What brand name of computer do you use? Just purchased T400 today

[Sideshow]

I dont waste the extra 200+ tag for a name. I build my own

 

[petesign]

Also built my design station.

Windows 7
i5 750 on an Asus P7P55D SLI motherboard
8 gb of ram
1 TB hard drive

I toyed around with the idea of doing SLI with two really good videocards for games but realized I would never get anything done... this machine benchmarks really high, but seems like it is never fast enough.

 

[premiercolour]

You make a valid claim Fieldcenter, but not for everyone. For 90% of the community that uses tech support from Dell, HP, Acer, or any other major brand out there service is VERY hard to get. After spending hours on the phone with their technical support convincing them that something actually is wrong with your system, they tell you to back up your data and send your computer in. Well, half the time you can't get back in to your computer to back things up, so lets just hope that you have a recent backup or you will lose EVERYTHING. Then, hope that they will send you out a return box and shipping label. In many cases, they won't and you will have to provide the original shipping box and pay for shipping to them. Then wait a week until your computer is next in line to be repaired, then another week for them to replace it, send it back out through distribution, and have UPS or FedEx deliver it again. All of this to replace a faulty hard drive.

Why do I describe this? Because I get to enjoy it about once a month while working in my computer business. People with systems from Dell, HP, Acer, etc. that are still under warranty and want it warranty repaired have to go through the above process and I deal with it all the time. However, in my case if a piece goes bad on my system, I can rip into it right there, swap out the part and test, and put in new hardware immediately and eliminate two weeks of downtime.

Even if you do take your computer to a local shop, it's not going to guarantee that the service will be correct or faster. One customer I had previously had his computer at the Geek Squad in our nearest Best Buy. After more than a week of waiting, he finally got his computer back. They said they had to change the boot order and some BIOS settings and test the system stability and gave him a huge invoice for it. But when he took it home things still wouldn't work. $400 worth of charges and several more trips back and forth to the Geek Squad and he finally gave up and came to me. Within ten minutes looking at his computer I could tell that he had a faulty motherboard and needed replaced, but nothing that should cost him $400 and several weeks to figure out!

As to the original question, though. For desktop computers I always will prefer custom built for myself, but I know that some others may not want to go that path. I just highly recommend that anyone that goes with a pre-built system at least stick with the Business line of computers from Dell or HP. Their consumer line is built so cheaply. And no matter what Dell or HP computer you buy you're probably paying much more for less performance than a custom-built system anyways with higher quality. For notebooks, I have worked with several HP ProBook and EliteBook notebooks and love them. I don't use a laptop anymore enough to warrant purchasing one for myself, but if I did that would be what I would go with. The highest quality I have seen in any notebook (including HP Envy and Mac laptops) with incredible customer service and unbeatable performance hardware for design work. However, if you're wanting more of a gaming laptop then I would suggest ASUS or even better Clevo/Sager power notebooks. They are very high quality as well, and have the highest performance components available on the market. I owned a Clevo D900K notebook for five years. That notebook had a desktop dual-core Athlon processor in it back when dual-core processors were first released, and while it was too big to be a portable notebook, that thing still survived a lot of travel plus nearly 24/7 use for those five years and continued trucking on to the end until one of its two hard drives finally gave out.

This does not happen with Lenovo. I recently had my T61 went through repair process. It has 24/7 support so the phone call was made at 12:31AM. On the phone they verify the serial number(they honor the warranty even i purchased it used) and whether if it is under warranty. From dial the number to tech support probably took 3 minutes. Maybe normal time takes longer. Verify the serial number, warranty is valid then they send a UPS box "next day". I called the tech support the next day the computer was arrived at their facility. They said it is almost finish and should be shipped next day ( they actually wrapped up quick and shipped out the same day instead of next day they promised). The problem was motherboard failure. Everything was fixed and i got my computer back the third day. There are plenty of lenovo support facility that they'd fix the computer. I did not bother because i was afraid they would be out of that particular parts etec. It was a hassle free process. I don't know about dell, hp or other names but for lenovo i give thumbs up. It is fast, quiet and reliable. If I were your friend, i would ask you to give me the receipt of what happened to my computer. I would go back to the geek squad and ask for the geek leader money back or see you in court. Although i am very disappointed with court system because my customer owed me money, i won the full judgement and i can't collect. I asked for collector and they can't collect. The only possible way is to call my customer and apologize for taking them to the court and told them i would still supply the ink with xx% off, just give me 50% back. Wow, amazing. Nothing you can do about. The business is still operating, he just does not want to pay. It somehow taught me that you can get away with it if you owe money to another. You just dont need to pay and no one can do shix to you even the court of law, period. And to this date, i have not collected one penny from that guy.

 

[OldPaint]

for $364.00 i got new case, 2.8 quad core processor, a gigabyte m/b GA-MA-74GM-S2H, 2 gigs 800 ddr2 ram, on board video and sound. took the hard drive from my other computer updated drivers to new m/b, and there is nothing i cant do with all that processor and speed.

 

[premiercolour]

I guess I am bored on a saturday morning. I should hit the gym. It is like have a 2011 bicycle with 10 years ago tires from another bicycle. Will this run as nice as you put 2011 bicycle tires on? Just my thought. Maybe it rides well just not to the maximum performance the bicycle was designed for.

 

[premiercolour]

Now will you put 10 years ago tires on your brand new truck?

 

[OldPaint]

now that is boarder line ridiculousness))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

 

[shakey0818]

I love my old.......

 

[choucove]

My 27" iMac runs Windows 7 pro and both OS's, everything is pretty much constantly backed-up via Time Machine. PC's are NOT cheaper when you consider all the virus protection you have to pay every year to renew. My Mac is and always will be virus-free.

Try a Mac and you'll find the user experience smooth, responsive and clean, not the crumpled herkey-jerky responsiveness of any MS OS.

I can guarantee you, 100%, stake my life and business on it, that your Mac is not now or will it ever be virus-free because it's a Mac. The OS X kernel is based on UNIX which has a much smaller market share than Windows. In fact, if you do a little research at all, you'll find that 90% of the experts, security analysts, and software designers out there all agree that Windows 7 OS design is quite significantly more secure than the kernel behind OS X. The reason for this is because that kernel is now reaching more than a decade old and lacks some of the critical updates for technologies and security holes that are known today. Add to this the very long periods between updates and security fixes released by Apple compared to the rigorous patch updates by Microsoft and for the experts it is clear.

The only reason why Macs have less worries about viruses is they are 10% of the market share and those who write viruses and malware are going to target the largest chance of success, the remaining 90% of the market share that runs Windows. For those who do own Macs, I'm not telling you to switch away to PCs, but I do want to caution as adamantly as possible that you DO need to look into a form of antivirus protection because yes it is possible to get infected. The difference is, with a Windows PC running anti-virus software, that threat can often be detected and removed very easily. However, on a Mac without virus protection, an infection is never caught, and the only way to remove it is to take it to an Apple Repair center and let them completely reinstall OS X.

Fieldcenter, I have heard good things before about Lenovo service, but have yet to work with them. I'm glad to hear from someone that they had very good luck with this, as it helps me immensely when I make recommendations to others about what kind of laptop to look into. If others out there could pick up the level of tech support that you're describing than the entire PC experience (and I bet some of the reasons why Mac users became Mac users) would greatly improve leaps and bounds. It's not that hard to do, really, so I don't know why more service centers can't be more like Lenovo.

 

[Joe Diaz]

My 27" iMac runs Windows 7 pro and both OS's, everything is pretty much constantly backed-up via Time Machine. PC's are NOT cheaper when you consider all the virus protection you have to pay every year to renew. My Mac is and always will be virus-free.

Wait, so you run windows and OSX on your mac but save money by not having virus protection on your computer? Okay there are so many things wrong with your statement. You do realize that your windows 7 pro isn't more secure just because it is installed on a mac don't you? If viruses are your main worry, you should still get virus protection on windows 7 and I would even get some for OSX. I don't really worry too much about viruses here. haven't been infected in years, and the fact that I have protection puts me at ease even more.

You also realize that virus protection doesn't cost the extra grand that I saved by purchasing a higher spec'd PC laptop. It doesn't even cost as much as the extra (windows) operating system you most likely had to purchase to run software that isn't available on OSX. Otherwise why own the "crumpled herkey-jerky responsive MS OS"? My virus protection came bundled in with my PC purchase, but really AVG has a pretty decent free addition of its virus protection suite, if the cost of security is an issue.