[ltp] considering getting a T40p

[Joel Ebel]

In my previous business we used many Dell Inspiron 3800's and 4000's. 
After I left, they got Latitude D600's.  I have very little good to say 
about them.  They were not built to withstand much abuse at all.  We had 
about 25 laptops, and not one of them escaped a repair of some kind.  We 
had displays go bad, buttons break off, and most commonly, keyboard not 
working.  Parts of the case would break off, batteries would die 
prematurely, hard drives would die, etc.  I haven't heard that they've 
gotten much better luck with the new ones.  The tech support and repair 
depended on who you got when you called them, and it got worse as time 
went by.  Sometimes you would get someone very helpful, and other times 
you'd get someone who would require you to run 5 tests to verify the 
problem, would put you on hold for 5 minutes between each test, and 
could barely speak English.  Before I left, almost every call was like 
that.  Fortunately our local tech was nice.  We got to know him fairly 
well, but even he couldn't get around the horrible service of trying to 
get the replacement parts.  Once I changed jobs and had an opportunity 
to select my laptop, I wanted to give a Thinkpad a try.  I have called 
tech support a few times now, for mostly minor issues, and once for the 
hard drive becoming read only. (You may find that incident in the 
archives.)  I have almost always talked with someone who was helpful, 
spoke English perfectly, and was eager to get me working again.  The one 
time I didn't, I deserved it by asking questions he didn't know the 
answer to.  Once I get him to refer me to his manager, things went 
great.  All in all, my experience has shown IBM's support to be worlds 
better than Dell's.  Other may have had drastically different 
experiences though.  I've heard that Dell moved their support back to 
the US, so maybe they have better English speaking techs again.  But 
I've been much more pleased with the quality and durability of my 
Thinkpad, and received better support from IBM.

Joel

Vincent Touquet wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 01:26:35AM +0200, Kaj J. Niemi wrote:
> 
>>I'm confident the laptop will last its designed lifetime, another
>>2.5 years :)
> 
> 
> Is everyone inhere satisfied with the warranty by the way ?
> 
> For some time I was considering getting a Dell Inspiron 8600,
> cause they seem to offer good warranty (next business day on site,
> warranty against accidental damage, ...). But I don't think they
> are really pro notebooks and I doubt the battery life is as good
> as on the Thinkpads.
> 
> Anyone got previous experience with other laptops ?
> Dells ?
> 
> thanks for any info,
> 
> Vincent