[H-GEN] thoughts on Dell laptops

David Harrison davidharrison at gmail.com
Sun Nov 7 18:27:35 EST 2010


Peter,

I don't have a current model, but I have a Dell XPS M1210 (3 years old)
and it has probably been the best computer I have ever owned. I have
been continually surprised by its performance and stability. I dual boot
Windows and Ubuntu - there's a few minor issues in Linux (webcam drivers
don't work out of the box, wifi light flickers annoyingly when active
instead of just staying solidly on) but it generally is rock solid.

I got a slightly more tricked out model (7200rpm drive, which I highly
recommend for the IO performance boost) and a higher-end NVIDIA graphics
card); I run X with most of the Compiz-fusion effects turned on using
the binary blob drivers and have never had a problem there.

We bought a newer model XPS (M1310 I think) last year for one of our
employees running Windows and it has been similarly fine - certainly
good enough that I'll be going back for my next laptop (if my current
one ever stops working).

I got the extended warranty which is usually next-day hardware
replacement (worldwide), but I've never had to use it. We've had
generally good experience in the few cases where we've needed to use it
for our desktops - replacement hardware is either sent out for us to
replace ourselves or if they're not sure what the problem is a tech will
come out with a bag of tricks (including things like spare motherboards)
and usually fixes the problem very quickly.


--
david / ausgamers / mammoth

On 8/11/2010 8:21 AM, Peter Robinson wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
> 
> Hi all,
> My current laptop is showing occasional faults. The guys at work stress
> tested it but nothing came up. It looks like my laptop  has turned into
> a lemon - but not bad enough to pinpoint a fault :(
> Anyway, I am now considering getting a new one as I don't trust my
> current one. Since work prefers Dell I had a quick look on their web
> site last night. I want to run Ubuntu and in my experience I am looking
> for one with an nVidia card. On my first quick look most laptops seem to
> have ATI cards or on-board cards.
> 
> Anyone with experience of the current Dell models that can give me some
> suggestions?
> 
> Peter
> 
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