HELP ME CHOOSE A DELL NOTEBOOK, PLEASE!

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Jd

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hello all. I thought some of you with experience with Dell notebooks
can give me some buying advice. My neice and her husband just opened a
new small business and need a powerful, and most importantly reliable
notebook that will go all day and into the night doing everything from
kitchen design to evening presentations at the homes of customers. All
financial business will be done on the notebook as well. Pretty much
the whole enchilada. So in helping us choose, what is our best bet with
a Dell that would be very powerful but also super reliable. Without
fail kind of reliability. And is there anything to avoid in particular.
Information on the best and most capable processors for this kind of
job would also be much appreciated. Also, what other brand to consider
if not Dell. The price ceiling would appear to be $2500. And of course
less is best if it get's the job done. Thanks for any and all replies
: )
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

So is it not a good idea to put a notebook through a tough twelve to
fifteen hour day even if plugged in? Are they not built to do that?
Perhaps all day and all night was a bit of an exaggeration. But twelve
to fifteen hours of work time is conceivable. with some breaks,
perhaps. Thanks!
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

my wife works for a large bank and she uses a laptop exclusively all day and
it is on from 7am to 3pm. The cost of the machine is over 3000 dollars as I
had to check it out.
It isn't a Dell.
"jd" <sickboy2all@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1108146091.088972.61020@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Hello all. I thought some of you with experience with Dell notebooks
> can give me some buying advice. My neice and her husband just opened a
> new small business and need a powerful, and most importantly reliable
> notebook that will go all day and into the night doing everything from
> kitchen design to evening presentations at the homes of customers. All
> financial business will be done on the notebook as well. Pretty much
> the whole enchilada. So in helping us choose, what is our best bet with
> a Dell that would be very powerful but also super reliable. Without
> fail kind of reliability. And is there anything to avoid in particular.
> Information on the best and most capable processors for this kind of
> job would also be much appreciated. Also, what other brand to consider
> if not Dell. The price ceiling would appear to be $2500. And of course
> less is best if it get's the job done. Thanks for any and all replies
> : )
>
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"jd" <sickboy2all@aol.com> wrote:

>So is it not a good idea to put a notebook through a tough twelve to
>fifteen hour day even if plugged in? Are they not built to do that?
>Perhaps all day and all night was a bit of an exaggeration. But twelve
>to fifteen hours of work time is conceivable. with some breaks,
>perhaps. Thanks!

Were they my niece/nephew and spouse, I would not recommend
starting their small business, in today's world, without at least
two computers. In the case you describe, a desktop for the
company admin/financial side as well as "product", and a laptop
for those visits to client sites. Added advantage, when the two
are trying to work on different company aspects, say one doing
the books while the other is working on a proposal, at the same
time, they /can/ work at the same time.
--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I have the Inspiron XPS. I paid last September with discounts, $2580.
It has all you would need for design presentations. It has four USB
ports, 60 gig Hard Drive 7200 rpms, 1 gig ram and I purchased a USB
external 120 gig hard drive partitioned to two 60 gigs each. I backup
my system on one of the partitions. The Laptop is on from 8 AM until 5
PM daily where I work and at home networked to my Dimension 8300. I
agree they should have both laptop and desktop, but if you will be
changing kitchen designs during the evening presentations, you should
get a high powered laptop, if not a less expensive laptop and a power
desktop like the Dimension 8400 to prepare your presentations.

The other laptop I'd recommend would be the Apple Powerbook.

Joan

jd wrote:
> Hello all. I thought some of you with experience with Dell notebooks
> can give me some buying advice. My neice and her husband just opened a
> new small business and need a powerful, and most importantly reliable
> notebook that will go all day and into the night doing everything from
> kitchen design to evening presentations at the homes of customers. All
> financial business will be done on the notebook as well. Pretty much
> the whole enchilada. So in helping us choose, what is our best bet with
> a Dell that would be very powerful but also super reliable. Without
> fail kind of reliability. And is there anything to avoid in particular.
> Information on the best and most capable processors for this kind of
> job would also be much appreciated. Also, what other brand to consider
> if not Dell. The price ceiling would appear to be $2500. And of course
> less is best if it get's the job done. Thanks for any and all replies
> : )
>
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

jd <sickboy2all@aol.com> wrote:
> Hello all. I thought some of you with experience with Dell notebooks
> can give me some buying advice. My neice and her husband just opened a
> new small business and need a powerful, and most importantly reliable
> notebook that will go all day and into the night doing everything from
> kitchen design to evening presentations at the homes of customers. All
> financial business will be done on the notebook as well. Pretty much
> the whole enchilada. So in helping us choose, what is our best bet with
> a Dell that would be very powerful but also super reliable. Without
> fail kind of reliability.

Sorry, that type of reliability doesn't exist.

> And is there anything to avoid in particular.
> Information on the best and most capable processors for this kind of
> job would also be much appreciated. Also, what other brand to consider
> if not Dell. The price ceiling would appear to be $2500. And of course
> less is best if it get's the job done. Thanks for any and all replies
> : )

I'd choose the D800. My Pentium M 1.6 has no trouble running 3dsmax.
The next brand I'd look at is IBM. Their thinkpads are nice, but
you'll find they aren't exactly cheap.
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On the one hand you need a powerful CPU like a Pentium 4 M(minimum 2GHz) or
a Centrino(minimum 1,5GHz). On the other hand it must be lightweigt and
small. And of xourse its battery needs to last long. But when it comes to
work- all day and night you are not talking about a Laptop. All IDE-HDDs are
designed to work 8h a day. If you want them to work day and night you need
to buy a SCSI harddisk. Because these disks are truly reliable an are three
times more expensive. Unfortunately there are no SCSI-HDD for laptops. I
know of Maxtor HDD which are although IDE-HDD are advertised too last thru
weeks of work. If reliability is crucial you will have too buy the next
business day service as well. IMHO a powerful PC at home and a small more
over a bit cheaper laptop for the presentations. Like the D505 for example.
Or two of the new and cheap ECS 532. These would cost as much as one laptop
and you would have a spare laptop in all cases.
If he is into kitchen design and 3D he will probalby himself know what
horsepower he needs.
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Depends. 15Hours every day, also weekends exceeds the proposed usage of HDD.
Other components I don't think matter so much. It is the harddisk which
limits your time There was a whitepaper for some specs of an Hitachi/ IBM
hdd saying that the mean lifetime of nearly 50years is computed by
multiplying 8hours per day five times a week. If you use this hdd beyond the
reliability lowers extremely- and not linear but exponentially. Only SCSI
disks are made for this- that's why they are most likely to be found in
servers.
You have two choices- depending upon your needs. One really powerful PC and
a laptop. Or maybe a laptop and an image on a second harddisk of all
documents and the operating system. But if you e.g. need to compute a 3Ds
max animation you will have to wait up to a week or more until the scene is
completely rendered- which in itself gives you the need for a second PC.
What exactly is your need?
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

thanks everyone for all the good input. looks like there going with a
notebook workstation of one sort of another, and moving there home pc
to the place of business to share duties with. thanks once again : )
 
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I agree with everyone else that no notebook is built for that 24/7
heavy-duty use.

I also suggest 2 computers with serious data backup because sooner or
later one will die or be stolen, and their whole business would be up in
smoke.

But to honor your original question: the best Dells, IBMs, and Toshibas
are all very high quality machines. The cheapest Dells, IBMs and
Toshibas are not.

Doug


jd wrote:

> thanks everyone for all the good input. looks like there going with a
> notebook workstation of one sort of another, and moving there home pc
> to the place of business to share duties with. thanks once again : )
>
 
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