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I got the same screen flickering problem on my hp dv6500 a few months into buying the laptop. No its not a driver problem, its a manufacturer fault with the lcd connector. You have to ditch the whole lcd panel to fix it. And thats half the value of the laptop
I live in Sri-Lanka and bought mine in the US. I didn't bother trying to repair it because you have to repair it in the US (read: major repair). The global service center's probably can't handle major repairs like that, without messing the whole thing up
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Keyboard layout (separate Home/End keys similar to PC keyboard - now Lenovo/ThinkPad and some Dells only) and display quality. There used to be IPS based lcd panels called "FlexView" in some 15" IBM models many years ago but it is no longer available in any new model. Current notebook displays are total disaster regardless of price category Only cheap TN based lcd panels with nearly zero contrast, no viewing angles and excessive backlight bleeding. The quality returned to the point where it was 10 years ago.
For those who have never seen good notebook display I recommend screen section in this review http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2864[^]
Moreover moving from 4:3 screen ratio to 16:10 and later 16:9 with small vertical space makes notebooks less and less appealing for serious work
modified on Monday, April 20, 2009 12:15 PM
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Additionally most of the displays have a glossy surface, which makes it impossible to view the screen while having a window (or simply outside) in the back resulting in strong reflections. I do not understand why nearly none of the displays in note- netbooks, laptops are equipped with matt finish. 10 years ago, yes...
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There's no true answer here -- the "best" laptop is whatever fits your (current and expected) needs, is available, and fits into your budget. And that probably means trade-offs - no SSD, smaller screen, no touch/multitouch, etc. But that's dependent on your budget (and personal preferences or biases - Apple vs. MS OS, Dell vs. Lenovo vs. Toshiba if you've got brand preference, etc.)
At least the Internet is your friend in the shopping and research part now, and you're not stuck with whatever your local computer store used to bring in.
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The keyboard layout on a laptop is one of my biggest annoyances. Why do they (manufacturers) have to take something that is pretty common (almost a standard, some would say), and change it up for "their" laptop? I understand that there is limited space, but I'm talking about basic key locations. I'm looking at you, IBM/Lenovo ... why on earth do you switch the bloody Ctrl and Fn keys? A more recent one is the backslash (\) and Enter/Return key size changes. Living and working in a Linux/Unix environment, I can do without the windows key, but it is pretty useful for shortcuts.
Oh well ...
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I bought a month ago my brand new laptop, a reasonably priced, powerful ASUS PRO5-AVN. God how I hate it. The keyboard layout[^] is awful, the numeric keypad (that is completely useless to me) isn't separated from the arrow keys so I can't even try to jump around source code lines without having to look at the bloody keyboard!! Moreover, the keys seem to react only on heavy presses - the key can get down to its full depth but without "heavy" pressure it won't type. I hate it. I'm currently looking for a millimeter-thick plastic sheet to cover the numeric keypad. I wish I could replace the keyboard...
Luca
The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. -- Wing Commander IV
En Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað, Er Nýr Dagur.
(But the best thing God has created, is a New Day.)
-- Sigur Ròs - Viðrar vel til loftárása
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I just returned a brand new DELL because I disliked the keyboard. When I'm working in SQL Server Management Studio developing stored procedures and executing queries, I'm constantly pressing Shift + [Home] or [End] in order to select the current line, and then execute it [F5]. With the DELL layout, the [Home] and [End] keys are doubled-up on the arrow keys such that you have to hold down the little blue [Fn] key while pressing the correct arrow key. So rather than a quick Shift + [Home], one must go the route of Shift + [Fn] + correct arrow key. There's no way I can live with that. It's unfortunate that they didn't show better pictures of the keyboard on their Web site.
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Agreed. I used to have a Toshiba through my old job and the keyboard drove me crazy. I have an HP now and the keyboard is perfect!
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Apart from layout, overall keyboard quality varies widely. One annoyance for me is when your fingers get caught between keys when they don't have a smooth underside. Minor things like that can get annoying since it's the main input method.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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Ashley van Gerven wrote: One annoyance for me is when your fingers get caught between keys when they don't have a smooth underside.
How thin are your fingers? 2mm?
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2.5 mm
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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It's because I've got a free MSDNAA academic licence for Windows and VS. Beside these I use only freeware.
Greetings - Gajatko
Portable.NET is part of DotGNU, a project to build a complete Free Software replacement for .NET - a system that truly belongs to the developers.
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I agree with you ! I'm on linux since 1 year and i wont return on Windows. Maybe Mac OS X but not windows.
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I generally get a HP workstation class laptop with the 3 yr on-site warranty. Even covers lightning strikes
www.CADbloke.com
The Broadcast Systems Documentation SYSTEM
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"
-Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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I'd like my laptop with an OS that works too
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You should still wipe it and re-install anyway.
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I so fully agree. I like my drive partitionned. Nothing so dreadful as a 300 GB C: drive and a dell logo desktop.
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we work in IT or we don't.
at least, you could still do it yourself
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If it dont work whatgoodis it?
I use an older Ibm to weigh dowd folded paper on a scanner
, it happens to be the right size and flat on the bottom. (now there are good features.}
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With a laptop, the expected life-span is very important to me. Because it is very difficult to upgrade anything else except the RAM, and even that is expensive, once the laptop is a few years old, it may not be able to handle the applications of the day. I know that with my four-year-old laptop (knock on wood), which is a Centrino 1.4, I can't open too many applications at once anymore, because they are too heavy. I have stopped most windows services that look unimportant, I only have very few icons in the system tray, etc. No heavy graphics, like screen-savers, I can't even run heavy flash (10) applications, as these will cause my CPU to overload.
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Schmuli wrote: Because it is very difficult to upgrade anything else except the RAM, and even that is expensive, once the laptop is a few years old
Not always. I spent $22 US to go from 1GB to 2GB on my Dell D820 because windows 7 thrashed a lot with only 1 GB of ram and it was impossible to use for programming even for test projects because it was always thrashing. Now with 2GB things are much better. I have to say the install was not easy being that there were no instructions and I had to figure out where the second dimm was located. Google was not much help at that because there were thousands of hits and the first 100 or so were not about swapping ram. After I found the secret (second dimm is under keyboard the install was easy..
John
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Just wondering where you found a gig of ram for $22 US.
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Okay who was the idiot who univoted voted me?
John
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