On Saturday 04 June 2005 12:12 pm, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > Ian wrote: > > On Saturday 04 Jun 2005 18:36, JR wrote: > >>Hi folks, > >> > >>I'm curious what you all consider a reasonable lifespan for a laptop. > >>Personally, I bought my one and only Dell I4000 about 4 years ago. Within > >>weeks, the battery deteriorated beyond use, as did the DVD drive. > >> > >> > >>A few months after that was repaired, the hinges on the screen came > >> apart, and the display became a true peripheral :) > >> > >>Anyway, that was all repaired while in warranty, but within a few months > >> of the warranty expiring, the battery again became useless, and shortly > >> afterwards, the DVD drive died. So I cant make any alterations to my OS > >> that might require say, and emergency boot CD. > >> > >>Is this normal for laptop parts? Everything else is fine, (Actually, the > >>speakers blew within a week of owning the laptop.) but I want to know > >> what to look out for when choosing a new model. > > > > I'd expect a laptop to last at least 5 years without repair. > > Either you are extremely ham fisted or you bought a dud. > > Laptop batteries aren't known for longevity, although completely > > discharging them is a sure recipe for failures (the charger usually can't > > bring it back up from zero). > > I find this interesting, because the directions for the Li-Ion pack for > my Thinkpad recoment doing a full cycle to full discharge, and then full > recharge every 3 months. The instructions for the Ni-Cad recoment doing > it at least monthly. I am not sure about systems using Ni-MH batteries... > > > Old Toshiba laptops (PII) are still going strong, so it appears some do > > last for a while. I'd suggest a google for forums discussing the virtues > > (and otherwise) of laptops. > > I have a Toshiba 400CDT that is starting to die - the bottem 1" of the > display sometimes goes gray. Other then that, and the fack that it so > limmited by todays standards, it is still going strong. (P-75, 40Mb RAM > and 800Mb drive. No USB, No cardbus support, no 3.3v PCMCIA cards.) The > strange thing is that the battery is still good for 2 hours. > > My brother-in-law has a Compaq laptop that is even older. 486 processor, > and 8Mb of RAM. It is still up and running. When he gets tired of it, I > am thinking of turning it into a firewall. The batteries are only good > for about 5 minutes on that one, so it isn't too partable any more. > > Mikkel I just bought a Fujitsu lifebook P7010 and so far am impressed with it (except getting the Centrino wireless to work with linux)
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