Just Ordered My New Laptop

[cueball]

I'm pretty excited that I just pulled the trigger on a Dell Studio 15 laptop. I'm hoping to get a few years out of it doing mainly RAW conversion and PP with some light gaming use. I convert 1080i video down to MPEG2 format from my camcorder as well and wanted something that can handle Adobe Premier Elements 7 from time to time. Nothing crazy, just a little video editing here and there. I got it with the T9400, 2.530GHz/1066MHz FSB/6MB cache CPU, 4GB RAM, 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 video card, 1440x900 WLED display, and a 250GB 7200 RPM hard drive. With 3-Year full/accidental coverage warranty and tax it came to $1,500.00 with next day shipping.

I'm coming from an HP laptop with a 1.6GHz celeron processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 100GB hard drive so I should see quite a difference in pretty much everthing I do from day to day. Anyways, just wanted to share my excitement and see if anyone has opinions on this particular setup for the needs I have listed above. Thanks.

[Kronie]

I love my Studio. See:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=603758

[cueball]

Wow that's one heck of a thread. I mainly went with Dell because my wife get's a 16% discount through Boeing. My last two laptops were HP's. The first one the hard drive crashed just after the warranty ran out. The second one (current) has had screen issues that have slowly gotten to the point of the computer being unusable unless I'm at home plugged into the external monitor. Because of this I will no longer deal with HP computers. I looked at getting one of the new MacBook's but can't justify the OS switch since my in-laws just bought my daughter a Toshiba laptop. I like being able to put the same programs on both computers in case one or the other has issues. Sorry that you had issues with your computer man. Hopefully I don't get stuck with a lemon.

[Kronie]

I'm sure yours will be different. Mines just a lemon. Besides the media controls I really liked mine for about three months.

[gcobb]

Wow that's one heck of a thread. I mainly went with Dell because my wife get's a 16% discount through Boeing. My last two laptops were HP's. The first one the hard drive crashed just after the warranty ran out. The second one (current) has had screen issues that have slowly gotten to the point of the computer being unusable unless I'm at home plugged into the external monitor. Because of this I will no longer deal with HP computers. I looked at getting one of the new MacBook's but can't justify the OS switch since my in-laws just bought my daughter a Toshiba laptop. I like being able to put the same programs on both computers in case one or the other has issues. Sorry that you had issues with your computer man. Hopefully I don't get stuck with a lemon.

Laptop hard drives don't have the same lifespan as a 3.5" drive. Drives going bad isn't unheard of. They also have issues that some desktops never have, such as a bad LCD cable or inverter board on the LCD not getting enough power. It's possible that for $50 and labor that your screen problem can be fixed.

I'm HP and Dell certified. My HP laptop is going 4 years old or so. I hope you get the same with your new Dell. :)

[ChasP505]

Nice laptop choice... good luck with it. :)

[cueball]

Thanks guys. Gcobb, let me ask you this, if the LCD starts working when I squeeze the top left part of the screen (basically the frame part of it) would you be able to speculate any possible causes of the failure? I had it looked at and the place I took it to told me it would require an LCD replacement and would cost about $450.00 or so. I know armchair toubleshooting isn't the most accurate but I just wanted to see if you had an opinion on it as I'm not sure if the place I took it to was all that honest with me.

[gcobb]

Yeah it could have been jarred or dropped. Age could have something to do with it too. I'd look around on Ebay or somewhere else that does repairs to see what you could get the LCD panel for. $450 is way out there I think. They're a no brainer to put in.

Disclaimer I'm not a "fan" of ACER.

But the ones for $450 or so are rated in the top 10 selling laptops. I've seen a lot of people with them and they swear by them. I'd have to consider buying one of those if I needed one and money wasn't an object. A customer pointed the ratings out to me while I was working on her XPS 1530. :)

[RNPoo7]

Congrats. I can't wait to get one as well. Vista sucks when working with my new xti

[cueball]

So I went onto YouTube and found a video of someone doing an LCD replacement on the make/model HP I have. I think when my Dell gets here I will order a screen off E-Bay or another site and swap it myself. I thought that it would be way more complicated than it is. I guess my biggest fear before would have been messing it up and not having my computer work at all. If it works then my wife might want to keep it around for her to use. I probably should have just done more research into fixing my current one rather than skipping ahead to a new one but it'll be nice to have something that is faster and performs better overall. My current HP really struggles when converting 1080i to MPEG2 format video. It slows to a crawl when I'm running DPP and PSE together as well. Thanks for all the help guys.

[neil_g]

biggest thing about laptops is getting the screws back in the right places as theyre not always the same size etc. personally i make a little map and lay the screws out on it as i go.

[cueball]

I think what cracks me up the most is that I've been doing this kind of stuff for a living on Airplanes for years but when it comes to doing anything like this on my stuff at home I'm always hesitant and unsure of things.:o I guess it's one thing when it's the governments dollar if I screw up vs money out of my own pocket. I know that doesn't sound like the best thing to say but that's really the truth of it. Anyways, I have and will continue to learn a lot from this forum and just wanted to say thanks again for all the help.

[Kronie]

biggest thing about laptops is getting the screws back in the right places as theyre not always the same size etc. personally i make a little map and lay the screws out on it as i go.

I wish the technician that worked on my Studio did that. Instead he just left them out. I had all these missing screws and I had to have Dell send a bag of screws for the drive and the Mboard so I could put them into my laptop.

[cueball]

He probably thought they were extra's!:lol: You're always supposed to wind up with extra hardware after putting things back together.

[gcobb]

I've followed up on techs who left screws out, never put data cables back in place or left the site without fixing the problem. Before I replaced the LCD on the laptop I'd connect an external monitor to it to make sure it isn't bad too. If video is bad on the laptop with the external monitor it isn't an LCD problem.