factor of 2 (this was also approximately true in going from x16 to x32) speed improvement in my calculations (imagine going from 3.8GHz to 7.6Ghz (or 2.5GHz to 5GHz)).
It's also why I'm not so keen on Altivec, its nice that it's a 4 word vector unit, but those words are x32, not x64.
Yes, It's nice to address more than 4GB of VM (but if you only have 2GB (or 4GB (or 8GB for the G5 in Apple's desktops))), your eventually going to hit the wall with VM (on the PM side) and will possibly incur massive page faults (depending on the type of problem your trying to solve). Imagine going from ns to ms (an O(2 to 3) magnitude performance hit) since you have to hit the HD for memory access (for example, I have solved the Bernoulli-Euler hydroelastic beam equation on a P4 Windows desktop (highly non-linear even for the hydrostatic part of the problem), and once the problem size exceeds the available PM, it takes a massive performance hit, since the VM starts to thrash the HD (page faults))! That's why IBM has 36MB of L1 cache on their Power4/5 CPU's, their trying to avoid hitting the slowest possible link in the memory chain. That's why workstations/servers have goobs and goobs of PM. It doesn't really matter if you RAID 0 four 15K RPM HD's, you'll still incur a significant performance hit wrt a PM only solution. That's why supercomputers invest heavily in fast secondary/tertiary memory subsystems (in addition to SRAM primary memory and fast FSB's). I do think the eventual future of DT computing will go the SS memory subsystem route (at least if you are willing to pay a reasonable price premium). You also don't want to do any heavy IO tasks (in general, but particularly for FORTRAN) if you don't have to (i. e. the major numerical algorithms), save that for the end (if you can), after your PM has done all the heavy lifting.
Back on topic, Intel has always been the integer performance king on the DT, however AMD appears to be the current FP king (x86 side, the IBM PowerPC (specifically the POWER4/5 and the G5 derivatives)) architecture is also the current FP king on the RISC side (IMHO)). AMD has been x64 forever (in the Moore's Law spacetime continuum), and now we have x64 Linux/XP/Tiger. Intel has been slow to x64 (or failed to sell it cheaply (Itanium), or lack of SW, or adoption, or whatever). EMT64 is slowly making it into their DT lineup, but it looks like it will be a while before M/D (whatever) goes EMT64 (I haven't looked at their roadmap lately), I do know that the P4EE is now available with EMT64 (so this would work in a hot/heavy/no B-life laptop).
I do need x64 portability, I take my work home and I travel occasionally, power consumption is not an overriding issue for me, I will consider $/FLOPS/B-life though. In that regard, the Turion is the clear winner, and I can get it today, Wednesday, July 6, 2005. I also don't know what the OC potential is for the Turion (if that's possible), I do know that the DT Athlons are excellent OC'ers (so you don't have to pay those excessive FX57 prices to get stock FX57 speeds).
Comments
Originally posted by cwestpha
Lastly why would you want an HP laptop, they just break with a tech support staff that just bills you for warentee repair (its quite sad actualy). Atleast apple honors there warentee when it's stuff breaks.
I am going to assume by your assinine comment that you have never owned an HP product on which you used the warrenty, we had a HDD go bad on a Pavilion and called HP, they sent us a box next-day, we shipped it to them and 4 days later we had it back good as new at no charge, I know Apples support is superb, but I don't think HPs is all that bad, if it were, it wouldn't be one of the top business vendors.
Originally posted by PB
Yes, you are wrong, at least as far as the Apple hardware is concerned. Apple even includes detailed instructions in the user manual on how to install extra memory. Guess you are not a Mac user
Although it is to cwestpha to respond to your question, I think (s)he means that HP will often try to charge you for repairs under warranty, pretending that you broke something, not that this is an official warranty term. This happens at times in the Apple side too, but it is rare.
HP?s ZV6000/R4000
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00363776.pdf
Pages 8-1 thru 8-6
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00364919.pdf
Pages 6-31 thru 6-32
The other HP?s are too new for downloadable service manuals (at this time).
Acer?s Ferrari 4000
https://www.synapsenow.com/synapse/d...0ENG%20OLM.pdf
Page 37
Apple Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White, circa 1999 (Yes I do own a SlowerMac (SN: SG9023B8FPZ), upgraded with an EMBEDDED 500MHz G4 (You know, the one with the ?1E-999 Hz FSB?)). Given the current situation, with CIJ and his flawed RDF, I doubt seriously I'll ever buy a Mac again (Too expensive, and I'm tired of Ferrari's with Yugo engines, thank you). As Buzz Lightyear would say "To 64-bit LinuxAMD and beyond."
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple...PWRMACG3SU.PDF
Pages 34-5, 44-5
Depending on the HP model you can at least replace the secondary memory module; on some models you can replace both. It looks like both the HP and Acer models cited above need a service technician to install the primary memory module (thus it would appear that doing this yourself would void the manufacturer?s warranty). But like I said before, so what, who cares, big deal (and once it?s out of warranty, all bets are off). Don't know about the other vendors (their service manuals don't seem to be available online).
I must admit though, Apple does write an excellent user manual (But do I really want to spend an extra $1-2K for a user manual?)!
Originally posted by mynamehere
Since I saw the thread for the new iBook wishlist (here), I figured I might as well start another for the new PowerBooks.
So:
- What features do you think will be/would you like to see in the new PB's?
<snip>
Enjoy!
As I type this on my solid, trusty 2400c/G3, wary eye on cranky PB G4 15" hoping the HD therein holds up long enough to complete a backup in progress, before shipping it back to Apple for a replacement keyboard and soon to be dead HD, have but two wishes. I want a robust keyboard and an easily replaceable HD; as easy as replacing the Lombard's was.
Originally posted by fantastic happy dinner man
As I type this on my solid, trusty 2400c/G3, wary eye on cranky PB G4 15" hoping the HD therein holds up long enough to complete a backup in progress, before shipping it back to Apple for a replacement keyboard and soon to be dead HD, have but two wishes. I want a robust keyboard and an easily replaceable HD; as easy as replacing the Lombard's was.
What Powerbook G4 model do you have? The keyboard in the Aluminum models is one of the best, if not the best, you can find in a laptop. For the hard drive, yeah, I see what you do mean.
HP's 1-year limited warranty:
http://h20179.www2.hp.com/HPTotalCa...nty.html#return
Acer's 1-year limited warranty:
http://global.acer.com/support/itw_limit.htm
Apple's 1-year limited warranty:
http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/hardware.html
So? You dont think these things havent been writen by crafty lawyers to make the consumer think they are getting more protection then they are and for the company to slip out of a repair bill?
All 3 are 12 month limited warranty's, I believe these are fairly standard in the industry, I believe all 3 have language such that ANY non-approved modifications/parts void their respective warranties, this I assume would be anything including end user memory upgrades (I may be wrong here, but one would think that the language would need to be fairly explicit).
HP, Dell, Apple, etc will honor their warentee if it has something not to do with the modified memory subsystem (ie screen defect, hard drive failer, battery problems, etc). However Acer is different. If you place in 1 extra stick of ram into your laptop you void all warentee. The only way around this is to buy the standard memory configuration, pay to have it shiped back to Acer asia, pay their price of two to three times the cost of regular RAM, and then pay to have it shiped back to you. I dont know of any other company that makes you do this. I meen they make you ship it overseas and not to a north american repair area, that just adds insult to injury.
I was going to buy an Acer, but after talking to their sales people about getting 1 gig of memory upgrade I decided it wasnt worth the $600+ extra dollars for the 512 meg sim. (paying to ship it insured both ways overseas priority, paying for the chip and labor, then paying for another certification of the hardware)
Also, each warranty states that parts and labor are included for the first year, where does it say that HP charges for warranty service?
I work for a company that sells a lot of iPaqs for point of sale devices. Our number 1 complaint with them is battery problems and side grips of some modles breaking. When you send them to HP for warentee repair (we have a three year repair contract with them) they will fix the battery problem most of the time. However almost all of the time we send in broken sidegrips or sometimes batteries (this is less then 60 days after they went into service) We get a call for HP repair depot that both have evidence of "excessive wear" and then they give us a bill.
Both of these problems are vary common, so common infact the sidegrips could be considered defective out of the factory. To fix this we told them that if they dont fix the battery problems we will take our buisness elsewhere and sue them. With the sidegrips we told them that it has become clear to us that they are defective. Then we bought aluminum side grips at a cost to our own bottom line. Now we buy about 30% Dell and 70% HP and only buy the HP higher end ones because they actualy honor all of the repairs and defect repairs on them. We use the cheap Dells to train new people on (if they get damaged Dell has a compleat care and if they get lost it isnt as big deal).
Also I have had three freinds giving me horor storied about HP repair centers. I am used to Dell's turn around in under a week. When they send it in it takes an avarage of two weeks and they have goten calls like they wont cover "excessive" keyboard damage (the metal components under the keys are prone to fail with constant use) and if the springs keeping the LCD in place go you are out of luck.
Nevertheless, a warranty has never stopped me in the past (I've installed upgrades for every removable part of several computers, and I'm batting 1000% (so far)). So what if I "technically" void the warranty, oops, I broke something by installing something that broke the computer, oops, I installed the original equipment and returned said computer to the manufacturer, oops, the manufacturer repairs said computer at no expense to me (and pays for the shipping to boot). Dishonest? Yes! Do I care? No, not in the least!
Well with almost every other company you can upgrade the memory and, at worst, they just wont support it if the new chip burns out the slot. Dell will support your laptop no matter almost whatever happens to your laptop (even without compleat care). I have droped my dell down flights of stairs and cracked the case horibly. they fixed it. I have had keys fail due to use. they fixed it. Batteries failed. they sent me new ones. My power brick started getting burning hot. they sent me a new one. removable floppy drive got junked up. They sent me TWO.
All of this and I never even bothered removing the extra 256 mb of Crucial PC-133 I installed. They didnt complain. They didnt say no. All Dell did was fix it, clean everything, replace a few parts that also looked like they could become trouble. Sent it back to me without me paying a cent beyond the original purchess price. Now THIS is a company that knows how to keep customers.
So you don't like XP x64? Too buggy you say? I could have a dual-boot (XP x32/x64), or quad-boot (XP x32/x64/Linux x32/x64) setup? How do you like them Apple(s)?
Well the Microsoft People at Intel Channel Conference a few months ago said that we should grab the free copies of x64 but wait 6 months before deploying them. Driver support for everything is awful. This is Microsoft PR people saying not to do it.
You can dual boot, but why dual boot XP to XP 64? There is not one program that a consumer has that would benefit drematicly with 64 bit windows right now over regular 32 bit windows. Graphics drivers are not nearly as optimized as in 32 bit windows. support for things like printers, scaners, storage devices, sound cards, etc is still miss miss hit. Vary few programs are compiled to actualy take advantage of 64 bit addressing, and the largest memory advantage for 32 bit programs would be if you had a program trying to grab 4 gigs of ram and you had more then 4 gigs in your computer (since a 32 bit program can nativly address up to about 4 gigs and the OS can support giving other programs beyond the 4 gig limit).
Sure there are other benefits to 64 bit windows, but they dont rationalize the extra wasted hard disk space or the struggle to find drivers and get them to behave.
Oh and for the record, right now I am waring the Microsoft shirt they gave me at the Last ICC. Its their 64 bit marketing t-shirt. Hay it was free, as were the coppies of it.
"Options, I like options."
I do to:
Desktop: Windows XP 32bit (primary), Ubuntu Linux, PearPC running Mac OS X 10.4.1, VMWare running Darwin x86 8.1 (so I can play with the OS X for Intel leaks)
Laptop: Windows XP 32bit, Ubuntu Linux (primary OS).
And I need to go really, really, REALLY fast (Yes, a Ferrari suits me just fine), in a very, very, VERY portable fashion. I don't really need a GUI, but its nice to have one, all I really need is a fast CPU, fast DDR, vanilla LCD, and fast HD! If I really need the rest of the laptop functioning, I'll use x32 whatever.
Personaly the most prompt intensive thing I do is compile linux kernels. But that is quite a few hours of text entry with NANO.
Unfortunately, neither 64-bit compiler will work on Apple's SlowerBook (and probably won't work on the first MacTel laptops, since It's rumored that they will be dual-core 32-bit Yonah's).
Now I get it, you are one of those AMD fanatics that is un-happy that there was no way Apple could do buisness with AMD. And there is almost nothing about Yonah that hasent been confirmed. Yes its dual core. Yes its 32-bit cores. No there is no way yet to add 64-bits to the Pentium M chips without getting a 10% hit in battery life. Yes it has improvements in the FPU. Yes when you go to battery power by default it altranates between the cores to keep power consumption and heat down. Yes Turin is still a wana-be Pentium M.
Now I like AMD on the Dektop, but Intel is king in portables. AMD just doesnt have resources togo after Centrino. They cant make a package, support it, and push it like Intel can. That is why Apple went to Intel. Yah Intel used illigal tactics to keep AMD down. Think Apple cares about being politicaly corect?
So no, Apple is NOT at the forefront of laptop technology, and will not be at the forefront of laptop technology for the foreseeable future!
For the record throwing in a dekstop chip and adding some portable technologies isnt laptop technology. IBM and Intel are the ones on the forefront of laptop technology. Everyone else is playing catch-up.
A line of processors that are compeditive to desktops, dont need active cooling 90% of the time, and consume hardly any power, a single low powered chip that can hand a/b/g/pre-n/and WiMAX in the labs? LCD light sensors, sensors to selectivly lighten up specific areas of the screen and save 30% backlight power with a minimal hit to user experince, sudden motion sensor, hardware encryption with boot time biometric protection, etc. These are bigger laptop developments then being able to stick a desktop CPU into a huge power hungry package.
AMD's answer to this cant compeat. They just used aggresivly binned desktop processors, a southbridge, and one of a number of aproved wireless chips. AMD cant tweak and optimize nearly as much as Intel can. And AMD cant get K8 to directly compeat with the Pentium M.
Bottom line is on the Deskstop AMD has caught Intel's pants down. With laptops Intel has caught AMD with it's pants down. Guess which market is growing faster?
Lets wait for another year or two and see who is on top then, and if AMD can figure out how to make a platform (what Apple and laptop users need), and not just chips (what desktops use).
Apple's laptops may look like a Ferrari, but they still have a Yugo engine!
I would say Apple is more like a MINI and HP and Acer laptops are more like SUVs. Apple gets you there eventualy with the ocasinal problem, while those laptops you get you there with constant recharging, even more problems, and noise.
Finally, 1-2 months of HD DVD product availability does not make "2005 the year of HD," $1000 HD DVD players does not make "2005 the year of HD," $3-10K HD camcorders does not make "2005 the year of HD." When the price point comes down to the Joe Sixpack level, then you can say that "2007 is the year of HD."
Jobs said 2005 is the year of HD content. That is MAKING HD content. Next year is when HD becomes widely deployed for viewing that content. And let me tell you, nothing is better then watching the cable only HD chanels. Its like a large moving postcard with 5.1 seround sound.
BTW, my name's Bill O'Cracker, you'd know me from the O'Cracker Factor!
lets see... portraying opinion as fact and spouting talking points... now all you need is to say "shut up" constently whenever you have a disagreenment with someone.
What isn't off-topic is that I think that we could see the new Powerbook as early as MWSF - and yes, with Intel Inside. The Powerbook seems to be the ideal place to launch the "Mactel" platform - not only is it where a new processor is needed most, but it's also one of Apple's "flagship" products, and you had better bet that the sleek new Powerbook would be plastered on the cover of every computer magazine. Who knows...maybe we'll see all of Apple's notebooks go Intel there (rampant speculation is fun!).
Its most logical to deploy Yonah late 05' to early 06' (Intel's schedualed launch of the platform). Then do a mini upgrade with this chip. Lastly I see the sucessor to Yonah (a dektop, laptop chip not based off of netburst in late 06') as the start of the real desktop transition with them finalizing laptop transition about this time.
I want a solidstate storage solution. No whirring harddrives for me nosireee
You want to pay several grand for a hard drive that will only work for a half a year and then not re-write any more?
Although it is to cwestpha to respond to your question, I think (s)he means that HP will often try to charge you for repairs under warranty, pretending that you broke something, not that this is an official warranty term. This happens at times in the Apple side too, but it is rare.
With the apple store you can atleast make a deal with them. like you pay the company price for the part (like twenty bucks) and the warentee covers everything else. I have actualy done this with a freind's iMac. HP doesnt do anything like that, and Acer just rapes you.
I am going to assume by your assinine comment that you have never owned an HP product on which you used the warrenty, we had a HDD go bad on a Pavilion and called HP, they sent us a box next-day, we shipped it to them and 4 days later we had it back good as new at no charge, I know Apples support is superb, but I don't think HPs is all that bad, if it were, it wouldn't be one of the top business vendors.
I have owned iPaqs (have about 40 out in the feild right now that I could be called at a moments notice to support... and another 10 being programed on my kitchen counter), have freinds with HP laptop DTRs, and one of the companies I sell iPaqs to has about 6 HPs. So I would say I have some experince with HP tech support.
and isnt the Pavilion a Desktop (sorry that company hasnt called me to support their desktops in a while)?
I must admit though, Apple does write an excellent user manual (But do I really want to spend an extra $1-2K for a user manual?)!
Who needs a user manual? I just crack open the Dell laptop whenever I want to and have at it with an air can. Violates warentee but Dell (once again) didnt care I broke the seals. Wow am I hard on my technology.
Originally posted by cwestpha
So? You dont think these things havent been writen by crafty lawyers to make the consumer think they are getting more protection then they are and for the company to slip out of a repair bill?
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Wow, that was a long missive (I'll try to keep mine relatively short (ha ha)).
From what you said about Acer, this sounds like you wanted to upgrade the primary memory module? What all with them being in Taiwan and everything (i. e. Is the laptop factory sealed (thus obfuscating said warranty wrt the primary memory (and other hardware)))? From what I can find on their site, all of their user manuals show the end user how to replace the secondary memory module. One would think that if this voided the warranty, why show the end user how to replace said memory?
Yes, I generally like Dell (except for the fact they have no AMD products). IMHO, their hardware and support is every bit as good (if not better than) Apple's. Pretty much the same goes for Gateway (except for their financial situation), but again their current lineup (I believe) has few if any AMD products. Yes, IBM also makes great products (more on that later), but again few if any AMD products. The reason I'm high on HP, is that they are the only major vendor that has significant AMD products (particularly in the laptop arena). This AMD lawsuit thing IS going to be very interesting!
Yes, the Pentium M (nee Centrino (nee Pentium III))) is an excellent and efficient CPU. There's an interesting article at tomshardware (yup, they appear to have an AMD bias) where they use the M as a "desktop replacement" for the P4 in a desktop! Seems that the M compares quite favorably to the P4, so much for the MHz myth (i. e. within Intel's own product line)? Both the P4 and Athlons run high heat/power/noise, the same is true of the G5 (so this seems to be a level playing field). The Turion appears to be approximately 80-90% as efficient in battery life as the M, so it's almost a level playing field.
No, I don't think Apple made the wrong decision going with Intel (for many of the reasons you state, but mainly product delivery, shear size (i. e. market share), and integration).
You could call me the John Kerry of computing, I'm a flip-FLOPer. I want the lowest price point per FLOPS (i. e. I don't want to pay workstation prices). Whatever CPU gives me the lowest $/FLOPS on any given day gets my vote every time. And I really need DP FLOPS (i. e. DP on x32, SP on x64), since almost every problem I've solved in the past has eventually needed to be DP on x32 (by default I always DP my code for x32 and take the performance hit). Heck, look at Excel, its DP for christ sake (take the square root of 2, cut and paste special, and look at the resulting cell, 16 digits)!
So, what I had to do as DP on x32, I can now do as SP on x64, depending on the CPU architecture I'll usually get an approximate factor of 2 (this was also approximately true in going from x16 to x32) speed improvement in my calculations (imagine going from 3.8GHz to 7.6Ghz (or 2.5GHz to 5GHz)).
It's also why I'm not so keen on Altivec, its nice that it's a 4 word vector unit, but those words are x32, not x64.
Yes, It's nice to address more than 4GB of VM (but if you only have 2GB (or 4GB (or 8GB for the G5 in Apple's desktops))), your eventually going to hit the wall with VM (on the PM side) and will possibly incur massive page faults (depending on the type of problem your trying to solve). Imagine going from ns to ms (an O(2 to 3) magnitude performance hit) since you have to hit the HD for memory access (for example, I have solved the Bernoulli-Euler hydroelastic beam equation on a P4 Windows desktop (highly non-linear even for the hydrostatic part of the problem), and once the problem size exceeds the available PM, it takes a massive performance hit, since the VM starts to thrash the HD (page faults))! That's why IBM has 36MB of L1 cache on their Power4/5 CPU's, their trying to avoid hitting the slowest possible link in the memory chain. That's why workstations/servers have goobs and goobs of PM. It doesn't really matter if you RAID 0 four 15K RPM HD's, you'll still incur a significant performance hit wrt a PM only solution. That's why supercomputers invest heavily in fast secondary/tertiary memory subsystems (in addition to SRAM primary memory and fast FSB's). I do think the eventual future of DT computing will go the SS memory subsystem route (at least if you are willing to pay a reasonable price premium). You also don't want to do any heavy IO tasks (in general, but particularly for FORTRAN) if you don't have to (i. e. the major numerical algorithms), save that for the end (if you can), after your PM has done all the heavy lifting.
Back on topic, Intel has always been the integer performance king on the DT, however AMD appears to be the current FP king (x86 side, the IBM PowerPC (specifically the POWER4/5 and the G5 derivatives)) architecture is also the current FP king on the RISC side (IMHO)). AMD has been x64 forever (in the Moore's Law spacetime continuum), and now we have x64 Linux/XP/Tiger. Intel has been slow to x64 (or failed to sell it cheaply (Itanium), or lack of SW, or adoption, or whatever). EMT64 is slowly making it into their DT lineup, but it looks like it will be a while before M/D (whatever) goes EMT64 (I haven't looked at their roadmap lately), I do know that the P4EE is now available with EMT64 (so this would work in a hot/heavy/no B-life laptop).
I do need x64 portability, I take my work home and I travel occasionally, power consumption is not an overriding issue for me, I will consider $/FLOPS/B-life though. In that regard, the Turion is the clear winner, and I can get it today, Wednesday, July 6, 2005. I also don't know what the OC potential is for the Turion (if that's possible), I do know that the DT Athlons are excellent OC'ers (so you don't have to pay those excessive FX57 prices to get stock FX57 speeds).
So much for the "short" missive!