Compaq vs. Lenovo?

[Bucky]

Bucky jr. II has had a computer melt down and now is in need of a replacement quickly. He is at college trying to finish up and just wants to get a laptop to get him through til graduation. He wants to get a lenovo G560 which is running about $500 and I can get him a Compaq CQ62 for $350.

Anyone have any opinions on these two fine laptop brands?

[American Oyaji]

I'd go with Lenovo.
I'm typing on a Lenovo I've had for 4 years and it runs nearly constantly and is reliable as sunshine. Time to get a new one now though.

[Neo-Rio]

Yep, the Lenovo G560 is definitely the best buy in a laptop at the moment.
For so little you get so much. I'd aim for the Core i5 model, as there's little difference in price between CPU models.

[IkemenTommy]

It's a matter of time before some Mac douche bag will go off off-topic on about "getting a mac because it's virus free..

I'd say go with Dell Hell. Actually, they are all about the same equal quality.

[FG Lurker]

I'd go with Lenovo.

Whoa, it wasn't too long ago that you were slamming Lenovo when I commented on them being one of the toughest notebooks.

I'm still using my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60 here, it still ticks along but I constantly run low of memory (not an issue on the newer notebooks). The chipset of my T60's era maxed out at 3GB and that just isn't enough for what I do on it.

[Bucky]

Just picked up a Lenovo G560 and have it packaged to ship off to Bucky Jr. II. It had 2x the RAM of the Compaq and 50% bigger HD for not much more. Hopefully it will keep Jr. computing. Thanks for all your input.

[American Oyaji]

[quote="FG Lurker"]Whoa, it wasn't too long ago that you were slamming Lenovo when I commented on them being one of the toughest notebooks. ]

Was going through a rash of bad laptops at work at the time.
They have since improved their quality.

I LOVED the IBM T-60 I had at work and didn't want to give it up.

I liked the IBM ThinkPads, but after Lenovo took over, the first laptops they produced had a few issues in the ThinkPad line. The one I have is a C100 and it's a trooper.

[IkemenTommy]

I am impartial on this and choose Lenovo just because I had the X41 I stole from work for the longest time before the PS crapped out on me. Currently using T410 at work and it has just enough power to do Solidworks and simulations. I only wish they could make these Chinkpads more compact..

[AML]

I like the look of the new Dell XPS. Core i7, 4gb DDR3 ram, Nvidia GPU, LED back lit screen, 14" (or by comparison, a little smaller than my cock)

All for under 100.000 yen (or by comparison, just under what I charge for my cock)

[Greji]

It's a matter of time before some Mac douche bag will go off off-topic on about "getting a mac because it's virus free...

You called?

[wuchan]

Unless you have enterprise level support Windows is not worth the effort. I worked for a fortune 15 corporation as an IT/operations manager. In 2007 they were still running NT2000 and it worked perfectly. If a company has X# of winXX licenses directly purchased from micro$soft they will provide relevant and useful updates, months ahead of the public release, for the term of the 10-20 year contract. Microsoft purposely delays updates and "discontinues" support after four years for purchases that are less than 10,000 copies. Providing the corporations with top level security updates ahead of the general market is one of the sales tactics that Microsoft uses to sell software. We had the Blaster Worm update 18 hours after it hit the net.


Linux.... is well, linux. You have to be a nerd to keep it running.


That leaves us with... mac. For all it's faults, apple stays on top of security issues and releases updates in a timely manner. With the multi-touch trackpad right clicking is not an issue. Apple hardware is top notch but is not very upgradeable.

It all depends on what you want and how long you plan on keeping your computer. For a person like me who buys new tech every two years Apple is the best bet. If you work for a large corporation, can replace hardware yourself and have access to enterprise level updates windows is for you. If linux suited you, you wouldn't be posting here.

[FG Lurker]

It's a matter of time before some Mac douche bag will go off off-topic on about "getting a mac because it's virus free..

You nailed that one pretty good. There's always one eh.

[wuchan]

You nailed that one pretty good. There's always one eh.

never said "virus free"

Just pointed out that MS delays updates for profit. Windows is better if you have access to the frontline updates, most users do not. Apple doesn't have the market share that MS has in the business sector so they can't offer the ahead of the market deals that MS can. Apple has to get the security updates out ASAP to keep the "virus free" image going. Microsoft could do the same but they would loose their bread and butter business edge. The corporations rely on the ahead of market updates to keep IT costs down. If MS released the updates to everyone at the same time the corporations would have to go to war against one another to have a security edge which would bankrupt 60 or more percent of western companies.

In short, Windows is better but mac updates it's every day users on time.

[FG Lurker]

never said "virus free"

Not in exactly those words but it is what you were implying and it is completely irrelevant to this thread.

Just pointed out that MS delays updates for profit.

MS rolls all their updates into one day per month unless there is something extremely critical. They didn't do this in the past, they released updates as soon as they were ready. A lot of people complained about this as it meant they were constantly patching systems. Large companies with lots of dedicated IT staff didn't have a problem with this but small to mid-size companies who either outsourced their IT or had one "computer guy" in house didn't like having patches come out every few days.

Now MS releases their patches once a month -- I'm sure you know the drill. It's not a perfect system but they do release anything really critical as soon as it is ready. (Personally I disagree with this, I would sooner patches were released immediately. However I can understand how a company with 50~100 computers and one in-house IT guy doesn't want him dealing with patch issues every few days.)

It is true that MS stops supporting their OSes after a certain period of time. NT 4 Server lost support at the end of 2004, 8.5 years after it was released. I'm not sure when Apple stopped supporting MacOS 7.5 (the OS that was out when Windows NT 4 was released) but I can't imagine it was as late as Dec 31, 2004. Win2K lost support in Mid-2010. XP and 2K3 are still fully supported. These are hardly early retirements.

The corporations rely on the ahead of market updates to keep IT costs down. If MS released the updates to everyone at the same time the corporations would have to go to war against one another to have a security edge which would bankrupt 60 or more percent of western companies.

You've gone off the deep end. Take off the tinfoil hat and back away from the keyboard...

[Yokohammer]

New twist: A Lenovo with Ubuntu Linux!

The Lenovo hardware is pretty nice. By comparsion the Compaq stuff doesn't seem to be as well thought out, but that's just IMO. Ubuntu isn't hard to deal with at all. It has a very user-friendly interface and is updated regularly. Fast too. Free is nice as well. Lots of applications.

(Actually I'm one of those pain-in-the-arse Mac guys, but I have Ubuntu running on a little netbook that keeps the luggage size and weight to a minimum on business trips. It's perfect for that.)

[AML]

People are so paranoid over viruses. I have used many PCs without any security and never had problems with viruses. Right now I run free anti virus software and it works well.

The only time ive ever seen a virus is when I download a dodgy torrent or surf dodgy porn sites.

If you keep away from both (something we cant do in an office anyway) there wont be any need for anti virus software.

[Mike Oxlong]

Ever used your own flash drive to work on files at a Japanese office or school, then gone home to find your home machine reject the drive as it's infected?

[AML]

Ever used your own flash drive to work on files at a Japanese office or school, then gone home to find your home machine reject the drive as it's infected?

Actually yes, and thats where the free software works well.

Theres no need to pay for that shit.

These days I take my own PC to work coz i hate what they have where I work. Too slow and full of viruses (coz they never update the software they have).

I mean, fuck... Japan is so behind in IT. Its ridiculous.

[waruta]

People are so paranoid over viruses. I have used many PCs without any security and never had problems with viruses. Right now I run free anti virus software and it works well.

The only time ive ever seen a virus is when I download a dodgy torrent or surf dodgy porn sites.

If you keep away from both (something we cant do in an office anyway) there wont be any need for anti virus software.

I used to use AVG then switched to AVIRA (managed to get rid of those popup messages as well), then back to AVG, then to Panda Cloud, then finally MS Security Essentials 2.

So far it is light, works well, scan is excellent and have no issues other than the usual alerts on "unmentionable" software.

Defraggler, CCleaner, Malbytes, etc.. are also outstanding examples of decent freeware, I don't see the purpose in buying Norton or similar when free software works just as well, or in Norton's case: better. It's hell to uninstall it as well as being a memory/cycle hog.

My previous tech company used ESET NOD32, it was a nice program but I never actually checked it out against other freeware nor do I know how much it cost, just that our Head Office IT wanted us to use it...