Clive Wills wrote:
Hi All
Last night my laptop cover/screen broke again for the second time at
the hinge. (Dell Inspiron 1525) It cost over £80 to repair last time
and the same has happened this time, it looks as if the hinge puts a
strain on the cover. As the laptop is getting old I'm thinking of a
new one but what to get? Intel i3 with 300-500Gb drive, good screen
and either HDMI or VGA output for the projector, SD card slot and
Intel wireless N.
I use it as my main PC, nothing special requiring speed or high
graphics other than camera pictures, (minor improvements, cropping and
aperture adjustments).
Price range £200-£400 and wondered about a Tablet but it must have a
keyboard, I can't get on with 'on screen' ones (Paul's Asus
Transformer looked good but not now available).
Does anyone know what to avoid as some of the specs I'm not sure on as
it will only be running Linux (do not want M$!!!). It needs to run
LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Digikam; I'm on Mint 14
cinnamon at moment.
Keen on NovaTec as it's local (Portsmouth) and they give good service
but don't know anything about Linux. HP, Acer and Asus seem to be OK
but have heard of some problems with Linux on some models.
Any help please?
Im not up to date on the latest laptop deals, but for what the
following might help.
1stly the Dell inspiron range has always been the consumer grade.
Their business grade are the Latitude series.
Those have a far superior build quality and Ive used a D800 for the
past 3 yrs, its been faultless.
There are some very good s/h D830's available , I can get the dealers
name tomorrow. My son Hugh Frater is the IT bod at his Co and has
sourced s/h Dell Latitudes exclusively for his C's staff..
When IBM gave up making their Thinkpads and sold that business to Lenovo
the build quality went down.
Before that happened the Thinkpad was the best build/reliability laptop
made.
For spares and support CFA in Poole, and owned by Leon, known him for
many yrs carries all the spares for Dell.
Ted Frater.
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