GRcade

Dell had a phase of being all kinds of gooseberry fool but at least for desktops they are well passed that I think now. I have a cheap Dell laptop and it's sluggish because it has a crappy 5400 disk and not super awesome processor but it works well and hasn't had any issues.

We've been using Dell laptops and desktops at work for the last 5+ years and they've been pretty solid. They're not amazing machines but they have been reliable.

Errkal wrote:Dell had a phase of being all kinds of gooseberry fool but at least for desktops they are well passed that I think now. I have a cheap Dell laptop and it's sluggish because it has a crappy 5400 disk and not super awesome processor but it works well and hasn't had any issues.

Speaking of which, the MBP also has a 5,400 disk. I immediately swapped it out for a 7200RPM Western Digital Caviar Black (which I did even though the capacity was the same), which probably subverted other problems. That comes with a 5 year warranty and was noticeably faster. It's still working with zero issues.

Oddly the Apple Hitachi disk is now the external disk for the Wii U..

Now I have a Samsung EVO SSD, I can't imagine this machine would still be tolerable without it - although the i7 (dual core only and heat issues aside) probably help with the longevity.

If you are prepared to fix problems and probably have it fail anyway, I wouldn't "unrecommend" a Macbook Pro, but I do think there are equally good or better options especially when you consider price.

My next workhorse machine will be a dualboot Hackintosh, my business is firmly established and I'm not freelancing around or commuting anymore.

Oh and btw you can't do any of that now since Apple solder everything to the strawberry floating motherboard

I've only ever had one laptop, and that was my first PC which was a Dell. It was a great machine and although it only lasted 2004-7, i suspect the short lifespan was due to the sheer amount i was using it at the time (and it did used to get incredibly hot).

Since then it's been desktops all the way, my first was another Dell (2006-08), which was ok to begin with, but the ethernet port died after only a couple of uses and it started developing other issues, then i had a Packard Bell which was a Vista machine, it was a beast and lasted a good few years (2008-12) but later on it did get damaged by a trojan which seemed to have a knock on effect as after that other problems started to arise until eventually it went kaput. Then i got my HP desktop in 2012, and it's still in use today.

We have a mixture of Dell and HP server hardware, the HP stuff is way more reliable. The Dell stuff we're logging multiple calls a week for repairs though, motherboards in particular are dodgy as strawberry float.

We've got a mix of HP and old IBM servers I think - the HP stuff has been very impressive.

We are full on HP all servers (except the mainframe stuff) is HP, HP network too. There is Juniper in there for bits too but yeah basically our world is HP.

Shame about Dell’s reliability as they’ve supposedly got the best Windows laptop out at the moment (XPS 13/15), despite the awful webcam placement.

My brother's first laptop was also a Dell, he paid over £1500 for it back in 2001.

It wasn't great though, as it was running Windows ME, and that meant that whenever anyone tried to use it, the damn thing would freeze and crash.

The one i had a few years later was XP and was far more stable.

Moggy wrote:

Errkal wrote:We are full on HP all servers (except the mainframe stuff) is HP, HP network too. There is Juniper in there for bits too but yeah basically our world is HP.

Except the canteen that has this stuff

I was looking at the Microsoft Surface Laptop this morning and thought it looked quite nice, but then noticed it's using Windows 10 S and costs just as much as a Macbook.

KK wrote:I was looking at the Microsoft Surface Laptop this morning and thought it looked quite nice, but then noticed it's using Windows 10 S and costs just as much as a Macbook.

I'm weighing up getting a Surface Laptop of some description in the near future, wouldn't touch one with 10 S on it though.

I bought a Surface Pro 4 for my wife a couple of years back - it's proved to be a really nice device. The screen on it is amazing, it's a lovely well built form factor, the keyboard cover thing works surprisingly well, and the performance is actually very good even on the low end "Core m3" version which we bought. I was very sceptical when MS got into the hardware market but I've been pleasantly surprised!

My mum has a Surface laptop and loves it. She went to that from an old Windows 8 Sony ultrabook.

To be honest one of the main reasons my dad bought her the Surface was for the touchscreen that her Sony had. She's gotten so used to using it that I don't think she could handle a laptop without a touch screen now. I tried suggesting a tablet but she insisted she wanted a keyboard and wouldn't have one with a keyboard cover.
Windows 10 S is the downside though, can't really install 3rd party apps unless they come from the Windows Store, so that means no Chrome.

You can upgrade to Pro with a one off payment, in the US it is $50 so I imagine it is £50.

I've never bought a PC. I've built about 10.

And my first laptop was an eMachines. Built like a brick, honestly it survived like one until the day my brother borrowed it, decided it didn't need the case I gave him, and dropped it, crushing the battery compartment. Now it can't boot at all. But I bet it would still work otherwise. That was about 2003.

I really want a Surface Studio but only for the screen so that's the main reason it's relegated to my wishlist.

Meanwhile, over at Lenovo:

Apple covered up iP 6+ design flaws: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... -documents

The only question now is when will the fans get tired of this shoddy build quality for a supposedly premium product?
I'm under no illusion that Apple products will continue to fly off shelves pretty much despite Apple screwing customers over time and time again as they simply dismiss all negative stories as being from either people who can't afford an Apple product or from people who just hate the company.

Apple won't even let you download the Steam App purely because they can't force steam to give them a huge cut of any money they make which is rather silly as surely allowing Steam will mean more games are supported and that may make more people choose an Apple product.