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Sephiroth

must have been good

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well during the summer i bought a laptop bag for $5, it came with a 75mhz 486 laptop. the guy said the laptop was no good, well come to find out he was wrong. true there was a bad part, the battery, but it works fine. infact it is rather well built, i used it as a cd player in a trap house for 2 weeks. trap house, small bunker fora trap shoot, offten disks fly apart causeing a storm of hard, sharp and fast moving debris. those hit the screen and nothing happed, it was also droped twice and baged around in my bookbag to this very day. It has remained in working order, also i play doom on it. to my surprise the screen has a great refresh rate, almost not blurring except in a few areas or if it is cold. this $5 laptop lasted longer than my $1200 one, wich fell 3 feet ontop padded carpet and lost its screen. i guess my next one should be from texas instrument, if they still make em, this thing has taken a beating and lasted all these years

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Sephiroth said:

this $5 laptop lasted longer than my $1200 one, wich fell 3 feet ontop padded carpet and lost its screen.

I believe there are companies that make especially rugged laptops, designed for use on building sites, etc. You might want to check them out. ;)

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DooMBoy said:

Apparently, they don't make'em like they used to.

You can say the same with music, too.

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DOOM Anomaly said:

...and Forum members.. :P

Ok, now I'm not amused. :P (Doesn't matter anyways}

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DOOM Anomaly said:

...My work here is done.. :P

If your work si done, why come back? (That was dumb, I'm tired, whatever.)

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What the heck happened to the screen that your friend dropped and broke? Didn't they fix it for you? It was under freaking warranty.

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The cost of all that magnesium alloy spill resistant stuff far outweighs the cost of a good warranty.

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AndrewB said:

What the heck happened to the screen that your friend dropped and broke? Didn't they fix it for you? It was under freaking warranty.


well no, best buy ripped us off. first off there were suppose to give us the terms and conditions at purchase, well they did not. second the sales person told us the PSP(product service plan) covered accidental damages, it doesnt. third all atemps to even contact anyone of importance at best buy led to mind games "hello this is the video department." i asked for the store manager, next time they just hung up. also compaq, who needs their heads cleaned out with a 9mm hollow point bullet, said repairs would cost 1200(hey thats what i paid for it) considering this is complete BS, i was able to remove the damaged screen to find poor choice of construction material.

bad point 1, no support to the screen at all. only shielding was found. in all older and newer laptops there is usally a bar of rather thick metal. this is either all the way around the display or vertical with the display. compaq's new disign lacked this, it is even possible to break the screen shuting it, i asked others. oddly the lower part is built well, very strong and the hardware is great.

bad point 2, the screen its self is a glass back with a plastic front. all new LCD screens i have worked with have usally been a type of polymer(plastic) and not glass. infact i have only found glass laptop displays in older non-backlit panels. i am sure compaq could afford a few extra dollars for the second sheet. this stuff allows some flexing, but if u bend it too far the panles slide(destroying the ciruts for the panel) the panel part itself was very flimsy. i have one from the first made apple computer that not only had a hard ass shell but the panel was ontop of a thick board covered with sheet metal.

bad point 4, the price. 1200 for a new screen my ass!! i looked at the producer's site and found the real price of around $200 US. I then bought it for $145 on ebay from a distirbutor. I also added 3 strong metal plates along the back of the lid and crossed those with 2 more on the top and bottom. I may have a few small ugly screws poking out the back, but the added strength is worth it(plus 2 AMD stickers cover them very well)

The screen should arrive this week, if u get one of these laptops keep this in mind. it is a good buy for the hardware, but the lid construction and software sucks. if u get one toss away the restore disks and either get a version of winXP, put on an older version of windows or go with linux. the Xp restore disk chopps the hell out of the registry with shity adds, software trials and other BS. it had a nasty habbit of crashing on me after 2 weeks of use. i had win98 on it for a while but now i use linux, mainly because of the networking and such. that and win98 didnt like the sound card.

by the way this is the presario series laptops, i have seen others that are better built. too bad u cant really build a laptop your self, otherwise i would

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You could build your own car, spending like $200,000 for every little component and putting it together yourself, but what's the point? It's the same thing with laptops.

I heard a story of a guy building a complete fully-loaded Inspiron 8100 for about $1100. He bought the 1600x1200 LCD screen for $40, plastic casing for $25, a bunch of other stuff reasonably cheap. Do not attempt this ever. Luck is not a loyal companion.

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Sephiroth said:

it had a nasty habbit of crashing on me after 2 weeks of use.


Well, XP requires that you register it over the internet in two weeks, or it stops working for you. that's why. Just another way to stick it to us from Unky Bill.

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nah that was not it, i registered it. it was mainly do to all the crapware compaq added onto it. it ate resources and damged the registry, i was never able to get them all in the few months i had XP installed. sometimes after uninstalling one some other BS program would takes its place.

PS. Bill gates is a fucking asshole too! i hate have to register shit online to use it

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I've never had to register Windows XP, and I've been using it for about 10½ months.

I've used it on my laptop, and I would NEVER consider converting my desktop to WinXP.

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