Dell Laptops ?

[BayAreaPhotog]

I am thinking of purchasing a Dell Laptop. . . I am thinking of Dell mainly for the price and their friendly "Custom Order" feature. . . Any thoughts on Dell laptops?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Dell is one of the best places to get a PC of any kind. There laptops are priced right. They are not as flashy as the thuroughbreds that Fujitsu, Sony or Apple engineer... but they are solid work horses that will serve well and dell customer service is top notch (really the best in the industry)

The only caveat is using a laptop of any kind for photo editing. The LCD screens are not the best environment for such work. If this is part of the intended use,. you may want to consider using the laptop with a good 19" LCD when at home with it.

[ssim]

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop.

I had a Toshiba but got the dell because of the faster speed plus it had built in wireless for my home network. That was my first mistake. The Toshiba worked flawlessly on wireless but with the Dell I can access the internet through the wireless router but I cannot share files between my Dell desktop and my Dell laptop. I can share files between the Toshiba and my desktop unit just fine.

I have been going back and forth with Dell support and their support (in Canada) is substandard and lacklustre.

They keep sending me to a link on their website and I keep doing just as it says without any success.

As a separate issue, if anyone has any experience with wireless netoworking I could really use some assistance here as I'm not getting it from Dell. I'm so fed up with their lack of answering my questions and putting me off that I am ready to send it back to them.

[PacAce]

I have two Dell desktops (Dimension 4200 & 8200) and 1 Dell laptop (Inspiron 4100) and I'm very happy and satisfied with them all. I've never had any problems with them and all my future purchases will also be Dell's.

The fact that I can customize my computer any way I please (within certain constraints, of course) makes Dell very attractive to me as I don't believe in paying for features I don't care for nor need.

[PacAce]

ssim wrote:
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop.

I had a Toshiba but got the dell because of the faster speed plus it had built in wireless for my home network. That was my first mistake. The Toshiba worked flawlessly on wireless but with the Dell I can access the internet through the wireless router but I cannot share files between my Dell desktop and my Dell laptop. I can share files between the Toshiba and my desktop unit just fine.

I have been going back and forth with Dell support and their support (in Canada) is substandard and lacklustre.

They keep sending me to a link on their website and I keep doing just as it says without any success.

As a separate issue, if anyone has any experience with wireless netoworking I could really use some assistance here as I'm not getting it from Dell. I'm so fed up with their lack of answering my questions and putting me off that I am ready to send it back to them.


What OS did you have on your Toshiba and what OS do you have on your Dell? If your Toshiba was pre XP and your Dell is XP, then that may explain your problem with the Dell network connection.

I work in the IT (information technology) department so I consider myself a little competent when it comes to PCs and networking. When all my computers were running Windows 2000 Pro I had no problems networking all my computers. Then I installed Windows XP Pro on my main desktop and for the life of me I could not get this XP machine to talk to my other computers on the network no matter how I tried to configure XP. I finally threw my hands up in the air and decided to use the XP Network Wizard. Now, for someone like me, this is analogous to a professional photographer switching his digial SLR from manual mode to "Landscape" mode to take a picture of a landscape, if you know what I mean. :) But, wouldn't you know it, everything worked like a charm after that.

I'm not sure if this scenario applies to you but I thought I'd mention it just in case it might.

[RichardtheSane]

As a separate issue, if anyone has any experience with wireless netoworking I could really use some assistance here as I'm not getting it from Dell.
I've got a bit of wifi experience, namely a Toshiba WiFi qualification. If you want to email me I'll try and help :)

[iwatkins]

After all my years in the IT business I wouldn't buy a laptop from anyone other than Dell. :)

Saying that, I do like the Panasonic ToughBooks but they are a bit specialist.

Cheers

Ian

[ssim]

pacace wrote:
ssim wrote:
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop.

I had a Toshiba but got the dell because of the faster speed plus it had built in wireless for my home network. That was my first mistake. The Toshiba worked flawlessly on wireless but with the Dell I can access the internet through the wireless router but I cannot share files between my Dell desktop and my Dell laptop. I can share files between the Toshiba and my desktop unit just fine.

I have been going back and forth with Dell support and their support (in Canada) is substandard and lacklustre.

They keep sending me to a link on their website and I keep doing just as it says without any success.

As a separate issue, if anyone has any experience with wireless netoworking I could really use some assistance here as I'm not getting it from Dell. I'm so fed up with their lack of answering my questions and putting me off that I am ready to send it back to them.


What OS did you have on your Toshiba and what OS do you have on your Dell? If your Toshiba was pre XP and your Dell is XP, then that may explain your problem with the Dell network connection.

I work in the IT (information technology) department so I consider myself a little competent when it comes to PCs and networking. When all my computers were running Windows 2000 Pro I had no problems networking all my computers. Then I installed Windows XP Pro on my main desktop and for the life of me I could not get this XP machine to talk to my other computers on the network no matter how I tried to configure XP. I finally threw my hands up in the air and decided to use the XP Network Wizard. Now, for someone like me, this is analogous to a professional photographer switching his digial SLR from manual mode to "Landscape" mode to take a picture of a landscape, if you know what I mean. :) But, wouldn't you know it, everything worked like a charm after that.

I'm not sure if this scenario applies to you but I thought I'd mention it just in case it might.


I am running XP Pro on both the Dell desktop and Dell laptop. I have XP home on the Toshiba. I have spent probably close to 6 hours on the phone with Dell (albeit most of it listening to music on hold).

I have tried the wizard setup and no joy there either. I have gone to the the Dell website support and followed there instructions and still can't get it to read the other computer.

The Dell representative seems to think that it is because I don't have a Dell wireless router (I think that this is a sales ploy). I have a Linksys.

I'm about ready to pack up this thing and send it back to Dell.

[CyberDyneSystems]

This is one of those things that was so much easier in Win98 than in XP it is unreal. I can dictate to you the settings needed step by step in Win98 from memory... but in XP I have to relearn it every time.

The Issue lies in the heart of XPs file sharing setup,.. not in Dell (although Dell tech service should know by now!)

The XP Wizard is bunk too.

....and the saddest part is it is easier to set up a SAFE peer to peer file sharing lan in Win98 than in XP... the Blaster worm proved that the Win98 file share was safer! The LAN I admin was untouched. (despite all PCs being connected to the net)

[gandini]

I hear everyone's complaints and praise about Dell, but let me just say a few things in response to the original post--assuming the question was trying to elicit comment about Dell laptops for use in digital photography.
I have an old Dell desktop and a Sony 21" Trinitron CRT, and I use this for photo editing. I recently bought a Dell D800 laptop, maxxed out with gobs of memory, a fast Centrino processor, the fastest HD available for a laptop and the high-res (1920x1200) Sharp screen, with photoediting in mind.
Fuggedaboudit...
While the images are very crisp, with oodles of apparent sharpness, the screen is too bright. If you check on another thread in this forum on "the best CRT," and "the best LCD," you can read a lot about the limitations of LCDs for photography. I must admit the colors seem reasonable, if not a little less saturated on the LCD than the Sony. The biggest problem is adjusting brightness on the CRT, and then viewing them on the LCD, as well as adjusting sharpness for the CRT, which look a little too crisp on the LCD. Most of the images I see on the web (photoSig, for example) look way over-sharpened on the laptop.
So now I use the laptop for business, and surfing, but I do enjoy the massive amount of real estate the screen gives me to view images at 1:1 resolutions.

PS. Hang out on Dell's customer forum for a day or two to be convinced how wonderful their customer support is. Of course, many of these are squeeky wheels trying to get some oil. I'd say I'm 90% happy with my laptop. And there's no other machine offering such a high resolution monitor (bigger, yes, but fewer pixels.)

cheers,

[new girl on the bloc]

yup, i'm happy with my dell inspiron 8000 laptop (no problems for the nearly 3 years of life of it aside from a dead battery), but do need a different monitor for my digital imaging/editing.

[toglenn]

I bought a cheap Dell 600 (2K,256Mb,30Gig) for handling my photo files while traveling but I find it very handy at home. I use a wireless card and connect with all my home computers with no problems. The Dell and Sony Vaio are running XP Home w/D-Link 811b cards and my other computers are running XP Pro cable connected to wireless router. File exchanges and Printing via wireless are flawless.

Be sure the files you want to access are in a "Shared folder".

I hate the LCD screen and never do any serious retouching work unless using a CRT.

toglenn

[grewal]

DEll computers have become insipd like their ads.
I was a owner of a Dell desktop in 80s. It was a good system and had excellent support. When I mentioned and recomended to 2 more friends, they had nothing but bad support.
My son got a run of a mill system for a premium price.
I now need a laptop, who do you guess I will go to?
Keep away from Dell

[mwinog2777]

BayAreaPhotog wrote:
I am thinking of purchasing a Dell Laptop. . . I am thinking of Dell mainly for the price and their friendly "Custom Order" feature. . . Any thoughts on Dell laptops?

I have 2 of them. Reliable. Good price.

They cut corners with less features. Just be sure you know what you get. What you get is very good, though.

Also, watch their upgrades. Really makes a great buy.

[Canuck]

I have a friend that got a dell laptop (graduation present) and was forever telling me not to get one. He later got a job in computer networking. When I get a laptop, it will not have an OS and all that other junk that dell, gateway, hp, etc put on it. It makes it easier from a troubleshooting perspective, IMHO. That extra software can becom part of the megaproblem that you have and have seen that some companies (compaq) rescue cds are absolute rubbish! Another friend of mine is gonna have to send their new compaq (under warantee) back for repairs. I have help him rebuild the system 4 times., each with a different problem. Each time it was fixed, and was running great for about 8 weeks until it went TU again. I should think any problems leftover would resurface in that amount of time. I still think the 2 best programs out there are format and fdisk; worst program out there is windows, any flavour, but especially xp. Period!

[Tom W]

ssim wrote:
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop.

I had a Toshiba but got the dell because of the faster speed plus it had built in wireless for my home network. That was my first mistake. The Toshiba worked flawlessly on wireless but with the Dell I can access the internet through the wireless router but I cannot share files between my Dell desktop and my Dell laptop. I can share files between the Toshiba and my desktop unit just fine.

I have been going back and forth with Dell support and their support (in Canada) is substandard and lacklustre.

They keep sending me to a link on their website and I keep doing just as it says without any success.

As a separate issue, if anyone has any experience with wireless netoworking I could really use some assistance here as I'm not getting it from Dell. I'm so fed up with their lack of answering my questions and putting me off that I am ready to send it back to them.


I realize that I'm late to this thread, and I hope that you've resolved your issue. However, in the event that you haven't, I'll give you my 2 cents worth on the subject of Windows XP and networking. If you are able to access the internet through your home network, then the computer is configured properly for network access.

What I think you're having trouble with is file sharing. XP has a very flexible (and a bit complex) file-sharing scheme. You basically have the ability to turn file sharing on and off for each file and folder on the hard drive of each XP computer. You can also use passwords and allow some logged-in users access to some folders.

My Dell laptop arrived with file sharing set up only on the "shared documents", but that can be changed by the user.

My best recommendation is to get a good comprehensive reference book on Windows XP. I have two: "Windows XP inside out" by Bott and Siechert (Microsoft Press ISBN 0-7356-1382-6) and "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Windows XP" by Peter Norton and J.P. Mueller (Sams Publishing ISBN 0-672-32291-9). There are several others.

One other issue that I ran into last week when I sold my old computer - firewall software, if it is doing its job, will block other computers on the same network from accessing each other. I had to fiddle around a little bit with ZoneAlarm on one computer and Tiny Personal Firewall on another to get two computers on my friend's network to communicate. Make sure your firewall software, if installed, is set up to permit your other computers access to each other.

[Evanrich]

i've set up wireless networks, as well as wired ones... feel free to email me at evan@modelxposure.com for any questions on networking you have.