[NTLUG:Discuss] Laptop opinion request

[Preston Hagar]

On Nov 9, 2007 3:22 PM, Stephen Davidson <gorky at freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
> Dell has good support for the (very rare) times that one of their
> laptops acts up.  You want to get the 3yr extended with Home Service if
> you go that route.  Repair tech in the Front Door the next day is hard
> to beat.  For a while, there was an issue dealing with them if you got
> their India Call Center, but so far as I know, they did eventually fix
> that (I've not had to deal with them since a USA call center figured out
> that the India one had seriously messed me up, and sent me an upgraded
> laptop -- that laptop is still going strong, even though the warranty
> died Spring 2005).
>
> Regards,
> Steve

Just a funny side note about this (at least to me).  I have suffered
the horrors of the India call centers.  I was pricing one of the new
Dell Vostro Desktops that they target at small businesses and under
the Warranty and Support options, one option is "Gold Support" (which
I would highly recommend if you can get it).  Anyway, the funny part
was the description for the Gold Support:

Gold Technical Support — The ultimate peace of mind that offers
speedy, around-the-clock access to North American-based advanced level
technicians. Ideal for the small business that simply can't afford
downtime.

The main kicker there is "North American-based advanced level
technicians".  Basically, to me, that is them saying, "Yeah, we're
cheap and don't care too much about you unless you give us enough
money.  Give us an extra $50 and we will let you talk to people that
can help, instead of people we pay $2 an hour, are hard to understand,
and are only reading off of a script you could have found online."

Just thought I would share. As far as the laptop goes, I would second
Dell.  I have always had good luck with them.  Two sites I would
recommend are:
http://www.linux.org/hardware/laptop.html

and

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Before you buy, look for the specific model on those sites and see if
you can find anyone else that has successfully installed Linux.  That
is the best way, I have found to get a good idea of what all will work
on the laptop in Linux and how hard it will be to get it to work.

Preston