On Saturday 04 June 2005 06:24 pm, Aron Smith wrote: > 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) I bought an HP zv5360 Pavilion laptop and am totally surprised with it. It has all onboard functions working in linux. The video, cd burner, pcmcia cards, onboard wlan, onboard nic, onboard modem all work and seem to work well. Using ndiswrapper for the wlan card. Battery is only good for 2 to 3 hours but that's ok I don't run on battery much. Hope it lasts at least 5 years. -- Dennis M. linux user #180842
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