I have a Tosh' satellite M series owned for approx 5 years and has now developed some problems. There are 3 horizontal narrow bars across the screen which sometimes translate to 1 horizontal bar near the top and 3/5 of the lower screen 'shaded' out. The marks/shading in these bars is akin to a defrag screen with sometimes dull colours and sometimes vivid. Also it does not play videos without effort and to be fair is running quite slowly. I (maybe incorrectly) have taken the view that, "if in doubt, renew throughout", but others may differ.
If I do buy new I think that I may have a problem, in that information received suggests that for around the £400.00 mark (which I would have deemed sufficient for such a beast) that the build quality (particularly the keyboard) is likely to leave me wanting as this M series is seriously well put together and I do not wish to lower that standard.
Firstly I don't have huge time to shop around as in hands on and secondly will struggle with downtime to get it repaired. Any sensible views on what to do would be appreciated as would advice on new given the stated criteria. Btw I wanted to stay with Tosh, but having read reviews on the C660-1NR today I am put off of the brand for life.
Help or advice please..........Reg's...M
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If budget is a real problem, a used Thinkpad or Dell Latitude might be worth considering. The screen problem is either
1) Loose connection (unlikely)
2) A duff screen
3) Duff graphics chip
2 and 3 will be a very expensive repair (over £100).
Also on a five year old laptop other things such as the hard drive will be worn, so there is really little point on getting this fixed sadly unless you can find a computer shop/IT guy who will diagnose it cheaply for you, in case it is just a loose connection.
I can't comment on the speed it is running at without knowing the spec, but at five years old it is likely to be the spec.
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Thanks Rats, but budget is not a problem, just a serious consideration. How much should one be thinking of spending then. Build quality is paramount as even the cheapest of the stuff probably has more inside than the current machine.
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You need to be buying a business class laptop, such as the Lenovo Thinkpad, you can get a decent one for around £600. Have a look in places like PCWORLD/Staples etc and get a feel for the quality of them, they do vary.
A business class laptop will be much better built than the cheap £300 consumer crap.
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Thanks Ratty. Anyone else got hands on exp'
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As per an earlier thread I've just bought at the £400 price point for my daughter. There are marked differences in the keyboard feel and for me the best was a Toshiba similar to the one we bought earler this year... but she went for the Dell which feels cheaper. As Rattle says go and have a prod somewhere like PC World.
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My hands on experience is that Lenovo have always impressed for the price, HP's at the lower end have shocked me and it is common for these to fail within two years. Dells are a mixed bag, Toshibas in the main seem fine, Sony's are over priced and can be a might mare to fix. Samsung are average nothing special.
It largely depends on the model too though. At the very least you want to make sure there is no flexing in the keyboard. I recently had to replace a Samsung keyboard, it was so thin it was almost like paper. Not nice to type on, and of course the second the customer spilt a tiny bit of vodka on it it broke.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 11:50
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Do you need a laptop?
A tower system means any wear or damage to the keyboard is confined.
Or you could buy a £300-£400 laptop and use it with a cheap USB keyboard.
It's possible to get a cordless keyboard and mouse, so it would be quite a neat installation.
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>> It's possible to get a cordless keyboard and mouse, so it would be quite a
>> neat installation.
That's my choice and it works very well at home.
Workwise laptops must, as a minimum, be used with such an arrangment, including a stand to raise the screen. Docking station and standard monitor much preferred.
A laptop used on its own cannot pass the H&S workstation tests due, amongst other issues, to viewing angle of the screen and lack of wrist support around the keyboard.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 12:36
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>> A laptop used on its own cannot pass the H&S workstation tests due, amongst other
>> issues, to viewing angle of the screen
You can of course angle the screen so it's perpendicular to your line of sight, so I'm curious - what exactly do the rules state?
>> and lack of wrist support around the keyboard.
Again, seems a bit odd - I rest my wrists on my laptop keyboard, and it's only a 12"-er.
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The screen is required to be at eye level and the edge of the latop's case does not provide enough support.
We use a piece of workstation assessment software (Cardinus?) so to some extent its a case of 'computer says no'. I have to make sure people go through the assessment anf follow up whatever remedial action it suggests.
We were badly stung by RSI claims from typists and particularly for Data Processors in the eighties/nineties. We're probably now in overkill phase.
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>> The screen is required to be at eye level and the edge of the latop's
>> case does not provide enough support.
Perhaps the laptop case point is valid but I'd like to know why the screen has to be at eye level - is that the way we should read books? :)
Last edited by: Focus on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 13:33
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Perhaps the laptop case point is valid but I'd like to know why the screen
>> has to be at eye level - is that the way we should read books?
>> :)
IIRC it's to do with encouraging the right posture, upright in chair, head level and elbows/forearms roughly at desk level. Anything that might lead to a round shouldered slouch and back/neck strain is jumped on.
As I say above, I'm not an H&S practitioner; just a manager who has to police the trainig and systems put in place.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 13:55
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>> IIRC it's to do with encouraging the right posture
Ah yes, that would make sense. I'm probably a lost cause.
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>> Ah yes, that would make sense. I'm probably a lost cause.
You made me think about it and dig out the policy statement on the subject which says:
Laptops encourage poor posture which can lead to discomfort and muskuloskeletal problems.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 19 Sep 11 at 14:17
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...You made me think about it and dig out the policy statement on the subject which says...
My usual response to this is there's too much time - and money - wasted on talking about the job, and not enough time and money spent getting on with the job.
But like Bromp's profession, quite a few journalists received decent payouts for RSI in the late 90s, so you can't blame employers for covering their backs under the guise of keeping our backs healthy.
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Update: Bought an Acer Aspire. 320Gb drive. 4 mb Ram. Intel dual core. fantastic keyboard and feel to the whole machine. £339.00 from a local shop. And the BIG bonus........I didn't have to go into pee cee world.
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Don't ya just love men:)
Ask for advice.....do what they like after all.
Pat
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For another couple of hundred, he could have bought a decent Laptop.
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Further issues with the recently repaired laptop screen, wireless connection dropping for no real reason. Solution buy a new one - pre 65th present from SWMBO.
Acer i5/4Gb/500Gb 17" - 2 days and I am still getting windows updates by the lorryload but the PC and the network connections are holding up.
£495 @ Comet inc £55 off with former employer discount @ Comet. Got a starter pack (4Gb USB, mouse and McAfee free as I was not offered the "£40 starter Value Pack!") for £20 so I got it FOC - 4Gb & Mouse OK but McAfee will not be used)
The PC is a consolation prize, permission for a new motor refused at senior manager level as I wanted to keep the Xtrail - 3 x cars in the driveway was against the local management policies.
The driveway can take 5/6 cars but serial configuration causes heartache.
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>> Update: Bought an Acer Aspire. 320Gb drive. 4 mb Ram. Intel dual core. fantastic keyboard
:)
4mb? The Sinclair ZX80 had 8kb (1kB) which is 2000 times bigger than 4mb.
320 Gb = 40 GB
4 mb = 0.5 mB = 0.0005 kB = 0.0000005 MB = 0.0000000005GB
(if I have got my arithmetic right)
A the British builder can be trusted to gets his inches, feet, yards and miles right, but if you get him to measure in metres and his estimates go up astronomically.
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>> A the British builder can be trusted to gets his inches, feet, yards and miles
>> right, but if you get him to measure in metres and his estimates go up
>> astronomically.
>>
4 GIG. wassa da problemo. Just a wrong consonant.
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Glad your happy with it. As long as the shop didn't try to tell you a dual core is the same as a Core2 Duo.
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Do you know what type of processor it is? Is it the 1st generation of 2nd generation? E.g sandybridge? Edit just seen the price, doubt it will be a Core 2 but probably a Core Dou, but at that price it doesn't really matter, and for basic stuff its fine. I have an E4500 in the office which is perfect for web browsing etc.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 22 Sep 11 at 14:35
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R&S
Aspire 7750G
Intel Core i5 2410M
The Intel Core i5-2410M is a fast dual core processor at the time of introduction in Q1 2011. It is based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and offers Hyperthreading to handle 4 threads at once (for a better usage of the pipeline). Compared to the faster Core i7, the i5 offers a smaller last level cache of 3MB. The base clock speed is 2.3 GHz but due to Turbo Boost it can reach 2.6 GHz (2 cores active) and 2.9 GHz (1 core active). Compared to the 2510M, the 2410M does not support AES, VT-d, and Trusted Execution functions
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Yeah I know what the 2410M chip is, I am very very surprised how cheap this laptop was with that processor! It is a bargain. I am tempted myself! I don't actually need one. I just paid £45 to have a new DC jack fitted to my netbook sort of wish I hadn't now.
I spent well over £300 building my Sandybridge desktop although to be fair I do need a desktop rather than a laptop.
Hurts my job though when you get so powerful machines for such little money.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 23 Sep 11 at 00:48
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>> I have an E4500 in the office which is perfect
>> for web browsing etc.
>>
I use a Pentium M 1.6 , which is fine for web browsing, Office stuff, photo editing, media playing etc.etc. I think we reached the point at least 5 years ago where any mainstream PC could cope with most if not all 'mainstream' domestic apps. It isn't my first choice for transcoding video, but how many domestic users actually do much of that?
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That would drive me mad, but I guess it is what you're used to, I spend too much time tuning up older machines like that, and I just don't have the patience for anything but instant on my personal machines.
The machine problem with typical M 1.6s machines is lack of RAM, but as longs as you have 1GB its fine. My Atom 1.6/1GB netbook is fine with Linux, but hopeless with Windows.
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There seems to be a certain snobbery and snip among Kennel club members. Seems to me to be alive and well in the computing fraternity too. My new machine works and feels good. It is mega times better and faster than the toshiba it has replaced although I would have happily have kept that if it hadn't died. Where is the problem? I can only earn money with a trowel or a hammer in my hand, not a smart phone or I pad etc. I am chuffed to bits with it and thanks to all who made sensible comments.
if you're not careful, I'll be installing a swearbox with your name on it
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 23 Sep 11 at 00:33
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It is a great laptop, the processor is brilliant too, not only fast but also doesn't generate much heat, which is what you need in a laptop.
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>> That would drive me mad, but I guess it is what you're used to, I
>> spend too much time tuning up older machines like that, and I just don't have
>> the patience for anything but instant on my personal machines.
>>
>> The machine problem with typical M 1.6s machines is lack of RAM, but as longs
>> as you have 1GB its fine. My Atom 1.6/1GB netbook is fine with Linux, but
>> hopeless with Windows.
>>
Thing is, it's not particularly slow for what I use it for, word processing or audio playback hardly need much in the way of CPU, and for web surfing the ADSL or the server limit the speed - 2GB of RAM help as well.
OK if I'm copying a DVD to the HDD via DVDShrink then it takes an hour and a half on this machine, or 20 mins. on my desktop.
Oh and IIRC it scored about 360 on the pc passmark benchmark test, compared with 250 for my AAO.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Thu 22 Sep 11 at 19:44
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I have an ACER Aspire 7540 with a 17" screen. Good for watching vids.
The machine is OK, but the keyboard is not in the same league as SWMBO's old Toshiba.
As I write, two keys have popped off and try as I may I just cannot get them to pop back on!. Luckily, one is a Pg Up and the other is the up arrow, so not really a problem in use.
Given the choice, I would have a desktop, but we just don't have the room for one.
Last edited by: Roger on Thu 22 Sep 11 at 20:05
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>> Given the choice, I would have a desktop, but we just don't have the room
>> for one.
>>
Given the choice I would have a lottery win and I DO have the room for one!!!
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I haven't read the whole thread but for general surfing and home "stuff" the Acer is fine.
Mrs gmac has had one for over two years, the only problem we had was the battery died after 9 months, no claim under warranty as battery is only covered for 6 months.
Prices for batteries have dropped to £25 so hardly broke the bank for a replacement but a bit annoying all the same.
The keyboard has survived my hamfisted typing. No broken keys unlike the Toshiba before it.
Unless you are spending big bucks I find all these sub-£1k machines the same.
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My PC scored 4200 last time I checked, with 2GB of RAM I could use your 1.6 P4 but only for basic things.
Martin's laptop is actually a very powerful machine. Full stop.
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Woah ! where did that come from ?
I wasn't aware I had suggested the machine Martin had bought wasn't up to the job.
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>> Woah ! where did that come from ?
>> I wasn't aware I had suggested the machine Martin had bought wasn't up to the
>> job.
If you hover over the up arrow at the start of Rattle's post's subject line, it shows he replied to spamcan61.
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Thanks Focus, that's the problem viewing flat on a Netbook. My mistake !
Apologies Rattle.
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MD
I bought my very first laptop only a year ago. Knowing sod all about computers, I just followed my gut feeling for these things, set a budget, decided what size screen I wanted, flicked through a few mags in WHS and bought a Samsung Q330.
It does far more than I shall ever want it to do, but is the perfect size for travelling abroad, looking up places of interest, museums, pubs etc and is perfect for me.
I have no idea of its memory, GIG, RAM or whatever but I'm sure its just fine!
Hope yours is reliable & gives good service.
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As I said it is a 'blinder' compared with the old and that did the job. Word, Excel, Web, Slow Tube etc. I don't 'do' copying of 'stuff' or watch or download films etc., and I am honestly over the moon to have got this sorted so quickly. For a non-comp bloke the transition from 2003 to 2007 stuff has been a minor fag, but I could have insisted to stay with the Arc etc. I do work stuff, hard, tiring and generally body wrecking. I use a comp as a tiny door with a HUGE storage container behind it and for surfing this place and other minor interests. It doesn't and won't own me. I am fortunate though to have a friend, a very knowledgeable friend who sorts this stuff for me and he is generous with his time.
Phone up for renewal soon. Already decided to stay push button and 2g so that it may perform as intended........................as a phone.
Thanks to all
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New laptop required? - RattleandSmoke
