[NCLUG] Desire suggestions for college laptop

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 03:49:22PM +0000, bsimpson at att.net wrote:
>- Can't be too flimsy, as it will be a college environment
>  (though she does take good care of her possessions).

When I got my last ThinkPad, they were offering an enhancement to the
warranty which also includes accidental damage.  As I carry my laptop
EVERYWHERE with me, and my previous ThinkPad had various case cracking
problems which were likely due directly to having dropped on it's edge 3
feet onto a wood floor 3 months after it's purchase when my unpadded bag
slipped off my shoulder, I figured this was worth it.  Haven't had a chance
to make use of it yet though, over the 6 months I've had the laptop.

It took a week for the hard drive to die after this, which was great because
I was at a conference when it happened.  The case cracks started pretty
minor but over a couple of years they got pretty bad.  More annoying than
anything else.

The extra coverage was fairly inexpensive, but it was a higher end laptop
and I noticed all the warranty extensions were cheaper on it than some
of the other similar models.  I think the 3 year next day onsite repair
plus the accidental death and dismemberment was something just over $200
over what the 3 year depot warranty was.

I have always had good luck with IBM warranty work.  Especially with parts,
they used to come out of Boulder, and so they would arrive insanely
quickly.  As in, call for a replacement keyboard in the evening, it was
here before I woke up the next morning.  We've never had a bad experience
with IBM repair, and they turn around quickly.

A friend had a Sony Vaio that apparently took 6 weeks for Sony to turn
around when it had a problem, just FYI.

Oh, and the higher end units have a built-in fingerprint reader which may
be useful as a theft deterrant.  You can configure it to require the
fingerprint to even get to the BIOS or after powering on, and it's stored
in the embedded security processor so it's likely to make the laptop a
brick without the right fingerprint.  I think you can register up to 5
prints with it.

One thing to decide is whether she likes the touchpad, eraser head, or
external mouse pointers.  Most laptops these days are using the pads, and
while I know some people really like them, I've come to realize that I just
hate them.  My current laptop has both, and I finally disabled it in the
BIOS.  I never used it, but sometimes it would register my button clicks
above the pad as movement, quite annoying.  If the eraser head is a big
deal to you, the field of possible choices really narrows.

Sean
-- 
 A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for.
                 -- Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability