Best Laptop<$500

[Minute]

I'm thinking about buying one of these mini-8.9 inch laptops from Dell, but I've seen a few other contenders (like Acer and a few others). Just wondering if anyone cares to weigh in?

[Select]

Everyone I know who has a Dell has been happy. I know few with Acer, but they seem even happier than the Dell customers. My dad's assistant/tech support has an old Acer Ferrari and adores it (looks sleek too). You probably won't touch them since they're overpriced, but don't even think about Alienware. Nothing but tears from that company.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Get the Acer

[Ddrak]

Everyone I know who has a Dell has been happy. I know few with Acer, but they seem even happier than the Dell customers. My dad's assistant/tech support has an old Acer Ferrari and adores it (looks sleek too). You probably won't touch them since they're overpriced, but don't even think about Alienware. Nothing but tears from that company.

A complete aside, but you do know Alienware is Dell, right?

[Klast Brell]

For what it's worth
http://reviews.cnet.com/4370-3121_7-214 ... umnArea1.0
But honestly. Netbooks are wimpy as fuck. Any basic student grade laptop is going to run circles around even the highest performance netbook.

[Select]

A complete aside, but you do know Alienware is Dell, right?

Yeah, now they are. I had one before they were and through the transition. Nothing changed and I was still unhappy. My friends with Dell's were always much happier. The Alienware branch of customer and tech support remained shitty. I hated the airflow and construction of the thing too. Perhaps they've finally changed. I'll admit I haven't looked up anything on them in a few years because of the disappointment.

[Minute]

Dell tech support eats ass man. And from what I'm reading of the Acer's I think that might be the better choice anyway.

[Taxious]

Dell tech support eats ass

Weird that you say that. Dell is one of the few companies I've never had a problem with regarding tech support. They actually listened to my problem instead of reading off of a list. Maybe I just got lucky when I called, but I had my problem fixed in under 5 minutes on the phone, with a replacement part for my computer delivered 2 days after.

[xilly]

A complete aside, but you do know Alienware is Dell, right?

Yeah, now they are. I had one before they were and through the transition. Nothing changed and I was still unhappy. My friends with Dell's were always much happier. The Alienware branch of customer and tech support remained shitty. I hated the airflow and construction of the thing too. Perhaps they've finally changed. I'll admit I haven't looked up anything on them in a few years because of the disappointment.

I will never forget the hell you had with that thing. Jesus their support was terrible.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

A few years ago I worked at a company that had lots of Dell laptops. A couple of them didn't work right from day one, so we sent them back to Dell for warranty service. They sat the entire one year warranty term at Dell, and when they were finally returned, they still didn't work, and Dell wouldn't fix them because they were past the warranty.

My conversation with Dell as I remember it:

me: Fine, send me the parts list and we'll order the parts and fix them ourselves.
dell: We don't sell the parts
me: What?
dell: You would need to send them to Dell for service
me: These laptops have spent their entire life in the dell service center and still don't work
dell: Sorry sir, but there's nothing we can do about that
me: Ahh, but there's something we can do, never buy another Dell laptop

The CEO had me write a letter to Michael Dell on company letterhead. He didn't respond, but I actually got a reply from some senior muckity muck VP of operations who suggested it was our fault for not purchasing the extended warranty, which they so graciously offered to us at the time of purchase.

Although I did have a coworker at a different company who used to "screw dell 'cause it's fun". He had just upgraded his laptop, and his old one was still under warranty, so he'd pull the hard drive out, send it back to dell, and yell at them and demand they replace it. Then they'd send him the laptop back with a new one, he'd pull it out, call them and yell "you idiots, it STILL doesn't have a hard drive". I think he got like 5 free hard drives from them.

[Minute]

My mother got a Dell and I had to call their tech support because I had a hard time finding a LAN driver for the NIC card they had in the machine after I installed XP. From the little bit of English I could understand from the guy, all he could do was insist that the ONLY operating system that I was allowed to put on the computer was Vista. I bitched for a while then finally told him to eat a dick and hung up and eventually found everything I needed elsewhere.

[Ddrak]

Never had a problem with Dell laptops. I can recommend (for a company) their on-site service. Essentially they just switch parts around until the box works again, which is usually what I'd do myself. Managed to get a CPU/mobo upgrade by knocking a can of coke all over my laptop once, though I made sure I mopped up the insides before calling support.

Dd

[Klast Brell]

Next time just use a paper clip to bridge a couple spots on the board. No need to mop up.

But seriously. I have heard good things about Dells in company refurb site. http://www.dell.com/outlet Supposedly they thoroughly inspect that stuff and almost all of it is buyers remorse returns that had absolutely nothing wrong with them. And they carry the same warranty as new units.