Text 425, 116 rader
Skriven 2004-09-05 10:54:44 av Glenn Meadows (1:379/45)
    Kommentar till text 424 av John Beamish (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Laptop for Valerie - reply to all
=============================================
From: "Glenn Meadows" <gmeadow@comcast.net>

You won't find any Thinkpads in stores. IBM only sells direct now, so it will
be hard to make a tire kick comparison.  Find someone who has a Thinkpad, or
several people who do, and ask if she can play with them (do some Word typing,
etc).  We've got an assortment of Dells at work, and I have to work on those as
well.  They really feel cheap/flimsy compared to the Thinkpads, IMO.

It used to be, that IBM only supplied the Trackpoint pointing device (stick on
keyboard), but now they're offering both the Trackpoint and a Touchpad to
accommodate people who prefer that interface method.

Me, I much prefer the Trackpoint to the Touchpad.  At work, I have a port
replicator that has the Lan, external USB, and power supply hookup, so it's
just drop it in place, and I'm connected to all my peripherals. I've got an
external optical mouse I use at work as well, and both work together.  I've got
a 4 port USB hub connected, driving 2 USP printers at work, and also use a
Memory Drive for stuff as well.

--
Glenn M.


"John Beamish" <JLBeamish AT hotmail DOT com> wrote in message
news:413b2ca9$1@w3.nls.net...
> I hadn't expected such an enthusiastic endorsement for IBM laptops.
>
> Valerie has been tire-kicking in several local stores including a Best
Buy,
> FutureShop (a Canadian chain now part of Best Buy and staffed with
> commission-DRIVEN sales people), a couple of business box-stores, a couple
> of other chains and a small independent operation.  She even glanced
briefly
> at the stock in a used/refurbed computer store.
>
> I think she was leaning heavily toward Dell because I've had a couple of
> Dell desktop and been very pleased with them.  In addition, her son works
> for a company that has an agreement with Dell to let staff purchase Dell
> machines at a 5% discount from retail.  Glenn's suggestion to check the
eBay
> IBM authorized auctions sounds like good one.  I'll get her to spend some
> time checking out the offers/pricing there.
>
> She's been looking "on and off" for some time but recently made a complete
> tour of the local stores so I think she's getting ready to make some
serious
> decisions.
>
> I really appreciate all the guidance.  When Valerie finally does make the
> decision, I'll let you know what she chose.
>
> Thanks, everyone.
>
>
> "John Beamish" <JLBeamish AT hotmail DOT com> wrote in message
> news:4139f1e5@w3.nls.net...
> > Valerie wants a laptop.  She's tired of coming down to the
> > dungeo^h^h^h^h^h^hbasement office to do "her thing."
> >
> > "Her thing" consists of emailing various people around the world (on a
> daily
> > basis), doing some scanning of photos (hasn't got a digital camera but
> > that's next), a bit of surfing and, the biggie:  using PageMaker
(because
> > that's what the organization gave her) to prepare the monthly
newsletter.
> > The OS will be an MS one (she's not interested in learning Linux and all
> the
> > software she currently owns is MS-based so an Apple machine isn't in the
> > running).
> >
> > She's rejected, out-of-hand, a desktop machine with a nice monitor.
> >
> > It has to be a laptop.  She doesn't really care who it comes from but
she
> > does care about the machine cost which should be less than Cdn$1600
(say,
> > US$1250).  You can ignore taxes so we can keep the comparisons based on
> > machine prices.
> >
> > It won't be particularly mobile to start but I'm guessing that it will
> start
> > to accompany her on various trips.  Even then, the only thing mobile
will
> be
> > from our house to where ever she drives.  It won't be a matter of having
> to
> > carry it around once she gets there.
> >
> > It seems that she can get everything she wants at that price:  512MB
> memory,
> > 40-60GB of disk (more than she needs), CD-RW/DVD, up to 4 USB ports, a
P4
> or
> > Centino, wireless connectivity, at least a 15" screen.  So, it seems to
> me,
> > that her biggest concerns are reliability and repair.
> >
> > So ... Dell?  Toshiba?  Compaq?  eMachines?  HP? Others?  She will
really
> > appreciate any advice, experiences, suggestions.  In particularly, it
> would
> > be great if you can suggest some "differentiating factors" so she can
look
> > at two candidate machines and say "ah, this model does X well and this
> other
> > one does it poorly."
> >
> > Many thanks.
> >
> >
>
>

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