How About You Just Fix My Problem?

[AccountingDrone]

I adore HP, but the laptops do run hot ... but my liquid cooled firebird 802 kicks ass for a 2 year old computer, I can play anything I can load on it, and I do beta testing for fun [I have a bunch of developers for friends. They claim it is ready for release if I can't break the game... ]

[Sakka]

Wow, your conversations with Dell tech support sounds a lot like my conversations with HP notebook tech support. Part of it was almost word for word.
For background, I work in a computer shop repairing computers/notebooks everyday.

For notebooks, I like my Acer notebook. It has some issues, but I can work around them. Acer has had some really good models, and some lemons.
HP, I wouldn't take even if you paid me. ... Well, if it was a lot of money and I could keep it on the shelf, I would be tempted. Would probably still say no to it.
Dell has been like Acer, some good models, some not so good models. Lately Dell seems to be running a lot more towards the not so good models.
Asus is pretty good. Had a new one recently with a touchpad button not working. But hardware issues with them seem to be few and far between.
Lenovo has been very good. They used to be a division of IBM.

Toshiba has always been a rock steady brand in my experience. Every single toshiba I've seen at work for repairs has either been due to a virus infection, or it's been dropped, stepped on, and/or had something spilled on it.

The main brands carried at work are Acer, HP, Asus, Lenovo, and Toshiba.
And in case this sounds like an advertisement, I was not paid in any way, shape, or form for this post.

[CaroPhoenix]

I'm currently using an Asus. I've had to have the hard drive replaced 2 times in 2 months. And I bought the thing in July of 2010. Otherwise, I love it. I play a lot of video games (Hidden Object 'cos I like easy games like that ... so sue me. )

My last 2 laptops have been HPs. Never again. Those just died on me with no warning. No nothing. Oi.

We're looking at a Toshiba for Child Rum. It's a child-friendly one. It seems awesome for her.

Our desktop is a Dell. And I'm getting sick of it. It's 9 years old and slower than molasses in a snowstorm.

[tropicsgoddess]

My last laptop purchase was a Toshiba. I've been very pleased with it. Three years and holding!

Count me in on the Toshiba boat, I've had mine for 2 years and no problems with it!

[Shalom]

Count me in on the Toshiba boat, I've had mine for 2 years and no problems with it!

7 years here (Satellite A35). It's been back to them a couple times for repairs, first under the warranty (HD crashed when something fell on the laptop) and then under the extended plan (LCD went wonky, then had to send it back because the circuit board for the wifi card had come unplugged in transit); since then I've stuck more memory in and upgraded the HD (twice). Works pretty much as advertised.

OTOH it's not my main machine; that's one I've built myself (and am posting from). It's about 13 years old, although the only parts left from when I built it are the case, the keyboard and possibly one of the floppy drive cables; it's on its second motherboard, fourth CPU, third power supply, sixth (?) HD, and so forth... ("I have Abraham Lincoln's original axe. The blade has been replaced seven times and the handle, nine times...") So I mostly use the laptop when I'm travelling, at work or on vacation, or in the hospital when my kids were born. Maybe if I used it every day it wouldn't have lasted this long, no way to tell.

[GiggityGiggityGoo]

+1000000000000000000000 for Toshiba.


My parent's computer is a 9 year old Toshiba laptop that was handed down from my older sister to me, then to my little sister, then to my parents. A bunch of the keys have fallen off so my parents use a USB keyboard. BUT THE FREAKING LAPTOP WILL NOT DIE.

[MelodiousBubbles]

If you go through HP, get a Compaq :3

HP itself is good, but I've noticed issues with overheating even when the fans are functional. Compaq is kind of a separate company, but they're owned by HP.

Toshibas are good, too. I have one of their Satellites.

[Geek King]

Another fan of the Toshiba laptops here.

For desktops, particularly gaming rigs, I'm fond of an online dealer called Cyber Power. They've been very good to me over my last two PCs, and cover any issues with little trouble. When my motherboard died two weeks after recieving it (hey, it happens sometimes), they shipped the new one out, and had a local tech come out and install it on-site. Very good place, particularly if you want to customize your rig.

[Kogarashi]

The only issues I've really had with HPs were the fact that my mom's laptop's screen separated so easily despite careful handling (she had to backup everything and ship it in to fix, because the laptop wouldn't even close anymore), and that my college roommie's HP Pavilion was specifically hardwired to only work with the included recovery disks and nothing else despite her computer-savvy father's best efforts to figure out how to upgrade it from Windows 95 (yes, old machine). She eventually just replaced the whole thing, because not only could she not use any newer OS on it, at all, but the thing was so cramped inside that if she didn't get just the right replacement optical and hard drives, she couldn't upgrade the hardware either. There just wasn't room for some models, and she could only have one optical drive, one hard drive, and the built-in floppy drive. It was a complete pain in the butt, and really no better than my home-built-with-old-parts machine.

I'm currently a big fan of my mutt desktop, which consists pretty much of whatever parts I can get for a decently low price without sacrificing quality (though I do lean toward AMD processors over Intel because AMD has treated me right in the past--I sent in a suspected faulty processor for testing, they returned it with a clean bill of health, and then sent me a new one anyway for no apparent reason).

These are some good recommendations, though. Hubby's Dell laptop, while servicable, is eight years old now and definitely showing it. He's getting his PhD this year, so I plan on arranging to get him a new laptop (hopefully going in on it with my parents and in-laws) as a defense/graduation gift.

[Tithera]

I had the same problem with my Toshiba. For a while there, I thought I had burnt out another motherboard, like I had done with my parents' gateway, but it turns out the cooling fan just kind of broke. The tech guy I talked to, though, was awesome and even joked around with me while he waited for various things, instead of putting me on hold in dead air. He was very helpful and was able to have my laptop shipped, fixed, and shipped back within the same week, free of any charges (mainly due to my warranty). I for one LOVE my Toshiba, it works great, the techs are great, but they are notorious for cooling fan failures, so you have to keep an eye on those. My bf has a Dell, but he hasn't had any problems with it that he couldn't fix himself, but I don't know if that's because he's just that good at computers or because he bought it from his home country (Pakistan), rather than from a retail store here in the states.
As for your tech guys, wow. That's just poor customer service right there, especially if you were within your warranty period.

[Mytical]

Dell at one time had some of the greatest computers, and not so terrible tech support, I still have a working (though can't change the background screen any more) Dell from 7 years ago that can still handle most programs if I try to run them. Besides the weird background issue, never had a problem with it until it was WAY out of warrenty (and then it was that background went to white, and wouldn't change for anything..but still has all the icons/etc). From all I heard about Dell now, not sure I would buy another, however.

Asus has shown promise, Alienware (if you can afford it) is just awesomeness, and I had a Compaq that had a few technical problems after 3 years..but I gave that to somebody. HP has been iffy before, but from what I understand they are improving..as for Gateway...run..run as fast as you can in the other direction..maybe throwing holy water behind you or something. Or at least from my personal experience.

[Dreamstalker]

i'm still trying to understand how this 'tech' thought that the internet was interfering with fan operation and cooldown of the unit.

I've had some run-ins with support over the years that I'm still wondering about...

A Dell tech wanted me to uninstall Firefox for a cooling issue ...good guess, but no. Also claimed that Speedfan was a virus (no, I don't think that's the problem either).

My dad's ISP claimed that a mail server problem was due to my choice of mail client ("Thunderbird? What's that? We don't support it"...then how have I been using it with no problems for the past 3 years? I'd just like to know if you're having problems with the SMTP server or if I need to change my settings)

[Andara Bledin]

We had a tech inform us, quite insistantly, that dial up service doesn't have DNS settings. >_<

And another one walked us through a process that actually disabled all Internet and then when asked to escalate, hung up (this seems to be SOP for Earthlink, as far as we can tell as we never spoke to a higher level tech after talking to a lower one - only if we called in and got bumped up immediately did the calls not get dropped). The best part about this one is that there was an intermittent outage, so the problem was all on their end, but getting them to tell you when nothing they could do would help was like pulling teeth. >_<

^-.-^

[tenzilkem]

As someone who "used" to work for Dell, I want to say this, while they do have some hoops you have to run into, what you went through yourself was uncalled for and just plain lazy. By that time, a tech would have been out and multiple parts sent out had the folks at our call center had still been with the client.

On the note about what kind of system to get if you need to, I also put my vote towards an HP. I've had my laptop for about 3 years now and it's taken a beating from my son sneaking on to play games, and from my learning curve of getting used to a laptop.

[SongsOfDragons]

*waves Toshiba flag*

I still have my first Toshiba laptop; the only thing is with it is that it likes to devour its power boxes, and its battery's flat so it always must be plugged in. I use it to play games that Windows 7 doesn't like - Pharaoh, AoE II...and also I use it to run Microsoft Musical Instruments, a nice little piece of education software I'm currently using for world-building research.

My current laptop is also a Toshiba, and runs pretty good for a year and a half old now. Slowed down a mite and gets a bit warm but I guess they do.