A buddy of mine got a desktop from Dell several years ago; no AGP slot in it's mobo either. The big companies have warranties on their computers, and as soon as you open it up, the warranty is void. Since the warranty is voided by opening it, no one can add in new hardware so there's no need to waste money on AGP slots, right? Stupid companies...

Custom built PCs are so much better.

No need to waste money on warranties either. I've seen so many people on forums talk about how they bought a $2,000 laptop, with like 4 years warranty on it, which, get this, dell charges $340 for 4 year warranty, which you won't use, it costs $200 incase you damage your computer and want it replaced (you have to have the 4 year warranty), $130 if you don't know how to plug a computer into the wall and get it started, $120 for lo-jack, which mac offers for free, freaking $150 if you want to CALL dell and get some help, and almost $300 if you want someone to set up a wireless internet for you.

Thats just plain rediculous.

Never, and I mean this, never pay for warranties. Warranties do one thing, and one thing only: it gives money to the company. That is what they are there for, that is the only thing a company offers for money, no matter if they do any service or any work, you still pay them.
Never buy a warranty.

The only problem Ive had with Hp stuff is some of the printers take an age to install, Im taking hours. Ive been lucky enough to get to play with most of the new IT stuff a local council institution gets for the past few years. I totally agree that Dell is a waste of time, and I dont think I would ever buy a HP printer, but Ive been reasonably impressed with HP monitors.
As far as the junk software manufacturers cram into thier machines, Ill be formatting and reinstalling a stripped down XP as soon as I get it. Probably dual booting with Vista.
A freind of mine runs a 17" HP laptop as her main work computer, and she runs her own programming company.
But then Im sure theres enough anecdotal evidence to support any manufacturer if you look hard enough.
Thats why I never buy hardware without doing serious research first, Im still months away from making up my mind I reckon

edit- and yeah, warranties are an absolute scam, and not just at the consumer level, it gets much worse when government legislation forces an institution to have it :|

i love my HP printer...color laser, network connected, fast warm up (less than 20 seconds from idle), great output (color & bw) and it was only $300. and the install was less than 10 minutes from unpack to first print.

I somewhat enjoy my HP printer, its a 1210 model, it has a built in scanner/copier, it prints in color, its quite nice but.. installation takes for EVER. Scans are okay, but it still takes some time, but there is a ton of artifacts on them, its not very pretty. It does its job, but for $50 a cartridge its hard to keep it working properly.

Printer costed only like $120 I believe, a really good deal for an All in One printer/scanner/copier.

Quote from mantis9 :

But then Im sure theres enough anecdotal evidence to support any manufacturer if you look hard enough.

lol, its always the way

Well I got my laptop yesterday, and I tell you what, when someone tells you Vista was a completely rewritten code, it IS a completely rewritten OS, I can hardly compare it to the change from '98 to XP it is that different. A few things remain the same, but overall its totally different.

I don't have to worry about the move to Vista because all of the software (well, apparently Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory isn't) compatible, and I have no hardware to really speak of.

Anyways, I'll get pictures of it soon, I got the 17" @ 2.0GHz with the ATi card, and I tell you what, I don't think I would be able to settle with the 15.4" screen, this thing is absolutely perfect, and it honestly doesn't weigh much at all. It runs super cool, and its extremely fast, I easily can achieve a higher FPS on this laptop than what my desktop can do, it is just outstanding.

And I don't know if it is because of Vista's code or what, but file transfers and un-winraring packages and all that jumble of getting stuff from old computers to new computers is so easy and fast on this thing. For example, I've been moving alot of music and programs etc. using a 1gb flash card. On my desktop to fill up the flash card it takes 4 minutes for it to load it onto the card, to delete it on the desktop it takes almost as long. On this laptop, it takes about 2 minutes to take it off of the card, and it takes only a few seconds to delete it from the card.
Not sure what that is, but it is absolutely fantastic!


edit- oh I forgot to mention, I found a deal to save $500 so the price for this landed up costing $4 less than what I could get for the 15.4" so.. basically it only made sense to go larger. If I could get a 2.4ghz core on the 15.4", then I would go with it, but I couldn't.

I voted both

Wth!!! there's like 68 postsin here ey, an 72 of them yourslike LOL!macnuseanspambotolianmod

:monkey: :inq: